This chapter again focuses on online crimes. This time the focus is on (1) those who access and/or trade child pornography images but who have no history or seeming motivation to engage in hands‐on sexual abuse with children and (2) those who access and trade child pornography and use the Internet to facilitate hands‐on sexual contact with children through grooming. We will consider the relationship between child pornography and hands‐on child sexual abuse in relation to those in category (2) and also the likelihood of those in category (1) exhibiting the offender behaviour characteristic of (2) as a result of their interest in viewing child pornography. In addition, we will consider theories that seek to explain why individuals are motivated to view child pornography, what helps to maintain this motivation and the potential for escalation to hands‐on sexual abuse. We begin by examining the legal understanding of child pornography and issues relating to defining terms, and the problems with assessing the extent to which putatively pornographic material can be shown to have violated child pornography law. The question of pseudo‐photographs and virtual child pornography, and their status under the law, is also discussed. A summary of offender typology is presented in this chapter, with an emphasis on the pathology underlying sexual voyeurism and the offender as a collector of child pornography, as well as other classifications and characteristics relating to child pornography and paedophilic behaviour. We also discuss the relationships between accessing child pornography on the Internet, the proliferation of Internet child pornography among contact offenders, and hands‐on offending behaviour. Finally, an overview of the current psychological understanding regarding offending behaviour is presented followed by a brief discussion on the use of technology to detect child pornography use and other Internet offences involving minors, such as sexual solicitation.
Before moving on to discuss these issues, however, first a point of clarification. The perpetrators of child sexual abuse are often referred to in the popular press as ‘paedophiles’. The clinical use of the term ‘paedophile’ is reserved for those who have a sexual interest in prepubescent children (Berlin & Sawyer, 2012). Child pornography law, at least in the UK and the US, includes the sexual abuse of (post)pubescent children (in short, anyone under the age of 18). Individuals with a sexual interest in pubescent and prepubescent children are known as a ‘hebephiles’ (Neutze, Seto, Schaefer, Mundt & Beier, 2011). Based on this clinical definition, someone can be convicted of violating child pornography law who is not a paedophile (because their sexual interest is in pubescent children). This distinction will be reflected in the language used throughout this chapter.
The advent of the Internet has ushered in a new era in the production, transmission and accessibility of pornography, including child pornography (Lee, Li, Lamade, Schuler & Prentky, 2012; Motivans & Kyckelhahn, 2007; Tsaliki, 2011), which has grown exponentially (Taylor & Quayle, 2003) to become one of the fastest growing Internet industries (Bell & Kennedy, 2000; Jenkins, 2009). The ease of access to the Internet has given rise to ‘cyber‐paedocriminality’ (Webb, Craissati & Keen, 2007), which describes a new form of criminal behaviour consisting of the online display, exchange, sale and purchase of files containing child pornography. In the US, for example, crimes involving Internet child pornography only (that is, in the absence of additional sex crimes such as child molestation) increased significantly between 2000 (935 cases) and 2006 (2,417 cases), and then again in 2009 (3,719 cases) (Wolak, Finkelhor & Mitchell, 2012). Indeed, Internet child pornography (hereafter, child pornography) offences now represent the largest portion of sexual exploitation cases prosecuted by federal attorneys in the US (Lam, Mitchell & Seto, 2010). To combat this increase in child pornography, international police operations (Genesis in 2001, Falcon in 2004 and Koala in 2006) have identified many cyber‐paedocriminals (Niveau, 2010). Moreover, by 2008, the international policing agency Interpol’s Child Abuse Image Database had gathered over half a million images of child abuse, which were used to identify nearly 700 victims worldwide (Elliot & Beech, 2009). Elliot and Beech (2009) also reported the 2008 findings of the UK Internet Watch Foundation’s analysis of recovered images from websites containing child pornography. Of those images, 80% were found to be of children of 10 years of age or under (10% aged 2 or under, 33% between 3 and 6, and 37% between 7 and 10). The vast majority of these images (79%) were also found to be of girls; in fact, the most common child pornographic image is that of a prepubescent girl (Seto, 2010).
