ayase said:
We have different views of how society should behave in terms of morality - I think it should be left to the individual as far as possible bar causing actual harm to others, and you think that the community has a role to play in shaping that individual morality. You're a beliver in the idea of a "public morality" and I'm not.
I think you have missed my point. I certainly reject the notion that I am in favour of "public morality" and all the baggage that term has. Indeed, I am in favour of legalising prostitution and all drugs, I don't believe homosexuality to be a malign influence on society, I don't believe sex before marriage is immoral, I don't believe in censorship by and large, etc. So using that term, I feel, is unfair. I do, however, believe that some things that society has collectively decided based upon morality (the criminalisation of murder and rape, to use obvious examples, the idea of the welfare state to use something a little more grey) are good decisions and I reject the idea that all collective decisions are by default bad, which seems to be your point?
We'd all probably prefer that no-one was attracted to children. It is abnormal - however, so are many non-illegal sexual fetishes and indeed, sexual orientations (to refer to the litteral meaning of the word here, not the norm, I'm not trying to insult you personally).
I have to take great umbrage and offense at your comparing of sexual
orientation and sexual
fetishes. You should know better.
I don't presume therefore that paedophiles can help being paedophiles, if you're attracted to something then there's not much you can do about that bar some kind of (eqaully unappealing) shock therapy to disincentivise behaviour. Therefore I think that it's better to allow fictional representations of the sexualisation of children than to ban them because of the very fact that there are no victims. Of course real child abuse and child pornography is harmful, but wouldn't it be better if (regardless of how distasteful you or I might find it) paedophiles had a way of gratifying their desires which did not result in the abuse of children? Well at the moment they do, and it's lolicon/shotacon.
I agree, I'm sure pedophiles do not choose to fetishise children, but those who do have these urges ought not embrace them and should not see them justified in imagery such as that Konota picture. If an individual has these urges there are psychiatric and psychological processes in place for 'treating' it and they should seek out this help and rid themselves of such an unhealthy fetish.
That's how to deal with pedophiles. We should not appease them by promoting the use of lolicon and shotacon to temporarily satiate these harmful desires.
The minute we decide to ban it we will be criminalising many otherwise law abiding people on the basis that their desires and not their actions are wrong. And I think that's encroaching too far into the realm of the individual's rights.
I agree entirely. Lolicon and shotacon are obscene and disgusting and I'm almost sure they are harmful to the individuals that consume it but I do not want to ban it. My point, in objecting to that picture, is that it should be normalised and that imagery such as that should not be on general anime forums. That hobby
is perverse and harmful and I don't want to see it justified on 'normal' sites like this. I was simply objecting to something I found massively distasteful.
(I got a little carried away which I have a tendancy to do when people are being conservative about things
I can't believe you're still saying me and Sy are being "conservative". On what planet is objecting to sexualised minors a "conservative" thing? :s
