To be specific, "Lolicon" is a Japanese word that's partly a loanword from "Lolita" in English; in the way the author is using it, it means "drawn or simulated representations of fictional children engaged in sexual activity", though in common Japanese parlence the word literally means "pedophile". The author has decided to say that lolicon is "child pornography" and this itself is a matter of debate; some authors (such as Young, in "Resolving the Gamer's Dilemma") consider child pornography to be synonymous with abuse, and hence "virtual pedophila" (as he calls it) does not fall under it.
The "other thing" is literally just child pornography through and through, photographs or videos of real children engaged in sexual activity.
The fact that the author has neglected to specifically state the difference is strange, and I honestly can't think of a good reason for doing this, or why it was left in Japanese script.
Furthermore, there's something else here; a while ago I read an article which claimed that 81% of the Japanese public based on an extrapolated study would be fine with lolicon being made illegal. So how does the author say that lolicon being acceptable is a mainstream view? The author writes too,
>The idea that ロリコン is bad in the same way 児童ポルノ is bad, or even that there could be a meaningful category including both ロリコン and 児童ポルノ as if they were somehow comparable, is incomprehensible from the mainstream Japanese point of view.
Does this make me an honorary holder of the Japanese point of view? I honestly can't see a way in which drawings and real life photos in this case are comparable at all, it's incomprehensible to me how one could lump them together other than by the subject matter they represent, which is extremely broad and ignores the whole point of the classification - that is, one necessitates child abuse to be created, and the other doesn't. I very much align with the Japanese point of view here.
On the other things the author mentioned, I agree with another commenter in saying that it's not at at all useful to frame this as "red" and "blue"; I consider myself rather "blue" on some issues (being a socialist) but the liberal idea of free speech is one I hold very dear to myself, and I am vehemently opposed to laws that target any kind of expression, even if that does entail "lolicon"; I believe the harm principle can stand here on its own, though I'm not sure if I'd bend even if it was proven conclusively (how?) that lolicon "causes" people to molest real children.
Oh, so ロリコン is lolicon? Thank you. I can't read japanese. Even a direct translation would be useful, because even google translate doesn't translate both as child pornography. The assertion in the text that both are translated as such is needlessly confusing.
> […] "Lolicon" is a Japanese word that's partly a loanword from "Lolita" in English; […]
Etymologically, it is a Japanese portmanteau derived from 'lolita complex', which is waseigo (Japanese words comprised of English words) meaning someone attracted to, or an attraction to, prepubescent girls (not boys, so it is not completely analogous to paedophile).
> So how does the author say that lolicon being acceptable is a mainstream view?
He seems to extrapolate from the acceptance of it in (large) online Japanese communities.
The term paedophile means an adult (of any gender) who is sexually attracted to prepubescent children of any gender. Lolicon (when applied to a person) means an adult (again, of any gender) who is sexually attracted specifically to prepubescent girls (not boys). Hence the terms are not equivalent.
A term used for the latter is shotacon, but it is not as common a word as the above.
Your views (liberal/socialist,....) can change over time too as some of them are age related. As the saying goes "If you're a conservative as a youngster, you don't have a heart, if you're not a conservative at middle age, you don't have a brain.".
Also, you can be exposed to a different culture and learn to like things, for example, most Europeans don't understand why on earth someone would like to watch baseball, but some learned to like it due to prolonged exposure.
Another example: I think most Europeans have their guards up talking to Americans about politics, as they know the other side would probably just consider them to be a 'pink commie bastard'(TM).
That old saying is a special kind of unfalsifiable crud that's just used to either discard the views of young people or mock the views of old people as stupid. There's plenty of old people who aren't conservative, and tons of conservative old people who are brainless. And plenty of every other combination imaginable.
The "other thing" is literally just child pornography through and through, photographs or videos of real children engaged in sexual activity.
The fact that the author has neglected to specifically state the difference is strange, and I honestly can't think of a good reason for doing this, or why it was left in Japanese script.
Furthermore, there's something else here; a while ago I read an article which claimed that 81% of the Japanese public based on an extrapolated study would be fine with lolicon being made illegal. So how does the author say that lolicon being acceptable is a mainstream view? The author writes too,
>The idea that ロリコン is bad in the same way 児童ポルノ is bad, or even that there could be a meaningful category including both ロリコン and 児童ポルノ as if they were somehow comparable, is incomprehensible from the mainstream Japanese point of view.
Does this make me an honorary holder of the Japanese point of view? I honestly can't see a way in which drawings and real life photos in this case are comparable at all, it's incomprehensible to me how one could lump them together other than by the subject matter they represent, which is extremely broad and ignores the whole point of the classification - that is, one necessitates child abuse to be created, and the other doesn't. I very much align with the Japanese point of view here.
On the other things the author mentioned, I agree with another commenter in saying that it's not at at all useful to frame this as "red" and "blue"; I consider myself rather "blue" on some issues (being a socialist) but the liberal idea of free speech is one I hold very dear to myself, and I am vehemently opposed to laws that target any kind of expression, even if that does entail "lolicon"; I believe the harm principle can stand here on its own, though I'm not sure if I'd bend even if it was proven conclusively (how?) that lolicon "causes" people to molest real children.