Anything -con in japanese is a complex and almost certainly up to no good. I just checked with my wife (native japanese) and, yeah, that’s not necessarily wrong translation.
She carves out the exception for jokes with a younger partner within reason (her specific was example was a couple/few years younger in a piss-take (like someone might say “she’s robbing the grave” but the counterpoint would be “no he’s robbing the cradle!” In English banter)), but it’s almost always not a good thing.
My personal take is that if it’s specifically referencing the ~loli fashion or the piss-take version from my wife, that’s probably ok. Anything else is getting into dangerous territory.
I’m a guy in his mid-40s originally from the US and not generally into manga or anime at all, my wife a late-30s japanese who is very into anime and manga.
Edit: wife searched in japanese. The -loli part in fashion comes from young people incorporating those old fashions (again, goth-loli in my example) not, as I expected, people incorporating school fashion into it. TIL. She went on to talk about how the -loli suffic in fashion was chosen. But it’s a bit out-of-scope here.
Lolicons and MAPS are both Pedophiles by any other name. Stop fuxking normalizing child abuse, drawn or not.
i don’t think this is normalising, is it? if anything the tone of the tweet almost makes it feel like they’re offended that the two things are being compared.
It is. They’re mad because they don’t consider lolicon to be pedophilia.
It is difficult to have this discussion because not many really want to actually think about it but I’ll do it anyway.
I guess the main concern is about how this sort of content could coerce people to attempt their fantasies in real life. However, the subject for a lolicon is a symbol and the subject for a pedophile is an actual individual. To say that lolicons are pedophiles is equivalent to say that gamers who play violent games blowing up buildings or slashing people into a million pieces are terrorists. “Cest une pipe”.
What we know is that there is no direct implication between consuming this content and engaging in criminal activity. People have different minds and respond to things in different ways, lolicon is not a predictor of pedophilia. Also, the Catharsis hypothesis, the one where people say engaging on it would keep someone from committing a related crime doesn’t seem to be true either.
This one is a an oldie, but it is a nice overview about this topic if you want to get some context:
https://www.imageandnarrative.be/index.php/imagenarrative/article/view/127/98
I think the most important point of this paper is that the shoujo depicted in such content no longer corresponds to an actual real depiction of the prepubescent and are no more than fantasy.
in THIS political climate? The president of the US is gonna go after them, lol
If those anime fans could read they would be very upset
Look, there’s a lot to criticize anime fans about including media literacy and the aforementioned pedophilia. However if there’s something they famously care about it’s the words that they have to read to understand their shows, they can definitely read
Is it not? The definition is the sexualization of a minor or prepubescent girl in anime/manga. Sounds like pedophilia to me.
Per ICD-11, pedophilia can’t be diagnosed if attraction is not acted upon or is distressing the patient. Also it doesn’t count cases where attraction is not primary.
especially in the context of an in-universe character saying it, yeah
Yeah, it is.
It has a wider variety of usage in Japanese than “pedophile” does in English, so no, it’s not always the most accurate translation. For example, “lolicon” (ロリコン) is used self-referentially, sometimes as a joke and sometimes not, in Japan while “pedophile” is basically never used like this in English. It’s also not too uncommon to use it of another person as a relatively lighthearted jab in Japanese, when in English calling someone else a pedophile (or even the more casual pedo) is a grave accusation.
it’s telling that these things are treated light-heartedly. more telling than the one-size-fits-all translation into “pedophile”, even.
But isn’t it used about people who are into sexualized (cartoon) children?
Yes, and it’s also used about actual child predator pedophiles. It’s a word with multiple senses/connotations, and one of those senses corresponds closely with the English word “pedophile” while the others do not. That’s why “pedophile” is not always the correct translation for it – though whether it’s correct in this case I can’t say, as I haven’t watched the anime in question.
If you’re into sexualized (cartoon) children you’re a pedophile, so the translation would be factually correct. That sort of pedophilia just has much less cultural acceptance in English speaking world
That sort of pedophilia just has much less cultural acceptance in English speaking world
Which is why it’s not always the most accurate translation. Part of the job of a translator is to translate cultural nuance, which would be lost here.
It’s a bit like how in English, Epstein wouldn’t call Trump a pedophile, he’d say he “likes them young”. In Japanese he could call him a lolicon and get the same tone.
How would you translate the word to best fit the meaning?
If the term isn’t meant to be so “heavy” in the original usage, and there isn’t an equivalent “light” term here, I wonder if it would’ve been better to just translate it as “I didn’t realize you were a creep” or something else that misses the nuance, but gets the intended feeling and tone across.
he’d say he “likes them young”
They already basically answered that.
Though in this context, maybe the best thing to do is to not translate it. Most of the audience is likely to know the word already.
