As the next section explains, social inhibitions also have to be overcome before potential abusers are likely to become actual abusers.
Causal Factor 3
Viewing child pornography undermines some males’ social inhibitions against acting out their desires to sexually victimize children
Child pornography undermines viewers’ social inhibitions against sexually victimizing children in several ways. First, it diminishes fear of disapproval. The enormous number of child pornography Websites, DVDs, and Internet forums reveal to viewers that they are not alone in their deviant interests (Jenkins, 2001, p. 106). This revelation suggests that the boards are safe spaces that they can visit and find like-minded friends (p. 108). In addition, Jenkins argues that “[t]he more pedophiles and pornographers are attacked by law enforcement agencies [and] mass media … the greater the sense of community [they feel] against common enemies” (2001, p. 114). The knowledge that they have a support group of like-minded colleagues also contributes to undermining the fear of disapproval for sexually victimizing children.
Second, fear of legal and social sanctions is the most important factor in inhibiting potential and active child molesters from sexually abusing children. For example, a pedophile called Duncan said that his fear of getting caught “was what stopped me progressing to buggery with the boys” (Tate, 1990, p. 120).
However, viewing child pornography communicates that those who sexually violate children are in no danger of being apprehended or of facing other negative consequences. Child pornography is unlikely to show a sexual predator being apprehended by the police or ending up in prison. The same applies to written child pornography stories, fantasies, lists of Websites and DVDs, as well as child pornography in men’s magazines. The outcomes of real or portrayed child sexual abuse in pornographic materials are always positive for the perpetrators. Hence, exposure to child pornography conveys a false sense of immunity to legal sanctions, thereby undermining the social inhibitions of potential and active abusers.
Third, child pornography provides users with a means of making money. According to a child pornographer, “the most money is made in child pornography because it’s hard to get and willing children are hard to come by” (in Campagna and Poffenberger 1988, p. 133). Frequent exposure to child pornography on the Internet promotes the perception that many child pornography producers are ‘getting away with it’ and profiting from it. The stronger the need or motivation to make money, the more this motivation is likely to overwhelm social inhibitions (see also M’jid Maalla, 2009, UN report on profits from child pornography).
Contributory Factor 4
Viewing pornography undermines some children’s abilities to avoid, resist, or escape sexual victimization5
Some perpetrators use physical force to accomplish their acts of child sexual victimization. In these cases, children’s efforts to avoid, resist, or escape sexual victimization are ineffective. There are, however, cases where children’s exposure to pornography undermines their efforts and permits sexual abuse to occur where it otherwise would not.
First, child pornography is used to arouse children’s sexual curiosity. Showing pornography to boys and girls is a common abuse grooming strategy.
Pedophiles posing as young teenagers in Internet teen chat groups often send pornographic pictures or email messages containing pornographic language to child participants in order to arouse their curiosity and to manipulate them into meeting in person.
Research on adults reveals that many females became upset or disturbed when exposed to pornographic pictures during their childhoods (Check, 1995; Check and Maxwell, 1992a, 1992b; Senn, 1993; Stock, 1995). Since many boys, in contrast, become sexually aroused by pornographic pictures, showing them this material is typically far more successful at undermining their abilities to avoid, resist or escape being subjugated to sexual abuse by adult pedophiles, non-pedophilic abusers, and incest perpetrators. Children’s arousal in response to pornography can be used to keep them in positions of abuse.
Second, showing pornography to children legitimizes and/or normalizes child sexual abuse in the eyes of victims. Many pedophiles and child molesters show pornography to children “in order to persuade them that they would enjoy certain sexual acts” (Kelly, 1992, p. 119). Another motive is “to convince them that what they are being asked to do is alright.” Showing them a picture “legitimizes the abuser’s requests” (Kelly, 1992, p. 119). The following testimony of a woman illustrates a father’s attempts to use pornography to normalize and legitimize sexually abusing his daughter:
The incest started at the age of eight. I did not understand any of it and did not feel that it was right. My dad would try to convince me that it was ok. He would find magazines, articles or pictures that would show fathers and daughters or mothers, brothers and sisters having sexual intercourse. [Mostly fathers and daughters.] He would say that if it was published in magazines that it had to be all right because magazines could not publish lies … He would ask me later if I had read them and what they said or if I looked real close at the pictures. He would say, ‘See it’s okay to do because it’s published in magazines’ (AGCP, 1986, p. 1786).
