not intrinsically, at least not for long. in most of europe it was legal up until the 90s and there were even porno mags that ran specials.
…i do compulsive late night wiki walks, before you ask how i know that. i had a period where i read up on what happened to the “flower power” generation with all their “free love” stuff and that came up. i tend to do breadth-first search so i just read through articles while opening all the links in the background, then go down a level, etc etc. when a term like that comes up on a wiki page it triggers your fight-or-flight response.
turdas@suppo.fi 2 weeks ago
It’s a relatively recent thing in the west, too. Not too long ago (well into the previous century) most girls were married off by their 15th or 16th birthday. “Fun” fact: there’s still a lot of child marriage in the US to this day: en.wikipedia.org/…/Child_marriage_in_the_United_S…
Japan isn’t actually substantially different in this regard – sure, they have their teen idols, but then so does the US (Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, what have you) – except they draw a clear line between fictional and real child pornography, both legally and in terms of general attitudes. The legal part isn’t that strange (lolicon material isn’t illegal in most of the US either), but the way general morality permits it in Japan but doesn’t in the US is interesting. My guess is that this is partially explained by the US generally being pretty puritanical when it comes to sexuality, whereas Japan is more liberal about it (in their own way), but that can’t be the only thing because European countries do not have the puritan culture of the US but also don’t share the Japanese tolerance of lolicon.
gandalf_der_12te@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
many french philosophers around 1930 asked for the legalization of relation to minors. they failed probably mostly because of american influence. america, in turn, has very repressive views about sexuality in general, not just involving minors. think of the purple scare. i think it has to do with the church of england thinking that “sexuality is bad because it represents the serpent” from the tree of life while the bird represents knowledge, so people should study and seek knowledge instead of seeking sexual interactions.