The Triple A Engine, mentioned in Chapter 5, has been applied to explain the volume of child pornography, in terms of its increased accessibility, affordability and anonymity (Cooper et al., 2000). Added to this, Quayle, Erooga, Wright, Taylor and Harbinson (2006) note how digitized pornographic material is much easier to store than nondigital material and requires little effort to keep hidden. The Internet also provides a medium through which offenders can initiate contact with potential sex abuse victims, as well as others who share a predilection for child abuse both in terms of sexualized images and hands‐on offending (McCarthy, 2010). Given the prevalence of child pornography consumption, an issue of practical importance is the extent to which the consumer of child pornography is likely also to engage in contact sex offences or risk doing so in the future (Endrass et al., 2009).
It was not until the late 1970s that laws were enacted in the UK and US to prohibit child pornography specifically: these laws recognized child pornography as a distinct classification of prohibited activity (here, of course, ‘child pornography’ refers to pre‐Internet material). Prior to this, there occurred no differentiation between adult and child pornography, the regulation of each was based on the same obscenity laws (Gillespie, 2010). In fact, only in 1982 did the Supreme Court of the US expel child pornography – defined as material ‘that visually depict[s] sexual conduct by children below a specified age’ – from protection under the First Amendment (regarding freedom of expression) because it ‘is intrinsically related to the sexual abuse of children’ (New York v. Ferber, 1982, p. 764, cited in Ray, Kimonis, Donoghue, 2010, p. 85). Related to this point, it is worth noting that the UK Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, as a matter of course, sends out notes for editors to the effect that the phrase ‘child pornography’ should be replaced with ‘child abuse’ or ‘images of child abuse’. Use of ‘child pornography’ incorrectly suggests legitimacy and compliance, rather than the actual abuse that has taken place (Adams, 2010; see also Edwards, 2000; Tate, 1992, Taylor & Quayle, 2003). This position is echoed by Williams (1991), who states: ‘Child pornography is no less than a visual record of child abuse. Each video or photograph records a criminal offence against a child’ (p. 88). Moreover, in addition to the abuse itself, the representation of this abuse (as a permanent record) amounts to the revictimization of the child (Beech, Elliot, Birgden & Findlater, 2008; Taylor & Quayle, 2003). While recognizing the validity of this point, we shall nevertheless continue to use the term ‘child pornography’ for convenience, given that the term is used extensively within the relevant literature.
Material that constitutes child pornography under the law and material used by those who have a sexual interest in children do not necessarily match. It may be that images of children used to elicit sexual arousal in an individual do not depict sexual abuse; they may not even contain images of children partially or completely nude. In and of themselves, then, as images of children, they may be quite innocuous and not violate child pornography law (Tate, 1990). As Howitt (1995) points out, sexual stimulation may not be based on explicit sexual content but on the fantasy occurring in the mind of the offender. Taylor, Holland and Quayle (2001) thus distinguish between child pornography (which depicts explicit sexual abuse) and child erotica (which reflects more the use to which the image is put: to elicit sexual arousal).
It is more often the case, of course, that those with a sexual interest in children do possess, or are motivated to possess or at least view, images of children that do violate child pornography law and therefore do constitute images of child abuse. Nevertheless, Taylor and Quayle’s point regarding the independence of some form of objective measure of content from the use to which the image is put (the purpose it serves for the viewer) is a pertinent one.
How child pornography is defined legally varies from country to country, as does the interpretation of terms such as ‘child’. Given the worldwide variation in how child pornography is defined and regulated, our focus will be on UK and US legal definitions, as these tend to occupy a prominent place in the relevant literature. In the UK, Section 6A.1 of the 2003 Sexual Offences Act amends both the 1978 Child Protection Act and the Criminal Justice Act of 1988 such that it is ‘a crime to take, make, permit to take, distribute, show, possess, possess with intent to distribute, or to advertise indecent photographs or pseudo‐photographs of any person below the age of 18’. What constitutes ‘indecent’ is to be determined by a jury based on recognized standards of propriety. The level of sentencing for those found guilty of violating section 6A.1 must reflect the seriousness of the offence, ranging from level 1 (images depicting erotic posing with no sexual activity) to level 5 (involving sadism or penetration of, or by, an animal; see COPINE scale below).
