Hello,
So some of you may have seen a few of my posts here. I will say a bit about myself.
I am 28, live in the US, and I like lolis, cubs, and plush animals. I buy them dresses and little clothes to play as if I take them off from them, or just keep em on. Anyways…
I remember back in 2011, or 2012, I was in a furry group where they banned any porn, and someone mentioned that liking certain characters who were young was pedophilia. That made me curious as to the legal status of fictional porn depicting young characters. So I stumbled on the wikipedia article, and checked the US section. It described the CPPA, the Ashcroft stuff, and how fictional porn depicting minors was legal and protected so long as it was not obscene. I even looked up the Miller test and thought “so it has artistic value, as it is art, therefore it’s protected, hence why I see it everywhere on the web!” I also read about the PROTECT Act of 2003, of the relatively new onscenity law, and the cases. No big deal from what I remember, as I thought “well, it’s obscenity, and these images are art, so I am good.”
This is where it begins. Fastforward to 2013. I stopped thinking about obscenity law because back then I didn’t make a big deal about it. Then during an anime club meeting, someone said that lolicon was illegal. I said no way! It is legal, it’s all on wiki! After that day, I went to check, and still saw the same thing I had seen before, but something changed in me that made me see it on a different light. As weird as it sounds, one day not too long afterwards, I got the FBI virus screen that says my computer is locked as I broke the law. I panicked. I read that the cause might have been child porn, or other offenses. Then I thought of what the anime club guy said, and panicked even more. I even went to check the window, and sure enough, my inflated imagination got the best of me. There was a black truck parked near my house, a truck I didn’t remember seeing before.
“Are they here for me?” I thought to myself. I went to check the child porn law, and it said clearly that drawings and cartoons are not included, and I saw the affirmative defence. I then thought the FBI thing could be a virus, researched something about it, and indeed, it is a virus and nothing else. But inside me, the damage had already been done.
I began reading the wikipedia article on the legal status of fictional porn again, and saw the cases, and felt different about them as I had said before. “What if this is actually illegal?” I remember thinking. “What if I read everything wrong?”
I began feeling watched as the end of 2013 approached. I remember at college, there was a security guard lady. I remember thinking that to get reassurance I was not doing anything wrong, I should smile and wave at her and see her response. When I did so, she just stared at me and kept walking, not saying anything. That made me afraid. “Now they know I might have broken the law…” I read about Whorley and Handley again. And for some reason, I felt like their cases proved that loli was illegal in the US. I think I ignored the whole “is obscene” part of it, and kept thinking that the new law contradicted Ashcroft.
It all culminated when one morning I was driving to college. I did not notice I was driving 10km/h faster than the limit, and an unmarked vehicle began following me. The sirens turned on, and I entered panic mode. “Oh shit! They will arrest me for loli!” I foolishly kept driving, as I was already close to school. Then another police car joins! Holy shit! I thought. They really will get me for loli! Then I parked at school, saw the police cars park as well, got off the car, and the cops did as well.
“Put your hands on the car!!!” One cop yelled at me. I thought, “this is it, I am going to jail”. The cop asked me why didn’t I stop the car. I told him that I didn’t know he was a cop. He asked me, skeptically “well, what do you think I was?” I said I thought he was someone impersonating an officer. He nodded and told me I was driving too fast, and that I shouldn’t have gotten off the car, that that scared him because he thought I was fleeing because I had drugs, so he got to inspect my car, found nothing, gave me a ticket, and that was that. I was still so scared by the whole thing. When I saw the ticket, I overthought everything. I read something about going to jail and what not, and it psyched me out. So I would call the police station constantly asking for reassurance. It came to the point where the receptionist would laugh and sound annoyed while telling me for the nth time I would not go to jail, that it was just a ticket. So I did the driving course, paid the ticket, and that was it.
So more damage was done. All of these incidents made me so scared that I began deleting all the young-looking cartoon porn I had. I thought I might still be screwed. Part of me still wanted to look at loli, but I didn’t want to go to jail. So I suffered a lot without being able to look at loli. It wasn’t so bad as I also enjoy adult characters, but it bothered me that I didn’t feel as free as before to look at characrers that were younger. I wasn’t hurting anyone! It’s just a drawing! I am not into real kids at all! But I internalized the whole “it’s illegal” bs so much that I even began trying to convince myself that those drawings would cause me to do something if I saw them. So I used this to further keep myself away from the material. Then I wondered about stuffed animals. Some look young, what if they think they represent minors? That winter of 2013-2014 was bleak. I was still paranoid. I even got jury duty on the mail, and because I didn’t know what it was, I got scared and thought it was a warrant, even thought I have never seen a warrant and that was the first time I got called to jury duty. The state seal intimidated me, that’s what it was. I also remember this guy during my bio lab, who was wearing a jacket that said “CBP Explorer”. I looked at him, and he stared back, even after I had turned away and turned to look at him. That also scared me.
