The use of dating 'apps' to facilitate real-word social encounters between strangers is culturally mainstream. Sexual assaults facilitated following dating-app meetings have been reported in the media, and anecdotally noted at increasing frequency by clinical forensic physicians. Limited empirical data suggests there has been a marked increase in real life sexual offences facilitated in this manner.
There is little additional information known about the circumstances of these alleged incidents. Further analysis of these cases identified that all complainants were female, most under 30 years of age. All alleged a single male perpetrator and in over half of the cases the complainant was impaired. More than half of the incidents occurred at the alleged perpetrator's private residence. There was no reported condom use. Only one complainant had no observable injury. This small case series quantified a high proportion of forensic sexual assault examination caseload as being facilitated by dating-app meetings, and identified some common features that may be characteristic of alleged sexual assaults occurring in this manner.
The authors propose a larger prospective period of data collection at the time of forensic medical examination, to characterize the features of sexual assaults allegedly occurring following app-based meetings. Abstract The use of dating 'apps' to facilitate real-word social encounters between strangers is culturally mainstream.
