“But loli is addictive because all porn is addictive! If you start watching it, you’re conditioning your brain into wanting more and more loli, feeling bad when you don’t have loli, and you’ll also get bored and unsatisfied with what you have and need more and more violent/extreme/shocking content until you eventually escalate to CSEM! Also you’ll get bored with (the idea of having) IRL sexual partners/not want intimacy anymore/start thinking having an IRL sexual partner is a bad thing because then you won’t want to have a cishet marriage with 2.5 kids! (aros/aces/neurodivergents conveniently don’t exist)”
This is rightwing propaganda, which started out claiming all porn is (equally?) addictive, but a particular facet of it which often comes attached is a specifically anti-kink message.
Porn can be addictive, yes—just like sex, drugs, alcohol, smoking, caffeine, food, TV, nonsexual fiction, videogames, fluffy hugs, and Reddit Dot Com can be addictive. Porn is not uniquely more damaging just because it is sexual, and the solution to porn addiction is not to tell everyone that no one should consume porn, or to claim that the world would as a whole be better off if porn didn’t exist. The belief that sex is inherently, uniquely sinful/bad/harmful/corrupting/irresistible comes right from sex-negative conservative Christian morality.
That you believe you would inevitably escalate to viewing IRL sexual abuse content or even CSEM if you even looked at a loli says a lot more about you than it does about me.
“It’s self-harm! Viewing loli harms you, and if you’re a trauma survivor using it to cope, you’re just triggering and retraumatizing yourself! If you view loli, get help! It’s not healthy!”
Being allowed to self-harm without being coerced or forced to stop and without your consent being violated is a human right. Radical bodily autonomy means radical bodily autonomy, period, no ifs no buts. Nor is coercion/force even a particularly effective way of trying to prevent/stop someone from self-harming in the first place—aside from the distress consent violations (even in the name of saving someone from themself) cause to the individual, they also don’t even succeed in many cases. The “problematic” shipper you made a callout doc on will start shipping in secret; the lolicon you’re harassing will continue to view loli from an alt; the IRL adult porn addict you tried to shame will switch to incognito; your child who is cutting will start hiding their blades and wearing long sleeves and moving to their legs instead; the sex worker you yelled at for constantly exposing herself to risky potentially abusive/assaultive sexual situations will ignore you.
Compassionate approaches which respect the other person’s autonomy inevitably work better. Instead of trying to force them to do what you want them to do with no regard for their consent, ask them why they feel the need to self-harm and then help them address that. And if they still refuse or cannot stop? Then leave them the fuck alone apart from supporting them to the extent they agree to, because anything else you do will only make things far worse than what they are doing will.
This is the basis of the anti-authoritarian position: that in all cases imposing hierarchy will do more harm than good; not only is it unjust, it is also ineffective, and people are capable of saving themselves from themselves when allowed their autonomy and when they are in condition to do so. And that, of course, coercion is in fact the cause of most of the harm in the first place, not freedom.
Saying “get help” without the other person’s agreement to you saying so has deeply horrific implications. Currently the psychiatric institution holds a monopoly on what is deemed legitimate mental health aid. It is run by neurotypicals and backed by the state and holds near-absolute power over patients, thus the people in it most certainly do not often have your best interests at heart. Abuse by therapists, psychiatrists, and authorities in psychiatric wards is rampant. To tell someone to “get [professional] help” is to say that they should against their will subject themself to the risk of being violently abused, nonconsensually drugged, manipulated, sexually assaulted, and subjected to bigoted attacks. A double “fuck you” to every psychiatric survivor reading your comment, to every marginalized person who has decided to not seek psychiatric help because we are at particular risk of being abused and facing discrimination there.
Psychiatry at the moment is not mainly here to decrease distress and improve mental health in patients; its primary purpose is to suppress nonconformity (disordered or not), to steal your money, to funnel into/from the prison-industrial complex, to serve the interests of capitalism and the state. Thus non-disordered nonconforming traits/behaviors such as homosexuality, asexuality, transness, paraphilias, autism, resisting being abused, having been traumatized and taught harm/criminality as the only option/needed it to survive, anti-authoritarianism, and more have been/are pathologized by official psychiatric manuals and professionals who wish to “cure” us despite us not having anything actually wrong with us.