In the US, the Department of Justice guide to Federal Law, under the child exploitation and obscenity section, states that:
Section 2256 of Title 18, United States Code, defines child pornography as any visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct involving a minor (someone under 18 years of age). Visual depictions include photographs, videos, digital or computer generated images indistinguishable from an actual minor, and images created, adapted, or modified, but appear [sic] to depict an identifiable, actual minor.
In addition:
The legal definition of sexually explicit conduct does not require that an image depict a child engaging in sexual activity. A picture of a naked child may constitute illegal child pornography if it is sufficiently sexually suggestive. (US Department of Justice, 2015)
Within the UK and the US definitions of child pornography, a child is anyone under the age of 18. This age is also stipulated in international law with regard to child pornography (Gillespie, 2010; see Article 1a of the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child; see also the Council of Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime and the Council of Europe’s Convention on Sexual Exploitation). As such, if the image is of a person under the age of 18, then, in relation to child pornography legislation, the image is of a child. In a number of countries, this age differs from the age of consent whereby one may legally engage in sexual intercourse. In the UK, for example, the age is 16 (but this can also depend on whether a vulnerable individual is involved and/or there is a power imbalance, as in the case of a pupil and teacher). In the US, the age of consent varies between 16 and 18, depending on which state you are in. Worldwide the range is 12–20 (in the case of consent at 12, the partner must be under 18 years of age).
Given this discrepancy, even between the UK and certain US states, if one is over the age of consent but under 18, one could engage in legal sexual intercourse with another over the age of consent yet not legally be allowed to possess sexually explicit images of one’s partner or send such images of oneself to one’s partner (see Berlin & Sawyer, 2012).
As mentioned in Chapter 5, sexting is a predominantly adolescent practice of sending or posting text messages and/or images of a sexually suggestive nature, including nude or seminude photographs, via one’s mobile phone or over the Internet (Levick & Moon, 2010). The creation of such images of minors, by minors (even where the minor is over 16 years of age), meets statutory definitions of child pornography (Walsh, Wolak & Finkelhor, 2013; see also Mitchell, Finkelhor, Jones & Wolak, 2012). Yet, according to Levick and Moon (2010), prosecuting minors in sexting cases is a gross misapplication of child pornography law, given that such practice is merely a new expression of normative adolescent sexual development (see also Comartin, Kernsmith & Kernsmith, 2013). In the US, the prosecution of sexting occurs only in cases of:
Sexting is therefore a new social problem (as discussed in Chapter 5) that legislation has yet to come to grips with.
The digital era has brought with it its own problems and challenges for those legislating against child pornography. Pseudo‐photographs of child pornography involve the manipulation of actual photographs, or digital representations of persons/children that are then altered. This may involve manipulating the image of a nude adult such that it appears to be of a child, or the manipulation of a nonpornographic image of a child such that it appears to be pornographic. In the latter case, an image of a child originally depicted licking an ice‐cream (for example) may be manipulated so that the child appears to be engaged in an act of fellatio on an adult (Gillespie, 2010).
In the case of actual child pornography, where the image is of a sexualized child or of child abuse, the photograph or video constitutes a record of the event. In the case of pseudo‐photographs, however, what is produced is an event that is not real but that is presented as if it were real (Oswell, 2006). For Williams (2003), although such ‘photoshopped’ images are very unpleasant, they are in effect no more ‘true’ than paintings. Nevertheless, even though it is accepted that, in the context of child pornography, the indecent photograph and the indecent pseudo‐photograph are not equivalent, with regard to UK legislation (see the 2003 Sexual Offences Act and the 2009 Coroners and Justice Act) they are treated as if identical (Oswell, 2006). As such, pseudo‐photographs of the kind described above, even though they do not depict abuse per se, are held to be exploitative and therefore ‘a crime not only against a particular child, but against all children’ (Oswell, 2006, p. 252, emphasis in original).
Legislation in the US, for its part, sought to take account of the digital era with its 1996 Child Pornography Prevention Act (as noted above), whereby the definition of child pornography included not only that which actually depicts the sexual abuse of a minor but also that which appears to depict a minor engaging in sexual activity. Under this definition, creators and possessors of pseudo‐photographs or even digitally created images involving no actual images of children could be prosecuted under the law (Samenow, 2012).
