In 2002, a survey of 1500 minors from 10-17 found that 4% had been solicited for s*xual purposes by an adult online.

In 2023, that number increased to 20%.

While the linked Thorn report suggests that the vast majority of these inappropriate interactions happened on platforms that allow for interpersonal communication, which by and large minors were greatly discouraged from and had less access to in the early 2000’s, a trauma-informed approach does not allow for blame to fall on the children. The guardians of those children have monumentally failed to restrict and educate before giving children the means to access those platforms.

It is my uncited but personal opinion that the increased rate of grooming, as well as an increased interest in combating r@pe culture, has led to well-intentioned individuals to become digital vigilantes attacking those who they hold responsible for their traumatic experiences in a search for catharsis and justice denied for themselves as well as a desire to make the internet safer for children, that they are increasingly aware are entering online spaces unsupervised at distressingly young ages.

Darkness 2 Light is a fantastic resource overall, this page details stages and signs of grooming.

RAINN personally helped me through my PTSD journey, and this article detailing the signs of s*xual trauma in teenagers is thorough and non-judgemental

Signs of abuse as well as warning signs of predation that does not use gendered language nor play into the Stranger Danger myth

Before we get into how antiship hate campaigns do not affect online predation, we should acknowledge that it’s actually pretty harmful for the people who cyberbully. Not just in the legal/social consequences, but people who participate in cyberbullying and cyberhate campaigns have higher rates of depression, estrangement from their parents, self-effacing habits, social anxiety, lower empathy, and so forth.

It’s a little ironic that one study suggests that the treatment for cyberbullying, which contributes to a lower likelihood to report or confront other incidents of harassment or toxicity online, can be combatted with media competency to increase empathy along with other important life skills.

“P0rnography is Addictive/Consumption of P0rnography Leads to Increasingly Hardcore Imagery And Ultimately Real-World Violence” - The American Psychological Association does not recognize P*rn Addiction as real and the DSM-5 does not classify it as an addiction. Additionally, many methods used in articles claiming that porn is addictive or causes users to seek out more hardcore material were flawed or biased. There is actually some evidence that compulsive p0rn use, the closest you can get to a p0rn addiction diagnosis, is associated with shame and the user’s belief that p0rnography is morally wrong, which s*x-negative attitudes encourage.

“Jaws caused shark culling” - WW2’s modern naval battles with an increase of ship sinkings and thus contact with sharks prompted the invention and use of shark repellant by aviators and sailors in the 1940’s. The most deadly and famous shark attack of all time was the USS Indianapolis sinking in 1945, which led to 12-150 deaths. The 1974 book Jaws by Peter Benchley, which was the entire basis of the movie, was inspired by One Fucking Dude who started shark hunting tours and overall seemed to have a really immaculate vibe. Additionally, the interstate highways that finished in the 1950’s increased beach tourism in the 60’s and onwards, inspiring the American surf culture, further increasing the need to purge sharks for the new swath of beachgoers and their fondness for using surfboards which make them look like seals to sharks.

“The Slendermen Killings/Other Fiction Inspired Crimes” - The ACLU states that “There is no evidence that fiction has ever driven a sane person to violence.” Inspired crimes are indeed no less tragic, and thankfully rare, but people who suffer from inability to discern reality and fiction do not necessarily need fiction to commit violence. The “Son of Sam” murder spree was not inspired by a book or movie, but instead Berkowitz’ auditory hallucinations.

“Violent videogames DO cause violence” - After a great deal of funding and study, the American Psychological Association has concluded that teens and younger may have increased feelings of aggression and not necessarily physically violent outbursts as a direct effect, but older teens and young adults do not encounter statistically meaningful rates of aggression.

“Your brain can’t tell the difference between fiction and reality” - Factually incorrect. Children as young as 5 years old can tell the difference, and they can even be more suspicious about “facts” that come from sources they know also host fiction, such as TV shows.

“This stuff shouldn’t be online because it can be used to groom a child” - While I could not find specific statistics on how often p0rnography is used to desensitize child victims nor how often that is specifically used in online grooming, and especially not how much of that p0rnography is made from fictional characters out of a mixed group of convicted offenders against adult and child victims, 55% of offenders used p0rnography to manipulate their victim. I would never refute that explicit fanart or fanfic could be used to desensitize a child, but that is by far not the only tool (asking about s#xual experiences/identity, making jokes, etc is extremely common grooming behavior), and there is no evidence to suggest that it is used to a statistically significant degree. In my own anecdotal experience, normal vanilla legal p0rnography is used with far greater prevalence, and there is not a similar movement to shame its production for that possibility. Nor should the creators of any material, p0rnographic or otherwise, share blame in the actions of a predator.

