YBOP COMMENTS: New study reports large percentage of child porn (CP) users have no sexual interest in children. It was only after years of viewing adult porn, resulting in habituation to new genre after new genre, that porn users eventually sought more extreme material and genres, eventually escalating into CP. Researchers point to the nature of internet porn (endless novelty via tube sites) as playing a substantial role in conditioning sexual arousal to extreme content, such as CP. Relevant excerpts:
The nature of the internet promotes non-pedophiles to escalate eventually:
Here we discuss men’s self-identified subjective motivations for the onset and maintenance of viewing CP on the Internet. We focus specifically on Internet-based sexual stimuli due to previous assertions that the Internet itself may introduce unique factors contributing to this behavior (Quayle, Vaughan, & Taylor, 2006).
Escalation as a pathway to CP use:
Several participants reported being sexually interested in pornography that they described as ‘taboo’ or ‘extreme’, meaning it fell outside the range of what they considered traditional sexual activities or behaviors. For example, Mike reported searching for “anything unusual really, as long as it wasn’t … regular looking things.” Participants often started by viewing Internet pornography on the lower end of the taboo spectrum (e.g., spanking, transvestism), and described a gradual progression to viewing more extreme sexual stimuli in response to what appeared to be habituation to these sexual activities or themes. As shown in Figure 1, the drive to discover increasingly taboo pornography ultimately facilitated the use of CP for some participants, following their habituation to a myriad of pornographic themes, including illicit but non-pedophilic behaviors (e.g., incest, bestiality). As Jamie described, “I’d look at BDSM things, and then get to more really sadistic things and other taboos, and then eventually just kind of feel like, ‘well, again, fuck it. I’ll take the plunge’”. The fact that CP is illegal actually increased some participants’ arousal, such as Ben who explained, “I felt like what I was doing was illegal, and it gave me a tremendous rush”, and Travis, who noted, “Sometimes it felt good to do something you’re not supposed to be doing.”
Hyperfocused sexual arousal:
Once in this state of hyperfocused sexual arousal, participants found it easier to justify viewing increasingly taboo and eventually illegal pornography. This finding is supported by previous research suggesting that ‘visceral’ states of arousal allow people to ignore factors that would otherwise prevent specific sexual behaviors (Loewenstein, 1996). …. Once participants were no longer in this state of hyperfocused sexual arousal, they reported that the CP they had been viewing became unappealing and aversive, a phenomenon that has also been reported by Quayle and Taylor (2002).
Seeking novelty:
Participants explained that as their exposure to Internet pornography intensified, they found themselves increasingly uninterested in the genres of (legal) pornography that they had traditionally preferred. Consequently, participants began to desire and seek out sexual stimuli involving new sexual themes and activities. The Internet appeared to contribute to participants’ sense of boredom and desire for novel sexual stimuli, as the vastness of the Internet suggested the existence of an endless amount of pornography, any or all of which could be more exciting or arousing than what they were currently viewing. In describing this process, John explained:
It started just with normal adult men with women kind of thing, and it’s a bit dull, so then maybe you watch some lesbian stuff for a while, and it gets a bit dull, and then you start exploring.
Desensitization (habituation) leading to escalation:
In their attempts to find novel and sexually exciting stimuli, participants began exploring categories of pornography involving a broader range of sexual behaviors, partners, roles, and dynamics than they would previously have considered viewing. This may reflect a slight broadening of the moral or legal boundaries that a person (consciously or unconsciously) sets for themselves regarding the types of pornography they consider ‘acceptable’. As Mike explained, “You just keep crossing boundaries and crossing boundaries – [you tell yourself] ‘you’ll never do that’, but then you do it.”
The progression that Mike and other participants described suggests the possibility of a habituation effect, as many participants reported that eventually they required increasingly taboo or extreme pornography in order to achieve the same degree of arousal. As Justin explained, “I found myself kind of slipping downhill where it just, it needed to be a bigger thrill to have any sort of an impact on you.” Many participants in our study reported viewing a myriad of different types of pornography prior to seeking out CP, which is similar to previous research indicating that people with CP offenses may begin by using legal pornography and gradually progress to viewing illegal materials, possibly resulting from extensive exposure and boredom (Ray et al., 2014).
Habituation leads some users to CP:
As shown in Figure 1, participants often cycled between seeking novelty and habituation multiple times before they began actively seeking CP. After discovering a new and highly arousing genre of pornography, participants would spend many hours searching, viewing, and collecting stimuli of this nature, essentially ‘binge’ watching these materials.Participants explained that due to this extensive exposure, they reached a point when this genre of pornography no longer provided a strong degree of sexual arousal, causing them to resume the search for novel sexual stimuli:
I think at first, I got bored. Like, I would find a theme that I was interested in … and very easily I would get sort of, I don’t know, I’d use up the theme – I’m not interested, I’ve seen so much – and then I’d move onto more. (Jamie)
I started looking at pictures of younger [adult] women when I was first looking at pornography on the Internet, and then I just kept getting into looking at younger and younger girls, and eventually children. (Ben)
The habituation effect is well-established in other areas of psychology and has previously been discussed in relation to viewing pornography. Elliott and Beech describe this process as, “… a reduction in arousal levels to the same stimuli over repeated exposures – where, in viewing sexual images, offenders are likely to seek out novel, more extreme images over time to feed their arousal levels,” Elliott and Beech, (2009, p. 187).
