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by cforrester
1907 days ago
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I'll do some more reading, but I find the concept extremely implausible. If the fictional child did not represent a child in their mind, there would be no need to seek out media featuring children. The 2D/3D attraction hypothesis you've presented would exist aside their paedophilia. |
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This statement falls apart when you correct the last word to 'fictional children' rather than just 'children', which is what it should be, unless you have reason to believe they (the majority of viewers) also seek out 'real child' pornography too.
They seek it out because they have trained themselves to see these characters as part of the world inhabited by fictional adult characters. The 'child' characters are no different to them as the 'adult' characters. It's important to note, they're not seeking out media featuring 'children', they're specifically seeking out media featuring the 2D, deformed, and aesthetically pleasing trope-based 'children' they've seen elsewhere in the fictional world. They do not view the child in an anime as a child, but as a manifestation of some child-like qualities (or perhaps not even that) combined with tropes they have learned to recognize. It's also driven by taboo taking things to extremes - such as the fascination with youth, particularly in Japanese society - much in the same way rape fetishes are taken by BDSM partners to be the subordination of women taken to the extreme in the fiction-context, not necessarily a fascination with rape itself. This is seen in other BDSM behaviours too.
This is the main point of the 2D complex. It circumvents the 3D referents and developes itself separately. Lolicon is merely a subset of the 2D complex - and in the 2D complex, "anything goes". The equivalent for people with 3D attractions would be a risque fetish.
Trying to understand the 2D complex in terms of what is appealing about people with regular (3D) attractions is almost as non-sensical as a gay person trying to understand what's so appealing about heterosexuality from the perspective of homosexual attractions.
It is more plausible that the 2D children attraction exists beside (i) other 2D attractions (ii) a fascination for youth, a fetish for the concept and all things associated with it - but no sexual attraction to children.
I say the last part because there are studies on people with youth fetishes, but not pedophilia - the ageplay community in BDSM circles simulates child sex, but is not clinically considered a subset or relation of pedophilia.