Adult themes taboo for tinies?

I think there's also something people are forgetting in this discussion- there's a lot of talk about desensitizing people who haven't experienced these awful things... but there are a hell of a lot of people out there who actually have to live through voilent abuse, rape, molestation, addiction, etc. It annoys me when I see things like this used cavalierly as backstory or plot device or whatever, in a way that is pretty damn disrespectful to the majority of people who've had to deal with the real-life situation, and I know I'm not the only one. For example, I've seen a lot of discussion about how rape is often used as a sort of penultimate threat to female fictional characters (with murder being the ultimate threat), often without dealing with the real life consequences and phsychological issues that victims have to deal with (sometimes for the rest of their lives!). Of course it's impossible to know what will be a trigger to every single person out there, and I think people should be able to explore difficult themes (even if I personally find them disgusting)... but it's important to actually think about the whole issue, the fact that people out there in the real world are dealing with these horrible things every day, and to treat them respectfully.

 

Hey there!

I personally think that images are kind of misleading a lot of the times, because without words the interpretation is entirely left up to the viewer. That's their power, but also a problem. Images that I find innocent could be pornography for others. There was a case here in Australia about just this, in that there was a life photographer whose work included pictures of naked teens (who had all given their consent, and their parents had as well). The images were not remotely sexual, but in the end the idea of child nudity meant that his exhibit was canceled.

I think it's ridiculous, and prudish, and interpreting things from an adult perspective that teens and kids don't have, but I am in a minority.

So yes, no matter how well the picture is posed, people are hysterical about the idea of children having sexualities. And showing those pics will just end in a witch hunt.

 

*nods* And as was said earlier in the thread, someone could take a picture of e.g. a kid innocently splashing around in the water, and pedophiles would find it attractive. That's... their responsibility, to deal with that feeling as they see fit, not society's responsibility to never portray children in anything ever, in case someone gets interested. Hey, I'm playing Kingdom Hearts and Sora is 14 and topless in some scenes... should we ban that?

Also, I'm kind of saddened by how many people are saying "looking at pictures of dolls-that-look-like-children in sexual situations might lead to child abuse!", but probably wouldn't make the same argument about pictures of dolls in BDSM situations leading people to go out and cause pain to nonconsenting people. Because it... doesn't happen, in general. Anyone who's reasonably ethical finds a safe outlet; anyone who isn't was never going to care that much about a safe outlet. I don't think pictures of dolls degrade people's ability to remember what ethical responsibility is.

But bring up this particular topic, and people automatically lock down emotionally - like the people saying it's okay to be closed-minded. Sure, if someone is actually hurt or in serious risk of being hurt, maybe we don't want to sit around debating the details. But I think it's perfectly legitimate to debate, for example, whether images like this lead to anyone being hurt at all - because if we don't, we're banning them/protesting against them for no reason, and it's not actually saving any children, just shutting down the ability of artists to express themselves. If the art you're being closed-minded about isn't actually doing people harm, and the closed-mindedness is doing some small amount of harm, and we're never allowed to talk about this... well, I think that makes for a pretty poor world.

And the response to people being hurt isn't "turn off all your logical reasoning and go berserker on the pedos" - it's the same as it is for any kind of abuse. Logically, rationally analyse the situation and decide what needs to be done. There's no need to shut down over it, and it leads to bad decision-making, like the case of the woman whose kids went through a far worse hell by being "protected" from what they'd done than they would have if they'd been left alone.

 

What about the vulnerability of innocent people who have done nothing wrong but will spend the rest of their lives stigmatised and unable to find a job or a decent place to live because someone saw them doing something completely non-sexual (like peeing in the woods) and overreacted? If someone cries wolf, they have little to no defence. Are they not vulnerable? What if it happened to YOU?