In 2002, however, a ruling was made in the case of Ashcroft versus Free Speech Coalition (525 U.S. 234), which set out to challenge the 1996 Child Pornography Prevention Act (18 U.S.C.§ 2251) (see Kosse, 2004). In contrast to UK legislation, the US Supreme Court ruled that whilst ‘it remains illegal to make, show or possess sexually explicit pictures of children … [there is] no compelling reason to prohibit the manufacture or exhibition of pictures which merely appear to be of children’ (Levy, 2002, p. 319). Moreover, with regard to images of a purely digital origin – that do not involve any actual minors and therefore do not record a crime (namely, virtual child pornography) – the Supreme Court ruled that, as the US child pornography laws were implemented to prevent the victimization of children and as there was no victim in cases of virtual child pornography, there was no compelling reason to restrict such freedom of expression.
When Paul and Linz (2008) exposed adults to ‘barely legal’ pornography in order to test an assumption made by the US government in defence of the 1996 Child Pornography Protection Act – ‘that virtual child pornography stimulates and whets adults’ appetites for sex with children and that such content can result in the sexual abuse or exploitation of minors becoming acceptable to and even preferred by the viewer’ (p. 35) – they found that, although those who viewed the material were more likely to cognitively associate sexual activity with nonsexual images of minors (based on response latency), there was no evidence that exposure caused the participants to be more accepting of child pornography or paedophilia. (Barely legal pornography uses models who are over 18 years of age but who are depicted as being under or just over the legal age of consent.) The Paul and Linz finding challenges the US government’s assertion that child pornography leads to actual instances of child abuse and, instead, supports the 2002 Supreme Court’s view that, at present, there is no evidence indicating that a causal link is anything other than contingent and indirect.
Importantly, and by way of clarification, the 2002 ruling of the Supreme Court did not affect the continued prohibition of ‘morphed’ images, which integrate images of real children in order to create child pornography. In 2003, however, the PROTECT Act was introduced; this limits the permissibility of virtual child pornography by prohibiting obscene material (obscenity is based on accepted contemporary community standards). Specifically, the law criminalizes:
a visual depiction of any kind, including a ‘drawing, cartoon, sculpture or painting’ that ‘depicts a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct and is obscene’ or ‘depicts an image that is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in … sexual intercourse … and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. (18 USC §1466A) (Samenow, 2012, p. 19)
With regard to virtual child pornography – which, in the US at least, is not illegal unless it contravenes obscenity law – the US Supreme Court decided that:
In this section, we consider how child pornography offenders can be categorized. Berlin and Sawyer (2012), for example, divide child pornography offenders into the following subcategories:
When the computers of subcategory 3 offenders are confiscated, no evidence is found of sexually inappropriate ‘chats’ with children characteristic of subcategory 2 (Berlin & Sawyer, 2012). Following publicity after their arrest, there are no reports of children coming forward accusing them of any form of inappropriate contact akin to subcategory 1. In fact, as Berlin and Sawyer (2012) go on to note, many in subcategory 3 have children of their own who likewise do not report inappropriate sexual contact from their parent. Given this, Berlin and Sawyer (2012) conclude:
Some individuals appear to be experiencing compulsive urges to voyeuristically view such images [of child pornography], devoid of any motivation to actually approach a child sexually. In other words, in such instances, the act of voyeuristically, and often compulsively, viewing such imagery over the Internet would appear to be an end in and of itself; rather than a means to some other end – such as actual sexual contact. (pp. 31–32)
Nevertheless, based on DSM‐IV‐TR, the voyeuristic viewing of child pornography, in the manner just described, is classified as a ‘paraphilic disorder not otherwise specified’. This refers to individuals classified as having a compulsive desire to repeatedly view sexually explicit images of prepubescent children; the primary components of their paraphilic disorder are voyeurism and paedophilia (Berlin & Sawyer, 2012). The paedophilic aspect of this disorder is restricted to voyeurism over the Internet and, as such, should be distinguished from paedophilia per se, whereby an individual is motivated to engage in a sexual act with a prepubescent child (characteristic of direct victimization) and not simply view images of young children with sexualized content. In support of this clinical distinction, Galbreath, Berlin and Sawyer (2002) found in a study of 39 Internet child pornography offenders that 23% were diagnosed with paedophilia while 49% were diagnosed with a paraphilic disorder not otherwise specified.
