Crossing the Line: Factors Associated With Escalating Pornography Use

Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) offending has increased in recent years. Rather than being predominantly driven by an increase in associated sexual interest in children, this may be understood as a pattern of content escalation, from mainstream to extreme or even illegal pornography. This study examined patterns of content escalation in pornography consumption, psychosocial predictors of such escalation and their association with engagement with CSAM in a cross-sectional study with a non-clinical male sample (N = 228). Participants reported arousal, viewing frequency, and content escalation across mainstream, extreme and illegal categories. Principal component analysis revealed five distinct content escalation clusters: Dominance/Degradation, Extreme/Harmful, Non-Traditional Niche, Normative and Atypical. While mainstream content exhibited the highest absolute viewing and mean escalation, relative escalation was disproportionately observed in more extreme and niche categories, such as S&M, fetish, teen, group sex and violent content.