 

It is always the same dilemma no?
There are innocent people that gets punished because we don't want the guilty people to get away with what they did?
It is very difficult to draw that line don't you think? Everyone could be innocent, but at the same time everyone could be guilty. Some people take a more radical approach to the problem, in the end I think we all want the same thing: no one gets hurt and everyone is nice and fair ... but it never quite work that way.
It is a very difficult question?

 

Oh, and I missed this response, sorry....

@skwerlie: Yeah, there is definitely an issue with rape victims being triggered. I don't think people's real issues should be used cavalierly, either. On the other hand, I remember something a friend said to me once about how she came across this badly-written story with a rape background that she thought was disrespectful to rape victims... but it turned out that the writer herself had that background, and was working through it. So it cuts both ways.

Ultimately, if you allow free speech, then people can choose what they want to see, to a certain extent (although there's always the chance they might run into something that bothers them, but such is the case anyway). If you don't, then you have people who can't legitimately work out their issues or create art that inspires them. There are problems in both hypothetical worlds. But I think it's better to encourage people to create what they want and be responsible about tagging, labelling, etc. than to encourage a society-wide taboo against it.

I am definitely supportive of warnings on this content. I am supportive of helping people with histories of abuse avoid content they don't want to see, and I tend to put warnings on anything I write (I don't tend to write content that involves, say, rape, but if I do write such backstories in my own personal fiction I warn people what they will be reading). I'm also supportive of that content existing, for multiple reasons, including that some abuse victims might want to use such content to work through it.

 

Yes, it is... I think that in any situation where the innocent may get tarred along with the guilty, we need to remind ourselves that WE could be those same innocents. None of us can say, "That'd never happen to me, because I would never..." when it is precisely those innocent people who actually "would never" who are getting hurt by it. Anyone who's willing to say, "This crime is so disgusting that it's fine if innocent people have their lives ruined by our paranoia about it", must be willing also to have their own lives ruined that way for the sake of that vigilance. I'm not. Partly because I'm more selfish than that; partly because I don't think this paranoia is actually helping any victims.

 

But, that's not what I'm talking about, blissfulchains. That kind of thing is REDICULOUS, as well as putting an 18 year old in jail for sleeping with his 17 year old girlfriend ~ as well as any 'sex offender' stigma that would follow him for life. And innocent nude babies in family photos are JUST that: innocent. People have to be reasonable (also what makes us HUMAN) and pass laws accordingly. That's a whole separate issue.

My complete disdain is for pedophilia and any forum/media that allows depictions of it in the guise of 'art'. It's really easy:
"children" displayed in SEXUAL situations with adults is just plain wrong. I don't want to see it, and I venture to guess most people here would be disturbed by it, especially those who are survivors of that kind of abuse.
Why excuse the exlploitation of children for the sake of freedom of the artist? There are ALOT of other subjects out there to inspire creative works ~ let them focus on the ones that don't involve senarios of ADULT/child sex abuse.

 

What about the people who are survivors of that kind of abuse and using the art to work through it? Take, for example, Ayulsa's mention of the writer whose work seemed to be awful and dismissive of the situation, and it turned out that the writer herself was a survivor and trying to work through the matter. What about people who have something inside them they desperately need to express due to their own victimhood? What if they have a warning to others, a description, or a sensitising depiction of how they were hurt? Are we to tell survivors that they cannot express their past because we are too wrapped up in our own comfort to want to see it? (Yes, we can choose not to see it-- but to insist that it should not exist or be available for people who do seek to understand?)

There is no "exploitation of children going on for the freedom of the artist" when said children are made of plastic, not real live human children.

