Talk:Honey trapping

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Pwells5, Hgurie2, MariaConnolly.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:34, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Lord Sewell?
I am sure the Lord Sewell scandal will produce reliable sources to be used in this article. Here is one. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 18:59, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Additions to the page
I'm a student at LSU in a women and gender studies class and I am going to be editing this page. My group and I will be researching and adding onto the definition of honey trapping, the history of it,how the law fits into this topic, how the other spouse will respond, and how it affects the relationship.

Pwells5 (talk) 16:05, 25 February 2016 (UTC)Pwells5
 * where are your edits? Moscowamerican (talk) 00:54, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Edits removed
A large amount of edits from this article:
 * http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/12/the_spy_who_said_she_loved_me.single.html?print

....were removed by an editor. Please go to this article and read more about honey trapping. Moscowamerican (talk) 04:42, 26 June 2016 (UTC)


 * History shows it was removed due to copyright violation.. MB (talk) 05:33, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Sexpionage
Sexpionage is exactly the same thing as honey trapping, the sexpionage article does not delineate a clear difference. Honey trap is by far the most common term, sexpionage is far less used. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:07, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Support - Recruitment of spies (RoS) already has a good list of spies (and is better referenced), honey trapping has a lot more detail (again, better referenced) and in trimming the sexpionage page I just keep removing silly little details that would be better off on this page or the RoS page. Primefac (talk) 20:14, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

While I agree that sexpionage is less common a term, I suggest you compare definitions. Honey trapping is precisely what its namesake suggests—a trap. It is used to coerce someone with intimate involvement for a certain end. Sexpionage, however, is more broad and inclusive. In many cases, sexpionage is more appropriate a term than is honey trapping, such as, for example, in the case of the popular fictional spy James Bond, who never generally tries to blackmail women after sleeping with them, but instead recruits them for his goal as would a case officer recruit an agent. Sexpionage includes not only more means than does honey trapping, but the ends can differ as well. I would also like to point out that sexpionage is also more than just using sex or intimacy to recruit spies. It can also function as a distraction, as cover, and it can even be an unintended part of an espionage operation. Also, the honey trapping article has far less detail and whether it is better referenced is an opinion. The sexpionage article largely brings well documented material not otherwise readily available from the web into the Wikipedia sphere of knowledge. Wally7432 (talk) 04:04, 9 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Oppose - Sexpionage appears not to be the same as honey trapping. Sexpionage comes from "sex + espionage", but there is no indication that honey trapping is necessarily anything to do with espionage, which typically involves governments or corporations. Honey trapping could involve governments or corporations, but may also be an interpersonal act on a more general level, between individuals who may or may not know each other. There are other subtle differences - honey trapping implies that the person targeted would be trapped into something that is detrimental to that person (e.g. being defrauded), while sexpionage may or may not be necessarily detrimental to the person targeted, merely that the act is beneficial to the person or larger entity doing the espionage (e.g. using it as a cover). Hzh (talk) 14:44, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * oppose the article is underdeveloped. Examples other than honey trap are brothel setup or making a person too talkative to a sexy woman - all without any actual love affair. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:20, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Honey-pot trap
I have only ever heard of this phenomenon as the "honey-pot trap" because it uses a honey-pot for a trap. OK sure there is honey in the honey pot, but it's a honey-pot trap because the honey-pot ensemble is the metaphor. Plenty of pages on the web use the phrase "honey-pot trap". I would suggest including in the first sentence of the lede "honey-pot trap" as another form of this idiom and/or changing "honey pot or trap" (which is just confused) to "honey-pot trap". It's probably not worth renaming the article, but this form of the phrase should be represented. 49.179.4.127 (talk) 15:28, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Gender and Technoculture 320-01
— Assignment last updated by ACHorwitz (talk) 20:19, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Eric Swalwell and Chinese espionage
This is a current and highly relevant example of Chinese honey trapping. Will Wikipedia even consider including this? Didn't think so. 2603:8001:C200:1637:5863:82A1:7E3A:C48C (talk) 14:26, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I mean, it will if there is more information than just a name and a complaint from an IP. If it's "current and highly relevant" then it should probably get its own article, not just be mentioned here. Primefac (talk) 14:30, 2 May 2023 (UTC)