Dear Friend
Some unexpected guests knocked on John’s (pseudonym) door one day. After answering the door, his wife walked into the living room, pale in the face, staring blankly.
“There are police at the door looking for you.”
Initially, John was perplexed. What could the cops possibly want from him?
But what he found out next changed the course of his life forever:
He was being arrested for having possession of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
While John had never sought out CSAM through searches, algorithms on pornography websites constantly recommended it to him.
“Porn sites have a button that says ‘See more like this’. I was desensitized, I had looked at so much teen porn.”
John's offenses are a product of an exploitative pornography profit model that provides an endless amount of content, keeping users constantly wanting more. You might think pornography use is harmless at first – but what happens when porn usage puts you behind bars?
Research has found that the more frequently a person views pornography, the more likely they are to seek more “novel” content.
What do we mean by “novel”?
Well, in the context of pornography, novel content refers to videos that go beyond depicting traditional sexual intercourse. It sometimes includes child sexual abuse material, rape, physical violence, or bestiality.
There is a seemingly endless supply of pornography on the Internet, so when one video becomes “too basic”, there are millions of other videos, that are ten times more disturbing, waiting in the wings.
This paves the way for viewing child sexual abuse material. It’s how viewing pornography can easily spiral into sex offender status.
💡 READ MORE: "When Pornography Usage Escalates into Sex Offender Status"
📣 ACTION: Ask Your Legislators to Protect Children from Online Pornography
The harmful impact of pornography is exacerbated when a person is exposed during their childhood or adolescence, when their brain is still developing and most vulnerable. Common-sense policy solutions exist to shelter children from exposure to online pornography. Ask your legislators to adopt them now!