(No hate to the person who made it, I just want to point out that their interpretations of their articles are flawed and one of their studies is a kind of a perfect example on small and non-varied samples.)

Reading Fiction Impacts Aggressive Behavior (I cannot access the full study but this article is the primary source used in the Carrd and it goes into detail) - A study showed that 67 university students were more annoyed with a loud buzzer after reading a short story with a physical fight between roommates compared to a story with nonviolent revenge. However, this study was conducted at Brigham Young University, the same campus where we got a whole video series of hot ethical takes like “I’d rather shoot a kitten than drink coffee,” so uh. Yeah. Kind of a prime example on why it’s important to have large and culturally varied sampling. Another BYU study with 137 BYU students

Your Brain on Fiction - a NYT article that describes Theory of the Mind and how fMRIs captured how readers’ minds would light up centers of muscle control when reading sentences like “Peter kicked.” The quote “The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated” is speaking of motor functions. Emotional centers of the brain were not included in the study.

How Fiction Changes Your World - a Boston Globe article that actually describes how people who read more fiction are more empathetic and tend to believe in a just world. It does not state that the empathy a reader feels for fictional characters extends to corrupting their moral compass. In fact, there’s such a thing as a “fictive license” to explore taboo themes more thoroughly because it is not real ( Link to study 123 participants were interviewed after watching two actors play the part of detective and murderer being interviewed, and participants who were told it was fake had more varied and inquisitive responses.)

The Social Impact of Books - Actually reuses the previous study about the just world, so point remains. Empathy is understanding, not mirroring.

It absolutely depends on the individual.

Writing expressively about traumatic experiences has been shown to be effective to reduce depression, or more effective in reducing dysphoria and anxiety than talking to fellow survivors, and Written Exposure Therapy is broadly prescribed to survivors of trauma, with one study centering on car crash survivors finding that WET resolved their PTSD symptoms and continued to be effective after a year.

In this study, which sadly is not available online but it is too important to leave out completely, survivors of CSA were given fictional novels about CSA and in closely reading and analyzing those stories, were able to understand their own experiences and were indeed drawn to write about their own experiences as well.

Engaging in problematic fiction, like all fiction, allows for consent as well as control. If at any point a survivor does not feel in control or wishes to stop, they can at that instant. They can even rewrite their narratives and take control of their story in fictionalizing and changing the account. They can even try to understand what their abuser felt through fiction, which is helpful considering that the vast majority of survivors had a relationship that had been positive and even loving with their abusers at times.

It again depends on the individual.

For a majority of people, exploring fictional scenarios with moral ambiguity or even taboos is personally distasteful, even if that exploration isn’t inherently harmful.

This very small sample study of 13 participants discussed how young women interpreted s#xual themes in writing, including explicit fanfiction, and how that was beneficial and informative to explore s#xual desire and examine healthy and unhealthy relationships in a safe and controlled environment.

This meta-analysis further discusses how problematic and s#xual themes in YA literature are useful to illustrate what s*xual violence looks like, and begin educational conversations through those depictions to break down harmful myths such as “if she didn’t scream, she wanted it.”

Empowered by the “Fictive License” previously cited, problematic fiction can be beneficial for anyone who desires and is capable of consuming and analyzing it.

This study analyzing abusive aspects of three films - Beauty and the Beast, Twilight, and 50 Shades of Gray - and concluded that these abusive themes should be discussed to increase recognition and awareness, not censored based on those problematic themes.

This study of 53 women were asked to read different versions of fictional intimate partner violence flags, or “toxic behavior” like surveillance, control, etc. In every version of the story, whether the female or male had those behaviors either courting or committed, the women recognized the behavior as wrong.

Another study that reading allows for the moral laboratory to explore morality in fiction without decisive impact to corroding moral permissibility.

In short - not really. Loving Jason Vorhees does not put you at risk of murdering campers as long as you know he’s not real. Writing Winc#st does not mean you look forward to family reunions as long as you know inc#st isn’t okay in the real world. The real world, where real people are harmed, is where you find the measure of someone’s character.

