Use of the images can be abusive even if the creation of them wasn't. Revenge porn is an obvious example. Even legally and consensually created images can be used to abuse someone.

Under a broad definition of just "abuse", yes.

But "sexual abuse" is a specific thing, and socially attacking someone with revenge porn is not at all "sexual abuse".

It's a different category, just like punching someone in the face is a different category.

From the Wikipedia article on the subject[1]:

>The practice has also been described as a form of psychological abuse and domestic violence, as well as a form of sexual abuse.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_porn

This is a hill to avoid dying on.

I want to reserve the phrase "child abuse" for real child abuse, so that it gets taken as seriously as possible and not diluted. I think that is a sufficiently good motivation to stand on this hill.

I suspect there's a transformation through intent.

This does lead to poor policing (like the famous Google banning man for taking photo of his child's genitals to send to doctor story).

It appears that in present-day English people use the word 'abuse' to mean more than physical abuse. If you're a prescriptivist that may upset you, but isn't that the nature of being a prescriptivist? Does it perhaps beg the question "why be a prescriptivist?"? Aren't you, perhaps, literally standing against the world?