Child Porn Cultural Distraction

Hysterica Media Coverage of ‘Pedophiles’

Dr. John Bradley, Head of the Division of Forensic Psychiatry of the University of London, claims that men who consume child pornography are less likely to abuse children now that child porn has gone online.

He states that these men are not a risk to children. They aren’t necessarily pedophiles if they possess images and videos of children and teens. There are many common misconceptions about child pornography.

He is unequivocal that child pornography is extremely harmful to the children abused in it, but says the assumption that people who look at child porn usually also molest children isn’t true.

“If you look at the majority of people who are arrested for child pornography, most of them have never touched a child.

“When we test them, generally they have no or mild pedophilia, meaning they’ve never had a history of touching a child, but they may have fantasies or mild sexual arousal to children.

“They may fall into this category of people who are sexually deviant, where erotica or pornography provides an outlet where they don’t victimize anybody.

“If they have, on the Internet, exposure to graphic sexual material where they can self-gratify themselves, the theory would be that they therefore would not go out and seek a child or would not expose themselves to the public, or don’t commit the deviant sexual acts.”

Before the Internet, many pedophiles or people who had an “erotic interest” in children would turn to photos of children in underwear in common department store catalogues for a sexual “outlet” and never harm anyone, he said.

However, the most aggressive pedophiles would go to great lengths to obtain explicit child pornography, which is now available online.

A study that Bradford co-authored showed that, prior to the Internet, the use of pornography was associated with an increased likelihood to re-offend.

Bradford said his current research is likely to show the connection between viewing child pornography and sexual recidivism is weaker now that all kinds of pornography are easier to obtain online.

Moral panics about pedophilia are nothing new. A first wave surfaced during the Victorian era, When panic about sexual exploitation of children obscured how systemically children were being exploited, in the workplace and elsewhere.

Yet shortly after the Victorian era, motivated in part by the scandal of exploitation, Americans also mobilized on behalf of kids. Child labors laws were passed. Mandatory schooling was instituted. Public health programs began.

Since then, the status of children has been gradually eroded. Policies that privilege the already privileged and that punish the poor and working classes have replaced policies that provide opportunities for children.

More children live below the official poverty level now in the United States than at any point since the 1950s. Is this why the moral panic over pedophilia has resurfaced? Once again, it’s a distraction from inequality and exploitation.