It's exactly the heightened sense of taboo, the sense that anything like this is so monstrous that we can't even contemplate it, that causes people in this society to be so suspicious that they hurt innocents who weren't doing wrong. That taints and stigmatises anyone who was (wrongly) suspected so that they're viewed as badly as if they had been guilty. And it's the taint that makes it hard for survivors to speak up about their experience, to admit to having it, because they feel dirty and wrong. It's the associations we dump on it that makes it so that survivors grow up saying "I learned from my experience that sex is dirty and wrong" and may not have any healthy way to move past it-- again, read that link I posted from the mother of two siblings; the victim was not helped by the intense stigma, but rather made to feel that he was messed-up and that sex is bad. Because our society is not content to say "It's wrong the way many other things are wrong". Rather, our society wants to say, "It's so bad that we must have no pity or remorse about it". We don't even talk about murderers this way. Yet someone who's a pedophile and hasn't even acted on his impulses or touched any children, we'd automatically think of as gross and disgusting. It's all out of proportion.

 

I don't think anyone's really saying that pedophilia shouldn't be depicted ever. We're saying it shouldn't be glorified, downplayed, put up for the sexual fantasies of sick adults, etc...There are so many people that think it's "cute" or "sweet" or what have you to see a fictional adult/child sexual relationship. Shotacon, lolicon, toddlercon? Is there really nothing wrong with that stuff just because "it's not a real person?" I've seen a lot of sick photostories on this very forum including glorified depictions of pedophilia, rape, murder, and incest. Not a single one took the subject matter seriously or portrayed it realistically each of those things was thought of by the author and the commenters as "cute" or "sexy." If someone did a serious story with their dolls that touched on some of those darker issues, I'd be willing to give it a read.

 

Hmm... Perhaps not you, but some people do seem to have been saying that. There have been very sweeping statements made in this thread condemning all portrayals, saying that bad things happening in real life don't have to be portrayed in art, saying that artists should choose other themes, saying that survivors wouldn't want to see these things, and even saying that they hope it's taboo and forbidden because they find it icky and don't want to look at it. Not everyone has picked and chosen their words to say that it only shouldn't be depicted carelessly, that art and serious exploration is okay. Some have, and I really appreciate that. But when some people continue to make sweeping statements that don't exclude serious portrayals, that has a real impact-- because then artists who do want to portray a serious story are intimidated out of doing so. They are precisely the ones who are going to be most sensitive as to whether something's taboo or okay to explore. They are precisely the ones who are going to be most intimidated by others' opinion of whether it's okay to tell this story.

Actually, in my opinion, yes: there's nothing wrong with that stuff precisely because it's not a real person. If no one gets hurt, there's no gain in condemning or stigmatising anyone for it. Condemning and stigmatising is where people do start getting hurt, and it's not the storyteller who's hurting anyone, it's the people pointing and accusing them who are causing the harm. Obviously, you disagree. But I wish to make you aware that I disagree, because your rhetorical question-- "Is there really nothing wrong with that?"-- has no force at all when you're discussing this with someone who thinks, "Yeah, there's really nothing wrong with that." At that point, your argument just stops intersecting with anything that has any relevance to my ideas, because it hinges on my feeling innately that Something Must Be Horribly Wrong With That. And I don't. And I don't take it for granted that anything involving having feelings of pedophilia, whether it hurts any real people or not, must be wrong. I think it's a bit shocking how much for granted many people seem to want to take that.

I have addressed desensitisation earlier by explaining that I think this society could use a little desensitisation, because we are overly vigilant to the point where we're hurting innocents, and that we're certainly going to still be shocked even if we're less sensitive about it than we are now.

Other than desensitisation, no one has given any argument as to why it would be wrong to show made-up stories involving dolls and not any real children, except "Because it's icky". And someone's feeling that it is icky does not make something morally wrong. (It isn't icky to the pedophiles...)