To make a longer story short, I was paranoid. I felt like I was doing something wrong even thought I was just looking at fiction, material that now I know is not illegal.
How did I get to this point? It was very slow, it took a lot of reading, and a lot of time. Now I understand what obscenity is much better, and know not to psych myself out as bad. I look at lolis and cubs without guilt.
What do you think? Was this “it’s illegal” thing caused by my own overthinking? What do you think happened to make me feel paranoid?
Hello,
I recently joined the forum and since you haven’t received a reply on this post yet, I figured I’d share some of my thoughts regarding your situation.
So, for a bit of context, I’m 22 and I live in Canada. While I’m sexually attracted to adult women (real and anime), I also like lolicon. Lolicon is criminalized in Canada, as you probably know, so I use Roblox Rule 34 as an alternative (although I have viewed some lolicon in the past).
I remember back in 2011, or 2012, I was in a furry group where they banned any porn, and someone mentioned that liking certain characters who were young was pedophilia.
I’m in a hentai group where they ban furry porn and lolicon, although the latter is justified, given it’s a Discord server (lolicon is against Discord’s Terms of Service).
The funny thing is that they allow artworks of underage (anime) boys and some of them look… pretty lewd.
Sexualizing underage girls is unacceptable. But boys? Totally fine!
As for the part about it being pedophilia, I wasn’t sure myself for a long time whether it was or not. I understand now that liking lolicon doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a pedophile.
Most lolis look more like dolls than actual children. Many of them have big eyes and a big mouth. My guess is that is to make them look cuter.
Comparing a loli to a real child is like comparing a grown woman to a barbie doll.
Have you seen Queen Elizabeth II? Have you seen her Barbie doll counterpart? Sure, the Barbie doll has a resemblance to the (former) Queen, but there’s no way someone would mistake the Barbie doll for an actual human being.
As weird as it sounds, one day not too long afterwards, I got the FBI virus screen that says my computer is locked as I broke the law. I panicked. I read that the cause might have been child porn, or other offenses.
Something similar had happened to me a couple of years ago. I was using a tablet and browsing the Internet for… research. Yeah, totally. I clicked on an image that I found on Google Images and it sent me to a website that, if I remember correctly, was dedicated to hosting porn of barely legal women (all part of the research). All of a sudden, my screen was locked and there was a message that appeared saying something along the lines of “POLICE ATTENTION! YOU HAVE VIOLATED THE LAW AND BROWSED CHILD PORNOGRAPHY!”
Technically, I could set myself out of the Internet app and do other things on the tablet, but the Internet app itself was locked onto that page.
There was a secondary message as well that indicated that, in order to continue using the Internet app, I had to… go to a local gas station and purchase a gift card that would save someone money when they purchase gas at the pump.
Needless to say, this was very likely a hacker. Fortunately, I managed to back out of the website on the Internet app by pressing the “return” button multiple times.
It has never happened again since then.
There was a black truck parked near my house, a truck I didn’t remember seeing before.
That’s why I prefer to order from Amazon Prime instead of UPS.
“Are they here for me?” I thought to myself. I went to check the child porn law, and it said clearly that drawings and cartoons are not included, and I saw the affirmative defence. I then thought the FBI thing could be a virus, researched something about it, and indeed, it is a virus and nothing else.
Not to mention that there are viruses that are specifically designed to store CP/CSAM on a person’s computer.
Remember to not click suspicious links. Do not click this link!
I began reading the wikipedia article on the legal status of fictional porn again, and saw the cases, and felt different about them as I had said before. “What if this is actually illegal?” I remember thinking. “What if I read everything wrong?”
I don’t really have anything to say about this part, other than I don’t have to worry about asking myself such questions, since I already know the answer.
Although, I think this thread is pretty relevant: Is Lolicon illegal in the US?
