Looks like a day for naps today.
Jenny tried to nap in the morning. Then
Karen and I both napped in the evening.
Naps are strange. I feel like I sleep for a long time, but in actuality, only maybe 15-30 minutes pass every time I check my watch. And I still feel sleepy.
Interesting discussion on Lolicons at
Megatokyo and at
Hongfire. If you don't know what Lolicons are, it stands for lolita complex. And if you don't know what lolita is... it's basically underaged *or* underaged-looking girls. In the context of the discussions though, it deals specifically with drawings of said girls, and whether or not it's something "bad." The following is an amalgam of what's been discussed in the forums, as well as some of my personal opinions.
On one hand, we have the people who think lolicon is some great evil akin to paedophilia and people lusting after *real* children. But really, when you think about it, this is just a different face to the people complaining about how violent games will incite people to go murder people for fun. While most people will agree with the latter scenario (the violent games), they somehow have some issue with the former (the lolicon stuff). Some people do seem to forget that the arguments in both cases are really the same. They need to deal with their cognitive dissonance somehow before getting back in the discussion, either be anti-both, or at the very least tolerating of it (you don't have to like it necessarily), which is the second camp which I'll get to later. But let's address the arguments here first anyway. In both cases, no real person is harmed in its making. It provides an outlet for people as well to live out their fantasies. Even if you take these things away, those desires will be there, suppressed, waiting to find an outlet, which will just spill over into the real world. What, you say games did not exist in the past? Think again. Remember the gladiatorial combats? Sports are an evolution of that. It's a lot tamer now (you don't fight to the death), but it's still a release of hormones and urge to dominate each other. And so the same goes for lolicon. They live out their fantasies, and that's the end of that. Wait, now you want to tell me that living out these fantasies actually *increase* our desire to do these things? Right. When I play Tetris, I have an overwhelming urge to go align myself next to objects. *rolls eyes* Ok, so what about the lunatics? The ones that really can't separate reality from fiction? Well, they are going to be a threat no matter what you do. It's like saying we should ban driving because there will always be the reckless drivers who will cause accidents and kill people.
Also, the reasoning behind why lolicon is bad is also misguided. Is it really the age? Not really. Lolicon is really a desire for a certain look or personality. Age has nothing to do with it really. We can see this when games are imported from Japan. The age of the characters, who are usually in middle school or high school, gets artificially bumped to 18+ and the setting gets changed to college. Suddenly the people complaining will find it ok. Um, yeah, whatever. As someone commented, it's kind of absurd to give an age to a piece of drawing. And since when did drawings have basic human rights? Or you have some people who look really young. Even if they're really of legal age. People brought up the picture of Yuko Ogura. She looks like a teenage kid, but she's actually 22. To better illustrate the point that age is not what gets lolicons fetishist's fancy. Which of these do you think is more "wrong" to go after and which do you think the lolicons will go after? A 1,000 year-old alien/magical being that looks like a 12-year-old human girl, or an 8-year-old artificially created girl (with the mind of an 8-year old) that has the body of a full-grown woman in her thirties?
Finally, what does "underage" really mean? A lot of people have some kink with anything below 18 because that's what their particular society tells them. But seriously, in many countries, the age of consent is below 18, like 14 or 16. They aren't really "underage" until they're 13 or 15. To impose your country's restrictions on them is nothing more than moral arrogance. Besides, is an 18 year old and a 16 year old that much worse than a 50-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman? I'd actually find the latter to be more distasteful.
And as someone said, if some day, your country suddenly made the age of consent to be 40. Does that mean you are suddenly a sick lolicon/paedophile because you are in love with a 38-year-old? I trust you will realize the answer is no. Especially when you consider it wasn't that long ago that girls were married off when they reached puberty (after all, we do treat the rest of the animal kingdom as adults as soon as they are reproductively viable right?)
As for the second camp of people, these are the people who understand that it's a matter of taste. It's not their taste, but they aren't so daft as to go about regulating other people's behaviors. Some like missionary positions, some like it from behind, some have feet fetishes, some like being in diapers, some like being pissed on, some like eating fecal matter. Some like Asian women, some like blond hair, some like huge breasts, some like people of the same gender, some like hermaphrodites, some like skinny women, some like fat women, some like mature (old) women, and some like young girls. Yeah, in real life, the young girl one could be considered exploitative, but remember, we aren't talking about child porn. We're talking about some ink on paper. By limiting one person's fetish, you are only asking for your own fetishes to be restricted. But certainly, there are people out there who won't be satisfied until everyone has sex with their partner in a missionary position with the sole purpose of making babies and nothing else.
Finally of course, there's the third camp of people. The ones who are lolicons. The biggest thing one should realize is that not of all this attraction is even sexual to begin with. A lot of people simply like the look of innocence, and child-like wonderment of kids. This is actually very natural. Just look at how many people think babies, kittens, puppies, and so on are the cutest things in the world. Are these people all sick fetishists who want to have sex with babies, kittens, and puppies? I think not (and I seriously hope not).
Hmm, I am predicting this entry will either get a lot of responses from people who feel strongly about the subject (and the entry'll probably get me some Google searches because of the words I used), or people will avoid it like the plague because of the subject matter.
