Damn 13 comments pages, and I'm too late to take part into the shitstorm.
Anyways the only question I always had when it comes to lolicon is why everyone who likes it is automatically considered a pedophile, I mean I get why people would make a correlation but we're talking about anime characters, not a realistic representation of real life people, I think people may have their own reasons to like it rather than "is CP that doesn't gets you in jail" like many people seems to think.
Personally I don't even see it as a form of child porn, even the idea sounds kind of ridiculous like when someone says that violent video games are for murderers or that they turn mentally sane people into murderers.
And what if someone is into lolicon / shotacon but is disgusted by the idea of watching actual CP or trying anything with an actual kid, why would that person be a pedophile? This also reminds me a lot to when furries were often accused of being into zoophilia, like if a drawed anthropomorphic representation of an animal were the same thing as an actual real life animal.
I think obviously Loli is somewhat related to CP, but its more like...? being attracted to the idea of the victim/master and height difference and power play that CP is known for without scarring a childs life. People are disgusted w real cp bc it involves a real person who is being raped. Whereas Loli is like the roleplay version of that. Similarly people have rape fantasies and will roleplay them with their partners but im 100% sure they arent actually suggesting they want to be raped. ( in my opinion )
I feel like it is really up to everyone's interpretation of it, like if someone likes lolicon/shotacon because they use it to fantasy about actual children then there is nothing positive to say about that; but I imagine someone would like because maybe they're simply attracted to cute characters, or physically small characters, or maybe is the size difference or the whole power dynamics you're talking about.
Anyways, even if it were the first case and someone is attracted to it because he/she is a pedophile, I don't really mind that much as long as they stick to draws, I mean I'd rather they fap to draws that don't do any harm to anyone than to try to search for actual CP, or even go as far as to try anything with a child. This may be a very controversial thing to say but I'm ok with lolicon and shotacon even if is used as a replacement for CP, for the reason I stated above. But I still think not everyone, maybe even the majority of the people who are into it (I have no idea honestly), aren't necessarily pedophiles and labeling them like that for some draw that doesn't even looks like a real human that much seems unfair to me.
Personally I'm not into it, but I do like girls that have a smaller body, cute faces and small chests because I find them to be the cutest (I'm talking about adults here, I should clarify just in case), so I kinda understand the whole appeal of it as long as is not intended to be a pedo fantasy.