So more damage was done. All of these incidents made me so scared that I began deleting all the young-looking cartoon porn I had. I thought I might still be screwed. Part of me still wanted to look at loli, but I didn’t want to go to jail. So I suffered a lot without being able to look at loli. It wasn’t so bad as I also enjoy adult characters, but it bothered me that I didn’t feel as free as before to look at characrers that were younger. I wasn’t hurting anyone! It’s just a drawing! I am not into real kids at all! But I internalized the whole “it’s illegal” bs so much that I even began trying to convince myself that those drawings would cause me to do something if I saw them. So I used this to further keep myself away from the material.
I also had a porn collection on my computer, if that’s what you were talking about. It was mainly just amateur porn and hentai. I kept reading stories of people getting caught in Canada because of lolicon or because of, you know, actual CP/CSAM on their computer.
There was one image that I had that actually made me worried though. It was a hentai drawing of an underage boy (I think maybe first grade) having sex with his teacher. Now, I didn’t really care about the boy, my focus was on the teacher. I think I must’ve projected myself onto the boy and fantasized about said teacher.
Well anyway, I deleted my whole porn collection because of that one image. I wasn’t planning on taking a chance with any of it.
I regretted doing that as it had taken me two years to make it. So, about a year later, I used a file recovery program, Recuva, to retrieve the deleted images. Unfortunately, only a handful of the images were recoverable (including, ironically, the image with the boy and the teacher that I mentioned), most of them were unrecoverable.
Since I originally deleted the collection, I made a new consisting mostly of amateur porn videos. For images, I mainly just browse the Internet now.
To make a longer story short, I was paranoid. I felt like I was doing something wrong even thought I was just looking at fiction, material that now I know is not illegal.
How did I get to this point? It was very slow, it took a lot of reading, and a lot of time. Now I understand what obscenity is much better, and know not to psych myself out as bad. I look at lolis and cubs without guilt.
What do you think? Was this “it’s illegal” thing caused by my own overthinking? What do you think happened to make me feel paranoid?
Well, for me, I was worried because of guilt. I know that the hentai image with the boy and the teacher that I mentioned would’ve most likely been considered shotacon. I have seen lolicon online in the past. Unlike in the US, this stuff is very much illegal in Canada. I was worried that, at any moment, the police would come knocking down my door and seize my computer.
The worst case scenario is that I get arrested. But you know what? I doubt that will happen. Besides, there are more concerning things than that, such as how many minors may have been harmed while the police were busy arresting some guy looking at “gross” drawings.
In the end, I’m glad that you were able to overcome that paranoia of yours.
Thanks for the reply and for sharing the story. I still am very much not paranoid lol
There’s some things about myself that I wanted to clarify. If you’re curious, here’s a link to another thread in which I do so: New forum user here - #10 by AgentColeBowl
The furry fandom’s toxic attitude toward cub content(and other things) has given me a lot of anxiety and paranoia. To top it off, I’m also Canadian which makes loli/cub illegal for me. Despite this, I worry less about the police and more about everyday people on the internet looking to dox me.
I think commonly it’s a fear for your own safety and what getting caught could bring.
For me, I feel like I have a lot to lose if it ever gets out there in the public space. Regardless of whether the police come knocking or not to haul me off to jail. I absolutely despise Kiwi Farms and wish I didn’t know it existed. It brings me so much fear and anxiety when I come across posts that give people’s real names, family names, etc on top of saying shit like "John Doe, known zoophile " and all they did was draw feral content.
At this stage in my life, I’m in an education program that would kick me out if they thought I was too unprofessional. And even if they didn’t, I would never get hired as a Social Worker if the first thing that shows up when an employer searches my name is “pedophile” or “zoophile”.
To top it off, my real name is known to people who have commissioned me(wish I would have thought about the consequences of that) over the past how many years. While I ceased doing commissions and even using most mainstream social media, it doesn’t change that it is out there. I avoid sharing my more questionable work in public, but it limits me from being able to interact with other artists. Which is kind of important to me.
I don’t feel shame/guilt over looking at it or even drawing cub content. I know, logically, it’s not any worse than me playing video games where I murder people or watch violent movies regardless of what people around me say. I feel more bad that I have to be secretive about it in this way or risk my livelihood.
That really sucks. But I am glad you are still able to enjoy your likes despite them being criminalized in Canada. How do you manage to not be afraid? It sucks that they consider fictional stuff as if it was the real deal, even though one is victimless and the other isn’t.
