Originally published at: Taboo Fantasies; Real Harm Reduction - Prostasia Foundation
Something seen within nearly every human culture across human history is the expression of our taboo sexual fantasies through fiction, art and music. And often, too. It seems only natural to use the arts as an outlet for sexual fantasies or feelings of attraction that would be potentially dangerous, impossible, or immoral to seek out…
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I have few relationships with people beyond my family, mainly because of my “taboo” attractions. People think it’s because I’m shy, and while that might be true, I’m afraid that I’ll get ostracized if I open myself up. I want to be with other people, but I don’t have the confidence in doing so.
What’s the point of building a relationship with someone if you’re afraid that you’ll get ostracized if you open yourself up to that person? It wouldn’t feel genuine.
Maybe this is the sort of thing that can lead to abuse. Feelings of abandonment, anxiety, despair, guilt, hopelessness, self-hatred…
But, that doesn’t mean all hope is lost though, right? It’s nice to spend time with people that make you feel good. There are fictional outlets that exist. Maybe there is someone out there that won’t judge you for your “taboo” attractions. Maybe you will one day feel better about yourself.
That’s what keeps me going.
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A-fuckin’-men, 100%. Pardon my French, but antis need to get this through their ears: Stigma. Does. NOT. FUCKING. HELP! I literally had a conversation about this earlier today (good timing, this article has)! A person deep in despair from harassment and self-loathing doesn’t see the point in getting help (so if you’re an anti, keep comments like “get help” to yourself, you counterintuitive bastard). And a person who suffers from ostracism and self-hate who is unable or unwilling to seek help is more likely to become a danger to themselves or others than somebody who has support from their community, ready access to therapy, and is allowed to cope using fiction. What’s so hard to understand about this?
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It’s even worse than that. Stigma directly harms abuse survivors, making it harder for them to come forward about what they experienced and discouraging them from spreading accurate information about how to protect others from what happened to them
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Something I will admit that is peculiar about pornography consumption is how powerful the idea of a sexual outlet may be for those with certain paraphilias or interests.
How it affects those with paraphilic disorders, though, is of interest right now. The scientific community has already determined confidently that such materials do not promote or increase risk of contact abuse in those not predisposed, but those who are is an open question for some, with not enough evidence being offered up to really support it, but it hasn’t stopped some from hypothesizing things. I have a feeling that, the more these minor associations are examined, we will see the same result - that it does not increase risk of abuse. Scientists and clinicians have already seen this occur in many who are high-risk, but I’m hoping enough researchers are able to control their own biases so this journey to empirical truth does not become long and protracted.
The real costs of censorship and repression may also be increased victims
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I got into an argument over on ATF with somebody who claimed that AI-generated art encouraged IRL bad behavior:
Hexenite said:
And there it is. I knew it was just a matter of time before someone started trying to charge people to see this stuff lol. It’s free literally everywhere bro. Stop trying to charge people for fucking porn. Even worse, censored porn. Despicable. To the mods: Go ahead and delete this comment, we all know no one is allowed to have opinions here unless it’s boot licking. Seriously, the amount of deleted comments on this site is actually incredible.
DontTouchMyCogs:
lol i dont care if you voice your opinion on paid art. i feel the same way. i wouldnt pay for ai generated art. thats just stupid. the deleted comments are mostly ch!ld p0rn links that we have been trying to keep under control. there’s been a surge of them the past few weeks. unfortunately we cant stop them as those sodding twats get around our bans. ive been trying to get the owner to disable account sign ups to stop them for that hasn’t been successful
the only reason i would remove your comment is CP links (you would also get banned and reported) or comments sounding way to realistic.
Hexenite said:
Yeah? Because my comment here was deleted after this, and it basically said the same stuff, except I was actually defending the damn post from a flag. It ain’t the first time either. I can’t even remember what I said, but it wasn’t any links or anything stupid like that. This is legit bs. Yall do you though. But the mods are a little gung-ho with this bs lately.
StarFromAbove said:
i reported you, fucking smartass, stop being so high and mighty, you’re not, you’re just leading yourself to offending much easily, the more you say “ooh theres no such thing as being too realistic” the more you encourage bad behavior, fiction may not lead to action, but this is skirting the line of reality, so be a good little twat, sit yourself down and educate yourself before you get your ass in trouble and the only thing you’ll be feeling is the widening of your asshole,
fucks sake, to think actual adults are on this site and should be intelligent enough to view porn
My reply:
And here we are, the reason why I requested to be unbanned. To the mods, I promise not to go on downvoting sprees. To YOU [StarFromAbove], I got a bone to pick with what you say here. You say that realistic AI art will make people more likely to actually offend? What!? That’s not how it works! Studies have scientifically proven that porn REDUCES the desire to commit a sex crime! This is true across the board. Regular porn keeps women safe, simulated child porn keeps children safe, etc. Tell me, do you think realistic child sex dolls encourage child molestation? Because science is not on your side.
Child porn is illegal for a damn good reason, but scientific study has proven that those who consume it are less likely actually molest a child themselves. Several countries have seriously considered creating programs where sex criminals can have limited access to child porn to keep themselves satiated. The fact that government officials have seriously considered this proves how completely backwards what you believe and what you’re saying is. Realistic AI porn does NOT encourage IRL sex crimes. You might as well be saying loli encourages crime. Doesn’t matter how “realistic” it is: as long as it’s fictional, no real child is being hurt.
