Note from Barb : I highly respect Heidi Olson and the work she does as a sexual assault nurse examiner. I asked her to educate us on the connection between pornography and child sexual assault because we need to know. While this information is disturbing, we can’t ignore it. A huge thank you to Heidi and others like her in the trenches with our children helping, protecting, and educating. Warning: This article contains information about child-on-child sexual assault and various themes in pornography.
Disclaimer from Heidi: I try not to use the word perpetrator when talking about children with problematic sexual behaviors, because they are victims of a predatory porn industry, their brains are still developing, and often do not understand the full ramification of their choices, and while this doesn’t negate harm they’ve caused, the issue of child-on-child sexual assault is extremely complex.
Who Are the Offenders?
When I became a pediatric sexual assault nurse examiner, I had a stereotype in my mind of what a perpetrator would look like. Predators conjure up an image of a creepy old man in a white van who lures children to him with kittens and candy. But the reality of what is happening to children is much more disturbing than I could have imagined. About a decade ago, I started to notice a pattern that many of the sex offenders weren’t old men (although those predators certainly exist), but they were actually children and teenagers (and these were instances of real sexual harm, not normal sexual development or curiosity).
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