I sometimes get scared of what would people think if they found out. But I am confident the true friends would stay with me.
I know there is never a 0% chance of me being safe from the law, but one thing that helps is the sites I access (Inkbunny) literally host their servers in Quebec(or atleast did at one point). Kind of showing a disinterest in caring about this law to a degree. Or the fact that there is hundreds of Canadians on sites like e621 and cops really aren’t actively going out of their way to track down these people down to throw them in jail because they access a site with cub/loli art.
I feel like at this point it’s like Canada’s “grey market” drugs. In many areas, people are basically openly selling illegal drugs and the cops just don’t care about specific ones. They shut it down, give them a slap on the wrist and it’s back up the next day.
Or even before pot was legal, it was soo common especially among all those hippies in the 60s/70s and yet it was relatively low risk if you just kept it somewhat quiet.
But you have to watch out for the wrong people finding out. At the end of the day, It is against the law and it can be used against me if I were to be reported or something.
But like even if you look up cases of people viewing/drawing cub art being arrested… well i can barely find any and when looking up the loli situation it’s slightly easier to find but like the first one the popped up was a 2005 article of a man who got caught purchasing manga and importing them. It’s also hard to find the full picture of all these cases but they are far and few between to give me too much worry.
Not to scare you, but Canada is actually very aggressive when it comes to fiction. There are multiple cases and they crack down on that stuff as much as UK. Here are some examples:
In April 2010 the american man Ryan Matheson was arrested for visiting Canada while bringing Hentai on his Laptop. By October 2011 he was charged with possession and importation of child pornography and faced a minimum of 1 year in prison. They go through your electronics and even go out of their way to charge you instead of “just” denying entry.
The images at issue are all comics in the manga style. Consequently, the American has been charged with both the possession of child pornography as well as its importation into Canada.
February 19, 2015 in Alberta a parcel containing a japanese anime figurine was seized. He was charged, but then got a peace bond.
February 4, 2021 a 21 year old man was charged with one year in prison for accessing a site containing hentai. He took a deal and the penalty went to 6 month in prison. (Source: LeDroit, Six mois de prison pour possession de mangas pornos)
You can be incarcerated in a foreign country? Can you post bail and then flee back to your home country, especially given that the 2 countries directly border each other?
Interesting, there are a lot of cases I’ve missed.
The first two, I’m not surprised. The cases I found always included trying to enter the country or trying to import a physical object. Which is always placing yourself at further risk.
The last one is more concerning. I’m curious about the details of how they discovered this.
Canada is a shit hole in that case. It’s honestly sad whenever I see Canadians thinking they are in the right. A canadian weeb on YouTube is clearly a lolicon based on his room tour and time will come when some hero is gonna rescue his Megumin body pillow.
Canada bans lolicon because it supposedly “leads to children being harmed”. However, corporal punishment such as spanking, which is child abuse, IS legal in Canada. Hypocrisy much? See my post here for that: The use of spanking as a punishment - #13 by AgentColeBowl
Canadian law is weird. They also ban anything “with the potential of (leading to) sexually harming children”. I love vague laws where you only get to know whatever u did, watched, or said was illegal when sitting in court.
“I love vague laws where you only get to know whatever u did, watched, or said was illegal when sitting in court.”
It’s similar with obscenity in the US, an obscenity conviction doesn’t require that the material in question to have already been adjudicated to be obscene in a prior case, no, an individual can be arrested for obscene materials before the materials have even been ruled obscene, and then convicted for obscenity even though the ruling of obscenity occurred during their trial and did not exist at the actual time of the supposed “crime”. One might say this a violation of the doctrine of ex-post facto, the courts would say that they don’t give a shit.
The third case look like he also upload stuff. Says he was on sharing network and faced trafficking charges
I’m so sorry you had to suffer all that needless fear and guilt! 
What are cubs tho? Either way, sorry what you went through and it’s actually good you are in pecace with yourself.
Furry but smaller AKA loli or shota furries.
Thank you, and yes, cubs are like furry loli or shota (think Pink Panther and Sons, or cub Nala from Lion King, or the Arthur characters).
Anyone trying to claim that cubs in furry anime are “really” children can be referred to the dictionary definition of the word:
cub /kəb/
noun
- the young of a fox, bear, lion, or other carnivorous mammal.