Their operations are underground and restricted. They mostly deal with known pedophile customers. Often the pornographic images are exchanged among the pedophiles through computers or through the United States mail. Once the child pornography is acquired, the pedophile carefully organizes and adds to his collection. Pedophiles will use the child pornography they have collected to seduce other children into participating in sexual activities with them.
Pedophiles use child pornography to lower the inhibitions of potential victims.
Once the pedophile seduces the child, he will often produce pornography of the child to blackmail the child into continuing their relationship, keeping their secret from others, and preserving the child s youth by maintaining a pictorial record of the child s appearance at the desirable age even if he or she has grown older and matured. Child pornography has devastating effects on children, both on those who are exploited in the actual pictures and those who view it. Child pornography places the children depicted in harmful situations including the contraction of sexually transmitted diseases, rape, assault, and torture. The visual documentation of a child s exploitation causes a sense of shame and guilt in the child and a fear that their family or friends might discover the exploitation. This fear often makes it difficult for a child who has been exploited to testify in court against a molester.