As with other genres of pornography, extensive exposure to CP eventually caused most participants to describe habituating to these materials, including participants who reported a sexual interest in children (just as participants interested in adults habituated to genres of adult pornography). This often led participants to seek out CP involving younger victims and/or more graphic sexual depictions in an attempt to evoke the same degree of arousal originally experienced in response to viewing these materials. As Justin explained, “You try to look for something that will give you some spark, or some feeling, and initially, it didn’t. As you get younger and younger, it did.” Some participants reported reaching a point where they began seeking CP involving children who would previously have been too young for them to find arousing. Travis commented, “Over time, the models did get younger … before, I would not even consider anything under 16.” It is particularly interesting that, unlike other types of pornography, participants reported continuing to view CP even after their arousal to these materials had diminished. This raises questions regarding the personal and situational factors involved in maintaining this behavior.
Sexual conditioning:
Several participants who reported no known pre-existing sexual interest in children prior to viewing CP believed that repeated exposure to these materials essentially ‘conditioned’ them to develop a sexual interest in children.
Since nearly all participants reported no desire to engage in contact sexual offenses, it is possible that this process conditioned participants to develop an interest in CP, rather than in children themselves (and by extension child sexual abuse). Participants provided varying descriptions of how they perceived this conditioning process:
It’s kind of like … when you have your first sip of gin, or whatever. You think, ‘this is horrible’, but you keep going and eventually you start to like gin. (John).
The circuits in my brain that were related to sexual arousal, the circuits that were firing when I was looking at pictures of children … years of doing that probably caused things in my brain to change. (Ben)
As their interest in CP increased, participants who had previously viewed both adult and child pornography reported finding it increasingly difficult to become aroused to sexual stimuli involving adults.
At face value, this conditioning process may seem contradictory to the experience of habituation described earlier. However, it is important to understand that for people without a sexual interest in children, the conditioning process seemed to occur between the onset of viewing CP and participants’ eventual habituation to these materials.
Their compulsion looks like addiction in several ways:
Perhaps one of the most interesting findings relates to participants’ described inability to ‘progress’ from CP following their habitation and diminished response to these materials. The perceived inability to desist from this behavior led some participants to regard their use of CP as a ‘compulsion’ or ‘addiction’. As Travis described:
I don’t know if there’s such a thing as an addiction…where you do something you don’t want to do, but I always found myself compulsively checking over and over again these sites … I’d be up late at night doing this, because I’d have to go back and check.
It should be noted, however, that none of the participants described true obsessive–compulsive behaviors or reported any symptoms of withdrawal upon discontinuing their use of CP, suggesting that this behavior is not an addiction in the traditional use of the term….
The search for novelty, due to habituation, was more arousing than viewing CP:
One manifestation of this ‘compulsion’ is reflected by our finding that nearly all participants, regardless of their original motivation for viewing CP, reported that the act of searching the Internet for new sexual stimuli eventually superseded the enjoyment of actually viewing these materials. Following from our proposed behavioral facilitation process, we suggest the possibility that participants began to prefer the search for CP over the act of viewing it because by the time participants reached the stage of actively seeking CP – arguably the most taboo type of pornography – they had progressed through (and habituated to) numerous genres of pornography and could no longer conceive of any sexual themes or activities that would be sufficiently taboo or extreme to evoke the intense sexual response they desired. Consequently, we suggest that the excitement and anticipation associated with potentially discovering novel and highly arousing pornography becomes more intense than the feelings experienced in response to viewing these materials. This, in turn, is expected to fuel participants’ desire to continue seeking CP (even past the point of habituation), and an inability to find strongly arousing pornography may underlie participants’ perceived compulsion to engage in this behavior. As Dave described:
I had to flip, like from one [image/video] to another, because once I started watching one, I’d get bored and I’d have to go to another one. And that’s how it was. And it took over my life.
Behav Sci Law. 2020 Feb 13. doi: 10.1002/bsl.2450.
Knack N1, Holmes D2, Fedoroff JP1,3.
Abstract
The staggering rate at which incidents of child pornography (CP) are increasing highlights the need for proactive approaches to this problem. Improving the efficacy and accessibility of interventions designed for individuals who view CP provides one means of addressing this growing concern. This article explores the self-identified motivations underlying the onset and maintenance of viewing Internet-based CP among a sample of 20 men receiving treatment for this behavior. Our findings suggest two primary motivational pathways, namely a desire to achieve sexual gratification and/or an attempt to avoid emotional pain. We propose a behavioral facilitation process, initiated by extensive exposure to Internet pornography, to explain the use of CP in men without a sexual interest in children. We also discuss factors that appeared to facilitate the maintenance of this behavior. Our findings indicate that social skills deficits, maladaptive coping strategies, and a lack of sexual education require further investigation regarding their role in promoting or precluding desistance from viewing CP.
PMID: 32056275
DOI: 10.1002/bsl.2450
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