Grooming, Child Abuse, & Child Sexual Exploitation
Crossing the Line: Factors Associated With Escalating Pornography Use.
Open Access: Yes.
Abstract
Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) offending has increased in recent years. Rather than being predominantly driven by an increase in associated sexual interest in children, this may be understood as a pattern of content escalation, from mainstream to extreme or even illegal pornography. This study examined patterns of content escalation in pornography consumption, psychosocial predictors of such escalation and their association with engagement with CSAM in a cross-sectional study with a non-clinical male sample (N = 228). Participants reported arousal, viewing frequency, and content escalation across mainstream, extreme and illegal categories. Principal component analysis revealed five distinct content escalation clusters: Dominance/Degradation, Extreme/Harmful, Non-Traditional Niche, Normative and Atypical. While mainstream content exhibited the highest absolute viewing and mean escalation, relative escalation was disproportionately observed in more extreme and niche categories, such as S&M, fetish, teen, group sex and violent content.
Relevance
“Most participants reported first viewing pornography between ages 9 to 12 years (41%) or 13 to 16 (43%).”
“Regarding extreme content, 49% indicated they had searched for pornography in specific age-related categories, most commonly teen content (27%). Only two participants indicated they had searched for content depicting children, although 6% had come across such content and 5% were unsure. Conversely, 12% reported encountering content depicting individuals under eighteen and 39% were not sure if they had. Among those who had (maybe) viewed these categories, 10% searched for it again at a later date, with 7% reporting arousal and 10% reporting curiosity. Overall, 10% indicated they had watched pornography that was illegal in their country of residence, whilst 21% were not sure.”
Content escalation refers to a process of tolerance; the user needs novel or more pornographic stimuli to achieve the same level of arousal, leading to use of paraphilic content, including child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and other extreme pornography. The highest content escalation “was disproportionately observed” in categories that included teen, group sex, and violent sex – which [Culture Reframed note] are some of the most popular on mainstream platforms.
Content escalation that was “reliably associated with engagement of CSAM” was “non-traditional niche,” which included hentai [Culture Reframed note: this is some of the most popular content on pornographic platforms, and the most searched term for several years on Pornhub], sexualized non-human content, and gay male content (among a predominantly heterosexual male sample).
A plausible mechanism for the association between the non-traditional niche and CSAM “is a boundary‑crossing psychological drive.” These individuals “may be attracted to sexual content that transcends conventional social and biological scripts, such as stylised Hentai, non‑human imagery, or content featuring ambiguous age‑cues or non‑consensual scenarios, making them more inclined to explore illegal material.”
“Moreover, theoretical and empirical work indicates that Hentai may act as a gateway medium, normalising sexual interest in child‑coded characters or unconventional sexual objects and thereby lowering barriers to illegal consumption” – on this point, the paper cites an article by Culture Reframed (Dines & Sanchez, 2023).
Citation
