this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2026
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Child sexual abuse in the UK is soaring, police have said, with 1,000 paedophile suspects being arrested each month and the number of children being rescued from harm rising by 50% in the last five years.

The National Crime Agency said the growth in offending across the UK was driven by technology and linked to the radicalisation of offenders in online forums, encouraging people to view images of child sexual abuse by reassuring them it was normal.

Most contact with children happened on mainstream social media platforms, with algorithms pushing paedophilic material to people who have shown a previous interest in it.

The significant increase in every measure “really worries us”, said Rob Jones, the NCA’s director general of operations.

Leads about people interested in sexually abusing children had risen tenfold in a decade, he said, with 1,200 children a month being safeguarded.

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[–] nykula@piefed.social 3 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Having children early is a different demographic, teenagers with teenagers or young adults. Pedos are older people targeting teenagers, which I'm not sure has any significant evolutionary advantage. If anything, young women would be better off looking for young men, and vice versa. I'd argue pedos is a socially constructed phenomenon, powered mainly by power disbalance, not an evolutionary one.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 4 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Evolutionary pressures and positive selection does not care for these constructs, getting older isn't likely to decrease attraction to minors in these people

[–] nykula@piefed.social 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

While they can be attracted, without social pressures the teenagers would simply tell them to go away. An image of an older entrepreneur or a star seeking very young companions is recognized as success. Older people have more autonomy and resources than young adults and teenagers. Being an equal in a company of other teenagers is seen as boring, less cool than a teenager in a company of adults. Socially constructed hierarchies of adults over children like these add up, leading to predators not being prevented as much as they should. In case of Epstein, he was considered normal as long as he was perceived as targeting young women in their late teens as a 40 year-old man, which I think should be much more frowned upon; instead, it's being celebrated, not by evolution but by adults making conscious decisions.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 2 points 11 hours ago

These are very new concepts over the duration of evolution. Grooming has probably existed since the dawn of social structures