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Adult themes taboo for tinies?

May 18, 2010

    1. Seeing childlike dolls in serious sexual situations is not something I want to see but I don't look at pictures of Tinies so I'm not likely to stumble across this sort of thing. Other adult content, handled with balance and humor can be okay. JennyNemesis' drinking ReiTenshi and her smoking Lotus' are funny and it doesn't bother me at all. Then again drinking and smoking as general taboos are not so potent as children having sex. Hard to play that topic for laughs.

      If someone chooses to re-enact adult sexuality themes with their Tinies they are certainly free to do so. Why people want to post it on the internet is beyond me. I don't think people give enough weight to the possible consequences of revealing everything they do or make onto the web. No sexy Tiny photoshoot is worth the risk of obscenity charges or the loss of future employment. Depictions of dolls of any size in a sexual situation could come into conflict with child pornography and obscenity laws. A future employer could Google your name and not like the perception you might be into sexing up kids. You put it out there and people will judge you. You can't control their reactions or assumptions. You can't make them change their mind about what they've seen with a back-story to explain it away. If being judged bothers you then keep it locked and private. And remember, nothing on the internet is private.

      And I've said this before in other threads, the OP of a thread doesn't own the thread. It's now up for discussion and members can approach the topic from any angle as long as things are civil. Even if the OP wants to only discuss it from one angle, the thread is organic and so far everything said has related to the topic.
       
    2. I agree that there are horrible consequences, and that people will judge you unfairly. But I also think that that's wrong, that it shouldn't be the case that people's innocent artistic expression can earn them a (sometimes literally) life-threatening stigma, and... there aren't many real ways to make that unfair stigma go away, other than making the art exist anyway. If people are forced to shut up about it and lock it away, the stigma can never be challenged.

      That said, it's not a risk I want to take either. But for the sake of artistic expression, I resent that the law all but forces you not to take it. Maybe people do understand the consequences, but they feel that those consequences are so wrong that they defy the law to do it anyway. Some people care about their art that much. And maybe the individual piece of art isn't "worth it" (and maybe it is), but some will say that the right to display art with those themes or conditions is.
       
    3. Talking only of sexual situations here.

      Currently there is a huge debate in Japan that's been going on for a while about "imaginary youth", which is similar to the situation at hand. Say if you play an erotic game which involve you trying to have sex with various girl at various age. On their profile the characters are all 18 or up, but realistically you look at those pictures and you think they look 12 or younger. Or, obvious child body but is a character of some demon who is thousands of years old. These don't currently classify as "children" and is legal to distribute and own and all of those things. They are looking to change that law to more or less "if it looks like a child, then it is a child". ... which is pretty much what we are talking about here no?

      Sure no real child is harmed. ... yet.
      The fact remains we don't want to put any real children in these situations. It should be a scenario that is completely not okay. Just like they say playing lots of violent games promote violence (whether or not it is true there are debates of course), in a similar situations, by allowing child-like dolls/character/drawings in sexual situations happen(the age thing you can almost view as a loophole to get around the law), couldn't it technically "promote" the idea that this is not as big of a deal as it should be?
      It isn't true for all people I know, but to me it is almost just a thin disguise to be well, obsessed with children in a sexual way. I am very uncomfortable with it and think it is not okay.

      Again, only my opinion. Not accusing anyone or anything.
       
    4. I have fairly radical views on child sexuality, in that I believe kids should be allowed to express their own wants and desires (and they do have them) with each other and not have adults policing them. But that doesn't transfer over to dolls, because it just doesn't work that way. Real life politics can't be expressed in images, I've found.

      And as for other behaviour that's age restricted: drinking, drugs, war and so forth, frankly there isn't realistic depiction of this in adult sized dolls. I don't want to see it in tinies.


      HOWEVER: This was a hilarious idea that I had and I cannot stop thinking about. You know how Spiritdoll's male bodies have those magnetic optional extras? You know how Soom tinies often have magnet spots for horns? COMBINE AND LOL. If I ever have the chance to do this, I think I'll have to. I probably won't upload the pic here though. xD
       
    5. Say for example you let real children perform in a play that is about, let's just name something, a murder mystery. It starts with a murder (adult theme) and there can be drugs, theft, and violence involved (more adult themes). All actors are children, but all characters are adults. I think that you as the audience will follow the story and look upon the characters as adults, but will keep in the back of your mind that the actors are children.
      Of course people would be against exposing real children to certain things. An adult actor smoking would cause less outrage than a child smoking on stage. Giving a puki a tiny fake cigarette won't hurt anybody, but how would you feel if someone dresses a real child up as an adult (with for example a business suit) and let the child pretend to smoke a (non burning) cigarette for a photo shoot? No real child was hurt for those photos either and maybe the child had fun during the photo shoot and got a lecture about how smoking kills. Still, how would you feel about the image within the photographs?
      I'm sure that some people will see no harm and some will cry outrage.

