You’re not off base at all. Being attracted to children is not the issue here (and people shouldn’t be stigmatized for that alone). The real issue is the willingness to traumatize others just for a few minutes of pleasure, which isn’t exclusive to pedophiles.
But because this whole topic so incredibly emotionally charged, people really can’t differentiate between those 2 things, which makes any sort of discussion pretty much impossible.
The real issue is the willingness to traumatize others just for a few minutes of pleasure, which isn’t exclusive to pedophiles.
I actually remember reading about a study that was carried out on a group of inmates who had been sentenced for sexually abusing children, and apparently it showed that a majority of them weren’t actually pedophiles in the clinical sense, as in having a primary sexual preference for children, but were rather opportunists who chose children as victims out of convenience. Children are easier to manipulate both mentally and physically than adults, so that’s what they went for.
I have read a similar study about people caught with CSAM. They largely weren’t attracted to children, they just wanted the rush of looking at something unacceptable.
The real issue is the willingness to traumatize others just for a few minutes of pleasure, which isn’t exclusive to pedophiles.
Exactly, like it’s so extremely normalized for men to just reduce down the target of their lust into a depersonalized sex-thing to control and own and use for their own entertainment. This is what I think is at the heart of how reactionaries breathlessly try to draw lines between pedophilia (the disorder) and the crime of preying on teenagers, because the latter is just a slight realignment downwards from what they are already believe is normal and ok (men controlling and exploiting women), and they see hurting and exploiting people as fine but being “weird” as an intolerable mortal insult.
Also ever since the “height gap discourse” thread I’ve been stuck with the realization that the problem is not that someone being attracted to a short woman who is not well endowed is “icky”, it’s the literally everything else that goes along with projecting one’s desires onto someone who does not and/or fundamentally cannot reciprocate them, the dehumanization and reduction of a person down to just a fetish object to be taken and owned, the innate power imbalance and how it facilitates abuse and control, even the ephemerality of someone wanting to have someone for a trait that they will inevitably stop having in short order. All of these are problems with how toxic the accepted “normal” male expression of sexuality in our society is, because these are horrible issues when they’re directed at adults and they only get worse as their targets get younger, with the power imbalance increasing and increasing and the way that genuine enthusiastic consent stops even being a hypothetical possibility.
people really can’t differentiate between those 2 things,
That and the fact that an overwhelmingly large amount of people who are just “harmlessly” indulging in lolicon hentai or similar victimless art are also virulent misogynistic fascists who are actively getting more alienated and radicalized into right wing bile because it validates their self-serving, dehumanizing desires and twists any feelings of guilt or self-loathing into outwardly directed violence, all the while further conditioning and reinforcing their desires and probably tacking on a whole bunch of revolting rationalizations to it too.
It seems like the number of people who have a genuine disorder that gives them intrusive thoughts that are at odds with their ethical beliefs is extremely small compared to the population that’s just “typical shitty fascist straight guy whose brain has rotted to the point that his accepted targets of lust include young teens and children, and has become obsessed with the latter because of brainworms.”
someone being attracted to a short woman who is not well endowed is “icky”
Wait, there are people on here who actually believe this? I must have missed this lol
Like what would they expect women who are built like that to do with that information, should they just resign themselves to being forever alone because apparently anyone who finds them attractive has to be some some weird creep that must be avoided?
Wait, there are people on here who actually believe this?
That was the subject of a wild post that got linked here, uh was it sometime last year? I can’t remember if anyone actually took the side of the person in the post, but I remember it being a very long thread so it was either a slop feeding frenzy or a struggle session.
anyone who finds them attractive has to be some some weird creep that must be avoided?
I will mention that that seems to be a somewhat common complaint that women with more childlike figures have, that they have repeated bad experiences with guys who are treating them as “a legal alternative” and pushing age play on them or just being kind of creepy and as a result are immediately suspicious of anyone who’s into them.
Although “repeated bad experiences with guys” is also a normal straight woman thing.
I will mention that that seems to be a somewhat common complaint that women with more childlike figures have, that they have repeated bad experiences with guys who are treating them as “a legal alternative” and pushing age play on them or just being kind of creepy and as a result are immediately suspicious of anyone who’s into them.
Sorry, but I don’t buy this. This sounds like something that only exists on the internet.
There was a documentary (vice, I think?) with a woman with a genetic disorder that makes her look like tween. She says dating is really hard because there’s tons of creeps who are attracted to her only because she looks like a child, and the few good men she meets are always on edge about being seen having a romantic relationship with someone who looks like a child.