That just sounds to me that pedophilia is not frowned upon in Japan, not that the translation is inaccurate.
Part of the job of a translator is to translate cultural nuance, which would be lost here. That’s what makes the translation inaccurate in some contexts.
That is so weird to me that a society with much more Shame basis for stuff does not shame attraction to and relationships with minors.
On the other hand I’ve always wondered when is shame effective as a social motivator to prevent misdeeds, and when does it push people to hide their problems instead of seeking help and solutions?
That is so weird to me that a society with much more Shame basis for stuff does not shame attraction to and relationships with minors.
Because what a culture considers immoral is not the same as whether they use shame to police immorality.
Ah, yes, Japan - famously not a shame policing place. Maybe I should commit seppuku for this dishonor.
You have misunderstood me…
Hence it wouldn’t be “censorship” as the article seems to use the term. Though that doesn’t really apply at all because to “censor” it would be to not include the scene at all or rewrite it to say something else entirely. Saying “you like lolicon” or even just “you’re a pervert” might be considered euphemistic but it’s not censorship.
Well no. Pedophilia is the attraction to real children and lolicon is the attraction to illustrations of prepubertal girl like characters that doesn’t even need to be sexual. There is a big difference between these too.
The translation is also wrong because in Japanese there exist the loanword pedophilia and it was not used in the original so translating it as another existing word is pretty bad.
If you’re into these depictions because they’re depicted as children…
Is it because they depict children or because they depict child like features?
By the first, technically adult characters in a child like body (lucky star) wouldn’t count.
By the second, catgirl cosplay counts as bestiality.
Things get seriously vague once you consider diverse aesthetic cores, like goth loli fashion. also technically is.
Is it pedophilia if you wanna have sex in a ballpit with your adult partner while dressed as clowns while sucking oversized pacifiers? Just asking.
If someone is specifically into child like features and akshually they’re a 9000 year old dragon, yeah they’re a pedo
this isn’t some baudrillard level type of simulacra shit, it’s literally people using cartoons as analogs to their real attractions, so yes, they are pedos.
I’m confused, are you pro- or anti policing? 🤔
lol. anti cop. ha. good catch. forgot my parens!
There is a big difference between these too.
🤣🤡
Well, no, that’s not what it is. It’s young and young-looking characters, not “minor or prepubescent”.
Mind you, plenty lolicon stuff is extremely pedophilic, namely by sexualising prepubescent characters! But lots of it is adult women that just look young and are explicitly not children in any way.
It’s more complicated than “pedophilia”, though the overlap is… Let’s say… Conspicuous.
Edit: The character likely did mean to imply pedophilia there, by the way.
But lots of it is adult women that just look young and are explicitly not children in any way.
Often mocked with the “9000 year old vampire dragon who just happens to look like a young child”
The question I always asked is: does the legalization of such material lead to a decrease in sexual abuse of children or an increase ? There will always be pedophiles, that we can’t avoid, what is important is to stop them acting upon their desires and abusing minors, to this end, would lolicon help by giving them materials that where created without harming children ? Or would it empower them to harm children ?
I agree with you, as long as no real child is involved, nobody got hurt, so I don’t care. And I also think having a fictional pressure release is preferable to a real one.
But that is not really the topic here. This is about the term lolicon and how a lot of pedophiles hide behind that term. In my opinion the translation in the picture is correct. That has nothing to do with censorship, as the tweet tries to portray it as.
The hard answer is: both
There are some people for whom such material would inspire actuating on their fantasies, and for others, act like a pressure release valve.
The real question is: in a utilitarian sense, does it reliably produce less suffering?
Wasn’t there a study done about how rates of sexual assault dropped in counties in proportion to home internet access, when the internet was becoming a thing? The hypothesis being, giving violent people access to free internet porn reduced their desire to assault others quite so much. I feel like this could generalize?
I’m sure there’s a case to be made, and my intuitions map yours, as I remember another study suggesting that countries with legal access to sex workers reduces incidences of sexual assault.
However, we know of opposing psychological frameworks like the porn desensitisation pipeline, and seeking increasingly hardcore porn over time.
Thats not to imply that exposure to porn is turning people into pedophiles, but there are a subset of people who are predisposed to reckless behaviour, and that’s not even mentioning the delusional plotlines hentai normalises about rape victims eventually loving it, and how those perspectives can influence thought patterns of those who are more suggestible.
