Understanding the use of child-related sexual fantasy and fictional sexual materials by people who are attracted to children

Recent work has identified sexual frustration as a potentially important treatment need for non-incarcerated people with sexual attractions to children. However, little is known about the methods used by such individuals as they seek to address this through the pursuit of a sense of sexual satisfaction. Despite a lack of empirical evidence about the use of different forms of sexual outlets, some countries are taking steps to limit the availability of fictional sexual materials (FSM) depicting children. In this paper, we report two survey-based studies providing insights into the scale and correlates of the use of such materials. We find that sexual fantasizing and FSM use are relatively common among people with attractions to children (Study 1; N = 265), with more than half of our samples engaging in fantasy thinking about children on a daily or almost-daily basis. In descriptive terms, engagement with FSM depicting children was correlated with self-reported willingness to engage in sexual offending against children (Study 2; N = 733). However, this correlation did not hold in multivariate Bayesian analyses. Instead, sexual satisfaction was associated with lower levels of self-reported willingness to offend in these Bayesian analyses, and permissive attitudes about sexual interactions between adults and children were associated with higher self-reported willingness to offend. These data contribute to ongoing social debates about the legal and moral status of different sexual outlets among people with attractions to children.