Nerd Culture being slowly poisoned by acceptance of lolicon

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 10:36 pm

You know, I'm really starting to despise anime and to a lesser extent furrydom.

It seems like every year this stupid fetish gets a larger and larger hold on our fandom and it's becoming fucking embarrassing. It's getting completely fucking out of hand when sorta-mainstream shows like Ikkitousen can just parade some 12-year old girl's naked, flat chest on screen.

This pretty much gets to the roots of why I hate 4-chan.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 10:47 pm

See on the one hand I agree since those shows often produce a certain sexualization of the subject matter.

On the other hand I disagree because I think we are conditioned to a ridiculous degree of over sensitivity by the recent obsession of western culture and fiction with paedophilia.

So while I'm mostly OK with bare prepubescent chests appearing on TV I'm not especially comfortable with the whole Japanese thing where that is supposed to be sexy.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 11:30 pm

See: Nipple police. See Lago.

Also, it's a juxtaposition of innocent and things which aren't.

If you want to see something that's truly discomforting, look at the American Pageant culture, which is tons larger than lolicon.

-Crissa

Bigode · Post by **Bigode** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 11:34 pm

Wait, pedophilia isn't really discomforting, just a minor inconvenient?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 11:39 pm

See: Nipple police. See Lago.

Also, it's a juxtaposition of innocent and things which aren't.

Did you fucking miss the sexualization of disgustingly underage girls part or are you just pulling my leg?

If you want to see something that's truly discomforting, look at the American Pageant culture, which is tons larger than lolicon.

That kind of crap is deeply disturbing, but what the hell does that have to do with our Internet subculture?

For example, I can't really nor can I really bring myself to care about religious insanity over in Saudi Arabia, but when we have people doing it over in the United States it can really bring my piss to a boil.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 12:06 am

...It's larger and in the United States? And involves real, rather than imagined, people?

I just get annoyed at adults not letting kids be kids because 'oh noes, the perverts!' So I like kids goofing off. It's not even real children, it's imitation, cartoon children. Geez.

-Crissa

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 12:28 am

...It's larger and in the United States? And involves real, rather than imagined, people?

I just get annoyed at adults not letting kids be kids because 'oh noes, the perverts!' So I like kids goofing off. It's not even real children, it's imitation, cartoon children. Geez.

Even though the imagery itself is technically harmless it fosters and coddles an attitude that is not. Sort of like idiot blackface characters who loooove their watermelonz.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 1:03 am

Yeah, the pageant culture in the US is way more troubling. Hell, in Czech Republic the age of consent is seriously 14. You can have sex with a 14 year old girl and no one will even care.

The fact is that Juliet was 12 and Helen of Troy was 19 at the end of the siege (think about it). The rate of teenage pregnancy is lower now than it has ever been, because only recently has it been considered a "problem."

When I was 14, Rei Ayanami was one of the first girls in media that I noticed. I will pretty much always find her attractive even though she's a cartoon character and "never ages." That's not pedophilia any more than getting aroused thinking about your own real-life past sexual experiences is. Even though Rei Ayanami is forever 14, she's also forever "my age" as far as it matters. And getting butt hurt about it is counter-productive.

There's real exploitation of real children, and cartoons just aren't in that category. At all. Yeah, some people get all weird about it, and that's weird. But I don't care about weird, I care about harm. Lewis Carrol was a bonafide pedophile - he genuinely got aroused at the prospect of having sex with young girls. But he also never actually did anything to young girls. He went through his whole life teaching mathematics to children and masturbating when he got home. That's weird, but it's frankly heroic. If you have pedophilic tendencies and you manage to figure out how to live your life without ever molesting any real children - then good for you.

It is outright counterproductive to worry over much about people who do things that are analogous to having sex with children who never actually harm anyone. There are real people who are really turned on by kids, and if they can't get fake kiddy porn they will eventually be driven to real kiddy porn. And that is disgusting.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 1:32 am

I pretty much agree with you there, Frank. Except...

FrankTrollman wrote: When I was 14, Rei Ayanami was one of the first girls in media that I noticed

How could you? Misato is way hotter!

I do see your point though. When I first saw Sailor Moon, the characters were a couple of years older than I was. Even now that I'm ten years older than Ami and Makoto were at the start of the first season, they're still "the right age" (barring debates on "they're frigging cartoon characters" and theories of anime ageing).