You are promoting that practice by claiming that any one behavior (which doesn’t involve others) as a whole could be considered “self-harm” or psychologically distressing to ourselves and thus should be “cured” against our will. You are like every neurotypical or psychiatrist who has told us that any of the above listed traits should be conversion-therapied away. You do not know our minds better than us; your assumptions do not erase our own lived experiences. Numerous survivors have reported being unaffected or even hugely helped by “problematic” fiction and art. Do not fucking try the condescending gaslighting psych bullshit of but you are actually distressed, you just don’t know it, I know you better than yourself, you can’t trust your own perceptions. We all know where that will lead.
Different people cope in different ways. What’s triggering to you might not be triggering to a different survivor with similar trauma. Survivors can be triggered by anything, from nonfictional or “respectful” mentions of sexual assault all the way to certain colors, items, furniture etc. And that’s okay; we can all accept our differences, learn how to curate our online content experiences so we can avoid our triggers without telling others to not post what they want to post, and work through those triggers with support/in therapy. “But consuming loli makes people more likely to sexually abuse children!”
The few stats we have so far say nope. “But [insert exact description of Pavlovian conditioning]! Like for example, if you do too much CNC/ageplay or violence a sex doll too many times you’ll make it easier for yourself to abuse someone IRL!”
“Are you sure? But fiction affects reality! Why wouldn’t someone start believing something is okay if they consume enough media romanticizing it? Isn’t that how the effect of implicit bias shown in fiction or propaganda work?”
Very few people are saying fiction doesn’t affect reality at all: only that it does not affect reality the way you think it does.
In the current era of increasing CSA survivor awareness, most of the people who end up clicking on loli art which depicts (what is usually considered) sexual abuse as good/desirable/moral in its fictional context are still going to remain aware that it is wrong if their moral/ethical convictions against abuse are strong enough. Even if they’re not sure about their stance, that still does not mean they will end up sexually abusing others in real life, as there are more factors involved in that than just watching loli. Pro-abuse beliefs are not caused in any significant part by exposure to art, but rather by societal indoctrination, by a pro-abuse culture (centered around IRL discourse and everyday behavior, not fictional art). Many or most abuse supporters have never once seen a loli or read a NSFW fanfic. A comprehensive analysis of CSA will take into account that it is primarily an effect of hierarchy.
It is necessary here to separate intent and impact. For example, an author may believe abuse is okay in real life and write fiction to reflect or even promote that, yet a reader might walk away from that believing they intended to depict it as wrong, having learned that abuse is bad rather than good, etc. because interpretation is subjective and individual, and an author’s intended reading is not always the reader’s. Likewise, an author may be firmly anti-abuse and write a story which they believe depicts abuse as bad and wrong and harmful, yet someone in some cases might read that and come out with the idea that the depicted abuse was good and okay, actually.
On sites like AO3 with a heavy culture of recognizing this and trying to mitigate it, authors do things like tagging a story as “rape”/“abuse” or sometimes even writing in-depth disclaimers to explain that in real life the depicted events would be wrong, to signal to their audience what their intent is so that there is no confusion. Encouraging more tagging, more content warnings, more disclaimers, and for more readers to ask if they are confused about IRL ethics would drop such occurrences of internalizing harmful IRL messages to almost zero (barring cases in which someone already holds strong pro-abuse beliefs and has arguments for why these authors are wrong, actually, it is okay—a whole separate phenomenon which will remain as common as it is now even if we censor art, as those people are driven primarily by arguments drawn from IRL-context discourse; art to them is only an afterthought, if at all).
But what about racism? is the obvious retort. And I would counter with, did I not already address the issue of bigotry here? I addressed rape culture targeting women (a form of bigotry against women: so, misogyny), and I addressed pro-abuse culture targeting children (a form of bigotry against children: ageism). Analogous arguments can be applied to other marginalized groups as well—for example, my trans friend’s porn fanfics depicting the corrective rape of trans people, which a lot of people got mad at despite him clearly being against IRL abuse and in fact being trans himself, and the fics being to some degree a coping mechanism.
