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We already have plenty of evidence that no, people are not aware of the difference between reality and fantasy.
My sources here are going to be limited because googling these topics is a distasteful experience.
Choking: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/sep/02/i-think-its-natural-why-has-sexual-choking-become-so-prevalent-among-young-people
Similarly anal:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/aug/11/rise-in-popularity-of-anal-sex-has-led-to-health-problems-for-women
I don't have statistics on an increase in incest irl as a result of incest in porn (and I'm not interested in doing much googling it) but it's enough of a concern that people who work in organizations dedicated to fighting child sexual assault mention is as an additional risk of the legally produces videos, aside from the cover and camouflage those videos provide for the millions of videos of actually illegal rape
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/dec/16/online-incest-porn-is-normalising-child-abuse-say-charities
There is a sub-Reddit about "incest is not wrong". How much this is real people who really think banging your full-sibling or your dad once you're all grown up is just peachy, and how much this is a kink site, I have no idea and not much interest in finding out. But like they say, whatever you can think of, it's out there on the Internet.
Not helping are the kinds of chin-stroking 'thought experiments' on philosophy sites about "but why is consensual incest wrong, you Neanderthal knuckledraggers who aren't as big brained as I am?" and, of course, contrarians but contrarians we will always have with us.
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One of my friends is a porn producer and has been in the game for a couple decades. One time I was talking to him and the whole step-thing came up, and in his opinion it's simply popular since it injects taboo into a scene without requiring anybody to do anything actually physically excessive beyond a standard pornshoot.
We're beyond saturation point for normal PIV, so just doing a quick find-and-replace in your normal script to slip in 'stepwhatever' gets you equivalent taboo value as having to recruit people to do stuff that's actually physically onerous. Also the relative paucity of large families plus the increased rate of step-relationships adds fuel to the fire.
I hadn't considered that, but yeah: with divorce and remarriage and having kids outside of marriage, it's a much more 'realistic' scenario now than previously, because there is always that faint chance the hot chick you saw at the club might be a half-sibling by one of your momma's baby daddies who moved on to have other kids with other women. So you get the taboo and the nice, naughty thrill, without doing anything "physically excessive" as your producer friend says, plus it's becoming much more relatable to the audience.
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