 

I see where you are coming from but I have to disagree with you on this point, respectfully of course; I think that how sensitive you are to violence and morally questionable things is dependent entirely on the adults who influence you as a child. You can play a ton of violent video games, watch 100's of horror films and even be exposed to porn at a very young age (I'm talking from my knowledge and experience of these things here) but if you are raised/influenced for the most part by people who are decent, kind and who teach you values, then this fictional entertainment will not make you numb to the horrors of real life. Watching someone die in a video game or by the hand of Freddy Kruegar or The Bride is absolutely insignificant compared to helplessly witnessing a real life flesh and blood, fatally wounded boy fight for their last breath in a dirty back alley somewhere. Sure, some people who were dragged up in a culture of neglect might not think deeply enough to know that to stab someone IRL is not the same as killing a perp on GTA, but that has nothing to do with the game, that's their own base human urges not being checked by strong parental guidance from an early age, and they would find some way to inflict their rage on us sooner or later with or without the tv. In fact I'd say if you are exposed to fictional horrors early on you develop a strong sense of reality and can very easily seperate art from real life and become streetwise. Real life violence/abuse will always be horrific to people who were brought up knowing good from bad, that's actually why I am getting a little incredulous at the amount of people (not you navci) insinuating that a person who poses a pair of dolls together is somehow promoting the form of paedophilia that leads to real life child abuse.

 

Sorry I had to delete this .

 

My favorite movies are A Nightmare on Elm Street and Kill Bill (funny that you mentioned them.) Heck! My doll is dressed as freddy as we speak, and I'm in the process of making a Pyramid Head head for him.

I literally bawl whenever I turn the news on.

 

I'm absolutely the same, as are my siblings and friends. we all watched horror from when we were about 5 years old (my first crush was on christopher lee as dracula!) and we used to play werewolf, kidnappers etc in the playground but every single one of us cries if so much as hair is harmed on a puppy's head. I do have much deeper experience and knowledge to back up what I posted above but I think my post would be deleted for being too personal.

ps - please post pics of the bjd freddy and pyramid head!!

 

As soon as I finish the Freddy pants and start sculpy-ing the head, I definately will!

 

It isn't that portraying child abuse in any form is morally reprehensible... like Nefla, I would be willing to view a photoshoot that treated that material in a serious manner. But based on the selection of images that I've seen, arguing that it's being done for "Art" is really, really pushing it.

Being totally blunt, I have never seen a sexualized child-doll photoshoot that was anything other than titillating lolicon/shotacon.... with replies that were either disgusted or carnally encouraging ("Oh, so sexy!"). The potential for Art does exist, but by and large, it isn't what people are choosing to create.

Compare Beckmann's Portfolio of Hell to any hentai pic of a girl getting raped in a corset.

As to how we treat each other in the community, that's up for each of us to decide on an individual basis. People have the right to treat their dolls however they wish, but they also need to realize that there are consequences for exposing parts of themselves that may be extremely unappealing to others. They are essentially putting themselves out there for people to judge... but they are hoping to be judged positively.

Expecting people to put aside their own experiences or beliefs so that you (general you) can post some pictures of a YoSD grinding on a Hound is really unrealistic. Just as its their choice whether or not they want to share those interests, it is my choice to decide how I want to react to that information. I'm not going to pretend to be open-minded about sexualized child-dolls. I wouldn't want to hang out with a guy who excitedly told me that he played rape-sim videogames; I don't want to associate with people who are interested in positive depictions of child abuse.

In a country where 1 out of every 6 girls (and 1 out of every 8 boys) will be the recipient of unwanted sexual contact by the age of 18, I just have no tolerance. With the recent rash of news stories about child brides being essentially raped to death by their husbands, I am fresh out of open-mindedness.

It is not a "right" to make your therapy public, nor is it anyone else's job to cradle your psyche... and while DoA has a healthy army of armchair psychologists, deep-seated issues would be better dealt with by a professional or people who know you in person.

I read a criticism of an artist I admire a few weeks ago, and since then I have been thinking a lot about representational objects and their "rights."

Obviously, a doll is an inanimate object that has no emotions, physical needs, or rights. Therefore a photoshoot that might be considered debasing, degrading, or dehumanizing with a human model would have no effect on the doll itself; it is unaware and unharmed.

However, as viewers we can recognize that an object or image may be a representation of a human subject... and we can apply the situation or statement to its human counterpart. If this was not the case, there would be no debate about the sexualization of comic book superheroines or the appropriateness of violent videogames.

