[nanoscopic]

Alright. This is a fair point. I go way out of my way to discourage underage visitors to the erotica website I run, and I do agree that there is tremendous sensitivity in the current era towards the notion of anything sexual involving children.

Despite that, I don't think such sensitivity is unreasonable. I do believe that children are sexual from quite an early age, and that that should be accepted and encouraged from a sexual wellness perspective, but simultaneously I think children are abused very frequently even in this era and we should continue to do everything we can to protect them from abuse.

I still see plenty of "stories of my childhood" on erotica websites, and I don't see anyone going out of their way to shut them down. Example: solotouch ( not my website, but a common example with many such stories )

Another legal example that comes to mind is the man who was convicted for importing obscene hentai manga. I personally believe hentai should be considered free speech but that is certainly not the case in the legal arena right now.

My point remains that I believe the world is very accepting of many types of erotica that I had previously thought would be highly frowned upon.

I will point out that under the miller test ( the main law concerning this in the US ), textual material that is artistically meaningful as writing does not constitute illegal writing. I myself shy away from writing any erotica describing explicit sexual activity of minors, but I still believe it to be legal if written well enough... I does though fail 2 of the 3 prongs on the miller test:

1. The average person would agree that description of explicit child sexual activity is illegal. ( fiction wise at least; I think accounts of childhood activity may be deemed acceptable by many normal folk )

2. Description of child sexual activity is patently offensive.

In the case of Lolita, for the most part, the book isn't terribly explicit in nature. It also ensures its legality by being an instance of well written fiction.

Other applicable law is "activity contributing to the delinquency of minors". So, it isn't unreasonable for something that is otherwise legal to be illegal ( for good reason ) if it is used to encourage minors to engage in sexual activity ( with adults or for the entertainment of adults )

Essentially, the world is very accepting of erotica in many forms. The world simultaneously has many laws to attempt to protect children while maintaining the general acceptance.

[buisi]

Some things which people write or draw are certainly repugnant, extremely repugnant, including some particular forms of hentai manga, and if someone were actually acting out the activities described within, then I would want them to go to prison for a very long time.

But, committing a terrible act, and writing about it from a fictional perspective are completely different things. I don't think people are so brainless as to blindly follow what is happening in a hentai manga.

Someone doesn't simply "become" the sort of person who would do that, just by consuming fictional material, and if they're using purely fictional material, it could be even argued they're actively avoiding it.

The actual risk factors for abuse (and not merely creating / consuming prohibited content) I know of are:

Some people have poor mental health. Being unable to express yourself and having to shut things in would not help. Luckily, we have many ways to improve someone's mental health. Mental health can also improve if someone has supportive friends. This could be considered the main factor.

There are people who look for substitutes for a partner and unscrupulously pick that.

Someone may be physically incapable of feeling anything to adults and only to children. A recent scientific paper said that some address their loneliness by creating dolls and talking to them to keep them company. Banning and prohibiting things might frustrate them, but it wouldn't actually solve anything, other than making it clear that they have nothing to lose.

I am sure there are other possible factors, but I don't think I have ever seen "I saw it in a book" mentioned as one. Even Dr. Seto, who is a leading expert in this area, believes that those who would abuse, are those who would have abused either way, irregardless of this content being available.

[buisi]

As a response to your dead comment, not only do they not have feelings towards adults in any meaningful sense, other than making a friend, but they actually feel disgust and revulsion towards sexual settings involving adults. In a way, it is as if their sexual axis has been inverted, and instead of being disgusted by one, they're instead disgusted by the other.

It's also not a belief. The science has put it clearly that such people exist. Saying otherwise is to deny the science. Not only can the science measure someone's response to material, but even their neuronal response to it. It _is_ a spectrum, so there are types who aren't that bad off, and perhaps, even ones who are lightly touched by it. But, the idea that it is purely a form of deviance and twisting is flawed.

There are pieces of anecdotal science (studies on small samples of people who report it helping them not have to commit crime), a country level study on crime in the Czech Republic, and expert opinions from half a dozen experts which would suggest that at worst it is neutral and at best it reduces crime.

Most importantly, there has never been evidence that it causes crime. This property has largely been assumed, and has never been tested in such a fashion, despite a lot of people assuming it has been tested and produced such results. There is an exception where prisoners wanting to get early parole / better conditions play along with flawed studies.

According to Dr. Seto, those who commit crimes are largely antisocial individuals who were leaning and moving in that direction to begin with. And that they ultimately would have reached that conclusion.

At most, I might advise putting a content warning on a site or a piece that explains that it is a piece of fiction, and that it should be not be enacted. But, I've never seen actual evidence, only conjecture, that that it could be a problem. It's just not listed in actual psych profiles.

And while I will condemn someone acting out the crimes, condemning someone for consuming / producing a piece of media is going to feel like an adversarial attack on them (which fuels in-group bias, meeting up with like-minded people, distancing, and conspiracy theories), and it ultimately just deprives them of pleasure, without any real gain (and that is in the best case).

If someone does feel it is making them really likely to do something that they shouldn't, I would strongly advise that they don't read it, and I don't feel that a level-headed individual would just run all the way to doing a crime.

As for those reviews, I would have to know what they actually say. But, people say all sorts of things when they're "horny". And critics will critic.

[Duennepaper]

"I do believe that children are sexual from quite an early age, and that that should be accepted and encouraged from a sexual wellness perspective."

wtf?

[devwastaken]

What's wtf about it? It's biologically accurate. What they mean is you shouldn't tell a teen that sex is bad and evil and their instincts for sexual contact are not bad and evil.

[buisi]

I agree with your points, but the wording in the post is very vague. If they mean teens, they should say teens directly, rather than using the word "children" which is easy to misunderstand.

[jowsie]

Did you never have a sexual feeling before you reached the age of consent?

[Duennepaper]

I did, i hadn't had the feeling to mention this in this wording on a forum like this.

Something like this goes very quickly in direction of pedophiles.

[nainarb]

I did