Just so you know what the scientists studying this have to say:
Should we be worried about escalation? The consumption of VCSAM does not prevent pedophilic individuals from future offending and can instead act as a progressive addiction (Maras & Shapiro 2017). Some CSAM offenders who engage in contact offending have suggested the contact offending was an extension of their online offending (Quayle & Taylor 2003). For example, in a recent study that applied Ward and Siegert’s (2002) pathways model to sexual offending of penetrative child sexual offenders, several offenders engaged in CSAM before resorting to contact offending. 12 One female offender, “commenced to use the internet…(time) to chat with other people… who gained sexual gratification from child pornography which led to the commission of the subject offences” (Osbourne & Christensen 2020, p. 13). The material has been argued to potentially serve as a gateway to contact offending (Maras & Shapiro 2017), as the offender may become desensitized to passive viewing, finding it to be insufficient over time (Schell et al. 2007). In line with the material being considered as a gateway, an offender might commence with masturbating to VCSAM material, then escalate to CSAM material (after becoming desensitized to VCSAM), before progressing on to act out impulses on children – in an attempt to experience the original level of gratification when first viewing VCSAM. Sullivan and Sheehan (2002) refer to the desensitization of images as the ‘fantasy escalation effect’ with the trajectory to engage in increasingly explicit videos and images (Sheehan & Sullivan 2010).
Given that much of VCSAM material is computer generated, it allows for unlimited creativity in how child characters are abused compared with CSAM (e.g., movements and depictions that are not humanly possible in real life). In turn, offenders who escalate through the types of VCSAM, viewing unimaginable forms of bestiality and penetrative activity, might find themselves skipping the nudist, erotic, or posing forms of CSAM during their escalation, instead being drawn to the gross assault and sadistic CSAM. It is not, therefore, illogical to suggest that those who commence CSAM offending from VCSAM offending may be more desensitized and follow different offending trajectories compared with those who commence with CSAM offending, which could be explored in future research.
While engaging with abusive material does not inevitably result in contact offending (Henshaw, Ogloff & Clough 2015), there are effects to the exposure of such. In their laboratory study, Paul and Linz (2008) found that participants exposed to ‘barely legal’ pornography (females depicted as under the age of consent), were quicker to recognize words with sexual connotations (after being primed with neutral images of female children) compared with participants who had been exposed to adult pornography (after being primed with neutral images of older-looking models). The authors concluded that the relationship between cognitions and the likelihood of acting on such, is complex (Paul & Linz 2008). While they argued the mere endorsement of sex-youth cognitive schema does not guarantee deviant action, the potential effects of deviant behavior from being exposed to such material cannot be outright rejected (Paul & Linz 2008). Paul and Linz (2008) suggest that extensive exposure can desensitize individuals to related behaviors and content. Given VCSAM is related in content to CSAM, the ongoing effects of exposure to VCSAM is an important avenue for future research