The very same argument can be made for violence in media too though. imo it’s the exact same discussion as “do video games cause violence”
It’d seem that there isn’t really that much research in this area. This is the only article I could find directly related to child SA, with a helpful conclusion:
In this work, we have established how people with attractions to children are seeking sexual satisfaction using a range of different forms of FSM depicting children. We found no evidence that engaging with sexual fantasy and various forms of FSM was associated with variance in self-reported willingness to engage in sexual offences involving children, despite substantial numbers in our sample expressing a willingness to engage in these behaviours. Instead, we found that those who were more sexually satisfied reported a lower level of willingness to engage in such behaviours, while those who held offence-supportive beliefs reported a higher willingness. We urge researchers and clinicians to use our work as a springboard for further studies on the pursuit of sexual satisfaction, the addressing of sexual frustration. All of this should be conducted within the context of reducing potential risk, while encouraging a more evidence-informed social conversation about the importance of sexuality considerations in this area.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19419899.2026.2619511#d1e4039
Though I think that banning lolicon drawings would just make pedophiles go and consume actual child pornography, which is arguably worse.
Makes sense. As a clinical psychologist I am often frustrated by the lack of proper research done of pedophiles, I get it that is a very sensitive and disgusting matter for the population but we need data to identify and help this people before they commit crimes, just pretending they don’t exist and waiting for the crime to happen is not helping anyone.
You can’t exactly have a scientific test to see if the loli test group diddles more kids than the control group.
I really hope you understand why. That “data” you’re referring to is adults having sex with children. “Research” in this context involves adults allowing other adults to have sex with children so we can ask them questions about it.
The linked study doesn’t feature any children being harmed, and there are plenty of ways to safely study the dark sides of the human psyche indirectly. Psychology research is often done in this way, as even acceptable behavior is difficult to study directly, since people often act differently when they know they’re being examined.
There’s a lot of research being done about the president of the USA tho
I dont know if that will give you any usefull data though. His narcissism and dementia might make it hard to know what behaviours are due to pedophilia.
Though those symptoms might be related.
They have an island-worth of resource to study!
There is also a study of how availability of porn in general affected sex crime after the 1989 revolution in Czechoslovakia. Tl;dr aside from an uptick right after (which can be attributed to the country no longer being a police state) both child abuse and rape dropped, while other violent crime has not.
Obviously
At best, I imagine it would be like being addicted to cigarettes but only having a fruity vape. Yeah, it’ll get the monkey of your back, but it isn’t truly satisfying, and the second you can have what you really want, you’re going for it.
The difference is, a smoker can quit, but a pedophile will always be a pedophile.
Sadly there doesn’t seem to be any reputable studies in this field - probably because it’s super controversial to begin with.
On one hand you have people saying - rightfully so - that such media should be restricted, because even though some argue (without proof) that it reduces harm, it also enables the core behaviour of sexualising children to be socially acceptable because “oh it’s just a drawing”.
(mind you it’s important to distinguish a very similar argument from furries - furries are often claimed to be zoophiles, however an overwhelming majority of furries are against bestiality, and doesn’t even sexualise their characters, which are usually anthropic - human shaped with animal physical characteristics - and sapient, therefore able to consent. A child, regardless if they’re real or drawn, cannot consent).
On the other hand, some claim that it reduces harm by “disarming” paedos. Obviously those opposing then claim that no, it’s actually harmful, because just jerking off to drawings won’t be enough for most, and slippery slope fallacy ensue, they’ll be gone from jerking to drawings, to kidnapping and raping children.
Again the problem is we don’t have any data supporting either way. In my opinion, it could go either way, it heavily depends on the person, and without a thorough study, but that study wouldn’t be ethical to conduct because of the potential of endangering children one way or another…
And of course the moment one tries to debate for “on the other hand”, that person will be labelled a paedophile, rightfully so, as they’re literally campaigning for the legalisation of children’s sexualisation in their specific way… which, at the end of the day, is paedophilia.
On one hand you have people saying - rightfully so - that such media should be restricted, because even though some argue (without proof) that it reduces harm
Personally I think in a free society something should be legal by default, unless it is proven to cause harm, not the other way around like you suggest.
that person will be labelled a paedophile, rightfully so…
And I think this kind of mindset is poison to democracy
it also enables the core behaviour of sexualising children to be socially acceptable because “oh it’s just a drawing”.
By your logic, people shouldn’t play Call of Duty either because it enables the core behavior of shooting people with guns to be socially acceptable because “oh it’s just a video game”.
By your logic, any movie or book depicting any illegal act shouldn’t exist because it would “enable the core behavior to be socially acceptable”.
Sorry, that one doesn’t hold water for me.
It’d be useless as a way to satiate pedophiles if they aren’t even into it.
If the often stated things about pedophilia being more of a mental illness and mainly about power, then I’m curious how much overlap there is between people who are into anime lolis and “actual” pedophiles. Is that Venn diagram basically a circle, or is there little overlap? I suspect it’s closer to the minimal overlap end and lolis are like other people who are into more extreme fetishes in fantasy but not reality.
