we can’t know how many also choose to escalate because of these outlets.
But we do know that in general, porn doesn’t elicit that kind of escalation into real life. If this particular category of porn did cause that, it’d literally be a total outlier.
Same with other media, too. Rape porn lovers aren’t statistically more likely to rape irl, violent video game lovers aren’t more likely to be violent irl, etc., compared to the general population.
So I think it’s pretty fair to hypothesize that, if anything, it would reduce the incidence of real-world offense. Just look at the massive negative correlation between the proliferation of porn (thanks to the Internet), and the overall incidence of rape.
Also, I’m familiar with one bit of evidence out of Japan that apparently showed that child molesters consume less porn than the average citizen, which I was definitely surprised to learn, but once you think about it in the context of the stuff I mentioned above, it actually makes perfect sense.
In all likelihood, fictional ‘simulations’ like LLMs will directly reduce the incidence of CSA, if anything. If that’s the case, I can’t oppose such things in good conscience–it’d be pretty narcissistic to put my personal disgust over even a single kid not getting bad touched.
It’s not that deep.
People want to go where other people are. A tiny minority of them are even aware of the things that are influencing your decisions. Not a single moment is spent thinking about whether X or Y is more ‘corporately controlled’ before deciding to join a new platform.