Loli

[Fatalmasterpiece]

I've ran into countless people who use the term, usually Loli, to refer to young, attractive, often sexually provocative characters, evidently without knowing it's origins or meanings from the original book and film Lolita.

 

Likening anything to a 12 year old girl who has sexual relations with a middle aged man just seems wrong and offensive to me, but as typical internet trends go, it remains an unfortunate oversight by it's proponents. I understand that in some nations this is perfectly acceptable. While I don't want to be judgmental of a foreign culture's practices, pedophilia is where I draw the line.

 

Furthermore, I have come across many situations where "loli" type characters, chibi, cutesy or what have you, are used in sexually provocative ways in various media but the justifications seems to be that these characters are not actually young, but just look young and are essentially fantastical adults, cartoons or anime. Is this any different from putting a white man in black face and trying to say it's not supposed to represent an African? Sounds to me like a justification to fool one's self into thinking it's acceptable.

 

Now, I'm not talking about flat chested adult women or similar topics related to Australian laws for instance. I'm talking about loli and genuinely suggestive media of this form.

[evilneko]

Well this is right messy can of worms isn't it? Would not be surprised to see a few tempers flaring...

 

...especially when I say, I think my feeling on the matter can be summed up by saying, "I love the manga Kodomo no Jikan."

 

I'd also like to begin with a particularly appropriate quote from a member of the Children of Cyrodiil forum: "Americans will turn anything they see into 'pedophilia'. Amazingly, they don't seem to think that turning anything involving a child in any context into 'sexual perversion' is a far better example of pedophilia." - Rebochan

 

With the tone sufficiently set, let's begin.

 

Loli is little more than a term describing young female characters in anime and manga. It does not actually carry any sexual connotations in and of itself. It also depends on who you ask whether or not an older-than-they-look character (such as Disgaea's Etna, Fuko from Clannad, actually, anime is just rife with these characters) can be called "loli." After all even the most underdeveloped adult is still an adult (well, legally).

 

The term lolicon (literally short for lolita complex, one of those portmanteau words the Japanese love so much) varies in usage somewhat, but suffice to say that as it is used by westerners at least, a lolicon is not always a pedophile and a pedophile is not always a lolicon.

 

There is no direct connection between loli and pedophilia. A person can enjoy a loli-centric anime like Moetan or Pani Poni Dash without being a pedophile or lolicon.

 

Do some people get sexual gratification out of it? Yes, but some people will get sexual gratification out of anything, and far more people enjoy it for the cuteness, the lovability, the moe factor of the characters. Does Japan have a fairly brisk trade running in lolicon hentai? Yes, but is it really a problem? Better a cartoon than an actual girl. In fact, I liken it to video games. It's not the art or medium itself that's a problem. It's people. Incidentally in the US cartoon minors depicted in sexual situations are not covered by child porn laws, only obscenity.

 

Would I have it any other way? Absolutely not.

[BlackBaron2]

My own feeling on the matter is this: if someone admits to finding childlike characters "sexy", I won't be hanging out with them any time soon. I personally find the child sexualization phenomenon disturbing and the anime content with "sexy" little girls is just not helping matters. It, at least to me, seems to be a way of "normalising" pedophilia just as joking about indecent assault is enabling rape culture.

 

Now, as for shojo anime series (aimed at little girls), well, if it's anything like Disney princesses, I wouldn't like it much, for obvious reasons--I find Disney princesses boring. There is absolutely nothing wrong anybody looking at shojo anime or manga, provided they're not an impressionable kid who's going to do stupid things in order to be a "pretty princess".

[Harbringe]

Lolita was the nickname of one of the principle characters in Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita. Lolita's actual name was Dolores, with whom the narrator, Humbert Humbert, develops a sexual obsession.[1] In the book itself, "Lolita" is specifically Humbert's nickname for Dolores. Nevertheless, "Lolita" and "loli" has come to be used as a general reference to a seductive or sexually attractive young woman.

 

Its origin has nothing to do with anime or manga ,but has been borrowed by those art forms.Yet even in those art forms its sexual connotations are evident.Really its a form of child porn ,with out actually being child porn .Some who would promote the whole anime/manga art form would like to have us believe its some valid art form , but really what are images of pubescently developed girls in various poses wearing crotch high mini skirt school girl uniforms supposed to evoke ,call it for what it is .

[BlackBaron2]

Yes, and that's why it bothers me. You can call it something cutesy, but at the end of the day, it's still sexualised images of children, and obviously that is not a good thing. I've also noticed that nobody's said anything about "shotacon", which is the same as lolicon, but contains little boys instead. It's no more, or less, wrong than the same stuff involving female characters.

 

Moe (pronounced mo-eh) art, that is to say cute and innocent-looking characters, is not always related to children, and also not always or even usually sexual--it's apparently designed to bring out the nurturing instinct that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy when you see something cute. Shojo anime and manga, as I said, is aimed at little girls. While I don't doubt that some of it is inappropriate, it's not in and of itself sexual. Reinforcing stereotypical gender roles, sure, because "girls should like cute things", but as far as I know, kids' anime and manga is not about sex, even though there can be romantic elements just like we have in Western fairytales and cartoons. I'm just trying to explain the difference between types of anime and manga that contain cute or innocent characters, because not all anime/manga is ecchi (soft porn) or hentai (hardcore porn) and not all depictions of cute/innocent characters in anime/manga are intended to be sexual.

[Pyrosocial]

The orginal cover for the Scorpions album, virgin killer, showed a nude girl on the front, but that was never called "loli", so is it only when its sexually explict?

[BlackBaron2]

Well, "loli" is used to refer to sexually-charged images, and there is a difference between "artistic nude" and pornography--"artistic nude" is just nude images, pornography, while also arguably a form of art, is explicitly sexual in nature. That doesn't mean that the album cover is OK, because the title's not really appropriate to display along with an image of a child (purely subjective opinion though I suspect many people will agree with me) because it does, in a sense, make it seem sexual rather than just a nude image.

[Fatalmasterpiece]

@evilneko

I'm not going to be able to use qoutes, as I'm on my phone, so sorry for my formatting.

 

I have disagree with the logic behind your statements, In particular the one about loli having no intrinsic attachment to pedophelia. Your statement is as much a fallacy as saying the term "wigger" has no intrinsic attachment to the negative intentions of that word's originator. Whether people realize it or not Loli comes from Lolita which is the nickname and term referring to an underage, sexually intended girl.

 

You mention and sorry I can't quote you exactly, it is better to be depicting these figures in Japan than having men actually predate upon real young girls. Again this is a great failure in logic. You imply that "artistic" depictions of pedophelia, rape and sexual abuse are acceptable because those who enjoy such things will be busy with the media and not out perpetuating these actions? Surely you can see how that is poor thinking. If anything these media support and perpetuate a subculture which finds such deplorable thing acceptable on at least a subliminal level.

[BlackBaron2]

Yes, as I said, like flippancy about indecent assault and domestic violence enables such behaviour. It's not the cause, it is a way that certain people normalise bad behaviour. Sexual depictions of children are bad because they enable pedophilia. Show things like that as normal, and people will believe it is.

[Sync182]

pedophilia = bad. :thumbsup:

 

Children's Beauty Pagents = good. :confused:

 

Am I missing something there? When did we stop letting kids be kids? :wallbash: