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Originally Posted by roriconfan

Wait, this is not about porn, right? No, it's about dancing erotically from a tender age on tv. Same issue, albeit far less serious. Today they dance, tomorrow they... what?

Well, Mystique seems to be the member here most familiar with the subculture in question, so I’ll quote her:

Originally Posted by Mystique

Performance is just that, you take on a role and perform for the moment, but outside of it, depending on how they were raised, they'll be normal girls, doing school stuff and having fun.

Mystique can correct me if I’m wrong here, but there’s an implicit argument in this that if they have a normal upbringing, they’ll turn out normal. Which makes sense, since she also talks about how the dancers she knew growing up didn’t really pay much attention to the suggestive lyrics and such. I’m basically getting that kids and parents involved in this subculture don’t see the same sexual connotations that some people in this thread are seeing.

This doesn’t surprise me. I imagine that some people would be absolutely mortified to learn that I’ve seen fifteen year old girls cosplay characters from erotic game derived anime at conventions. But having actually become a con buddy of sorts to a pair of (then) 15 year old twins who did such cosplay, I get the impression that they didn’t see it as a particularly sexual thing. Nor do I think their mother – enough of an anime fan herself to know the origins of the characters – saw it as being particularly sexual. And of course, I as a cosplay photographer aware of the character’s origins didn’t see it as particularly sexual and I imagine the same would be true of most of my peers. If some outsider where to argue to me that girls who cosplay characters from erogame derived anime are more likely to be promiscuous or some such, I’d tell them they simply don’t understand the subculture they’re talking about – and I’m pretty darn sure I’d be right.

In either case, I wouldn’t call the connotations irrelevant, but implying that girls that do either are more likely to participate in underage porn is hyperbole in my opinion.

And when people go attaching their own connotations to how people act in a subculture, the results can occasionally get nasty. I remember own Counter-Strike player in a Texas high school getting in a whole heap of trouble for making a CS map of his school. Now, making maps of locations you know is pretty much standard practice for beginning mappers, and as any CSer will tell you, the game is about armed conflict, not shooting civilians. It’s not like the kid was inserting his other students into the game as target practice (in fact, he wasn’t inserting other students into the game at all). But of course, parents and administrators not familiar with the norms of the subculture in question interpreted it as “OMG next Columbine copycat” and went nuts.

So yeah, I think I have more than a little reason to be worried about people applying their own connotations to subcultures they aren’t part of.

Originally Posted by roriconfan

I believe most men are against this sort of thing yet most WOULD buy such a film in secret.

I guess I have a high opinion of the average man then you then.

Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

It's actually rather ironic when you consider both the groups who attack animated depictions of child-like characters and those that protect it as freedoms, as compared to those who are aghast at these videos and those who think these are morally acceptable.

Pray tell what exactly what we should be protecting our children against these days when no one seems to agree anymore.

I’m against censoring both the depictions and the video, so I consider my position consistent. Doesn’t mean I’m not allow to have negative opinions about both, which I also have.

But to tell the truth, my biggest beef with the anti-lolicon crowd is the fact that they always portray the issue as being about depictions of prepubescent girls when pretty much every single law I’ve seen concerning lolicon goes after material featuring characters who look “under 18”. At that point, it’s isn’t just about fighting pedophilia anymore, there’s some mission creep going on.