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 2:01 am

It is outright counterproductive to worry over much about people who do things that are analogous to having sex with children who never actually harm anyone. There are real people who are really turned on by kids, and if they can't get fake kiddy porn they will eventually be driven to real kiddy porn. And that is disgusting.

So why can't we just cram all of the idiot lolicon stuff into its own little filthy hole and stop trying to pretend it's okay or mainstream?

I mean, if lolicon is supposed to be just an outlet for these urges, why not just treat it like an outlet by intentionally marginalizing and demonizing it rather than try to appeal to these people?

koz · Post by **koz** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 2:53 am

Because, Lago, like it or not, media is a business, and businesses need to promote themselves. Now stop raging at a perceived problem and look at some real ones.

Calibron · Post by **Calibron** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 3:12 am

I don't see why you, as a geek, can so easily put the entirety of geek culture into a single group. That's actually more ridiculous than putting every kind of music and music fan into the same group, because geek culture is so much broader than even that.

Leave the lolicon creeps in their own group, and if they attempt to do something actually illegal send them to prison. There's really nothing else to do or say about it unless you want to go so far as to start a political movement or something.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 4:22 am

Because, Lago, like it or not, media is a business, and businesses need to promote themselves. Now stop raging at a perceived problem and look at some real ones. :Tongue

Guess I'll go back towards trying to apply slap-dash fixes to 4th Edition. Now there's a real problem.

I don't see why you, as a geek, can so easily put the entirety of geek culture into a single group. That's actually more ridiculous than putting every kind of music and music fan into the same group, because geek culture is so much broader than even that.

But anime is becoming (or is) a huge part of geek culture, like alcohol is a part of redneck culture. If you don't believe me, check out TV Tropes sometime.

Lolicon is an unfortunate side-effect of absorbing anime and I simply cannot support efforts by its fans to make it seem more mainstream--even though it's strictly a fantasy the fantasy is based in something that can lead to nothing good. It'd be like heavily inserting themes of 'curing' lesbians by having a real man fuck their brains out until they see the light. If you don't believe me, read some James Bond novels.

And before you ask, yes I also think that there's too way much violence in our entertainment. But that's a much more complicated and entrenched problem, like Western culture's alcohol worship.

So let's start with an easy one. Lolicon. Let's marginalize the hell out of it.

Leave the lolicon creeps in their own group, and if they attempt to do something actually illegal send them to prison. There's really nothing else to do or say about it unless you want to go so far as to start a political movement or something.

I don't (from a legal standpoint) mind that lolicon exists, I'm against mainstream anime trying to cater to it.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 5:03 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:I don't (from a legal standpoint) mind that lolicon exists, I'm against mainstream anime trying to cater to it.

That's kind of tough, because Japanese culture's fascination with sexualizing underage girls isn't going anywhere.

koz · Post by **koz** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 8:06 am

'Mainstream' anime IN JAPAN (which is the only thing I count as being mainstream to begin with, because it's a subculture elsewhere) certainly doesn't cater to loli. At all.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 8:37 am

even though it's strictly a fantasy the fantasy is based in something that can lead to nothing good.

That's a lie and you ought to know it. Porn and masturbation are the safest sex around, and should be made available to everyone. Forcing children to use adults as the sex objects in their pornography is frankly kind of disgusting - just as much if not more so than having adults thinking of children getting it on while jerking off.

Cartoon child porn can be a powerful source for good, provided that we make it available to children. It should seriously be on TV at like 16:00 - when kids have gotten home and before parents get off work. Because frankly, that's when they are going to be masturbating or fooling around with each other anyway. Making cartoons about children having sex with each other is a great compromise - it gives age appropriate pornography to children and doesn't exploit any real children.

Statistically, we know that all the anti-pornography tirades are completely false. Access to porn reduces STIs and other results of sexually irresponsible behavior. Ad the mechanisms by which this happens are fairly obvious. People who watch a lot of porn get less sexually frustrated, so they make less snap decisions in the bedroom, which means that they have less sexual encounters that they regret. And don't even get me started about the guy in Iraq who spent an hour trying to catheterize a clitoris because he didn't know how the female peepee looked.

Yeah, I totally understand if lolicon turns you off on many levels. And when you see a guy in mirror shades who's like 45 collecting the stuff that's a clue that the guy is a creep (though not nearly so dangerous as the same man not collecting lolicon, so whatever). But the fact is that giving out easy access to cartoon depictions of 14 year olds getting their groove on with each other on national TV in the mid afternoon would save lives. The fact that we haven't done it yet is just another temporary victory by religious bigots over logical sense.