      Using adult looking tinies like Soom Mini Gem or Limhwa Toyou for adult situations would be the same discussion as using adult looking 60-70 cm dolls for adult situations.
       
    6. I really don't think that seeing children in such situations will "promote" the idea that it's okay. We see violent movies all the time, but this doesn't make you or I think that it's okay to kill people.

      Someone is going to be either attracted to children or not. If they're not, no amount of "promotion" is going to make them interested. If they are, it's not going to be because someone "promoted" it but because they had a biological reaction-- and they're going to know it's not okay to act on it in just the same way that you and I know it's not okay to just go kill people we don't like.
       
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    7. *nod* Since learning about the youth rights movement from a friend, I've become increasingly in favour of it. I hear what you say, and tend to agree.

      I wonder, and this is just me being curious here: why do you think this? Is it that you think they shouldn't be expressed in images for some reason, that they can't accurately be conveyed through visuals because visuals are an inadequate tool for actually getting the political point across, or because the political climate doesn't allow people to do so in a way that isn't going to get drowned out by "zomg child abuse!1!eleventy"? Or none of these, or some combination thereof?

      And even if said images can't make the political point very clearly... if you believe that children should be able to express certain things each other, then even if dolls looking like children expressing those same things with each other doesn't have any political influence, it also oughtn't to be morally bad if the RL situation isn't, right? So what's the issue with it? Is it that an adult is posing the dolls, or...?

      (Just very curious, since this is one of the more interesting posts I've seen in this thread.)
       
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    8. No, they don't.
      However,
      I think having a large amount of said material, be it any theme. Will desensitize people to that particular theme.
      Maybe violent games/media don't "promote" violence, but it desensitize people when you see it so much. So when a real situation of violence happens people think it is not as big of a deal.

      I am not saying that posing tiny child-like dolls is going to make more people become pedophiles, I am just saying that you see it more and you'll feel less about it when a situation does happen. And I think that can have serious consequences.

      edit: I realized the original poster is asking "adult theme" in general. I have mostly focused on sex because it has been one of the debates that I've been hearing surrounding the whole Japanese law thingy so that was the first thing that came into mind.
       
    9. I agree with and understand about desensitisation, but remember that along with making it permissible to explore these issues with children will come a lot of horrifying stories reminding people that children can also be hurt by it-- once it's okay to actually express the theme. If we had, e.g. popular movies showing the horrors of child abuse, we wouldn't easily forget about how these things can be hurtful. Similarly, I believe that violent media can be used to show people the horrors of such things-- there are video games out there that explore what happens when they urge the player to do bad things and then make the player feel bad about it. It can actually sensitise people if shown the right way. I've had this experience myself, so I'm not just talking hypothetically.

      As a separate issue: I also think that perhaps having people feel a little bit less horrified by it might be a positive thing. (Oh, I'm not saying we should be complacent about it when children get hurt. But we could easily manage to be a little bit less horrified by it and still be quite upset.) Why could it be positive? Because there are already people out there who are being made to feel like they're monsters for having fairly tame and normal feelings, like people who have attractions they can't help and don't act on, 18 year olds getting in legal trouble for having consensual sex with 16 year olds, and children engaging in voluntary "sex play" with each other at a young age that gets the older one into trouble. These people aren't doing anything bad, but because the stigma is so strong, they are being treated like monsters. This link describes the sort of thing I'm thinking about better than I can describe it myself. I think we could stand to lighten up about it a little.
       
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    10. I can understand that, actually and I agree with you.
      I think in that situation the "intention" part becomes more important than ever. To explore a theme and shed insight and help understanding? Or for shock and awe or perv? It is usually not hard to tell but it is hard to tell sometimes too.
       
    11. While viewing children or child-like dolls in adult situations won't make someone attracted to children sexually if they don't feel that way anyway, it can desensitise people, and repeated viewing of material of that nature can alter a person's perception and make that situation not only normal, but perfectly acceptable over a period of time. This means that not only will they come to believe that their attraction to children is ok, the line between acting on their feelings and holding back is going to be crossed because it has entered their 'normality'.

