I was there, when left/liberal leaning people in fandoms denounced loli/shota/cub/whatever in the mid 2010’s, mainly thanks to the Shädbase v. Keemstar drama, but also allegedly some leftist lolicons were frequenting pro-pedophile forums.

It did not help victims. It did not help anything good.

It instead created a safe-space for fascists in fandom spaces, by just vaguely signaling any interest towards the material, and by leftists treating it like literally Satan.

And also created a good surface for salami-tactics, since how frequent it is in anime. During the whole Vaush folder reveal drama it came to my mind, that those accounts could have been done by either tankies to get rid of the “anarkiddies” (whom they hate more than actual fascists), or the fascists themselves.

About the “normalizing” argument: I’ve seen the same arguments used for body hair removal, small breasts, etc. Even remember seeing some Tumblr post about “how to stop looking and sounding pedobait”.