Hey it’s the subject which makes absolutely everyone horribly uncomfortable and disgusted. Did you miss it? I know I didn’t! But as disgusted as thinking about loli/shota porn makes me, I’ve had some thoughts that I feel like I should say. So here they are!
Regardless of your stance on the side of the debate can we at least meet at the common ground that more research needs to be done if we are to keep it. If you believe in your side the stats will prove you to be correct.
It’s easy enough to say that violent video games don’t cause violence therefore loli/shota hentai doesn’t cause the same feelings in real people. But the sexual feelings and emotions between something that you play for fun or jack off to are insanely different. Imagine the dreadful consequences on real people if that statement is not correct.
This debate is far greater than people arguing about what they want to jack off to. If these claims were wrong, and people were genuinely becoming pedo’s through Loli/shota, wouldn’t you want to know about it? Wouldn’t for the sake of child safety you’d want to ban it anyway, even if you do enjoy it?
You can give up on loli/shota. What if everyone giving it up led to a thousand children not getting raped? I personally think it would be worth it.
You do also realise that there is no way to “ban” loli/shota hentai, yes you can make it illegal and get rid of it from as many websites as possible but it will always be online, there is nothing that anyone can do about that. It will be there, but just harder to find, and as far as I’m concerned the harder to find the better.
If it is much harder to find then most of the people who will find it will be pedophiles who want to find a way to cope, massively less new “normal” people will find it, which is good. It means that the people who are pedo’s already have a reason not to practice what they watch and far less people will be exposed to loli/shota porn creating less risk of people developing sexual urges towards children.
There hasn’t been studies to find out if people become pedophiles after watching loli/shota porn too much, and frankly subjecting people to that for a study is really unethical. It would have to be voluntary, at the start they would show the people pictures of adults and children and analyse the brain activity when they felt attraction. Then after watching loli/shota hentai for months they would show them the same images again to see the differences if there are any. A study like that of enough size and reliability would be enough for me.
I’m still open to the idea that there is no correlation what so ever, but why risk it? If it actually did cause that sort of stuff wouldn’t you want to know about it? Let’s say it’s 1 guy in a couple of thousand, that’s still 1 guy who got his life completely messed up as a consequence of it, not to mention the kids he abused.
A very long time ago I wrote a post called “The top ten reasons why anime sucks” in which I satirically made fun of anime without believing what I said. However a comment I got highlighted a genuine complaint that was pretty impactful to me. The first part is pretty irrelevant however I thought I’d provide the whole comment to ensure that I’m not taking anything out of context. Also I’ve not asked for permission but this comment is on my own website and not copyrighted so I basically have the right to use it, probably.
Yeah this story is actually so crazy, and I thank Bonsai so much for having the bravery to post it. Ultimately I never replied to this comment because it was so difficult and sad to try, I regret that now. I don’t think keeping up the appearance of an obnoxious guy who knows nothing about anime was worth it.
Anyway that sort of highlights a problem to me, and though this is just one comment, isn’t it just enough? If theirs even a small amount of incidents as a consequence I’d want to stop it.
Though I’m sure this was just her husbands world view isn’t it quite worrying that he would act in this way and say this? We don’t know if this would still have happened if loli porn didn’t exist however I think that there’s a pretty good chance that it wouldn’t.
This whole post is admittedly just talking about the worst possible scenarios of Loli/Shota hentai being freely available. I’ve not really talked about why it should be banned any more than this.
The reason for that is that I don’t think anyone is really in any position to comment on anything, we don’t have any evidence, just opinion.
Before you deny this, ask yourself if you’re really in a position to deny it. You don’t know the minds of others, you don’t know how different people react and behave towards loli/shota because you are not them.
This debate has never been about getting rid of the things you like and trying to ban your weird fetishes. It’s always been about the protection and safety of kids and it’s completely selfish if you treat the debate in any other way. You have to be willing to give up the porn that you like in order to help others.
Then theirs also that idea that the only people who would go out and abuse kids after watching loli/shota are psychopaths who can’t separate reality and fantasy anyway, and the average person is completely fine. The thing is that it doesn’t work like that; people commit crimes despite knowing that it’s wrong and illegal to do so. Most murder’s, robbers, scammers, vandals, Arsoners, drug dealers and pedophiles know what they’re doing is wrong but do it anyway because they want to.
Saying that only psychopaths would harm children after watching loli/shota porn is just false. It ignores the fact that people would do it anyway despite knowing that it’s wrong. Also it completely ignores the idea that hey, maybe we don’t want any psychopaths to get their hands on Loli/shota hentai in the first place!