Not sure how you’d go about figuring this out though.
I think help, because they would like the drawings more and more and the real deal less and less.
You see people who are obsessed with anime, be super attracted to anime characters and little to no attraction to real women.
Interesting take, but again, we need real empirical data wich unfortunately doesn’t exist on this subject.
And how would, everyone related to that is worried about their life…
I doubt anyone can effectively make studies on people without endagering them, recording them identifying them and as such making them extremely uncomfortable and scared shitless.
And even for lolicons its hard and illegal in some places including my country, the sexualization, lewdness as in many loli animes it is, not to mention loli hentai
Yes its true, but we as a society need to learn the distinction between a pedophile and a child abuser, they are often one and the same but sometimes not. Pedophiles are people who are mentally ill, child abusers are criminals. There are pedophiles who recognize their desires are monstrous and choose never to act upon them. I believe there is even a website to provide group community anonymous mental health help to this people, I think is called pedophiles with virtue if I am not mistaken.
distinction between a pedophile and a child abuser, they are often one and the same but sometimes not
Actually its the other way around???
Most abused kids havent been abused by a pedophile at all. Please find studies about this before speaking something as important.
I think its the same circular argument about guns in video games, does running around GTA shooting everyone give someone their “fix” or will it encourage them to go do it for real?
If the fake stuff gives people their “fix”, then so be it. Anyone that harms a real child can have their 2nd head publicly removed to discourage others. Not sure what to do if they don’t have that part, but a punishment like that will never happen so not gonna think to hard about it.
Problem with your “solution” is that it’s reactive. “anyone that harms a real child can have their 2nd head publicly removed” - that doesn’t help the child that was raped, doesn’t prevent future cases, and so on. Reactive punishments simply don’t work, because there’s diminishing returns when it comes to the layer of society that the law is required because of…
Proactive handling is the ideal solution - destigmatise the issue, while still punishing the act itself. Being attracted to children isn’t the (criminal) problem, acting on that and raping children is. But to resolve that you need to treat the source of the problem, the attraction itself. Which means people need to be comfortable to admit it to a medical professional, and receive appropriate help for it.
You’re not wrong. There definitely needs to be proactive solutions/help, but punishment should not be a slap on the wrist. We can push for the proactive solutions, while keeping the reactive solutions available.
People need to be held accountable for their actions, raping anyone should result in something more than a “do not hire list”. Body disfigurement is probably a bit too inhumane…really should just kill them and be done with it - and I say that as someone who doesn’t support death penalty. Problem is false accusations, gonna need something more then a he said/she said argument to do anything. And gathering evidence is not easy, its not like the victims knew to call a camera crew ahead of time. (In case its not clear I’m talking about adult victims in the last few sentencee. There are plenty of situations were it’s not clear what happened).
Well, they’re not wrong…
True
Sankaku is funny for all the wrong reasons. I remember when Free! came out and they were absolutely seething that KyoAni was catering to women for once instead of them.
EDIT: okay, seriously now read past the following 1st sentence
Lolicons are not really pedophiles.
Even with anime fans, you usually see them prefer anime characters increasingly the more they consome anime (or hentai)
I think the same applies here
Of course I predict that people will agree with me until 1 idiot pedophile who is an anime and lolicon fan actually does something to a real kid, and then everyone will generalize lolicons and say like “we knew it all along, all lolicons are pedophiles!!!”
You can see such generalizing cases and behavior everywher
Nah Loilcons are Pedophiles. Stop trying to normalize it, its no better than the MAP assholes.
Probably not true, did you read past the 1st sentence?
Make a better first sentence if you want to say something other than what it says.
Why wait?
we knew it all along, all lolicons are pedophiles!!!
“oh, I only jerk off to fictional underage children, not real ones! I’d never touch an actual child!”
yeah, fuck off paedo. get help. there’s plenty of psychotherapy options to curb these urges.
you need a reality check
Imagine calling anyone who slightly disagrees with you bad names
Slightly disagrees would be having a different preferred condiment.
This is literally about if I approve of sexualising children. Which I do not, in any shape or form.
You are lucky we are not face to face, you r******* f****** s********.
Ah, going from diddling kids to throwing around slurs. But just like how you chose paedo lite, you also went for slur lite. Boring 🥱
I think lolicon animes and … things related to that help everyone a lot, because they would like the drawings more and more and the real deal less and less.
You see people who are obsessed with anime, be super attracted to anime characters and little to no attraction to real women.
Now tell me thats not the case
EDIT: meant it would be better to be attracted to loli anime characters than to real kids
Help “everyone”??? Lol.
In what way would it help people to be more attracted to drawings than to real people? What’s wrong with being attracted to “women”. Women being by definition, adults.
I meant loli anime characters*
