During the 1960s and 1970s relatively large scale adult film producers such as Color Climax Corporation and other scandinavian and german porn distributors made a large amount of then legal child porn. This involved children that legally part took in sexual acts with adults. Is there any research or other sources done on what happened to these children in their adulthood or how this experience affected their lives?
Wait what? Child porn was legal in those countries then? Are we talking some quirk in age of consent laws where 17 year olds were being filmed or are we talking about actual kids? WTF?
OP this might be worth x-posting to /r/AskSocialScience
x-posed from my response in r/asksocialscience, just putting it here too if anyone is curious.
(Note: I do not in any way endorse this, and I'm not defending pedophiles and I'm not one of those people that tries to normalize it. But, objectively, it was a thing that happened.)
CP (child porn) was actually not only not illegal, but it was rampant. You could go into most porn stores and there would be magazines containing CP right there on the shelf. One of the most prolific magazines was called Lollitots, and it was considered "mild", because it didn't show actual sex acts. One of the articles that I read talked about a porn store that specifically advertised that it specialized in "Kiddie Porn" and it had a machine where you could put a quarter in and watch a few minutes of non-simulated sex in a movie called "PreSchool Sex". There were hundreds of magazines and movie titles easily available, and even in 1977, when they started cracking down on it, it took a long time to start to disappear from stores. It wasn't until 1984 that it became hard to find.
There were German porn distributors (one of them that I know of is the Hoffman Co), but in the 70's, law enforcement believed that the vast majority of CP was being made in the states.
Here are some of the articles that specifically reference some of the victims: (Obviously, trigger warnings). None of them have any names though, and I'm not aware of any follow up studies. If you find any, let me know!
Children in Pornography, $5 a pose: Page 1
Child Porno Stars Real Victims: Page 1
Thousands of Juveniles are used in magazines, films: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4
I think it's amazing that people don't remember that weird time in the 70's where for some crazy reason, people were totally OK with CP. (Well, not totally OK, but it wasn't explicitly illegal, and even when they tried to prosecute some people for "harming the morals of a child", juries wouldn't convict.) It's one of those things that I happen to know a lot about, but it makes for some awkward dinner conversation. I've considered writing about it, but I don't even know where I could even publish it, since the world just wants to continue to have blinders on about it.