VirPed Panel: 04 February 2024

“Arto” asks:

[Regarding] fictional ‘child pornography’, in the form of writing or drawings/animation, where the subjects cannot be mistaken for real life people, that is to say - where no consent has been abused and no underaged person has been involved directly in the production of the media. How do you personally feel about the use of it? Can/does it act as an outlet that help compartmentalize and easy any possibly disturbing impulses to act out towards children or does it blur the moral lines too much for you?

Is there a fully researched definitive answer to the question? No not really. How would the research be conducted? But it’s pretty clear that no one was harmed in the production. So it comes down to whether it can act as a gateway drug and lead someone to hands on abuse or act as a release for someone who has no other outlet. Intuitively, I believe it’s the latter.

But in some jurisdictions, it’s legal and in others, it isn’t.

I believe it definitely depends on the person. As with anyone else Pedophiles/MAPS need some sexual gratification from time to time but if we are to remain “virtuous” in not wanting to harm a child that gratification has to come in some form of self stimulation.

For some their mental fantasy world is vivid enough that is all they will need but for others visual aids assist in that stimulus. In general drawings, written materials and/or 3D generated are not harmful because no real person has been harmed. If you are uncomfortable with looking at it or reading it than you don’t have to.

As for it leading towards acting out with a real child, I believe it’s the same thing as Marijuana being a “gateway drug” to using harder drugs. The answer to that definitely depends on the person if you act out there is some other mental health issues that you were already dealing with. Depending on that anything can be a fuse to lead you towards abuse.

I think that banning fictional material for all just because of a few makes no sense.

In a perfect world everyone could consult with a therapist or medical professional to see if that type of material could be used as a healthy outlet. But in general I don’t feel there is any harm in it existing

I believe that without shotacon I would have been at a much greater risk of offending. I am nervously watching the way the US is going with this subject and hoping that it isn’t outlawed for other MAPs’ sake as much as my own. As long as no one is harmed, what’s the real problem? It’s icky? It would be harmful if it were real? So are tons of fetishes, kinks and paraphilias. But we don’t outlaw ethical out workings of those sexual practices.

As long as no child is hurt, morally speaking, I don’t see the problem. Now, I’m sure that there are some people that would be amped up by watching such things that would make them actually want to abuse a child. I imagine this would be the case for someone with a high sex drive and very low impulse control. I would imagine that many if not most people here have pretty high impulse control. Like many things in life, what works for one person may not work for another. In this case, the immoral thing would be the abuse that occurs rather than the material itself. One can get very drunk and drive, but would it be right to ban all alcohol to prevent this possible situation from occurring in the first place?

I’ll reiterate from virped’s official position that loli/shota material is in a very grey area legally in many parts of the world, if not outright illegal. I don’t personally think it would be worth the risk to look at anything like this if there’s a question that it could be illegal wherever you happen to be.

I have a very simple morality on this one. Does it hurt a real life child in a way you can clearly demonstrate? Fictional CP doesn’t so it’s ok. Real CP is bad because it does hurt a child in a way you can easily show. Both from the sexual abuse they were subjected to and or from having those images of them on the internet without their consent. Given some drawing a fictional image of a child in a sexual scenario doesn’t do any of that it’s ok. Pretty simple in my view.

I think fictional material is a great alternative to CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material). It takes a real burden off a lot of MAPs who would otherwise be incredibly sexually frustrated, and it’s completely morally sound. There is also the possibility that the legalisation of fictional material will reduce demand for CSAM. If it results in any reduction in CSAM viewership, or a reduction in CSAM production, that is a very very good thing.

Of course, there are counter-arguments that bring the morality of fictional porn into question. I think these counter-arguments are bad. In fact, let me list them, and I’ll try and explain why they’re bad:

• “It turns people into paedophiles.” - Does gay porn turn people gay? No, it doesn’t. This porn didn’t turn me into a paedophile. At best, it made me realise I was a paedophile when I already was one.

• “It makes paedophiles want to abuse children.” - Do video games cause violence? No, and studies have consistently shown no link between porn use and the incidence of sexual abuse. The same goes for fictional CP.

• “It’s used by groomers to desensitise their victims.” - Not only are groomers already breaking the law, but they could also use any other kind of porn to desensitise children to sexual content. Children aren’t smart when it comes to sex, groomers will always target the most susceptible children, and so the victim wouldn’t be any the wiser. You could even argue only showing drawings would make the child question why they’ve never seen a real child in any porn.

• “It’s not ok to find children hot.” - This is a “wrong-think” argument, but it’s about sexual desires that people have no control over which makes it even worse.

Those are all the counter-arguments I’m familiar with. In conclusion, fictional child porn is a very good thing. I wish I could advocate for it to be legalised where I live (The United Kingdom), but I obviously can’t. My life is made worse for it being illegal.