It is much rarer to find someone who fetishizes/romanticizes/glorifies fictional racism or racist tropes while spreading antiracist rhetoric in IRL-context discourse. I still occasionally encounter such fiction/art though. Although it makes me uncomfortable and makes me far more suspicious of the artists and others sharing it, I do not confront them, because I cannot know for sure they are actually racist, and I already have enough racists to confront in IRL-context discourse who are a much more productive use of my time.
I do not want even the currently existing racist fiction by racist authors intending for it to spread racist messages to their audience to be censored. “Art is not beyond criticism” is very true, but it also means we should actually criticize it instead of trying to stop it from existing. Historical examples of the above remain in circulation today instead of banned wholesale also because they are examples of our past; they are examples of what humanity is capable of. They are lessons to be learned from, but we cannot learn from them if we cannot see what they were at all; we cannot know our enemy if all information about them is hidden from us.
A somewhat analogous example is actual nonfiction bigoted propaganda. A certain semi-celebrity by the name of Lily Cade posted a series of violent racist, transmisogynistic rants a year ago (the posts were also bigoted toward MAPs, transmascs, and nonbinary people, though with less of a focus on them). I cheered with my mutuals when her Twitter account and website from which she was spreading her propaganda were taken down. But I was also grateful that copies were saved on the Internet Archive, as I am also grateful that copies of other violently bigoted propaganda are saved there too: once their primary mode of distribution and traffic are gone, more progressive voices can take control of their narrative and the discussion surrounding them. They remain as a record when needed, but are no longer being as widely distributed to their target audience. Deplatforming hate speech, but not forgetting it exists or erasing all mentions/copies/records of it entirely.
I have also participated in the past in active discussions criticizing newly published bigoted books with clear bigoted intent and depiction. Yet even if the author somehow realized they were bigoted and the harm their book would cause (which they never do, let’s be real), I would still appreciate if a copy of their manuscript could be made available for discussion and future reference. It’s similar to how I prefer that people who made bigoted tweets don’t delete their tweets but rather attach with them apologies and clarifications on why they were wrong and how they have changed. That past racists don’t remain silent on the fact that they used to be racist/pretend they never were, but rather use their pasts in discussion combating racism right now.
Fiction affects reality, but reality also affects fiction. As more and more people become less and less racist, there will also be fewer people motivated to create positive fictional depictions of racism, and the remaining few who do will be more and more likely to have better and better disclaimers, trigger warnings, tagging systems, etc. which mitigate potential harm.
A common example is PornHub’s race categories which fetishize people of color and reflect how we are sexualized without our consent because of our race in real life as well. i.e. I’m Asian and generally read as a girl, which causes a fair bit of unpleasantry in my existence. But while I’m angry conditions of such widespread racist beliefs exist that PornHub was motivated to make the category “Asian,” I’m also not here to tell them to get rid of it; instead, I would rather combat racism IRL right now so that they might be motivated to change things on their own, and/or it is less likely that its existence will negatively impact the beliefs of the viewer.
I make it a habit to read as much ableist anti-ASPD/NPD propaganda I can maintain interest in. When those new TERF books are published, I’m going to pirate and read them too. I’m still not sure exactly why I do this—perhaps my OCPD, perhaps self-harm (because it tends to be incredibly boring), or perhaps to know my enemy better. Either way, I’m sure we can all conclude that it would be absurd to accuse me of internalizing ableist or transphobic messages from such books when I’m right there with everyone else ripping them apart on Twitter, and when I aggressively defend my identities to anyone spouting similar rhetoric.
Nearly every author right now is problematic. Nearly every book I have read so far has to some small degree endorsed abuse, coercion, or at least hierarchy. This is not primarily the fault of fiction; this is the fault of our bigoted, hierarchical, abusive society which has ingrained those values so deeply into our minds that even the most radical of us still has quite a bit to deconstruct. And I am not here to run around ruining everyone’s fun telling them they are promoting violent authoritarianism when they enjoy a happy ending which involves the hero becoming a ruler, unless they tell me that that would be okay in real life.