      There have been criminal cases where people have perpetrated horrible crimes against others and those criminals have been heavily into violent films. There are still other people who are gentle as anything in everyday life but enjoy violent bloodbaths on film. There are criminals who don't watch violent films, but still commit violent crime. It's not the violent film itself that causes the crime, but for some impressionable people, violent media contributes to their crime by making the violence acceptable. The more we see something, the more accepting we become because we're just used to that input. In someone who isn't violent, the film becomes just another enjoyable film. In someone who is violent, the film justifies their violence. Likewise, if someone is attracted to children and accesses material of children or child-like dolls in adult situations it will start to justify their feelings.

      Not everyone has the same social filter; if we did, there would be no murderers, no rapists, no paedophiles. Just because you or I would never go out and kill or rape doesn't mean other people will hold back too. There is a fine line between putting out material featuring our dolls in situations just because we can, because we should have artistic freedom to present whatever themes we wish, and the responsibility of knowing that our material/artwork is going to be viewed by other people and we have very little control over who views it and what they do with the material or what they take away from it intellectually, emotionally or personally. Whether we like it or not, we still have a responsibility over what material we put out there.
       
    12. Please see what I said above re: desensitisation, and let me also add that in fact I do think we have a responsibility over what we put out there. We have a responsibility to handle it well and to send good messages. I've been recently on the other side of debates about this, tbh. But also, though, the viewers have a responsibility not to view things that will desensitise them. If they're the kind of people who get influenced overly by bad influences, they have a responsibility to try not to surround themselves with such things. And ultimately they are the ones who are responsible for the actions they take. There are many responsibilities here, and I do agree that one is in the hands of the artist. But that doesn't mean "never show these themes"-- it means "be careful about the message you send when you show these themes, and make sure people understand how it can be harmful, rather than just making it look like it's okay".

      Also, back on the topic of saying I think we could use a little less sensitivity on this particular matter: I feel awkward even just arguing that side of things. And I think I feel awkward arguing it BECAUSE there is too much sensitivity. This culture is such that even though I'm not in any way interested in children, I'm nervous about speaking up on the side of not treating people who are as if they're all disgusting and creepy, because I'm afraid that simply not being revolted by these people is enough to make others assume that I must be one of them and therefore I must be disgusting and creepy. That's how strong the taboo is: that people, like me, are being intimidated into not even talking about the topic. If you ask me, that's an indication that the taboo is too strong. I don't think things should be unthinkable or undiscussable that way. I think we should at least lighten up to the point where people can discuss it without being afraid that others will suspect them of unspeakable horrors just for being on that side.
       
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    13. Absolutely. Tinies are kids, no matter how you cut it-- Although I can see someone making a "chibi" version of an older character who does such things, perhaps for humour's sake. Whether it's actually funny or not depends on the tastes of the person viewing it, however...
       
    14. blissfulchains: That link was awful, it makes me want to move to a different country. I knew the taboo was insane, but I didn't know the related legal situations were that bad. (Okay, I kind of knew. I know a guy who had to register as a sex offender because a lady saw him peeing in the woods beside a hiking trail.) I think you're right, and it's really getting out of hand and DANGEROUS.

      People in the US and the rest of the modern world talk about open-mindedness, moderation, acceptance, giving everyone a fair trial... but not with this subject. With this subject, the overwhelming majority of people seem to have a strict black-and-white, no-exceptions, no-remorse view on what is right and what is completely unforgivably wrong.

      And dolls are SO abstract. There's no way they (the tinies anyway) could even be mistaken for real. (Unlike a lot of gore and stuff in movies.) I think we should all try to be tasteful and think about what we present, but censoring what people do with a little plastic figurine would be.. just insane.
       
    15. *nods* It is. And I think the extent to which the taboo has grown isn't actually helping any real children. Not even being able to bring up the subject, or question whether people who might have the preference are human beings and not monsters, without being looked at like you've grown another head doesn't do anything to stop children from being hurt, any more than rapists would stop raping if we forbade people from ever writing a backstory in which a character was raped. Taboos like this do, however, hurt a whole lot of people like that poor "sex offender" guy and the woman in that link. The extent to which we're ramping them up is hurting more people, and not actually saving anyone.

      I'm not sure that I believe we actually need taboos, as such. Even with all the violence in the media, people who think that murder is okay are generally very few and far between, and almost certainly had some problems that led them to seek out violent media rather than being inspired by it. We know that murder is bad, and that keeps people from murdering without also having to have a taboo about talking about it or showing it. Just a social awareness that it's wrong to hurt people should be enough.

      Like blissfulchains said: I can say "I don't think murderers are inhuman monsters, just people" without people wondering if I am a murderer. I can't say "I don't think pedophiles are inhuman monsters, just people" without people wondering if I have some ulterior motive for saying that. And that shows that the taboo has developed to an irrational extent, I think.

