The age of consent is the age at which a person is considered to be legally competent to consent to sexual acts. Consequently, an adult who engages in sexual activity with a person younger than the age of consent is unable to legally claim that the sexual activity was consensual, and such sexual activity may be considered child sexual abuse or statutory rape. The person below the minimum age is considered the victim, and their sex partner the offender, although some jurisdictions provide exceptions through "Romeo and Juliet laws" if one or both participants are underage and are close in age.
Sex and the law deals with the regulation by law of human sexual activity. Sex laws vary from one place or jurisdiction to another, and have varied over time. Unlawful sexual acts are called sex crimes.
Sexual behaviors in children are common and may range from normal and developmentally appropriate to abusive. These behaviors may include self-stimulation, interest in sex, curiosity towards sex and the opposite gender, exhibitionism, voyeurism, gender role behaviors and engagement in interpersonal sexual acts.
In Japanese popular culture, lolicon is a genre of fictional media which focuses on young girl characters, particularly in a sexually suggestive or erotic manner. The term, a portmanteau of the English words "Lolita" and "complex", also refers to desire and affection for such characters, and fans of such. Associated mainly with stylized imagery in manga, anime, and video games, lolicon in otaku culture is generally understood as distinct from desires for realistic depictions of girls, or real girls as such, and is associated with moe, or feelings of affection for fictional characters.
Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) defines the “umbrella” of crimes and activities that involve inflicting sexual abuse on to a child as a financial or personal opportunity. Commercial Sexual Exploitation consists of forcing a child into prostitution, sex trafficking, early marriage, child sex tourism and any other venture of exploiting children into sexual activities. According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the lack of reporting the crime and “the difficulties associated with identifying and measuring victims and perpetrators” has made it almost impossible to create a national estimate of the prevalence of Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the United States. There is an estimated one million children that are exploited for commercial sex globally; of the one million children that are exploited, the majority are girls.
Pornography has been defined as sexual subject material "such as a picture, video, or text" that is intended for sexual arousal. Intended for consumption by adults, pornography depictions have evolved from cave paintings, some forty millennia ago, to virtual reality presentations. A general distinction of adult content is made classifying it as pornography or erotica.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), previously known as Morality in Media and Operation Yorkville, is an American conservative anti-pornography organization. The group has also campaigned against sex trafficking, same-sex marriage, sex shops and sex toys, decriminalization of sex work, comprehensive sex education, and various works of literature or visual arts the organization has deemed obscene, profane or indecent. Its current president is Patrick A. Trueman. The organization describes its goal as "exposing the links between all forms of sexual exploitation".
Child-on-child sexual abuse is a form of child sexual abuse in which a prepubescent child is sexually abused by one or more other children or adolescents, and in which no adult is directly involved. While this includes when one of the children uses physical force, threats, trickery or emotional manipulation to elicit cooperation, it also can include non-coercive situations where the initiator proposes or starts a sexual act that the victim does not understand the nature of and simply goes along with, not comprehending its implications or what the consequences might be.
Pornography has been defined as any material in varying forms, including texts, video, photos or audio that is consumed for sexual satisfaction and arousal of an individual or partnership. The effects of pornography on individuals or their intimate relationships have been a subject of research.
Child sexual abuse (CSA), also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in sexual activities with a child, indecent exposure, child grooming, and child sexual exploitation, such as using a child to produce child pornography.
Simulated child pornography is child pornography depicting what appear to be minors but which is produced without their direct involvement.
A range of research has been conducted examining the link between viewing child pornography and perpetration of child sexual abuse, and much disagreement persists regarding whether a causal connection has been established. Perspectives fall into one of three positions:
Feminist views on pornography range from total condemnation of the medium as an inherent form of violence against women to an embracing of some forms as a medium of feminist expression. This debate reflects larger concerns surrounding feminist views on sexuality, and is closely related to those on prostitution, BDSM, and other issues. Pornography has been one of the most divisive issues in feminism, particularly in Anglophone (English-speaking) countries. This division was exemplified in the feminist sex wars of the 1980s, which pitted anti-pornography activists against pro-pornography ones.
An anti-pornography movement in the United States has existed since before the 1969 Supreme Court decision of Stanley v. Georgia, which held that people could view whatever they wished in the privacy of their own homes, by establishing an implied "right to privacy" in U.S. law. This led President Lyndon B. Johnson, with the backing of Congress, to appoint a commission to study pornography. The anti-pornography movement seeks to maintain or restore restrictions and to increase or create restrictions on the production, sale or distribution of pornography.
Sexting is sending, receiving, or forwarding sexually explicit messages, photographs, or videos, primarily between mobile phones. It may also include the use of a computer or any digital device. The term was first popularized early in the 21st century and is a portmanteau of sex and texting, where the latter is meant in the wide sense of sending a text possibly with images. Sexting is not an isolated phenomenon but one of many different types of sexual interaction in digital contexts that is related to sexual arousal.
Child pornography is erotic material that depicts persons under the age of 18. The precise characteristics of what constitutes child pornography varies by criminal jurisdiction.
The exploitation of women in mass media is the use or portrayal of women in mass media such as television, film, music, and advertising as objects or sexual beings, in order to increase the appeal of media or a product to the detriment of the women being portrayed, and women in society. This process includes the presentation of women as sexual objects and the setting of feminine beauty ideals that women are expected to reflect. Sexual exploitation of women in the media dates back to 19th century Paris, in which ballerinas were exposed to harassment and objectification. The most often criticized aspect of the use of women in mass media is sexual objectification, but dismemberment can be a part of the objectification as well. The exploitation of women in mass media has been criticized by feminists and other advocates of women's rights, and is a topic of discussion in feminist studies and other fields of scholarship.
Online predators are individuals who commit child sexual abuse that begins or takes place on the Internet.
Adolescents turn to pornography for learning amplified by insufficient sex education, arousal, mating motivations, coping mechanisms, alleviating boredom, entertainment, and to explore their sexual and gender identities. However, they may also encounter content that disturbs them. Without adequate support, they learn to navigate disconcerting material, developing the skills to seek out content that affirms their sexuality while avoiding that which causes discomfort. Without alternative narratives, they think it leads to harmful attitudes about women, sex, LGBTQ people, and people of color, and unrealistic expectations. The use of pornography by adolescents is associated with certain sexual attitudes and behaviors, but causal relationships remain unclear. It can be assumed that adolescents are not passive "fools" or "victims". The typical adolescent consumer of pornography is male, in advanced stages of puberty, sensation-seeking, and often grapples with weak or disrupted family relationships.
Cybersex trafficking, live streaming sexual abuse, webcam sex tourism/abuse or ICTs -facilitated sexual exploitation is a cybercrime involving sex trafficking and the live streaming of coerced sexual acts and/or rape on webcam.
