Justice Thomas too forecasted that “technology may evolve to the point where it becomes impossible to enforce actual child pornography laws because the Government cannot prove that certain pornographic images are of real children.” In his view, “if technological advances thwart prosecution of ‘unlawful speech,’ the Government may well have a compelling interest in barring or otherwise regulating some narrow category of ‘lawful speech’ in order to enforce effectively laws against pornography made through the abuse of real children.”
Why assume when there is data? The rates of child sexual abuse are about the same in Japan.
For your assumption to hold, the rate would need to be higher. The data says it doesn’t matter.
Caveat, only numbers I can find are child abuse survivor rates. But if reducing abuse rate outcomes is the goal these numbers feel adequate.
The rate might be higher in Japan specificaly because it’s normalised. If the victims themselves don’t see any wrong with what happened to them and bystanders too, then it’s way less likely to be repported.
SA cases have been seen to be heavily underepported in Japan. Upskirts were normalized too, for reference, and they had to force the cameras to make shutter sounds when taking pictures to try to solve the issue. Still, people mod their phones to circumvent it, and the demand for such content is still high, hence encouraging the practice more.