-Username17

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 9:05 am

Well, access to violent porn is known to be consumed by those with violent tendencies.

That doesn't mean cartoons shouldn't be made, but... Just like violent people like violent movies, you can learn alot from what someone likes. But that's like me watching Mythbusters and not blowing up my house. As long as the behavior is known to be inappropriate iRL, then you only need to worry about those who would've done something stupid anyhow.

And it's not like blackface at all. That's inappropriate for a different reason.

-Crissa

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 9:34 am

FrankTrollman wrote: But the fact is that giving out easy access to cartoon depictions of 14 year olds getting their groove on with each other on national TV in the mid afternoon would save lives.

Only you could say that. I'm not saying it's wrong, but that statement in and of itself must have never before been typed or spoken.

That being said, the thing about anime "14 year olds" is that we're not talking about children and we've just about moved out of "grey area. You'd probably mistake them for an adult, so you had best ask first." They have bigger breasts than the Japanese adult of your choice*, and generally have long, slender legs (crazily so in Sailor Moon) and the adult body type. They're drawings of adults a lot of the time, and are called teenagers. That's just ephebophilia at worst. But that's probably ideal for the after-school slot, as we're speaking about 14 year olds. I really can't see there being a market of "porn for 8 year olds".

Lolicon is, unless I'm mistaken, the younger stuff. Flat chests, half as tall as adults, a body type best summed up as "rectangle with limbs". Which I find a major turn-off, and the idea that there are people who like it is a bit creepy, but whatever. Seriously, it's more likely to prevent child molestation than cause it (and if we want to work on "stop sexualising small rectangles with limbs" then I'd suggest we start by thumping the childrenswear companies until they stop trying to dress real children up like tarts).

I used to know a guy who ordered the lolicon games from Japan for his PC and downloaded Squigabites of the stuff. All for personal use, but not ashamed of it. And he held stable relationships with adult girls. As far as I know, he hadn't even glanced at a kid. I could of course be wrong. But as distasteful as I find it, he didn't make me watch it so it can be just like other stuff which isn't harming people and which I don't want to watch.

Of course, from what I understand, /b/ used to/does get the occasional flood of actual child pornography. We can only hope the 4chan Party Van pays those individuals a visit and asks them to take a seat. Interpol have been getting better at finding the culprits, though - they even unmasked Swirly Face!

*Insert joke about breasts in Japan

koz · Post by **koz** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 10:34 am

The thing is, Japanese 20 year old women REALLY do look like kids. I joke that a Japanese 20 year old looks like a Western 15 year old, whereas a Japanese 15 year old looks like a Western 10 year old. And I'm not even slightly kidding here - basically the entire damn adult population of my age in Japan (especially the women) look like 5 years younger, and would be loli under many definitions of such.

Which is probably why I have met more 'jukujozuki' than 'lolicons' in my time in Japan. Like, three times as fvcking many.

Talisman · Post by **Talisman** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 2:31 pm

Koumei wrote:(and if we want to work on "stop sexualising small rectangles with limbs"...

Thank you, Koumei. That's a great phrase.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 7:05 am

I don't prefer limbed rectangles. Don't assume all Channers are rapists-in-making.

In fact, I tend to favor the... hm... curvaceous.
The Golden Ratio is your friend.
Science!

Koumei wrote:*Insert joke about breasts in Japan

There's maybe, like, 50 on the whole island.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 7:43 am

They had a televised search for the best hips (see: arse) in Japan some time ago. I was very confused - surely that's like looking for WMDs in Iraq or taxi drivers on Mt. Everest?

The people they found... well, they had adult faces, so I will assume they were 20-ish, but due to their crappy diets (which might happen to contribute to high life expectancy and a lack of obesity) they don't have breasts or generally filled-out figures.

Maybe what they need there, to tackle two issues at once, is an advertising campaign of "Adults + fatty food = breasts!"

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 8:23 am

Koumei wrote:They had a televised search for the best hips (see: arse) in Japan some time ago. I was very confused - surely that's like looking for WMDs in Iraq or taxi drivers on Mt. Everest?

The people they found... well, they had adult faces, so I will assume they were 20-ish, but due to their crappy diets (which might happen to contribute to high life expectancy and a lack of obesity) they don't have breasts or generally filled-out figures.

Maybe what they need there, to tackle two issues at once, is an advertising campaign of "Adults + fatty food = breasts!"