“But what about people really vulnerable to internalizing pro-abuse messages from media, like victims of ongoing abuse or children?”
While there are significant differences between children and adults because of trends stemming from inherent neurobiology, the vast majority of discourse-relevant differences are caused by differences in how they are treated by society. Believing, for example, that all people past a certain age or social stage are “adults” for whom a particular social role of “The Adult” as someone who is inherently superior, more deserving of authority over younger people does or should apply, and that and all below are “children” or “minors” (configured as a binary oppositional category with inherent negative socially-assigned traits such as being annoying, having unrestrained desires to do harm, etc.), and socializing them accordingly (i.e. sheltering minors because of believing they are inherently less capable) creates a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy: minors report feeling incompetent and unworldly and less-than compared to adults precisely because they are told they are.
I recently argued on Twitter that there are no hugely significant differences in ability to discern abuse between a child who has been raised never having been exposed to anti-abuse ideas before, and an adult with the same background. In fact, it is possible that an adult in this situation would be more likely to internalize pro-abuse messages, as society has had less time to indoctrinate and erase the autonomous instincts of the child.
Society treats children, adolescents, and others systematically perceived or categorized as such in an absolutely atrocious manner. We are viewed even by many self-proclaimed “anarchists” as that One Group which does not deserve autonomy, in order to save us from ourselves. Over whom authority is somehow justified. I’m sure you can see here how easy it is, then, for adult authority figures to justify abusing us. For your own good.
The average proshipper/lolicon’s reply to antis bringing up children and teenagers viewing porn or problematic fiction is but parents should be monitoring their Internet access and stopping them from viewing porn anyway; all harm caused by the above is the fault of parents, not the artist. With a dash of parents/teachers are solely responsible for giving sex ed to children, teaching them Internet safety, and teaching them abuse is wrong. Which is hilarious, because a significant percentage of child molesters is parents themselves. Teachers less so, but still quite a bit; what else do you expect from enforcers of an abusive hierarchical institution? Not to mention nonsexually abusive parents/teachers (an even higher percentage), or those who are not intentionally abusive/harmful but just plain neglectful or unaware that they should teach the above.
Our (obvious) solution is, rather than placing all our hopes on incremental reforms which will not be enough and will not happen anytime soon, to work toward abolishing the nuclear family and current educational institutions, as well as making available more information on sex ed, relationship ethics, youth rights, etc. in alternative sources such as the Internet or other media which youth might be able to access despite parents/teachers trying to keep the information from them—I, many others I know, and even more I have heard of actually received the bulk of our accurate education on the above online (as well as knowledge on how to fact-check).
“But what about all the misinformation online???”
Aren’t parents the main source of indoctrination? I feel like many people don’t account for the reality of parenthood—the same people who lure kids online into cults and bigotry are having their own kids. Parents aren’t some benevolent entity that has no impact on the child’s views and behavior. I’d rather children to be exposed to various brands of bullshit, all contradicting each other, than only one with no escape. Then they have higher chances of coming across something or someone who can help.
“You are attracted to a depiction of a CHILD. Which means you are attracted to a CHILD. Which means you are a PEDOPHILE. Which means you’re a bad person and will SEXUALLY ABUSE CHILDREN!”
- same vibes
- Materially, lines on paper and pixels on a screen are exactly that—lines on paper and pixels on a screen. They are not, physically, the same as real-life children with brains and bodies and sentience.
- Anime characters do not look exactly like real-life children; thus, people whose attractions are oriented toward particular demographics or items might be attracted to one but not the other. For example, many lolicons state they are not attracted to lolis but not real-life little girls, and at least some people attracted to real-life little girls state they are not attracted to lolis.
- Sometimes how someone experiences these attractions does overlap. Some/many GLs (an acronym for “girllover,” a term coined to describe people attracted to significantly younger underage girls) feel we are attracted to lolis for the same or similar reasons we are attracted to IRL girls. This is awesome and valid but it is still inaccurate and rude to erase those who experience these attractions differently. Exclusionism and erasure are bad.