This Psychology Today article is the best source I could find for quotes from a fantastic book ‘Who's Been Sleeping in Your Head? The Secret World of S#xual Fantasies’ by Brett Kahr regarding taboo s#xual fantasies and how they are not only common, but not inherently harmful.

There are people who enjoy problematic media in an entirely nons#xual sense, of course. I myself don’t get off on problematic media - I think it’s just interesting to explore different experiences, and I think that can be revolutionary.

Additionally, fantasies in general have almost always been in the vein of “things you don’t want to really happen in reality.” In a study of 351 as#xuals, more than half reported that they fantasize about having sex, but that doesn’t mean that they actually want to. You can fantasize about dating Billie Eilish - it doesn’t mean that you’d be happy dealing with celebrity culture.

(I personally fantasize about the internet being just for adults, but in practice I think that would be incredibly harmful and isolating for at-risk youth and LGBTQ teens) Fantasies always pluck out only the bits of reality that you want to engage with.

Not inherently, surprisingly. Wearing a schoolgirl uniform is a pretty common roleplay, and it’s not meant to “fool” the participants into thinking they’re indulging in ped0philia. There’s a wealth of emotional and s#xual nuance in that specific kink - innocence and virginity play, tilted power dynamics in ‘scolding’ the uniform wearer for dress code violations, even the concept of a s#xually provocative “teenager” can be played with without shame, because the world of fetish and fantasy is separated from condonable actions for the vast, vast majority of adults.

Even s#xual age play between adults is not indicative of ped0philia because it exists in a setting between two adults who fully understand that the mechanics are completely fake, allowing the power dynamics that would be abusive between an adult and child to be ethically explored.

I don’t have an official-looking study to cite, but I have asked people who like content about underage fictional characters why they do so. Overwhelmingly, a lot of the ones who like underage age gaps like the fantasy of an older and more experienced character taking a younger one under their wing, to have the opportunity to commit violent and blatantly objectifying harm and yet try to create what inevitably does not truly pass as consent, but seems near enough to the characters. Some think that the characters themselves have an interesting chemistry. Some read underage fic and still imagine the characters as adults. Some like to explore the feelings of shame that the older character must feel and how they mentally compartmentalize to go forward with the relationship, and how the younger character found themself in that vulnerable position - which is exploring a harmful situation through fiction to understand how it could play out in real life.

People who like fictional inc#st like exploring the shameful components of that taboo relationship - and I have seen a lot of works that compare how bad inc#st could be to other harms, like the Gravecest route in a game with parental cannibalism. And then there are folks who like analyzing the codependency of having one person fulfill every social need - family, friend, lover, AKA Winc#st

90% of CSA survivors know their abuser, discrediting the still-entirely-too-popular Stranger Danger myth. And shockingly, only 50% of abusers are ped0philes

That means 50% of child molesters do not have s#xual interest in children because they are children, but they victimized children because they are accessible in lieu of adult partners, with increased rates of inc#st

While there has been no specific study on the relation between dehumanization/objectification of child victims and child molesters, this study speaks on dehumanization as a precursor to adult s#xual violence.

This study, conducted on convicted child molesters in prison, showed that child molesters tend to fantasize about children while in a negative mood, further contributing to the theory that child victims are dehumanized prior to abuse.

This very small sample study found that in a mixed sample of internet only/contact crime/mixed offenders, offenders who had contact with children had lower rates of fantasizing about children.

In short, half the time a child predator is someone who wants to offend against a child regardless of attraction to the fact they are a child.

I think a lot of the energy against taboo content among young people still has a lot to do with the desire to end r@pe culture. The tools that we Tumblrinas gave you kids were snatches of leftist theory, deplatforming, and voting with your dollar, so it’s reasonable to think that removing taboo content like ped0philia, inc#st, r@pe fights r@pe culture.

It doesn’t.

R@pe culture is fought by education. Comprehensive s#x education, education about consent. Talking about what consent looks like, what s#x can look like, what r@pe can look like.

There should be more taboo content to talk about these things, to show all the shades it can look like. From a violent noncon to fics that aren’t even tagged as dubcon yet still are in shades that are hard to suss out, we should talk about it.

