Do I need a content warning? I'm going to talk about child sexual abuse here, so don't read it.
I have a lot of thoughts on this subject and this seems like an appropriate place to write them down. I don't know if anyone will actually read this, but if you want to offer your thoughts I'd be interested to hear them. I don't want to write a huge intro but I should mention that I'm a middle-aged male American, politically left-leaning, who wasn't abused as a child and hasn't abused any children. And I won't. And you shouldn't either! Don't do it!
I'm sure this stuff has already been discussed at length by many people, but I no longer have much interest in the echo chambers that online discussions have become. I'm just going off what I've observed. In other words, I'm definitely wrong about all of this.
To start off: No one actually cares about children. Everyone has to pretend they care about children in general because we're supposed to live in a decent, nurturing society... but really, the only children most people care about are the ones they know personally. If you want to pretend you have some moral obligation toward the protection of children as a whole, go look at what's happening to most of the children across the world, and then go fuck yourself. What are you doing about that? Nothing. You can't do anything. So stop pretending.
Personally, I don't want children to be abused, but I feel like that puts me in the minority. Most people who claim to fight for children are only using it as a pretext for something else, usually because they just want an excuse to be an asshole. Society won't let them be an asshole to whomever they want, so they have to find a socially acceptable way of being a piece of shit. Especially supposed "predator hunters."
An important point: predator hunters want children to be abused. The point is the hunt, and without the abuse, there's no hunt. So both the predator and the hunter have a lot to gain from sexual abuse. They certainly don't want it to stop.
If you actually want to stop child abuse, this "predator hunter" mindset is the worst way to go about it. Look at who these predators actually are, if you're not too afraid. How did they get this way? Probably because they were abused themselves. So if you really want to go after the predators, you have to include their victims. Once a child is raped, they're on the chopping block too. You have to ruin those children too in order to pretend you're protecting children.
It seems to be a common notion that some people are just inhumanly evil in their hearts if they're above 18 and they have sexual feelings for someone below 18. What about in other societies where this was allowed? For example, in Ancient Greece it was common for an older man to have a sexual relationship with a boy too young to grow a beard. I'm not saying we should return to the morals of ancient times, but it's ridiculous to think that's some sort of inhuman thing.
Another important point: pretending you're protecting children has long been the cornerstone of homophobia. Most people, at least here in the US, are fine with homosexual relationships. Then why is bigotry so popular? Well, because people were convinced for a long time that the gays were coming for their children. Does that mean bigotry is ending now? No, we can't let go of it, it's too much fun, it feels too good to beat up on people we don't like. It just has a different form now. You still have to pretend you're protecting children. The only thing that matters is that an ignorant populace believes that's what you're doing. It helps if you believe it too. (See also: the anti-trans movement.)
It's pretty sad how you have to agree fully with whatever society says about this subject or there are harsh consequences. It's madness to assume that society could be 100% right about anything, but here we are. The result of a lack of questioning is that things get even worse. (It drives me crazy that "just asking questions" is now seen as a bad thing on the left. At first, it looked like they were just attacking those "just asking questions" for being disingenuous, but no, it turns out they are literally against questioning things.)
Another thing that drives me crazy is how the definition of "pedophile" keeps expanding. We need more people to hate so we can be a kind, loving society. It used to be a typical "philia" as in a sexual attraction to someone. Now it's just anyone who doesn't stay in their own age group. If you're a 45-year-old who falls in love with a 19-year-old, you're the same as a 19-year-old in a loving relationship with a 16-year-old, which is the same as a priest who serially rapes altar boys, which is the same as the guy who drives around capturing little boys and sodomizing them in the back of his van (does that actually happen or is it an urban legend?), which is the same as Jeffrey Epstein, which is the same as whatever Kendrick Lamar is accusing Drake of, which is the same as someone who has child pornography on their hard drive, which is the same as someone who's aroused by cub porn. Soon enough, a "pedophile" will be defined as whichever person in a relationship is the older one.
You'd think if we were actually concerned with stopping child abuse from happening, we'd be more careful about differentiating it from less harmful things. "You were repeatedly raped by a pedophile when you were a small child? So what? My friend is a pedophile because he dated a high schooler when he was in college. It's not that bad."
When I was a child, a child was someone younger than 13, and then you were a teenager. Now, everyone under 18 is the same thing, a "minor". There's no difference between a baby and a 17-year-old when it comes to whom we're going to demonize as the worst sort of human there could possibly be. It's like when you turn 18 you suddenly become an entirely different species.
On the subject of this particular website: Yes, I'm one of those people who is aroused by cub porn. In fact, the hatred against it just makes me want it more. I get stressed out by all that stupid hate, but then I feel much better when I enjoy some drawings of cute young animal people having sex with older animal people. (Important point #3: Kink shaming just makes the kink stronger.) People pretending to care about children tend to think that if you like cub porn, it means you want to rape actual children. Might I suggest: FFFUUUUCCCCKKK YYYOOOUUUUU. That is so intensely stupid and wrong that it makes me want to vomit. How can you even be a furry if you think that what turns you on in illustrations is what you want to do for real? Again, please kindly go fuck yourself bloody with your mindless nonsense that masquerades as morality.
I used to think people were generally good. Now it looks like most of them are just faking it, AKA virtue signaling, because you have to pretend to live to some impossible ideal in order not to be attacked. Was it always like this, or is it a new thing with the social media age? (Read about Stalin's purges if you want to be horrified.) I don't remember it being like this before but maybe I just wasn't paying attention. In any case, the only possible response is to give up. You have to abandon your morality by setting it aside, or by changing it into some new thing that merely pretends to be morality.