The Internet has a number of characteristics (unique features) likely to appeal to cyber‐paedocriminals, especially those who engage in high levels of sexual fantasy yet retain a strong inhibition from acting on their fantasies (Niveau, 2010). According to Niveau (2010), these characteristics are:
Many child pornographers go beyond merely viewing or even acquiring images of children or child abuse; more than this, they collect these images, cataloguing and indexing them as part of their collection: what Taylor (1999) refers to as the ‘collector syndrome’. Svedin and Back (1996; cited in Oswell, 2006) describe different ‘collectors’ thus:
The motivation to become a collector is seen as symptomatic of the underlying pathology and, in the case of the cottage collector, a binding feature of the social relationship the offender has with others who are similarly motivated (Oswell, 2006). Taylor et al. (2001) also argue that the collections themselves are not arbitrary; therefore their selective content reveals something about the ‘mind’ of the collector, such that even images that themselves would not fall foul of UK and US legal definitions of child pornography are abusive in virtue of their place within the collection, given what motivates that collection. Taylor et al. (2001) provide a typology of images based on the 10‐point COPINE scale (COPINE stands for Combating Paedophile Information Networks in Europe). This scale range is as follows: (1) indicative, (2) nudist, (3) erotica, (4) posing, (5) erotic posing, (6) explicit erotic posing, (7) explicit sexual activity, (8) assault, (9) gross assault, (10) sadistic/bestiality. Thus, even images classified at the lowest point on the scale (nonerotic and nonsexualized images of children in everyday situations), when present within a collection (as described above), are indicative of the deliberate sexual victimization of children. For Taylor et al. (2001), then, whether a collector fits Svedin and Back’s (1996; cited in Oswell, 2006) closet typology or whether a collector perpetrates actual hands‐on child abuse makes no difference with regard to the pathology of the offender. To view images of children, especially within a collection put together to elicit sexual arousal, even at the lowest level of the COPINE scale, amounts to child victimization. The pathology of the offender is therefore not just restricted to, or solely characterized by, the hands‐on sexual abuse of children but also evidenced through the images that form part of the collection of even a closet collector.
We now turn our attention to the characteristics of child pornography offenders. Galbreath et al. (2002) claim that those who access child pornography are overwhelmingly male (see, however, Seigfried‐Spellar & Rogers, 2010, for a study on females) but, apart from that, come from a variety of backgrounds. Reijnen, Bulten and Nijman (2009), based on a Dutch sample, likewise state that child pornography offenders share much of the same heterogeneity found in the nonoffending population (see also Nielssen et al., 2011). In fact, McCarthy (2010) holds that, at present, a profile of a typical child pornography offender does not exist. Nevertheless, some studies have indicated differences.
Based on US findings, many are relatively well educated (O’Brien & Webster, 2007). Wolak, Finkelhor and Mitchell (2005) found that, from a sample of 1,713 individuals convicted of child pornography offences, 37% had gone to college and/or obtained a college diploma and an additional 4% had PhDs. According to Burke, Sowerbutts, Blundell and Sherry (2002), who used an Australian sample, offenders tend to be between the ages of 25 and 50. Web et al. (2007) reported that their sample of Internet offenders (n = 90) had a mean age of 38, which was lower than hands‐on sexual offenders; they also tended to have fewer live‐in relationships than hands‐on sexual offenders.
Middleton, Elliot, Mandeville‐Norden and Beech (2006) found that Internet offenders diagnosed with psychological deficits tended to be socially isolated or have intimacy problems. Henry, Mandeville‐Norden, Hayes and Egan (2010), in turn, reported evidence of emotional inadequacy and high deviancy in a sample of 422 child pornography offenders. Internet use was also seen as a way of easing emotional stress. It is important to note, however, that almost half of the offenders in Henry et al.’s study did not exhibit any psychological deficits. In fact, Neutze et al. (2011) found no evidence of an emotional deficit at all in their sample. In addition, when comparing child pornography offenders with non‐Internet sexual offenders, Reijnen et al. (2009) found child pornography offenders tended to be younger, to live alone, to be single and to have no children. Reijnen et al. thus concluded that child pornography offenders were more socially isolated. These findings are in line with those of Middleton et al. (2006) and Web et al. (2007) noted above. Reijnen et al. also speculated over whether social isolation (owing to, say, problems with intimacy) might act as a trigger for offenders’ Internet behaviour or whether their paedophilic disposition has a detrimental effect on any attempt to engage in intimate adult relationships.