Regardless of what happens to this genre of hentai it won’t directly affect me too much. I don’t watch it anyway and I’m not a kid. But I do worry about others, and until a massive and reliable study comes out proving me wrong I will keep on worrying about it.
Also I’m not saying that enjoying loli/shota makes you a pedo, because anime children are not real children. And I believe it’s massively possible for a person to like one without the other. I’m just saying that it’s probably a heck of a lot more likely for people to become pedo’s after watching loli/shota consistently for a long enough amount of time.
Loli/shota porn is not real, it’s animated. I’m making this post because you are real. And it’s real people who are effected by this. The underage child sex that takes place in the medium of anime and loli/shota might be ok since it’s not real and no real children are being harmed, but the effects that it could have on people are very real. And those very real effects could cause a lot of harm. And that’s when it stops being ok.
Also yeah the title was a lie, my opinion is more in the middle as you can tell.
My Brain Is Completely Empty 
You’re brave to tackle such a sensitive topic!
I get where you’re coming from, and like you, I’d love to find a way to stop all forms of abuse — of anyone, anywhere.
When it comes to invoking the power of the state, we have to balance the question of preventing the immediate problem against the authorization of the use of force.
In the case of murder or any other physical or emotional crime, the need’s clear: invoking the state is a reasonable use of power.
When we get into areas of expression with no clear victim, though, the situation is less clear.
We know from history that giving the state the power to regulate expression is dangerous. You need look no farther than the current US administration to see how unwise it is to give them any more discretion than is absolutely necessary.
Otherwise, instead of dealing with the potential danger of a consumer of questionable material, we’d have a case of fundamentalists (insofar as it’s convenient for a particular political party to remain in power) widely interpreting “keep the children safe!” as a hammer to wreck havoc within the creative community.
I know you get this. The question is where to fine-tune the application of power, and I’m inclined to not allow the state to extend its power to any kind of fictional representations. The historical precedent, in my experience, is just too dangerous.
But thanks for a thoughtful and well-considered post!
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Yeah brave, more like terrified. Sort of because I hoped people would disagree and provide better points to convince me otherwise.
Yeah true if anyone were to ban it I’d want it to be based on actual studies and evidence which provided irrefutable evidence and actually showed awful consequences of it.
I wouldn’t want anyone to be able to ban this/ have the power to ban this just because they want to.
I get what you mean, I don’t like our creative communities being destroyed either. And if loli/shota were to be such a big deal then I wouldn’t want them to push it any further than they need to.
Though the community being wrecked wouldn’t be a big deal to me if loli/shota porn actually effects people in awful ways.
In other comments discussions I’ve learned that people turning pedo is likely very unlikely however I would still want to be known for sure.
But yeah, keep it the way it is until/if it’s actually proven to be seriously bad for people.
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Personally I do get the appeal of hentai (especially Loli and Shota) but I wouldn’t really say we should ban it but if studies showed some correlation then yea ban it. Like you I’m in the middle but there’s one argument for it that might have a bit of weight. That’s that the content might keep some from acting upon their urges, it’s not much but it’s a possibility.
Something a bit more disturbing than the hentai is the more real version. Basically male or female pornstars who look like puberty missed them like a field goal that’s wide to the left. Like I remember a while back there was a controversy around some guy in Japan named Kohey Nishi who, excuse my my vulgarity, looks like a fucking kid. Like the nigga doesn’t look like an adult. It gets a bit more disturbing when you thow in the females who look really young and the fact theyrebeing sexualized.
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Also something else I forgot is to mention is that it might not cause a normal person to have pedophilic urges but if a person already has those urges to a degree it might make them want to act out on it and for normal people it might just desensitized them to it.
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Yeah I’d like to hope it wouldn’t just happen to a normal person, but I’m not 100% sure.
Like what if a normal person watched loli/shota hentai until the day they died? I’d sort of be surprised if they didn’t become a pedo because of it.
I sort of think the ultimate way of desensitization is to never think about it and to never see anything like it, though that’s my opinion. Even if a person has seen it and found it horrifying they still have that experience in their head which makes the idea less desensitized to them than someone who wouldn’t have thought about it in the first place. But that’s just opinion so it’s hard to debate that.
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It could be possible for someone to have those urges after a lot of exposure too it but even then I think other factors would play in. It’s like having a lesbian watch straight porn I doubt she would be out here trying to get some guys.
