Upgrade progress and 502s.

[Satoru]

@Pokari

Your last point—that some people reading are just as young as the characters in question, for, say, middle-school protagonists—is true but pretty much exclusively limits calling out specific readers as indulging in pedophilia, rather than the material itself or the author (I mean, middle-school published manga authors technically have existed, but...)

But, like, more to the point, I (and I think many others who have issues with the pedophilia issue) am even okay with there being, say, some fairly steamy coming-of-age mangas with middle-school kids? Stuff with the eye of a young teenager looking leer-ily at another young teenager is just reminiscent of places that we, as older humans, have been. Stuff with the eye of an adult leering at little kids is another matter. The impreciseness between that and this does not, I feel, magically make the latter okay.

And, as a interesting anecdotal counterpoint along these lines, regarding the subjective experience of the reader, I remember when (and here I date myself pretty precisely) as a kid we had some pirate subs of the Love Hina anime lying around (for I am an early-model second-generation weeb); a lot of the sexual stuff in that series flew completely over my head, even if I understood the gist of its romcom-ness. And I at the time thought Su-chan was the best-est character: She looked and acted about my age (the author claims she's older but that's standard for a loli in a harem), had awesome flying turtle and robot friends and went on grand adventures. Learning a bit later in life that she was a sexualized character (made to appeal to the crowd whose tastes ran thus), was, thus, pretty disturbing.

(There's a lot of kind-of-funny stories about how various harem series and whatnot looked to me as a kid—way more credulous of the pretenses, as a kid is, and of course unaware of lots of bits of sex culture... The most hilarious example had to be the absurdly godawful Happy Lesson (high-school kid with his harem of adoptive-moms who are also his various school teachers, a lot to unpack there, no?) which flew 100% over my head; it was just a happy family of a kid and his teacher-moms. But I digress.)

Obviously, and I'm not saying otherwise, and i agree with pretty much the whole message. My last point was just to criticize what often happens, and not necessarily in this topic, eh, when you directly categorize someone without knowing the person. (On the other hand; I've already seen hentai drawn by young people (-18)

Spoiler

Yeah... In fact, myself, since I draw, I've already done it on chars i loved and that i put in couple o/ (Ofc; they were not 6 years old, and was not with a 40 XD guy either) when i was young. (well... I still am, I'm not going to categorize myself as old at 19 XD)

, it's often small stuff, but it can happen. Especially in decontextualized images, not in a hentai frame, but just in this one of a single image). Obviously, it's not very common. But it can happen, and i understand that the person prefers to draw people their own age rather than 30-year-olds.

Again, i had from the beginning excluded drawings that look very young, eh, there I was just talking about teens / nearly youngs adults, but also categorized.

Anyway, it was just a remark like that, but I'm not saying it's going to happen often, just that it can. And as i said above, it was just to point out that categorizing people without knowing has always been a bad thing, no matter what the subject is (especially when it's someone virtual...).
As far as drawings with really young people are concerned, I just said that it wouldn't bother me "too much" if it had positive effects IRL (and no, fking no, that's not my thing, everyone.), but obviously, to prove it, it's one thing, because no matter the studies it would be that theoretical, in addition to being very often, as you said it seems to me, polls.

With that, I would stop here, since there are people who judge, or do not know how to discuss without getting angry or categorizing here. (I'm not talking about you) You can MP me, if you really want!
Have a g'day/night buddy

 

[ixlone]

It's funny cos the "anti-pedo" people are the only ones attributing "lolis" to actual little girls. The day you read loli and think little girl is the day you need help.

Us normal people just like our cute 2d and understood it was clearly a vote on manga - right down to an exact scene for one of the options.

Way to be creepy. Hope this helps you feel better:

 

[Sworld]

I don't know how to spoiler mark the reply or upload images.

 

[Yatsuki]

@Sworld
The guide to use forum codes
https://mangadex.org/thread/3

 

[Pokari]

@ixlone:

While I understand the "these are different things in practice" argument, this notion I keep seeing that it's just some weirdos associating lolis with pedophilia sort of seems to me to ignore the entire history of the term (...it's not called a Lolita Complex for its love of frilly clothing... _{Edit: it occurs to me this statement may be too oblique if one doesn't know what the book Lolita—the inspiration of the terms Lolita Complex/lolicon/loli (but also Gothic Lolita, which is referencing completely different aspects of the book)—is about. But yeah, that.}), and also much of the ongoing context of the archetypes associated with it.

 

[1sTAndy]

@bigtiddyoneesan
hm... depends, if 1 is highest then i would also say i am 2 thx to to aru kuni

 

[Zero13]

[Hayao Miyazaki: “Things like Kiki and Laputa, I can no longer look back upon fondly. I became aware these otakus are perverts too. Lolicons. These degenerate sexualize these innocent young protagonists, and now the industry is built around catering to that. It’s disgusting.”] Quote from the 2015 documentary The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness.

You guys can argue all you want in the end you still looking like pedophiles and get treated like that.

 

[Mr_Detective]

Wonder if that was a real quote, lol.

Rule 34 – Creator Reactions: He lamented that while he prefers to have female protagonists, "It's difficult. They immediately become the subjects of Lolicon artwork."

Huh. And how many even read/watch that stuff?

 

[Sworld]

Oh

 

[ixlone]

Yeah, I don't know about you but I always consider the etymology of every word I use.

Like how every time I write my name out I think of the meaning of my last name and what it means historically my family did. And certainly not just write down my name, cos that's all it is to me.

It's totally impossible to use a word without fixating on where it came from, right?

Imagine, for example, if I said loli and was referring to this:

Spoiler

Mind blowing.

 

[Pokari]

I mean, if you're going to make a straw man out of my argument / attempt reductio ad absurdum by implying the etymology is of different relevance than it is, I can do so also: It's like you're all saying "We don't understand why you all think the child rape style has anything to do with pedophilia, it's a fine art from Japan!" That's just silly.

Anyway.

Bluntly, if "loli" were so evolved a concept (etymologically or otherwise) as to only reference an art style to do nothing with age at this point, "legal loli" would not be a phrase.

_{If one's argument is, "but I don't mean the creepy pedo thing, I mean this other thing by the same name", then there's frankly still no reason to be condescendingly "confused" or "concerned" as to why people are indignant over the term.}

 

[TheMonSun]

LOL. feeding the trolls i see. Seems this whole thread has turned into a real shit show. This is why we cant have anything nice, something that could have been fun and light hearted has been turned into this "perverted" mess you see here. huh

 

[ixlone]

There you go confusing child rape with 2d art.

Anyway, locked cos this is getting dumb.