To what extent is an image a stand-in for the actual subject... does it "become" the real thing in terms of meaning...? And does there come a point where certain depictions become infringements on the rights of the groups being represented?

I have a hard time deciding how I feel because it is such a complex, multi-layer subject.

I honestly don't care about superheroines with huge boobs or bulbous backsides. So guys wish girls had big boobs. I wish guys had big muscles like superheroes sometimes. Whatever. Sexualization of adults isn't inherently exploitative.

One might argue that videogames or drawn pornography is a healthy way to play out unhealthy or dangerous fantasies. I would definitely rather that someone play a game than hurt a real person... but by allowing these materials on the market, I think we're acknowledging and validating the content of these fantasies. In allowing accepting the proliferation of rape-sim videogames and pornography, I feel as though we're passively accepting that some men want to rape women and almost normalizing it, which is in turn socially confirming womens' roles as purely sexual objects. In the doll community, I feel as though accepting depictions of child sexualization via dolls is oddly validating... and trivializes the reality by making people focus on their feelings about the fantasy (positive or negative).

It is hard to articulate my specific feelings because I am not adverse to personal fantasies or individual (or mutual) use of pornography. Perhaps it is more an issue of scale or the expectation of acceptance; I am far less bothered by one person fantasizing in private; by contrast, I am frequently disturbed to see communities or an industries built on fantasies that would be extremely harmful to others if allowed to become realities. (By reality, I am not talking about two adults who are into non-consensual play or want to play student and teacher; I am talking about the real deal.)

But at the opposite end, how far can a community or government go before it becomes actual, text-book censorship? Definitions of social importance and smut are so varied that it would be impossible to create work that wasn't somehow offensive or exploitative to someone without rendering everything meaningless. How much should an artist censor herself before she loses the ability to create or have a unique voice?

Complex stuff.

Going again to dolls: I don't think anyone could argue that some dolls are sculpted specifically to look like children. As such, they are sculptural representations of children. By using them to portray adult sexuality, a photographer is essentially representing children in sexual situations. Saying "it's just a doll" is true; but a doll is what it is, not what it represents.

Like others have said, I would be happier if there was more of a taboo on certain subject matter in the doll community.

 

blissfulchains People can be "hurt" when viewing such material. It is called post traumatic stress disorder. That goes beyond just thinking it is icky. I am not laying the blame on the photographer/doll owner as the viewer does have a responsibility as well. I just wanted to point out to you that, yes in fact, people can be seriously emotionally hurt by viewing these images. I do not have much else to add to the discussion as Armeleia and others have already said what I feel in much more eloquent terms than I can. For my own part, I just wanted to say please do not think these images cannot seriously affect someone.

 

Yeah...especially when this happened to them. For example, a bondage image may look artistic to some, but could make a rape victim replay the incident.

 

Even Controversial Doll has limits on what immature dolls espcially tinies can be involved in when it comes to adult themes. Some Puki are downright funny when it comes to drinking but there the rules are such that NO CHILD-LIKE tiny can be in a sexual situation no matter what age the character is...where the forum is based it is ILLEGAL.

Not all people with dwarfism are disproportionate. I am not a little person but I am VERY short and am for the post part proportional. m I look 8-10 years younger than my actual age and there is consideration that even someone like me in a setting that symbolizes child porn should be, and in some places, is illegal.

And yes...there are many people in the world who have PTSD...myself included...so some situations need to be monitored and it's also my responsibility to filter them for myself. I notice esp on DoA people tend to glamorize BDSM and other morally questionable actions and even crimes...to the point of being unrealistic.

As for "sexual offenders" monitoring themselves when it comes to viewing, reading, whatever...there is a reason why it's also a MENTAL ILLNESS. Many just aren't in the capacity to be in full control of themselves like that...and I am not saying that they aren't responsible for their crimes but it's NEVER as simple as "Oh look...he/she molested a child and is BAD".