Nine psychoanalytically interpreted narratives of Child Sexual Exploitation Material (CSEM) offenders are provided to illustrate the individual and distinct unconscious functions of the material that shapes and fuels offending. Fluid cycles of projection into, and identification with, the children were apparent. Findings highlighted differences in the intensity and exclusivity of paedophilic sexual preference. The majority of participants, seven of nine, were emphatic that they had no arousal to children offline and each described the intense excitement associated with breaching a societal taboo. This differed for those with a more marked or invariant paedophilic preference, for whom the imagery itself was more central. Anger was a marked trigger and, though participants named this, awareness of the inherent hostility toward the child in the imagery was vigorously defended against. The children were treated as functions rather than persons; as part-objects in psychoanalytic terms. This allowed offenders to disavow their subjectivity and, as a result, their awareness of and culpability for the harm caused. Psychoanalytic understanding of the defensive functions of paraphilia points to the potential of the current illegality warning regarding CSEM to spur rather than deter offending. This relates particularly to those with core complex anxiety due to their need to defy superego/societal authority Altering this warning to emphasise that real children are being hurt in the production of imagery might address the core cognitive distortion, broadly referenced in psychological, anthropological and psychoanalytic scholarship, that the children are not real. Furthermore, this change might dilute the rush, risk and triumph associated with breaking the law and apparently evading responsibility. Understanding the potential of the Internet to activate and amplify previously latent paedophilic currents dovetails with neuroscience findings on compulsive pornography use. This also offers an explanation of the burgeoning numbers of mainly men who, prior to their CSEM use, evidenced no sexual attraction to children.