- There is utility in having the definition of the term “pedophile” remain defined as “attraction to real-life children.” Not only is that how it has been defined in the research field for decades, but it is also how most pedophiles as well as lolicons define it. Socially, it carries a heavy weight as it refers to an extremely marginalized group; while non-pedophilic lolicons do experience some misdirected anti-pedophilia stigma, their still do not experience what we experience and cannot speak for us on our issues.
- It would still be incredibly rude to label someone with a certain identity without their consent even if they did technically fit the generally accepted definition of it. Identity labels are fluid and individual; they are not strict boxes to be neatly sorted into, but rather tools for understanding yourself, expressing your identity in your own way, and making yourself happier. Refusing a certain label is not necessarily a sign of internalized stigma. This is the cornerstone of the bi/pan idpol discourse, and much other label discourse as well.
- There is absolutely nothing inherently wrong with being an actual pedophile. Most pedophiles do not sexually offend. Attraction =/= action. Nor should people be reduced to statistics regardless; we are individuals, with humanity and agency of our own.
- Furthermore, action = / = attraction; most child sexual abusers are not pedophiles.
“I don’t believe you. You’re probably lying because pedophiles would obviously lie about not offending. I can’t imagine a pedophile being able to resist the overpowering urge to offend.”
Pedophilic offenders are no more likely to lie about not offending than non-pedophilic offenders. How do I know you’re not lying about not offending?
Pedophilic attractions work similarly to gender-based orientations, except the target demographic of attraction is an age group rather than a gender group. It is usually present without overpowering “urges,” just as heterosexual men exclusively attracted to adults do not generally have “overpowering urges” to have sex with every woman they’re attracted to, and are perfectly capable of not pursuing or raping a woman who has rejected them.
Furthermore, having overpowering urges do not necessarily mean one will inevitably act on them either, nor do most people who abuse others have overpowering urges or fantasies to do so—as has been repeatedly asserted above, abuse is primarily a result of pro-abuse culture and hierarchy, not innate characteristics; people who struggle with strong impulses to harm or with impulse control deserve, equally, compassionate non-coercive aid rather than demonization. Particularly those of us with intersectional marginalizations here, like me and some of my comrades who are both MAPs as well as antisocials and thus face double the amount of abuse accusations.
Please keep your projections to yourself. When you say “all pedophiles sexually abuse children,” what I hear is “if I were a pedophile I would sexually abuse children,” which I find extremely concerning (especially considering that some antis are closeted pedophiles themselves attacking others out of internalized stigma and self-hatred/projection).
“But you probably are a real child abuser anyway, what are YOU doing to prevent CSA if not getting performatively outraged over pixels online???”
I do not try to convince others to let their guard down around me, because I would prefer that you remain vigilant around everyone, and not make exceptions for your friends (which is how abuse happens). Likewise, I try to not make exceptions for my own friends or idols when they exhibit red flags. I try to prove I am not an abuser through my discourse and my actions, not through empty promises. I know for myself that I am not an abuser or at risk of abusing, and that is enough for me regardless of what others accuse.
I support CSA prevention orgs. I educate people around me IRL and online when they express pro-CSA beliefs. I write extensively about anti-abuse ideals, CSA prevention, and stopping ongoing CSA in the context of anarchism and youth liberation, especially on my other social media. In previous months when I had more spoons, I have actively worked on finding, identifying, calling out, and deplatforming active child predators.
I am unfortunately only one person, and am currently constrained by my abusive parents, school, and legal systems which maintain power over me. But I try my best to do praxis where I can, and where I cannot, I participate in discussions with others about how we might go about doing so optimally.
I don’t know how many people my advocacy will reach. I don’t know how many people have changed their minds to more rational, compassionate, or liberatory views because of me. I know it’s at least a few, going by some of the anonymous asks I’ve been sent. Going by what I and my friends have said, about secretly having been deradicalized and radicalized by accounts like mine, being former rightwingers, liberals, authoritarians, antis, other bigots… I know there are most likely many more.