Most contemporary child pornography offenders commit their offences over the Internet (Ray et al., 2010). As mentioned earlier in this chapter, among these offenders is a distinct category of individuals who restrict their offending behaviour to the voyeuristic pursuit of child abuse images. Given the dual potential of the Internet, however, for those with a sexual preference for minors – both in terms of viewing images and soliciting more direct contact (e.g., the direct victimization typology) – one is left to consider the relationship between child pornography and hands‐on child sexual abuse. For, although a demarcation based on those who engage in hands‐on child abuse and those who only view it may be legitimate in some cases, it nevertheless remains evident that those charged with child solicitation and/or molestation are often caught in possession of child pornography (Kingston, Fedoroff, Firestone, Curry & Bradford, 2008; Riegel, 2004).
There is also the matter of escalation, whereby the offender’s deviant sexual excitation could prompt them to seek out increasingly shocking depictions (Niveau, 2010) and/or engage in hands‐on child abuse (Seto & Eke, 2005). Quayle and Taylor (2002) and Sullivan and Beech (2003) argue that a proclivity for child pornography increases the likelihood of committing a contact offence against a minor in the form of either sexual molestation or sexual solicitation (Seto, Wood, Babchishin & Flynn, 2012). One is left to consider, then, the extent to which an active interest in child pornography leads perpetrators to contact offend or, instead, to remain content with viewing sexualized images of children.
In a study by Bourke and Hernandez (2009), based on a sample of 155 child pornography offenders, 85% admitted to abusing a child on at least one occasion. Wolak et al. (2005) reported that, from a sample of 1,713 child pornography offenders, 40% were dual offenders – meaning they also committed hands‐on child sexual abuse – and, of these, 39% met their victims on the Internet. Seto, Hanson and Babchishin (2011) found that one in eight child pornography offenders had an official history of contact offending. Seto and Eke (2005) noted that child pornography offenders with a history of hands‐on sexual abuse were more likely to reoffend, whereas those guilty only of child pornography violations did not go on to contact offend (at least during the study’s follow‐up period; see Eke, Seto & Williams, 2011, for a further follow‐up study). Webb et al. (2007), in turn, found that, although there was evidence of reoffending among those convicted of child pornography offences (but who were not also child molesters), their reoffending was confined to the accessing of child pornography; there was no evidence that they went on to contact offend. In fact, McCarthy (2010) considers the lack of contact offending (including Internet grooming) to be a factor instrumental in distinguishing between these two deviant groups. To illustrate further, among a sample (n = 290) of child pornography offenders with a sexual preference for boys, Riegel (2004) found that 84% reported that the image acted as a substitute for an actual child, with 84.5% stating that viewing such imagery did not increase their desire to engage in hands‐on abuse with boys.
Lee et al. (2012) found that child pornography offenders recorded high scores for Internet preoccupation and low scores for traits associated with antisocial personality disorder (what they call ‘antisociality’) compared to dual offenders who scored high on both measures. Lee et al. conjecture that the low or high measure on antisociality, in relation to high Internet preoccupation, might provide a useful predictor of dual offending and therefore who among those with a child pornography conviction might engage in (or have engaged in) hands‐on child sexual contact.
This section outlines some of the psychological theories that have been proposed to explain why some people become paedophiles.
Courtship disorder theory (Freund & Blanchard, 1986; Freund, Scher & Hucker, 1983) posits that normal sexual interactions progress through four discrete stages. The first involves locating a potential partner. Contact is then made though looking and talking (known as pretactile interaction). Next, the courtship progresses towards tactile interactions such as caressing and kissing, before culminating in genital union. A pathological disturbance in this progression is typically characterized by a distortion – likely in the form of intensification – in one of the stages of normal courtship.
