They are doing neither, and the article itself undermines its premise later when the "serious research" is being quoted. As it cites, most offender get exposed during early teens, back when there were no porn algorithms. However, the rate of child sexual abuse has steadily decreased since the 1990s, down by almost 50%. If the hypothesis of the article was correct then the rate of child sexual abuse should increase, not decrease.

Other research studies, have looked at the rate of pedophilia in the general population, and the conclusions seems to be a fairly static rate of around 2% (like "Prevalence, situation, and perspectives of treatment" from 2020). However since the rate of child sexual abuse has decreased, such studies mostly rely on doing survey and those has for obvious reasons a major problem of sampling and accuracy.

A common theme in the research, just from a very quick look, is that the researcher themselves cite that the is a huge lack of research in this area. They can see the trend, and see the numbers, but there is little to real understanding to what is behind the numbers. We currently has as good chance to blame the Catholic Church as to blame pornhub, and articles like this one are not helping the slightest. At best it just spreading fear in order to generate engagement, and at worst they are abusing their readers by pushing propaganda in order to sway popular opinion about oppressive laws.

> the rate of child sexual abuse has steadily decreased since the 1990s, down by almost 50%.

That's kind of remarkable if true, because the openness of both individuals and institutions to taking reports of it seriously has increased. Before all our modern awareness of stuff like "consent" a lot of reports were dismissed, especially if the pedophile was someone trusted in the community and especially if they came from women. Boys often didn't report at all out of shame.

Usually when there's an increase in awareness you see a phantom increase due to reporting, as has happened with things like rates of homosexuality or with diagnostic categories like autism and ADD/ADHD.

Of course maybe there's less of it today because abusers are getting caught more often. That's possible too.

I'd certainly also like to see a source for the basic claim. It would be wonderful news if true.

It's one thing when people actually seek it out. But the idea that someone may get charged for a video they didn't realise contains underage people is chilling. I know one tiny woman who in her 30s still could pass for a highschooler and will probably be carded for many years to come. On the other hand I went to high school with a couple of people who could pass for 25+ year olds easily. Without personally checking someone's id, you just can't know for sure. So even if you'd want to avoid illegal material - how sure are you you're safe?

Betteridge's Law is strong with this one. The lede is buried at after all the sob stories about guys who discovered they were pedophiles because recommendation algorithms are really good as showing you what you want to see. This is all just pretext to the UK government's massive privacy overreach and censorship.

> Along with other countries, the UK is bringing in tighter controls on the porn industry. Porn sites will be required to have age verification processes in place by July to stop children viewing their content, a process that will be monitored by Ofcom under the new Online Safety Act (OSA). But the OSA does not ban or control certain common practices in porn, such as strangulation, sexual fetishisation of incest or the abuse of children acted by adults. The government argues depiction of sexual strangulation is banned but a recent in-depth review of porn by Baroness Bertin, a Conservative peer, warned it is not, in reality, covered by case law. She called for tighter regulation of “legal but harmful pornography like choking, violent and degrading acts … even content that could encourage child sexual abuse”. While headlines picked out the call to ban strangulation, Bertin also demanded clearer rules around “incest, step-incest and ‘teen’ porn”.

I think the people pushing these moral purity bills need a wake-up call about what women find hot. Because this worldview makes no sense once you know that these "violent and degrading acts" are extremely common fetishes among women who play the part of the "victim." It's not men who are reading gothic horror where incest one of the tamer depictions. The problem in the real world is that, despite the public perception otherwise, guys are generally deeply uncomfortable playing out the other side of these kinds of fantasies.

+1 with the other reply to your comment.

I don't as an anecdote disagree with some of what you said. There are many things happening in private that you don't hear about in public. Friends aren't telling friends things. And I think it's important that people feel more comfortable/open/vulnerable with people they know rather than projecting what they want people to think.

But I'm a guy and don't claim that I know what women want! Perhaps you're a woman and thus your reply is rooted in lots of experience/evidence?

> I think the people pushing these moral purity bills need a wake-up call about what women find hot. Because this worldview makes no sense once you know that these "violent and degrading acts" are extremely common fetishes among women who play the part of the "victim."

Agreed, every single woman I’ve slept with has expressed a desire to either be restrained, submissive, choked, spanked, and a few have expressed desires for nonconsensual sex fantasies. It’s exceedingly common.

Here is some data: https://aella.substack.com/p/fetish-tabooness-and-popularity...

I haven't looked at it closely, so I have no idea whether it supports or opposes the hypothesis. Just wanted to give you some data.

"being submissive, sexual frustration, light bondage, spanking, choking"

All clustered at the top in the feminine-preferred category.

Find your local BDSM community, and you'll have it. Maybe. If you're a good boy.

That doesn’t make it “extremely common”.