Maybe this means nothing. Maybe it all won’t matter. Or maybe it will—and I will try my very best to make sure it will.
“bUt iTs iLlEgAl”
Legality =/= morality. Furthermore, that is not even a particularly consistent method of measuring; laws differ wildly from location to location. Lolicon is legal in some countries and illegal in others. Where I live (the U.S.), it is mostly legal barring the possibility of obscenity laws, which are rarely applied (and when they are, it is only to high-profile cases or is subjective). Whereas where a friend lives, even certain types of NSFW fictional writing are illegal.
But laws are rarely applied equally, or even accurately. Police are perfectly happy arresting people who have not even broken the law at all, and are never fully held accountable for injustices they commit. Most in prison should not be there, even by legalists’ standards. Meanwhile, the white, rich, and powerful get away with victimizing others all the time, with no legal repercussions.
Laws are not safety. Laws are not freedom. Laws are tools of the state used to systematically oppress marginalized people. The law wants me dead. The law wants me to stop existing.
Current laws even in supposedly “progressive” countries permit many forms of abuse, including child abuse, including sexual abuse, including child sexual abuse. Nor do even illegal forms of abuse result in accountability particularly often.
We can create a better world without states. We can create a better world without their laws and their prisons.“Your analogies are OFFENSIVE! Stop comparing/equating POC/queers/lolicons to pedophiles! We get so many "groomer" accusations already, we don’t need association with you to give bigots more ammunition! You’re making us look bad!”
As a queer POC and lolicon I will compare whatever the fuck I want. Comparisons are not equations; comparisons are made because the two things being compared are not exactly the same, despite having some similarities. The similarities here are that we are all oppressed, demonized, and falsely stereotyped as abusers.
You are suffering from what is called a desire for assimilationism, a lie sold by privileged liberal incrementalists claiming if you work for reforms within the system, try to appeal to your oppressors, and throw even more hated people under the bus, then they will pick you and you will finally gain rights. That if you work hard enough, look good enough, are peaceful and non-threatening enough, vote hard enough, then you will achieve freedom.
This will not work.
Queerphobes can find ammunition in the most innocuous of statements and interactions; if not, then they can create it out of thin air. They already hate you and think you look bad and they will continue believing so regardless of how hard you attempt to assimilate, even if you do everything they ask and everything else you think they want, regardless of what they say or are pressured to say on the surface.
Do not blame the oppressed for our pain; blame our oppressors. I have tried to move away from saying that even the people whom I disagree with among our movement, such as the pro-c’s and rightwingers and offenders, are “making us [MAPs] look bad” and “causing more mapmisia/preventing us from gaining rights.” Even if no MAP had ever offended or ever offended again, we would still be hated, still be stereotyped, still be stigmatized. Bigotry is not rooted in rational fears or evidence; it is, fundamentally, a reflexive knee-jerk reaction to the different, a fear of the unknown. The retroactive justifications come later.
They have tried to whitewash our own history; they have tried to claim we queers gained what little rights we have now because of assimilation, because we somehow “proved” to the cishets that we are safe and unthreatening and harmless. That those pioneers of our movement decades ago were respectable and not actual freaks unlike the degenerate queer kinksters and microlabellers and mspec lesbians and neopronoun users we have today. They lie.
Rights are not given; they must be taken, fought for, won. Even if the state legislates a right into existence, they can just as easily take it away again. Even if you have managed to assimilate into the norm, they can on a whim consider you abnormal and “too weird” and thus undeserving once more. Thus the only path to true liberation is to destroy the state and the social obligation of conforming to the norm in their entirety.
“But even if you’re right and it’s harmless, it’s still weird/degenerate/sinful and makes me personally feel gross/bad/sad!”
No one cares.
Get over it.“I’m not changing my opinion. The cognitive dissonance is too much for me! Or I just find your utilitarianism weird and cringe or it’s just not for me, and I don’t care about facts or logic or feelings or human well-being apart from my own.”
And I will continue fighting you and your kind. But I still do hope that one day you might change your mind.
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