The Suspicious Porn Consumer: A Semiotic Study of Reports to Child Sexual Abuse Hotlines

Little is known about situations where pornography users draw the line between harmful and pleasurable online sexual images. In 2022, using unique empirical material consisting of 839 reports to child sexual abuse hotlines in Denmark and Belgium, we investigated what internet users report as harmful. We found that one-third of the material reported by these digital bystanders is child sexual abuse by legal standards. Through analysis of the remaining reports, we identified five other types of reported material: mainstream porn, age play, hentai/cartoons, abuse of adults, and exploitative images of children. These findings contribute to a more nuanced discussion of the ambivalences faced by everyday digital pornography users.