Please do not take your own life. Please.
There was a time when I was considering the same as well following a previous development, but what kept me going was my desire to see the world improve. Because if I die, then so does my ability to ensure that my ideas are shared, and reason can be appealed.
There are a lot of good, caring, and intelligent people working to study these matters, to be the voice of reason over a crowd of angry, emotional, and anti-rational ideologues who equate fantasy with intent and rely on logical fallacies and baseless social-science assertions to ground their arguments.
Those types, and the rhetoric they espouse, are inherently unreasoned, and so long as there are people who consign themselves to it and are wiling and able to speak out against it, then the fire of hope will continue to burn brighter and brighter.
Besides, a lot of them seem to be tripping over themselves in their rhetoric. I sent a message to @Gilian via email regarding a phony āstudyā written by two lawyers from Australia.
The Characteristics of Virtual Child Sexual Abuse Material Offenders and the Harms of Offending: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Print Media
This paper is devoid of any science, any reason, and it doesnāt take a psychology or sociology major to recognize rhetoric where it rears its ugly, disgusting head.
Likeā¦look at this.
VCSAM is a form of CSAM
Several articles drew from the voices of authorities and highlighted their messages that VCSAM is a form of CSAM, signifying that this type of material can still result in harm. Several cases included messages from judicial officers. For example, in one case, while the judicial officer indicated that drawn images and anime are considered to be less serious compared with pictures of real children, it was still considered to be āof great concernā. In fact, this judicial officer highlighted the āserious risksā of this material, having the potential to ādegrade and inciteā. In a different case, the judicial officer highlighted the reasonable āpublic concernā about any type of offense in relation to possessing CSAM and that regardless of whether the children were real or anime, protecting children is of āparamount importanceā in society. Another judicial officer highlighted those individuals accessing this material ācreates a marketā and that this material can still involve the suffering and degradation of children. Another case drew from the voice of law enforcement, with VCSAM charges serving as āa reminderā to society that cartoon/animated images are illegal and can result in serious charges.
Copied from the email I sent to Gilianā¦
āVirtual child sex abuse materialā does not exist, it is not a valid term. CSAM, by definition, is limited to content or materials which are intrinsically linked to the sexual abuse and exploitation of children, which requires their participation or direct involvement.
By definition, virtual child pornography (the actual term) does not involve real children, only the idea of children or the use of child-like characteristics and attributes.
Expanding the term to encapsulate materials or contents beyond that narrow scope of real children undermines its legitimacy and runs the risk of promoting a flawed understanding of what these things actually mean, and why theyāre serious, or in contrast, overstating certain aspects or qualities which are inherently unreasoned.
No evidence exists supporting the contention that it would lead to the escalation from cartoons/anime/CGI to real CSAM, nor does any evidence exist supporting that any real harm or risk of ādegradation and incitementā. In fact, of the communities Iāve been able to personally survey (first or second-hand) regarding this, the overwhelming majority of individuals appear to maintain anti-contact or pure fiction/fantasy, while the more ādiscourse tolerantā communities appeared to be fervently against any form of adult-child sex with some vocal minorities of participants expressing pro-contact beliefs or ideals.
Such individuals are a poison, I admit, but theyāre far from a concern. The fact that a stigma against pro-contact ideals or beliefs within MAP communities is solid proof of this (as taken from @elliotās link on their MAP resources page)
Moreover, existing cultural anthropological works regarding these communities (namely Japanese culture), like with the works of Patrick Galbraith, emphatically and explicitly dispute these claims.
Itās very clear that those making these types of assertions regarding behavioral escalation and invoking moralism have absolutely zero understanding of how this type of material actually affects people or how theyāre engaged with.
The fact that these Australian lawyers never bothered to actually analyze the themes captured by their paper, or how they square up with research evidence which questions or contradicts them makes it extremely clear that this paper is anything but qualitative.
Thereās other parts of the paper which I find to be problematic, but this was the brunt of their claim, the rest being pure legalistic.