Charities Warn That 'Incest Porn' Is Normalising Child Abuse

A group of charities involved in campaigning against child sexual abuse have warned that the rise in abuse-themed pornography risks normalising the crime, reports the Guardian.

Children’s charity Barnardo’s has claimed that “deviant” pornography, which fetishes sex with children, is putting the kinds of vulnerable children it works with at risk.

This follows a New York Times investigation that found PornHub had hosted content featuring underage subjects. In response, the company removed all unverified content from its platform (the majority of its videos), but campaigners say this still isn’t doing enough to tackle the problem. A number of the remaining videos still fetishise fictionalised child abuse scenarios – even if these scenes are being performed by adults.

For example, one series that survived the cull – and was produced “exclusively for PornHub” – centred around a fantasy of adults fostering teenagers and then having sex with them.

Of course, the problem is in no way limited to PornHub alone: this kind of content is prevalent across almost every free tube site. Speaking to The Guardian, Barnados’s child sexual abuse lead said: “We know that for those who have a sexual interest in children, the normalisation and encouragement of [child abuse] can escalate behaviour. ‘Fostered children’ are inherently vulnerable and they are being fetishised here. We already know that some adult offenders find vulnerability sexually motivating.”

Unfortunately, incest-themed pornography is increasingly popular, and it’s not uncommon for adult porn actors to pose as young teenagers being abused. This risks translating into real-world abuse, encouraging the idea that children should be sexualised. Despite the actions that PornHub has taken over unverified videos, the genre is still all too easy to access.

Elsewhere, 40 victims of alleged “sex trafficking” operation Girls Do Porn have joined together to sue PornHub’s parent company MindGeek for $1 million each. The women allege that PornHub profited from videos of their abuse, as well as failing to stop the footage from being spread.