I wrote too much while replying to tj han’s comments on my previous post about this issue, so I decided to make another one.

Once again, I would like to stress that I am not a lolicon. I am disgusted by loliporn. I am losing a lot of credentials as an anti-loli activist on the rizon IRC network by arguing this case, but it’s a matter of principle at stake here.

In his last comment, he compared my argument that thoughts should not be made criminal to the education system, so I shall continue from there.

Regarding Education

Education is a different thing. If this ban was about limiting the access of pornographic material to children, then I’m all for it. I do agree that children without proper supervision can be influenced by media. That is part of education.

It can be seen this way. Children lack the maturity to determine what is ultimately good and bad for themselves and thus cannot be held responsible for their actions. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the adults to guide them and a failure to do so is a failure on grown-ups’ part. This is education.

On the other hand, a grown-up is fully responsible for his/her own actions. The government is not be responsible for and should not interfere with the actions of an adult citizen, unless such actions bring about harm to other individuals and requires the intervention of the legal system to resolve.

The Arguments

Basically the argument for banning lolicon art are as follow:

  1. Loliporn could possibly/probably cause people (who did not have such intentions previously) to commit crimes.
  2. Even if it doesn’t, it’s a bad influence for society.
  3. No harm will come from banning it.
  4. It is abnormal.
  5. It goes against nature.

What I am saying is:

  1. I don’t think so.
  2. The majority has no right to enforce its definition of whether a concept or an idea is good or bad on the minority as long as the idea itself causes no harm to others. Being offended is not the same as being harmed. A lot of people are offended by homosexuality, but that does not provide enough justification for a ban on it.
  3. Art, freedom of expression, individual rights.
  4. People are different. Any minority group is, by definition, abnormal.
  5. By most definition, homosexuality goes against human nature.

I suppose my argument is largely based on my belief, taken from personal observations, that loliporn does not breed paedophiles. I firmly believe that such a drastic ban should only be considered if a direct link between the two can be proven.

Prejudice

It’s tragic for freedom of expression when concepts can be censored for being speculated to cause harm, despite a lack of evidence needed to prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

If this isn’t an obvious case of prejudgement, I don’t know what is. And if you are going to prejudge ideas to be harmful, why stop here? Why does regular porn escape the fury of prejudice? I can similarly speculate that porn is turning millions of adult males into serial rapists who objectify women.

I think it is emotional and irrational for people to react differently to loliporn. It is completely understandable to react strongly against real child porn because children were harmed in the making of it. Children are harmed by the actual act itself. In the case of loliporn and regular porn however, no one is harmed by the act itself. The only harm is their supposed negative influences on the actions of their viewers. Yet the dangers of loliporn is but a perceived one that has never been proven, exactly as in the case of regular porn.

Pulling statistics out of my ass, I’d say that 90% of adult males on the internet surf porn. That’s surely creating a lot of rapists if I may apply the exact same arguments against loliporn. Yet the very same people who surf adult porn somehow get to sling mud at lolicons from a moral high ground. Assuming that porn does turn people into rapists, are those people trying to tell me that regular rapists are better than paedophilic rapists?

Stop Prejudging!

Admit it, people are reacting so harshly against loliporn simply because it is different from their own preferences. They are sickened by the idea that some people are turned on by drawings of underage sex, meanwhile they masturbate to pictures of women in submissive poses, because that is somehow more socially acceptable. Don’t get me wrong, I agree with you, I am disgusted by loliporn too. However, it is the right of the people to be different from what we believe to be “natural” and “right”, as long as such difference is not criminal in itself.

The only argument against loliporn that remains is that being turned on by drawings of young girls is “abnormal”. Then again, so is homosexuality.

Real child porn is bad. But if you want to argue that loliporn consisting of lifeless drawings is worse than regular porn consisting of willing pornstars, then you are a hypocrite.

Disclaimer

I will change my stance the day someone proves to me that loliporn turns people into child molesters. However, I do not believe that such a case can be established without similarly proving that regular porn turns people into rapists. It will be interesting to see how people react differently to the two even when such evidence is present. Sweet, sweet hypocrisy.

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