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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
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.
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.
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).
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:
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.
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.
And I think this kind of mindset is poison to democracy
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.
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).