Earlier in this chapter, we saw how some child pornography offenders were found to be socially isolated, to have intimacy problems or to be emotionally inadequate (Henry et al., 2010; Middleton et al., 2006; Web et al., 2007). Jung, Ennis and Malesky (2012), following Elliot, Beech, Mandeville‐Norden and Hayes (2009), suggest that the behaviour of child pornography offenders should be understood as part of a process of achieving a kind of pseudo‐intimacy that compensates, without the risk of rejection, for any lack of intimacy in real life. Recall how those perpetrators diagnosed with a paraphilic disorder (not otherwise specified) exhibited a strong voyeuristic component to their pathology. Thus, Jung et al. (2012) conjecture, the ‘compulsive use of the Internet to obtain illegal pornographic material may be conceptually similar to the pathological distortion of the first stage of locating and appraising a potential partner’ (p. 662).
In response to the question of whether child pornography offending will escalate to either sexual solicitation or molestation, if the fixation on a minor by the individual with a paraphilic disorder (not otherwise specified) is part of a disordered courtship, then such an individual ‘may not be confined to maintain non‐contact with potential victims, but rather may be inclined to engage in the subsequent phases of human sexual interaction, progressing to pretactile interactions and onwards to engaging in genital union’ (Jung et al., 2012, p. 662).
The explanation of courtship disorder theory is couched within an evolutionary approach to mate selection. This, however, has little to say about the social and/or situational influences on offending behaviour, particularly as they arise through the Internet (e.g., Wortley & Smallbone, 2006).
As a reminder, social learning theory (Bandura, 1977) advocates learning through observation and modelling. If one observes a behaviour that is rewarded, one is more likely to model and therefore engage in that behaviour. The Internet’s enhanced communication capabilities increase in scope the types of behaviours one can observe and therefore model, including sexually abusive behaviour towards children. Within an environment where it is possible to observe and/or interact with others engaged in child sexual abuse, observers will be able to learn and potentially model behaviours characteristic of abuse. It is also possible that in such an environment – within an online pro‐paedophile group – individuals may experience a sense of community, where the virtues of child abuse are extolled and [individuals’] sexual interest in minors validated (Malesky & Ennis, 2004). Recall how, for cottage collectors, the sharing of child pornography images and even the joint organization of hands‐on sexual abuse are binding features of the social relation the offender has with others who are similarly motivated.
Internet exposure of this kind may produce a cognitive shift in observers such that they adopt a more accepting stance towards offending behaviours and so become more inclined to relax the inhibitions that previously prevented them from engaging in sexual abuse (Jung et al., 2012). This sense of community and validation can be seen in the following quote, taken from a pro‐paedophile website: ‘Because of this newsgroup, I realized only one and a half months ago that I am a boy lover. I laugh, I cried, and shared all your beautiful, sad, and funny posting. It was the first time in my life that someone showed feelings which seemed to be mine’ (Durkin, 1996, p. 108; cited in Jung et al., 2012, p. 658).
According to Jung et al. (2012), to an unprecedented degree, the Internet enables the dissemination and acquisition of beliefs that support child‐offending behaviours. Pro‐paedophilic views are available in the absence of censure and, importantly, a dissenting voice declaring that what offenders are doing is harmful. As such, the relative ease with which it is possible to access and/or trade child pornography on the Internet – seemingly with impunity – could, for the proponents of social learning theory, indirectly encourage others to engage in the same abusive behaviour.
Courtship disorder theory and social learning theory are by no means incompatible. Child pornographers may acquire a distorted sense of pseudo‐intimacy through the observation of child sexualized images and learn (through modelling) more sophisticated offence behaviours; they may also feel vindicated in this through Internet communication with other like‐minded individuals, which then acts to reinforce what they do. As part of courtship disorder theory’s courtship progression and through further social learning theory practices, the Internet offender may ‘progress’ from Internet viewing of pornography to child sexual solicitation and/or molestation.
