*Trigger Warning: This article features sensitive content, including written references to child sexual abuse, sexual assault, and rape.
Last month, a 14-year-old boy was arrested for shockingly murdering and raping his 10-year-old cousin, Lilly, in Wisconsin. In the horrific case, the boy strangled his cousin to the point of death and then sexually assaulted her, claiming that his intent to rape and kill her was fully pre-meditated and planned.
In a key addition to the story, the boy’s father was later revealed to be a convicted pedophile who had scores of child sexual abuse material (CSAM or “child porn”) on his computer and phone. Some of the pictures found were reported to have had Lily’s face superimposed on nude images of children.
Child-on-child sexual abuse has reached crisis levels, with children often citing wanting to re-enact porn as their reasoning, either before or after the assault.
So does porn use lead to rape and sexual assault? Does it groom children, warp their sexual development, and teach them violent behavior? Or is it just a harmless and pleasurable activity, as many claim?
While it’s true, not every person who watches porn will commit a sexual crime, there are strong and irrefutable links that have been found between watching violent porn and committing sexual assault. Child-on-child sexual abuse has reached crisis levels, with children often citing wanting to re-enact porn as their reasoning, either before or after the assault.
This is why on June 13, we’re going before our nation’s lawmakers. We’ll be screening our film Raised on Porn and co-hosting a symposium on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, with our friends at NCOSE, to expose the issue of child exposure to porn as an urgent crisis in this country and around the world. We’ll be presenting our petition requiring ID-based age verification on all sites that host porn (including Twitter).
Sign the petition and help us reach 100K signatures.
The growth in violent porn, and the exposure of porn to younger and younger children, is absolutely shaping and forming the sexual templates of young people, and as the porn gets more violent, so do the desires for sexual violence.
The 5 stories below demonstrate different times porn has played an essential role in cases of rape and sexual assault, exposing the destruction that’s taking place daily in the lives of children around the world.
Each of the following stories were sent to Exodus Cry directly, with the permission to share. We actually received scores of stories revealing how porn led to sexual assault, but it would be overwhelming to share them all in a single article. Suffice to say, tragedies like this are happening everywhere, thanks to the ubiquitousness of porn.
He raped me. I have struggled with anxiety and depression ever since. He was my abuser, but porn was his.
“When I was 9 years old I went to a neighbor’s house to play hide and seek like we always did but he told me he wanted to show me a new game. He took me to his parents’ bedroom and told me he wanted to try something he saw on a movie he found in his dad’s dresser. He raped me. I have struggled with anxiety and depression ever since. He was my abuser, but porn was his.” – Felicity*
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“When I was 16 I began dating a guy the same age. Both Christians. He started sexually abusing me. He told me he was addicted to porn and wanted to act it out in real life. He’d physically and sexually abuse me in his parents’ basement. Whenever I’d ask him if we could just go back to the way things were, he’d threaten to ‘cheat’ on me by doing it to another girl. I’m in therapy now and in the process of healing. I like to think he was a good person in his heart. But since he was 11, he was exposed to videos that taught him rape was fun and satisfying. Now I will spend the rest of my life damaged and traumatized.” – Natalie*
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“I believe I was around 7-8 when my friend started showing me and my friends pornography. I was then molested by my friend. My peer. My best friend. But I was too ashamed to admit to anyone that it was happening. It went on until I was 13. As I grew, I began to send and receive nude inappropriate pictures. This continued for years and I hated myself for it. I felt like I could never escape.” – Kyle*
Sign the petition requiring ID-based age verification on all sites that host porn.
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“When I was in middle school I had a boyfriend who had a serious porn addiction and would send me videos he downloaded off Pornhub. He would tell me if I didn’t act like them and do exactly what they were doing he would kill me. He gave me an ultimatum: have sex with me by your birthday or kill yourself. I tried to kill myself and failed. He then knocked me unconscious and raped me. When I asked him why he did it… he told me it was just a kink he caught while watching porn. He said, “it’s just BDSM, look it up, girls love to get raped and threatened with death.” – Rebecca*
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“When I was 11, I had a boyfriend who was a couple of grades above me. It started out as him just wanting to have fun with sex and watching porn, recreating scenarios from the videos. But one day I went over and seven of his friends were with him. My “boyfriend” came in, took me to the other room and told me to trust him and assured me everything was going to be ok and that he loved me. He then walked me out and his friends were getting undressed. My “boyfriend” got out his phone to record and said ‘yall can start now.’ His seven friends raped me that night. After they left, he told me he thought it’d be better, and that he saw it in a video. For the next two and a half years, I was trapped in a relationship where he exploited me through the production of pornography and prostitution against my will.” – Fiona*
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While these stories devastate us, it’s important to know that they don’t happen in a vacuum. Children learn violent sexual behavior from somewhere and while multiple factors come into play in each unique case of sexual assault, porn is without doubt a MAJOR contributing player. We will not remain silent while porn ravages the minds of our children when there’s something we can do to help protect them. We must act.
Every day, children are being indoctrinated with this destructive content and all while this is happening, sites hosting porn are benefitting directly off of the web traffic and advertising. But childhood exposure to porn is an epidemic we can actually do something about.
This is why you’re invited to join us either in person or online, at our symposium in Washington, DC, to educate our nation’s lawmakers. We’ll also be presenting our petition to Congress while we’re in DC but we need your help to reach 100k signatures by June 13th! We’re already 79% to our goal. Please sign and share this petition with as many people as you can for maximum impact in DC.
We need your voice in this fight to protect millions of children from the life-altering effects of underage exposure to porn!