I think it does more good than harm. No children are harmed in its making, viewing, or distribution, so it’s already an ethical alternative to anything else. I don’t use it as much as some others do, but fiction is fiction and fiction doesn’t affect reality. Anything fictional is okay to use, in my opinion.

A lot of people have expressed the fear that using fiction or fantasy leads to pedophiles being more likely to offend. A lot of the professional wisdom on this, however, comes from talking to people who had already offended and seeing whether they used material of this kind before the offence. If so it raises the question of whether it could be a contributing factor?

However, one big problem with this approach…

In 100% of these cases, a subsequent offence occured. That means they have ignored all the people like me who have had a nearly-lifelong sexual attraction to children and who have not offended. This is like going into a prison and asking all those with shoplifting convictions if they fantasised about owning some of the goods in the stores before they stole them. Obviously they did, but it doesn’t follow that the fantasies were the reason for the crime. Most of us non-shoplifters often fantasise about owning stuff that we can’t afford, but we don’t make a plan to steal it.

I have fantasised and I have used whatever legal fictional means I could. No offence to date; not one. That’s because while my attraction is one potential risk factor for abusing a child or using CSAM, you need other risk factors operating at the same time, such as impulse control, disinhibitors such as alcohol, depression, lack of moral inhibition, sexual excitement leading to risk taking, distorted thinking about children etc. etc. Another key factor is whether there is an opportunity, and whether someone is seeking opportunities out (e.g. access to a child).

In my case, and I think in a lot of other cases, one or two of these risk factors might have been in play at different times, but not enough risk factors at once and not strong enough at any one time to lead to an offence. With fictional material (as disctinct from the attraction itself), I don’t think any study has shown it to even be a risk factor, let alone something that actually causes abuse.

By the same token, I don’t feel confident in saying it prevented me abusing either. I doubt I would have abused even if somehow I were blocked from this kind of material. I would have had a much lower quality of life, however.

I would like to start out by saying that there’s not many of us non-offending pedophiles who feel like we have ‘disturbing impulses to act out towards children". Some do, sure. But for most of us they’re just normal fantasies that we have/use without any particular worry about offending.

For all pedophiles, I think it should be like this: If you stay legally within your country’s jurisdiction and you feel yourself that the outlets you use are healthy and does not cause extra anxiety, shame, or in any way worry about possibly offending, it is completely fine.

There’s been lots of research done on the usage of FSM (Fictional Sexual Material) for pedophiles, such as written erotica and sexualized cartoon images, and everything is rather inconclusive. A lot of it, if not most of it, are also based on offenders, which more than likely creates a different result than it would’ve had it been based on non-offending pedophiles.

So as it stands now, it comes down to personal feelings about the usage of such material and how it helps one. For me, personally, I have used both erotica and sexualized cartoon images and find that I feel no shame or anxiety or worry about offending from using it. I know that no real children were harmed in the making of it. Sexualized cartoon images are often too cartoon-ish for me, so I prefer the use of erotica, where I can read something and then play out the scene in my head. It works for me as a healthy and legal outlet. I think it helps me have a more sexually satisfying life than I would’ve had without it, and there’s no one that should deny that having a satisfying sexual life is important for mental well-being in general.

What if you were to have no access to any adult sexual partners, or adult sexual material, and people even judged you for fantasizing about adults. How would that make you feel?

I agree with a lot of the other answers. The first issue is legality, and I absolutely think that fictional outlets involving fictional children (such as stories or CGI) should be completely legal and safe to use. Currently we do not have any strong evidence either way about fictional outlets preventing or causing pedophiles to offend, and without this evidence there is no justification for making it illegal as no real children are involved. There are plenty of stories and artwork that depict murder, torture, rape of adults and other scenarios that would be horrifying if they were real. Do we make those illegal? Of course not. So fictional outlets involving minors should definitely not be illegal.

The next question is whether or not pedophiles are morally comfortable with using such material, and if it helps them not offend or makes them more likely to offend. We’re all different, but anecdotally it seems that most of us don’t feel as if fictional outlets make us more likely to abuse a real child, if anything there are pedophiles who have reported that using such outlets helps keep them away from CSAM and contact offences. Personally it doesn’t make a difference to me either way, I have never offended and my likelihood of offending has not changed by using fictional outlets. As for mortality, it’s pretty clear to me that there should be no moral issues with using such material as there are no real children involved in the production. I use such material without any guilt and I don’t think it should be controversial to suggest that pedophiles have every right to continue using fictional outlets if they are comfortable with it. Most people understand that books, movies and video games with violence in them don’t cause people to act violently, so why should this be any different?

And I agree with another answer: the vast majority of us do not experience our attraction to children as “disturbing impulses”, we experience them as normal attractions like any other, and we generally don’t have any self-control issues when it comes to our feelings for children (some might, but those self-control issues are not correlated with being a pedophile).