Child molesters also send pornography to the children they have targeted for sexual victimization to convince them “that other children are sexually active” (Hughes, 1999, p. 28).
Third, showing pornography to children desensitizes or disinhibits children. A child molester’s step-by-step ‘grooming’ of a child serves to gradually desensitize her or him to the sexual abuse that is his goal. He moves from befriending a child, to touching her or him, to introducing her or him to an X-rated video, slowly showing more of it “until the child is able to sit and watch the videos without becoming too uncomfortable” (Whetsell-Mitchell 1995, p. 201). Showing adult pornography to children can be “used in the same way [as child pornography] to lower the inhibitions of children” (Tate 1992, p. 213).
Fourth, exposure to pornography can create feelings of guilt and complicity for child victims, thereby silencing them. Children exposed to pornography often feel guilty. According to Scotland Yard investigations, one of the 5 major ways in which pedophiles use pornography is to “ensure the secrecy of any sexual activity with a child who has already been seduced [sexually abused]” (Tate, 1990, p. 24). Child molesters can often silence their victims by telling them that their parents would be very upset to learn that they had watched pornography. Children who are sexually abused following the exposure may feel complicit in the abuse and thus become even more motivated to remain silent. This reduces the likelihood that abused children will disclose the sexual abuse to their parents or report it to others.
Conclusion
Russell’s Theory explains how the exposure of males to child pornography can generate the sexual desire for children in some males who previously had no such interest. In an age where the Internet has greatly increased the volume of child pornography and pseudo-child pornography available to, and viewed by, ever greater numbers of males, there is reason for great and urgent alarm. The epidemic proportions of child pornography, and the increasing accessibility of other media that sexualize children will lead to a corresponding increase in sexual abuse and millions more devastated young victims.
“Child pornography is the theory, molestation is the practice …” This succinct statement by Philip Jenkins (2001, p. 4) which is consistent with my theory, has staggering implications, especially as massive numbers of individuals worldwide now have access to child pornography on the Internet. Furthermore, the sexual abuse and rape of children will keep escalating if nothing is done to stop it.
In an effort to rid our countries of child pornography, I propose the organization of an International Tribunal on Child Pornography. I was one of the major organizers of the first feminist International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women in Brussells, Belgium, in 1976 which was extremely successful in combating some forms of violence and discrimination against women, particularly in Western Euro
pe. A mere handful of international feminists with virtually no funding, managed to organize this global speak-out attended by about 2,000 women.6
Finally, besides the causal relationship that exists between some males’ viewing of child pornography and their sexual abuse of children, we must never forget that the making of most child pornography is itself evidence of child sexual abuse.
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1 This article is a much shortened version of a chapter I co-authored with Natalie Purcell (in Dowd et al., 2006, pp. 59–83). I would like to thank Alix Johnson for her conceptual and editorial assistance.
2 Use of the term ‘men’ includes juvenile males in this chapter. While acknowledging that women too sexually abuse children, Russell’s Theory focuses on males because they are the overwhelming majority of child pornography consumers and perpetrators of child sexual victimization.
3 I include References to research findings from the 1960s onwards to demonstrate what an epic, long-standing, and ongoing struggle it has been to expose the pernicious activities of child pornography consumers.
4 I wrote my first feminist analysis of pornography in an article published in 1977, and started my anti-pornography activism in 1976. This included being a founding member of Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media (WAVPM) in 1976, which was the first feminist activist group in the world to focus on combating pornography.
5 Factor 4 is not necessary to Russell’s Theory, but it can be a significant facilitator of child sexual victimization.
6 The book describing how this International Tribunal was organized is still in print. See Russell and Van de Ven (1976/2000).
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