If we are going to halt the rise of sexual violence in our culture, we are going to have to find a way to deal with the problem of pervasive and compulsive porn consumption. Scarcely a week goes by without more stomach-churning evidence for this fact – and yet, despite that, most people seem determined to conclude that there is not much that can be done. A recent report in Unherd by the feminist intellectual and journalist Julie Bindel titled “How porn breeds paedophiles” highlights this fact once again. From Bindel:
“Mainstream, freely available porn gives men permission to go that step further,” says Michael Sheath. “It’s what normalises the sexual abuse of children.”
Sheath, an expert in child protection, can rattle off the titles of mainstream pornography as well as any habitual user…These are real videos found on mainstream sites, and all are legal.
“But this legal stuff, accessed mainly by men who are surfing Pornhub or whatever site, can be a gateway to the illegal content in which real children are horrifically abused by adults,” says Sheath. “You can’t have child abuse images without child abuse having taken place.”
The scale of the problem is shocking. According to a major study released a couple of months ago, one in 10 men have carried out sex offences against children, either online or offline. And it is a problem that Sheath is determined to shine a light on, having dedicated the best part of his career to raising awareness about the link between freely available, mainstream pornography and illegal child abuse imagery.
I have been reporting on this sick phenomenon here in this space as well as in many other publications for years now. Let me recap a few statistics. What we are seeing with the normalization of sexual violence is the culture-wide consequences of men and boys imagining themselves as the aggressor in millions upon millions of porn scenes. Consider a few statistics, with citations for each study provided below:
A British study found that 44% of boys between the ages of 11 and 16 who viewed pornography said that porn gave the ideas about sex acts they wanted to try.i
A 2016 study found that 53% of 11-16 year-old-boys and 39% of 11-16-year-old girls said that they believed pornography was a realistic depiction of sex.ii
A 2021 study found that 1 out of every 8 porn videos shown to first-time users on porn home pages feature acts of sexual violence.iii
A 2021 study found that 24.5% of young adults cited pornography as the most helpful resource for learning how to have sex.iv
What we are witnessing is the dual rise of child-on-child sexual assault, as well as “porn-made pedophiles” – people who were not initially attracted to children having their brains rewired by compulsive porn consumption to be attracted to children, often because they escalate to increasingly extreme content as their porn addiction progresses. Many, in fact, have told Michael Sheath this in as many words: “I am not a paedophile, I am an ordinary man that went down a dark path.”
One thought on “The rise of ‘porn-made pedophiles’ should be considered a global emergency”
Bob Marx says:
Hi Jonathon,
I believe you have identified the driving force behind the “LGBT etc.” agenda. The transgender issue is the “shiny object” that is being used to misdirect our focus from the real agenda. Because of the huge and growing numbers of pedophiles, their end game is to LOWER THE AGE OF CONSENT by showing that children are “sexual beings”.
Hi Jonathon,
I believe you have identified the driving force behind the “LGBT etc.” agenda. The transgender issue is the “shiny object” that is being used to misdirect our focus from the real agenda. Because of the huge and growing numbers of pedophiles, their end game is to LOWER THE AGE OF CONSENT by showing that children are “sexual beings”.