That wouldn’t really lead to desensitization, if they were to be desensitized they wouldn’t have much of a reaction. Like me and some of my friends grew up in some pretty dangerous and bad areas so we became desensitized to the violence, ghettoness, constant police sirens, etc because we were around it so much.
When it comes to the adults that look to young acting like children it’s definitely disturbing and makes you question everyone involved hell even if they’re in a relationship it seems a bit suspect. They could definitely do studies and it would be interesting for them to maybe compare the attitudes of say people in the West to people from Japan (since it seems to culturally fine over there) when it comes to watching it or even just their thoughts on the practice.
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Yeah that’s hard to say, it’s pretty unlikely if there were no other factors involved.
Yeah true actually, I get that. It depends on how people react to it. Like you becoming less scared of your surroundings was a good thing wheras if someone became desensitized to Loli/Shota porn that would be a bad thing as they’d see it as normal or good if they were made repulsed by it.
Yeah theirs a definite difference in Japan (Look to the comment I put in the post to see how) it seems pretty clear that those changes have happened. Though I only have background from that commenter. A good blog post might be for me to research that stuff and write it down!
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Yeah the more real version with very young looking adults has to be a lot worse for that, particularly if they act like children while it’s going on. That sort of thing should definitely have studies on it.
It would be a complete pain in the ass to ban if there was a correlation but it would be worth it.
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Fair point! However, I also see it in a different way.
I think pedos do not just turn pedos. It’s a psychological disorder and you would have to have it to think about having relationships with a child.
In fact, Case studies indicate that cerebral dysfunction may be a contributing or dominant factor of pedophilia (Scott, 1984), including problems with self-control, extreme urges, and cognitive distortions. Many experts also believe that disorders for sexual preferences emerge from childhood experiences during critical periods in human development (DiChristina, 2009). In many cases, child sex abusers suffer from traumatic experiences during their childhood. (source – https://neuroanthropology.net/2010/05/10/inside-the-mind-of-a-pedophile/)
This way, I don’t think someone would just become a pedophile during adulthood just for watching loli/shota porn. However, I do believe that most people wouldn’t be ok in watching that type of content.
Now, let’s put it into a different light. What if loli/shota porn is enough to calm a pedophile’s urges and thoughts, actually preventing him/her to go and attack some little kid? Even if it is 1 in 1.000, it is still a life which was saved and not messed up because of it. So, I would have to stand in the middle ground and say that I would need more information before stating something. For now, I think it brings more benefits rather than problems.
I prefer 1 million times that a pedophile watches this kind of shows than actual real child porn. At least, here no child is being messed up.
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I prefer that too! You’d be hard pressed to find someone who would rather a pedo watch child porn than watch loli/shota porn, since the latter is victim-less.
Thank you for linking that article. Something I hadn’t thought to look into was how pedo’s become pedo’s in the first place, that’s the next best thing to actual hentai case studies.
In a way it was reassuring to read, they didn’t flag up exposure to Loli/Shota/CP while previously being “normal” as a cause (though it would go against human rights to test that kind of thing) but it came across like Loli/Shota wouldn’t cause nearly the same effects, if any.
Do you know if theirs anything else that causes it besides child abuse? I was under the impression that it’s possible to be born with or to just happen just like the way we have no control of our orientation and preferences. Like I don’t choose what type of women I’m attracted to, it just happens,
Hypothetically if a guy was to be immortal and watched loli/shota every day for all of those years I’d find it hard not to imagine them turning. Do you know what I mean? Like just through the sheer volume of it their view of child sexuality would become distorted and their attitude towards children would change.
The time frame is important, if it takes like 70 years to happen then it’s probably not something to worry about since it’s likely rare to have the same tastes for 70 years.
But if it’s a short timeline that’s a different story.
From this it doesn’t look like it’s a short timeline though. At any rate with either answer I’d want more research to be done just to be safe. Better to be safe than sorry, even if from this it seems unlikely.
Now if we hypothetically say that it was banned I’ll re-state the argument from earlier. There is no way to remove Loli/Shota from the internet because theirs just so much of it, the stuff will just be harder to access meaning that the pedo’s who use it to cope instead of the real thing will still be able to use it but less normal people will find it.
I’m pretty sure it’s banned in my country (UK) already and It’s still everywhere because it’s so difficult to enforce. But I don’t really want to argue about if it’s already illegal or not, rather whether it should be.
Thanks a lot for saying some really good points, I sort of hoped that it didn’t cause anything – since if it did it would be pretty terrifying.
I did at first think that it was ok before thinking “wait I don’t know for sure that it doesn’t cause pedophilia” – Surely we should know before making any decisions about it?
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