On one hand, the anime community, especially those within the lolicon community, have a pedo problem. It’s less serious in Japan (I’ve seen some artists being really mad at those who use the “pedo” tag on Pixiv), but the west just glorifies it as “gatekeeping”, which they think will keep the fandom pure of outside influences, while they’re being infiltrated by the right. This leads to them using right wing “arguments”, like argument from hypocrisy, the whole “people who see X are the real X”, or the whole “the LGBTQ+ are the real predators”.
On the other hand, one could argue that not even all “loli” type characters are canonically kids, some real women find comfort in them (a lot of men really need certain “adult signifiers”, and seen a lot of women being harassed for not looking or talking mature enough), and the evidence trying to tie the “just drawings” to real harm is really foggy and often seem to be the same exact ones used by anti-porn activists to try to bullshit their will onto other people through the law (see the ban on “extreme pornography” in the UK, where people argued it would normalize “dangerous sexual acts”). Hell, I remember people fearing pubic hair removal will lead to the normalization of pedophilia since I remember pubic hair removal being a thing.
That one is a very complicated issue.
On one hand, the anime community, especially those within the lolicon community, have a pedo problem. It’s less serious in Japan (I’ve seen some artists being really mad at those who use the “pedo” tag on Pixiv), but the west just glorifies it as “gatekeeping”, which they think will keep the fandom pure of outside influences, while they’re being infiltrated by the right. This leads to them using right wing “arguments”, like argument from hypocrisy, the whole “people who see X are the real X”, or the whole “the LGBTQ+ are the real predators”.
On the other hand, one could argue that not even all “loli” type characters are canonically kids, some real women find comfort in them (a lot of men really need certain “adult signifiers”, and seen a lot of women being harassed for not looking or talking mature enough), and the evidence trying to tie the “just drawings” to real harm is really foggy and often seem to be the same exact ones used by anti-porn activists to try to bullshit their will onto other people through the law (see the ban on “extreme pornography” in the UK, where people argued it would normalize “dangerous sexual acts”). Hell, I remember people fearing pubic hair removal will lead to the normalization of pedophilia since I remember pubic hair removal being a thing.