This is an extreme case, but all this to say that it happens.
Wait, there are people on here who actually believe this?
There’s a difference between “This is a woman who I am attracted to, and she has x and y features that you could call neotenous if you really wanted to” vs “I specifically have a sexual attraction to more neotenous women”
You’re not off base at all. Being attracted to children is not the issue here (and people shouldn’t be stigmatized for that alone). The real issue is the willingness to traumatize others just for a few minutes of pleasure, which isn’t exclusive to pedophiles.
But because this whole topic so incredibly emotionally charged, people really can’t differentiate between those 2 things, which makes any sort of discussion pretty much impossible.
I actually remember reading about a study that was carried out on a group of inmates who had been sentenced for sexually abusing children, and apparently it showed that a majority of them weren’t actually pedophiles in the clinical sense, as in having a primary sexual preference for children, but were rather opportunists who chose children as victims out of convenience. Children are easier to manipulate both mentally and physically than adults, so that’s what they went for.
I have read a similar study about people caught with CSAM. They largely weren’t attracted to children, they just wanted the rush of looking at something unacceptable.
Exactly, like it’s so extremely normalized for men to just reduce down the target of their lust into a depersonalized sex-thing to control and own and use for their own entertainment. This is what I think is at the heart of how reactionaries breathlessly try to draw lines between pedophilia (the disorder) and the crime of preying on teenagers, because the latter is just a slight realignment downwards from what they are already believe is normal and ok (men controlling and exploiting women), and they see hurting and exploiting people as fine but being “weird” as an intolerable mortal insult.
Also ever since the “height gap discourse” thread I’ve been stuck with the realization that the problem is not that someone being attracted to a short woman who is not well endowed is “icky”, it’s the literally everything else that goes along with projecting one’s desires onto someone who does not and/or fundamentally cannot reciprocate them, the dehumanization and reduction of a person down to just a fetish object to be taken and owned, the innate power imbalance and how it facilitates abuse and control, even the ephemerality of someone wanting to have someone for a trait that they will inevitably stop having in short order. All of these are problems with how toxic the accepted “normal” male expression of sexuality in our society is, because these are horrible issues when they’re directed at adults and they only get worse as their targets get younger, with the power imbalance increasing and increasing and the way that genuine enthusiastic consent stops even being a hypothetical possibility.
That and the fact that an overwhelmingly large amount of people who are just “harmlessly” indulging in lolicon hentai or similar victimless art are also virulent misogynistic fascists who are actively getting more alienated and radicalized into right wing bile because it validates their self-serving, dehumanizing desires and twists any feelings of guilt or self-loathing into outwardly directed violence, all the while further conditioning and reinforcing their desires and probably tacking on a whole bunch of revolting rationalizations to it too.
It seems like the number of people who have a genuine disorder that gives them intrusive thoughts that are at odds with their ethical beliefs is extremely small compared to the population that’s just “typical shitty fascist straight guy whose brain has rotted to the point that his accepted targets of lust include young teens and children, and has become obsessed with the latter because of brainworms.”
Wait, there are people on here who actually believe this? I must have missed this lol
Like what would they expect women who are built like that to do with that information, should they just resign themselves to being forever alone because apparently anyone who finds them attractive has to be some some weird creep that must be avoided?
That was the subject of a wild post that got linked here, uh was it sometime last year? I can’t remember if anyone actually took the side of the person in the post, but I remember it being a very long thread so it was either a slop feeding frenzy or a struggle session.
I will mention that that seems to be a somewhat common complaint that women with more childlike figures have, that they have repeated bad experiences with guys who are treating them as “a legal alternative” and pushing age play on them or just being kind of creepy and as a result are immediately suspicious of anyone who’s into them.
Although “repeated bad experiences with guys” is also a normal straight woman thing.
Sorry, but I don’t buy this. This sounds like something that only exists on the internet.
There was a documentary (vice, I think?) with a woman with a genetic disorder that makes her look like tween. She says dating is really hard because there’s tons of creeps who are attracted to her only because she looks like a child, and the few good men she meets are always on edge about being seen having a romantic relationship with someone who looks like a child.
This is an extreme case, but all this to say that it happens.
There’s a difference between “This is a woman who I am attracted to, and she has x and y features that you could call neotenous if you really wanted to” vs “I specifically have a sexual attraction to more neotenous women”
Yeah, like, if you find yourself dating someone who looks young, that’s one thing. If your “type” is young-looking women, that’s more suspicious.