*Warning - distressing images and content
Late last year we exposed online marketplace Etsy for selling child sex abuse dolls and body parts and called on it to stop. Many of you took action, with a number of sellers telling us they were shutting their Etsy stores down and starting up elsewhere as a result of our campaign. These actions served as a powerful statement to Etsy’s corporate leaders to stop profiting from child sexual exploitation material (CSEM).
*We've censored this child sex abuse-themed Etsy image
However the company - once best known for vintage and hand-crafted bespoke products - did not respond to the outcry. And now we have found they have no problems selling incest-themed products as well.
Our team has uncovered a range of child abuse and incest-themed temporary tattoos - available from a seller called SuperDaintyCo.The tattoos feature slogans including ‘Daddy’s little cock whore’, ‘Harder Daddy’ and ‘Daddy’s cum dumpster’.
The seller uses porn and incest-themed imagery to promote the products. One particularly disturbing image features a closeup of a female’s midriff. Candy pink shorts are lowered to expose hairless genitals and a ‘Daddy Please’ tattoo. This representation fetishises prepubescent girls and suggests child abuse is sexy.
A search for ‘daddy’ on Etsy returns SuperDaintyCo’s child abuse and incest-themed products alongside Father’s Day cards, children’s books and baby onesies offered by other sellers. It is clear that the sexually inviting ‘Daddy Please’ logo is situated in product listings as related to a child’s relationship with a father. T-shirts and other apparel with similar incest-themed messages are also available on Etsy.
Last year in our submission to the Federal family, domestic and sexual violence Inquiry we expressed our concerns about the growing popularity of familial abuse-themed or so-called ‘incest porn’:
[The popular viewing of incest-porn< is concerning given the real-life statistics related to child sexual abuse by a family member. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (2019) reported that more than 35 percent of persons who experienced childhood sexual abuse were first abused by a family member.
Just last month children’s charity Barnado’s warned that incest porn was emboldening predators and putting children at increased risk. The warning came at the same time UK expert Michael Sheath described how mainstream porn sites are changing sexual norms and likely eroding protective taboos around incest. Sheath warned that while abuse-themed porn can be legal and is defended as “fantasy”, it’s dangerous and serves as a gateway to viewing child sexual abuse material.
Etsy’s incest-themed products are an extension of a porn genre which fetishises the sexual abuse of girls by their fathers. It’s yet another example of the mainstreaming of porn culture and of corporates which profit.
These products serve to normalise incest and child abuse and put girls at risk. As we’ve been highlighting for over a decade, we cannot address the scourge of child abuse unless we address the wider culture which fetishises and profits from it.
Child sexual abuse and incest are not fashion symbols to be turned into product and sold for profit. They are crimes which hurt real women and girls.
Once again, we call on Etsy to stop facilitating sales of and profiting from products which fetishise and normalise child sexual abuse.
See also
Our investigation exposing Etsy for selling child sex abuse dolls
Belle Delphine and the eroticisation of child sexual exploitation on Instagram
<Child sexual abuse thrives in a culture that eroticises it
“It comforts offenders in their actions”: The problem with ‘virtual’ child sexual abuse material
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