Sexpionage is the involvement of sexual activity (or the possibility of sexual activity), intimacy, romance, or seduction to conduct espionage. Sex, or the possibility of sex, can function as a distraction, incentive, cover story, or unintended part of any intelligence operation.
In the Soviet Union, female agents assigned to use such tactics were referred to as swallows, while male ones were known as ravens. A commonly known type of sexpionage is a honey trap operation, which is designed to compromise an opponent sexually[1]: 230 to elicit information from that person.
Sexpionage is a historically documented phenomenon, though a 2008 CIA review of intelligence in public literature called The Intelligence Officer’s Bookshelf, compiled and reviewed by Hayden B. Peake, noted that then-recent books on the subject suffered from factual errors and a lack of supporting documentation.[2]
- ^ Ronald Payne, Christopher Dobson (1984). Who's Who in Espionage. New York: St. Martin's Press.
- ^ Peake, Hayden. "The Intelligence Officer's Bookshelf". Central Intelligence Agency. Archived from the original on 26 October 2009. Retrieved 7 July 2017.