      Oh yes. Which is why, these days, when I run into anyone who says they have an open mind or that they're tolerant, I tend to reserve judgment until I see what they really believe on matters that most people have a kneejerk reaction to. Which is not to say that you can't have a well-thought-out argument against, say, tinies in sexual situations - it's not to say that "having an open mind" means "believing in the most liberal possible interpretation of things" - but that, most of the time, when I do see an opposing reaction, it seems to me to be strongly emotionally-based, black-and-white, and containing the idea that "some people are just icky, though".

      I am, on the other hand, very gratified to run across some people in this thread who are bucking the "some things are just always unforgivably wrong" viewpoint in a thoughtful way, though. :)
       
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    16. nk-chan, I couldn't agree with you more. It IS getting dangerous. Innocent people-- strangers peeing in the woods, kids having relationships with other kids-- are having their lives ruined over this. And I don't honestly think it's really saving any children, because people who are going to go out and molest others in defiance of the laws and morality of the matter are going to do it regardless of how worked-up we all are about it. All this heightened vigilance is doing is let people pat themselves on the back and feel good because they've done something to Save The Children-- and get innocent people in trouble. That link I sent you IS terrifying, and what child was helped by it? Certainly not the victim.

      And yes, there is no remorse. If there's any remote chance that someone might have ever looked sidelong at a child, nobody will take their side. Society is becoming such that it's hard to stand up for that side; everyone will go, "Don't you care what happens to the children?" as if wanting to look at the issue objectively and fairly, separate the innocent from the guilty, as we do with any other crime is the same thing as blowing off the crime or allowing people to get away with anything.
       
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    17. I agree. There are social studies that prove that when a person is prone to using violence, playing violent movies will increase that anger inside of him. On the other hand, if the person doesn't have violent bone in his body, the exact opposite happens; he calms down. Different people react differently to different things.

      While I agree that we have a responsibility over what we say and what message our art brings, I'm a bit weary of what you write here. Perhaps this comes from my own personal background, but I refuse to be bullied into not saying what I think has to be said, just because someone might become violent or pervy. Just as we have responsibilities, so do they.

      I belief that no matter how friendly and safe society gets, murder, abuse, molestation will always be part of human life. It's in our nature. I know that you probably don't mean it this as black and white as I put it here, but if we start 'thought-policing' (in the way that we try to filter what we say, so no-one is provoked/triggered/encouraged by it), don't you think we take responsibility that isn't ours and create a fear of 'what might happen'?

      What if I post a picture of a toddler playing naked in the waves? The photo only shows the purity of the child and the innocence of his game; there is nothing sexual about it. If some pedophile uses it for his own distorted purposes, I cannot be held accountable. I did not make him do it. He acted upon his own feelings and decided it was okay to ignore his responsibilities.
       
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    18. You can ask anyone in the anime community and they will call that kind of thing exactly what it is, lolicon. It's an actual genre that's specifically about promoting an underage image. So, even if the character is supposed to be hundreds of years old, it's listed under this fetish category and therefore what it really is, is made very clear. The ages used are only to bypass laws on underage girls, but still give that seedy demographic what they want.

      I read a news story about an American man who was arrested for pedophilia. He said once he knew that kind of stuff existed, he switched completely over to underage images in manga/doujinshi/anime as opposed to real life child pornographic images. Because he thought it was safer. Even though it's not a real child but a cartoon or comic, it still has real life implications and people have been arrested for possessing them.
       
    19. I think that being sexually attracted to children is disgusting (and no I don't mean an 18 year old being attracted to a 16 year old or something similar) that includes real children, photographs of children, drawings of children and sculptures/dolls of children. If someone thinks something in the likeness of a child is sexually attractive, that's pedo no matter if it's a "real child" or not. This isn't about younger doll owners doing provocative posing a doll that looks their age, it's about adults putting something that looks like a toddler in sexual or inappropriate situations for their own fantasies. If someone has those feelings and can keep them in check, not act on them, and basically ignore them, then kudos to that person, that's something I can respect. What I hate is that people flaunt this pedophile attraction all over the internet and actually get a lot of comments in favor of it. People need to be getting help for these urges, not being encouraged and told it's ok and maybe someday taking it to the next level and actually molesting a child.
       
    20. When it comes to abuses of children, pedophilia, and anything that depicts it in so-called art or the media, I don't CARE about "freedom of thought" or speech. It ends there. To be human is to care for those without a voice and to protect those who are vulnerable. I often wonder why things like this are even open to debate.... There is a reason it makes us cringe ~ it's because it is debase and wrong in all civilized societies. That's what makes it taboo. It's OKAY to be closed-minded when it comes to displays of the sexual abuse of children!