According to Finkelhor (1984), four preconditions must be satisfied before hands‐on child sexual abuse can occur (adapted from Elliot & Beech, 2009). Perpetrators must:
Ward and Siegert (2002) argue that child sexual abuse is the culmination of a number of different factors – or different pathways to abuse – one of which will exert a primary causal influence, the others only secondary (which pathway is considered primary and which are secondary will vary from offender to offender, of course). The pathways model posits that a number of different pathways could lead to the sexual abuse of a child; it does not, however, proffer an account of why child molestation may continue. Ward and Siegert (2002) identify four distinct and interacting psychological mechanisms within their causal account of child molestation. These present as deficits in intimacy and social skills, distorted sexual scripts, emotional dysregulation and cognitive distortions. In addition, as part of their integrated theory of sexual offending (ITSO), Ward and Beech (2006) introduce the idea of an ‘ecological niche’, which refers to the interaction of a person’s biology with their sociocultural as well as physical environment (their social learning). ITSO also focuses on three neuropsychological systems that are said to express an individual’s ecological niche – and, in the case of perpetrators of child sexual abuse, are suggested to be partly or wholly dysfunctional. Disruption in these neuropsychological systems is said to result in problems with adult sexual intimacy, behavioural self‐regulation and maladaptive beliefs. Elliot and Beech (2009) integrate the pathways model and the ITSO and apply them to the perpetrators of child pornography. The key aspects of this integration are presented below.
Child pornography offenders report viewing child sexualized imagery on the Internet as a means of escaping from some (perceived) unpleasant aspect of their lives (Quayle & Taylor, 2002); they shut themselves off from (unpleasant) personal circumstances. Viewing child pornography is therefore understood to be instrumental in dealing with difficult emotional states, particularly as the immediate reward of sexual gratification (achieved through viewing these images while masturbating) can be highly reinforcing (Gifford, 2002).
Previously, we discussed studies suggesting that some viewers of child pornography had problems initiating and/or maintaining intimate relationships with adults. As a result, the online sexual behaviour of these offenders takes on a more significant role given their problems with adult face‐to‐face sexual contact. This may lead to perpetrators accessing Internet child pornography (in the case of the periodically prurient group) and/or more actively seeking it out and trading it (in the case of the fantasy‐only group) owing to the less threatening nature of this sexual behaviour compared to face‐to‐face sexual contact with adults (Middleton et al., 2006; see also section on courtship disorder theory above).
Ward (2000) argues that there are five beliefs characteristic of the distorted thinking patterns of child sex abusers:
Howitt and Sheldon (2007) found differences in the beliefs of child pornography offenders and child molesters with regard to (1), with the former group having a stronger belief to this effect than the latter. Elliot and Beech (2009) conjecture that this may be because pornography offenders – particularly from the fantasy‐only group – typically view idealized sexualized images of children that appear to confirm belief (1), unlike child molesters, who experience the reality of the situation, which contradicts this belief.
Elliot and Beech (2009; following Taylor & Quayle, 2003) also describe how child sex pornography offenders engage in ‘moral disengagement’ (Bandura, 1986), which is a further feature of their distorted thinking patterns. They will often try to justify their behaviour and its relative harmlessness (as they construe it) in terms of it ‘only involving pictures’, and in terms of the images simply forming part of a collection. Normalization also occurs through the claim that they are not alone in their actions: ‘others do it too’. The perception of images as objects is also characteristic of the process of dehumanization, which is a further feature of moral disengagement. Diffusion of responsibility is also evident when offenders talk about the Internet ‘being to blame’ owing to the prevalence of these images and their ease of access. Deviant sexual interest in children, according to Elliot and Beech (2009), is therefore the result of problems with the self‐regulation of one’s mood states, sexual desire and desire for sexual control in relation to distorted sex‐related beliefs about children – all of which creates deviant sexual fantasies and an inappropriate sexual preoccupation.
The Internet has brought with it increased access to pornographic material involving children (images of child abuse) and facilitated its distribution. It has also provided increased opportunities for paedophiles to make contact with children. In this chapter we have offered reasons for this increase and, importantly, provided a summary of legislation around child pornography in the UK and the US, including some of the differences in this legislation. We have also look at the ways in which child pornography offenders have been categorized and considered their characteristics, recognizing, perhaps, that there is no typical child pornography offender. The relationship between those who view child pornography and hands‐on offending has also been discussed, particularly in relation to the concern that viewing child pornography will lead to an escalation in offending behaviour (a kind of slippery‐slope argument). We finished the chapter by examining theoretical models that have been applied or developed specifically to explain and therefore help us understand the mechanisms and processes that contribute to someone becoming a paedophile. The diversity of explanations is most likely an expression of the multiple factors that contribute to child pornography offending, which, far from being created with the inception of the Internet, has simply transcended spaces from the offline realm to the virtual.