I’m not against banning realistic art from this site, however, so long as the reasoning is so we don’t get taken down by moral guardians. That’s a pragmatic, practical reason. But there’s no moral reason whatsoever to take down realistic child art unless it’s directly based on a real, identifiable child.
Also, real classy, that “widening of your asshole” quip. Cuz yeah, that’ll show people how against rape you are, by making a prison rape joke! Prison rape doesn’t normalize bad behavior in the slightest, unlike realistic AI generation…
I fully concede that banning realistic AI art from the site is probably for the best, not only so ATF doesn’t get shut down, but also due to the possibility that some of this “AI” art might be photographs made to look like AI. Regardless, my point still stands: it doesn’t matter how real something looks or feels: if it’s not real, then it’s not real.
I’d like to point out that this comment actually has several downvotes over on ATF. Why? Is it because I brought up the CSAM program? That wasn’t me giving my opinion one way or the other, I was just pointing out that CSAM consumers are less likely to molest a child themselves. That’s not me condoning CSAM, that’s just me stating a fact. I literally say before that “child porn is illegal for a damn good reason”. Yet this comment has several downvotes, go figure. Maybe it’s the “but” people have a problem with, idk. At least the admins/mods backed me up on my claims:
DontTouchMyCogs said:
the banning of realistic ai and 3d art is to play it safe. i personally dont think anything will happen if we did host it but i dont make the rules and tbh its for the best. and yes you are right well atleast from a loli and shota stand point. a user told me he had a adiction with real CP so his theropist recomended lolicon as a alternative. hes been clean of cp for years. wile the idea behind having cp content legal to satisfy and discouraged futher abuse is an interesting study. i would never accept it. because the kids in the pictures still had to be abused to get the picture or video.
My reply:
I like how we said basically the same thing, yet I got downvoted. My comment that literally says “child porn is illegal for a damn good reason” has multiple downvotes. Go figure… Regardless, thanks for backing me up. I just can’t stand people spreading this stupid idea that art, even realistic art, would inspire crime. I just had to say something. It’s the exact same logic as saying comic books, slasher movies, or video games inspire IRL violence; science just straight-up doesn’t support this claim.
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It’s really interesting how the conversation went from whether or not AI generated art should be allowed on this site into a conversation of whether such art would lead you in particular to a greater risk of offending. Somehow it seems to me that he doesn’t actually give a single shit about that or about you in general, and that this is simply a juvenile effort to concern troll his way into“winning” the argument while never actually addressing it in any substantive way.
I think this guy and the “get help”folks should get together sometime and create something uniquely obnoxious because their material is getting a little bit old and tired
Edit - I was unaware that atf is literally a loli game nodding community, I would have to think most people would think that the site itself “encourages bad behavior”
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Interesting… I’ve been meaning to spend more time on that forum, just read thru discourse and maybe engage with the community since creating my account there.
Honestly, if a website like ATF feels it necessary not to allow certain ‘realistic’ content, that’s their decision, and I feel it would be best to just accept it, rather than make a big deal over things. Based on your retelling of events, it feels like the downvotes to your comment came from the community’s decision to reinforce this position, rather than play along with a back-and-forth, rather than disagreeing with (what I feel) are key points of your position about CSEM being harmful inherently, rather than secondarily henceforth why it is sensible to restrict, as opposed to works of fiction. I feel as though disagreeing with the policies set forth by the admins is what set off the downvotes.
How I feel about AI-generated virtual child pornography is essentially the same as any other form - so long as no real children were abused and no real child’s likeness was employed to create an image, and an actual minor’s identity is not implicated or referenced, then it’s fine, since these diffusion models are trained more on 3D models and petite adults, rather than images of real children.
I’ve not yet seen an AI-generated work that could not be identified as AI-generated, there’s always a tell and this is something that I feel it will never outgrow, which is probably for the best. I’m unsure of how my perspective would be perceived by the community.
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That’s the thing, tho. I wasn’t making a big deal out of it, I was defending somebody else who was being called a “twat” because they were (correctly) arguing that realistic art doesn’t encourage bad behavior and got reported for it. I myself could give two shits what the site does with realistic art, but I felt the need to step in when this bs about “too realistic = real child getting molested” gets trotted out.
I get the feeling it wasn’t the admins or mods who had a problem with what I said, but my fellow users claiming “ai should be banned cuz it inspires real crime”. Like I said, they actually backed me up, so clearly they’re not the ones downvoting me. Some of the folks on that site HATE being lumped in with pedophiles. I’ve seen my fair share of users say stuff like “this is a lolicon site, all the pedos who’re actually attracted to children shouldn’t be welcome here”. Methinks the downvotes were from people who either disagreed with me, or people who just thought I was being too standoffish
Maybe I was being a dick, but how could I not be offended when this jackass is literally saying ai will encourage bad behavior? Again, it’s like saying realistic child sex dolls would encourage bad behavior; it’s an absolutely backwards sentiment! Realism isn’t the key ingredient for risk of offending, and saying as such is dangerous misinformation…
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I recently had a look at the AI section of ATF and honestly wasn’t impressed, at least not enough to save any of the pictures. Some were cute, but realistic? Not in slightest compared to other fantasy work I have seen.
I browsed a few kink sections only to find a handful of quality anime images worth saving. Now don’t want to dis others attempts of drawing since I would probably screw up stick figures, but I just didn’t see much exciting content on ATF.
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