(AKA, the difference between "Paranoid" reading that finds all the flaws in any medium and obssesses over them, and "Reparative" reading that can find the usefulness in any work, no matter its quality)

Let’s use the example of Daemon and Rhaenyra Targaryen’s relationship in House of the Dragon. Canonically, in both the book and the show, they have a romantic relationship that appears for the most part to be positive (the show being more contentious but I will be dedicating an aside to Sarah Hess and our beef) despite an age gap, a s#xual relationship that began while Rhaenyra was a minor, and inc#st - the taboo hat trick if you will.

I have seen anti-Daemyra shippers condemn Daemyra supporters for “Condoning grooming, age gaps, ped0philia, and inc#st.” Which is not just a broad, inaccurate, and harmful statement, it’s not at all constructive or educational analysis.

It would actually be beneficial to say “Daemon is grooming Rhaenyra as a teenager with gifts, devoted attention that takes advantage of her isolation and vulnerability, frequent nons#xual touches, the extreme introduction to s#xuality in the brothel visit,” etc etc. And even so, it is not useful to say that people cannot still ship the relationship and acknowledge those aspects. They might want to further explore the issues of consent in their dynamic in fiction, they may want to strip away some of them with narrative reimagining. Some might want to ignore the taboos completely and indulge in the fantasy entirely, and some might find the actors hot as hell - AKA, anyone who watches the show.

In shaming those that ship a complicated dynamic, you get less fanworks exploring those taboos, and less of a discussion overall. You shut down the morality lab of fiction, and to be honest, you’re just generally a wet sock.

How dubcon fanfiction can flesh out the intricacies and messiness of realistic consent

A review of darkfic written about Harry Potter in 2005 (which, I will personally attest has never been outdone in how profoundly taboo those works were)

Interviews with 11 Self Insert writers who wrote on themes of r@pe, abuse, control, yandere, etc, and how that was beneficial to some who had experienced s#xual violence themselves

Daemon Targaryen and Spike/William “The Bloody” - what do they have in common aside from having alarmingly white hair, a penchant for dark leather, a deadly eyebrow arch, and a romantic relationship with the much younger female lead? Well, they’re fan favorites played by extremely talented and charismatic actors, and they both endure some character assassination in retaliation to their fan favorite status.

Daemon Targaryen’s portrayal in House of the Dragon was enthrallingly solid until the first season’s finale when Daemon choked Rhaenyra in a sudden burst of domestic violence, which was certainly not canonical to the book. Sarah Hess, writer and producer for the show, gave an interview shortly after that episode aired revealing that she did so to remind the Daemon fangirls specifically that he is a bad person - which is just absurdly insulting to the audience of grown ass women with fully developed brains. Daemon fans had indeed been cognizant that Daemon’s love of violence, divided self-interest, and taste for those on the younger side did not make him a good candidate for a romantic partner - but they loved his sarcasm, his daring, his actor, his loyalty to family, his unpredictability. And absolutely no one was at risk of going on a date with him.

Spike suffered a similar fate in Season 6 of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, in the episode titled “Seeing Red.” While the writer who strongly proposed that Spike s#xually assault Buffy, his kinda-sorta love interest at the time, has never been named, (I have a personal bet her name begins with some variation of ‘Sara’ as I also have beef with Sera Gamble) and probably should be as it was her own personal experience of s#xually assaulting an ex that inspired the episode, the decision to proceed with that storyline was to spread some mud on the fan-favorite’s face. James Marsters, the actor, has expressed how traumatic that writing decision was for himself and star Michelle Geller, how he knew it would be a betrayal to the female fans who loved Spike for all his established moral ambiguity. Spike was not loved as a good man - he was loved as a good vampire, who was trying to be a good man despite his worst impulses, and had been succeeding. Even the need to connect his failing relationship with Buffy to his eventual reward of a soul could have been through less out of character means - if Spike needed to establish possession over Buffy as a reaction to her rebuffing, why not try to turn her into a vampire? It’s still a betrayal of trust, it paints him as a monster - and it doesn’t throw yet another deep trauma onto Buffy’s psyche that isn’t explored in the slightest.

While I can’t understand why these two shows would try to reduce the amount and fervor of fans who are supporting their franchise out of love for those characters, it seems like an odd throwback to the Puritan belief that women are just a bit too stupid to indulge in romantic fiction, and need to be carefully guarded or else their souls will become impure. I just can’t think of any show or movie that decided to make the female lead that male fans loved into a less morally ambiguous character, to punish them for their fannish behavior.