Are Child Sex and Child Porn Substitutes?

I have seen several news stories of late quoting psychologists who argue that pedophilia, sexual attraction towards children, is an innate characteristic, probably with a biological base, probably unalterable. The obvious conclusion is that children are protected not by keeping people from having that characteristic but by keeping them from acting on it.

One way to do so is by punishing sex with children. Another way would be to make substitutes more readily available. There are, after all, a lot of adolescent and young adult males who, unable to get any desirable women to go to bed with them, have to do the best they can with masturbation and pornography instead. 

There is some empirical evidence that increased availability of pornography, via the Internet, results in reducing the amount of rape. The same argument suggests that child pornography might be a substitute for child sex—less desirable, from the standpoint of the pedophile, but also a lot less dangerous. If so, the current severe laws against child porn may actually increase, rather than decrease, the risk to children.

One argument for such laws is that the production of child porn itself involves child sex—but it does not have to. Child porn could be made using adult actors made to look very much younger than their actual age, possibly with the assistance of computer graphics. It could be made using images created entirely on computers. Arguably, legalizing such porn would provide many pedophiles—defined by preferences not practices—an adequate substitute for actual sex with actual children.

But I can't see any serious politician offering the proposal. Not, at least, if he plans to ever run for office again.