Perhaps because it enables behavior that could eventually lead to a victim? Not a perfect answer and it doesn't mesh with how laws typically work, but this isn't a typical situation.
I'm guessing a lot more research needs to be done, but it seems possible that pornography of all types reduces the need for certain behaviors. Given society's current anti-science bent, I don't hold out any hope this research would be done or followed, if it yielded a correlation.
If, to the best of our current knowledge, porn reduces rape, that is equivalent to saying that its absence increases rape. So we must ask ourselves: how many additional child rapes, per year, are we wiling to tolerate, to maintain a ban on fake child porn.
Porn influences sexual behaviors. The mere fact that facial ejaculation, a practice invented by porn, is now mainstream proves it.
"Lifetime pornography use was reported by most respondents. After adjusting for age, age at first porn exposure, and current relationship status, the associations between pornography use and sexual behaviors was statistically significant"
I find it hard to get a good source on this (looking online for anything paedophilia related will mostly list activist websites and research done by activists). However, I do remember encountering some research that indicated that porn normalises the deviant lust these people feel, which is obviously bad.
There's a lot of research necessary on this subject, but very little of it is ethical. You can't take two large groups of paedophiles and let them go unchecked to measure how many kids they abuse over the years.
What doesn't help is that the general population is very much of the opinion that all paedophiles should be killed/locked up for life; no paedophile not already under treatment will ever partake in these types of research. If you show up at a random university study and come in saying "Hi, I'm Bob the paedo", you're going to be arrested.
"Lifetime pornography use was reported by most respondents. After adjusting for age, age at first porn exposure, and current relationship status, the associations between pornography use and sexual behaviors was statistically significant"
this is just another flavor of 'Doom enabled Columbine', but it's about such a taboo topic that the public somehow allows this kind of logic for this topic, but basically wholeheartedly ignored it with regards to video game violence.
much like any digital experience, I have a hard time believing that it is somehow a practicing ground.
"Lifetime pornography use was reported by most respondents. After adjusting for age, age at first porn exposure, and current relationship status, the associations between pornography use and sexual behaviors was statistically significant"
If this were true we'd all be screwed with the things we're exposed to on the internet and just popular media in general. Video games, books, music, movies, the list goes on.