So you too agree that it's a consistent diet of flour and salt that does a body bad too, huh. I came to that conclusion by, well, eating ramen, rice, and bland fish for a week in a dorm
The temporary results:
Gas. Puffy skin. Grew an intense desire for flatchested underage girls with blue hair and huge eyes.

On the flip side, I have met plenty of American-Asians (and partial-Asians) with a figure to go DAAAYUUUMM about, as well as Asians well-fed on American delights that simply became like the majority of middle-aged (and disturbingly too many young adults) with an apple-shaped body and vanishing neck.

Did you read up about the new banana craze in Japan? Bananas and water to lose weight.
... or in my case, recipe for a quick and clean ralphing. Maybe that's the key.

Pssh. As if Japanese need to lose any more weight.
Fucking EAT A BEEF SANDWICH!
I blame cultural push towards anorexia far more then genetics.

As far as what I like to eat over here across the pond, I've had a diverse-veggied grilled chicken salad with light-fat dressing every Wednesday evening before my last class of the day and it's great. Double the chicken for 50 cents more, and it's a whole 1 1/2 sandwich size worth. Egg, tomato, black olives, feels like fuckin royalty compared to ramen diet.
You can get them from Wawa gas stations, around $5 USD.
I only caught some kind of stomach ailment from it once. Only once.
That's a good record for cheap American food.

As for the bold text, my Irish/English/Slovak/German girlfriend figured that out accidentally back in puberty, with a DD cup by age 13 or so. She has a lifelong habit of eating disturbingly fatty foods (along with ample greens) but genetics somehow fell in her favor, with a 30-something inch waist, D cups, and an ass that would many many Latino youths jealous.
... although sadly, she's in a hospital right now, recovering from gallbladder removal. I don't know if it's connected but that very same diet had caused her discomfort for far too many months.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 9:16 am

Cartoon child porn can be a powerful source for good, provided that we make it available to children. It should seriously be on TV at like 16:00 - when kids have gotten home and before parents get off work. Because frankly, that's when they are going to be masturbating or fooling around with each other anyway. Making cartoons about children having sex with each other is a great compromise - it gives age appropriate pornography to children and doesn't exploit any real children.

Frank, I don't believe this at all and you know why?

Because this line of thinking fucking failed to do so with violence in the media.

We know for a fact that violence on television does not cause catharsis or a safe outlet or what the fuck ever. Next to income inequality, the biggest predictor of violence in a culture is exposure to it on television.

We ALSO know that exposure to drugs like cigarettes and alcohol also lead to increased consumption of it. When we had commercials for cigarettes and more actors smoking it didn't lead to people having responsible and thoughtful attitudes towards smoking--it led to more people smoking!

So purported benefits aside, why should we think that making child sexuality more accessible to the media should cause anything but more child predation?

But anyway.

The problem with sex in the media isn't that it's there so much but because of the way it's presented--a patriarchal competition that encourages self-satisfaction over safety or intimacy. As long as this stereotype is pretty much hardwired into the media by said media then expanding the demographic that sees this stuff will only increase this kind of sex.

In this light. I have no idea how encouraging more children to have sex, safe/legal or not, can or should lead to anything good.

Like I said, if you gave me the option between curtailing media violence or lolicon, I'd get rid of media violence. But there's a much greater resistance to it in our culture; if gun control is such a loser issue that the Democratic Party can't even talk about it without sending the center/right portion of America into hysterics then there's no way we're going to be able to do something about that.

But lolicon is relatively easy to get rid of.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 11:18 am

Lago wrote:Frank, I don't believe this at all and you know why?

Because this line of thinking fucking failed to do so with violence in the media.

Apples and oranges. People will have sex. Many times in their lives. Most people achieve sexual release at a rate which is measurable on a per day basis.

Violence in the media has been fairly conclusively shown to have no effect whatsoever, but sex is completely different. People will get sex of one kind or another. Abstinence Only bullshit fails much more often than it succeeds. And when it fails, the sex it generates is desperate and ill-advised. Porn produces sexual activity as well - sexual activity which doesn't transmit any diseases or get anyone pregnant.

The lowest STI rates on the planet are in Holland - a nation that is famous for its incredibly easy and non-judgmental access to sex and pornography of all kinds.

Porn is good. The data is in, we should produce more of it and we should distribute it more freely to people of all ages. Being a prude about this sort f thing may make you feel good about yourself, but it has a real cost in real lives.

-Username17