"pedophilia is a harmless fantasy" please get help you were groomed
2) paedophilia is not a harmless fantasy. What people on the internet call paedophilia is 90% of the time, not actual paedophilia.
Here's some things: when you call someone a paedophile on the internet nowadays, you're trying to get a reaction. It's big scary buzzword that can't get argued against. It no longer means anything to be called a paedophile, because the word has lost meaning. There's actually a study somewhere which looks at tumblrs use of the word paedophile, you should look it up.
So the pro-censorship gang (whose morals seem to align perfectly with evangelical conservative christians), tosses around words like paedophilia and grooming such those words lose meaning, and suddenly real paedophiles, actual predators who actually prey on children--rather than, idk people who ship a 16 yo and an 18yo--slip through the cracks. The mud is being slung so wildly that when it actually hits a predator, a groomer, people don't notice. And when someone is actually being groomed, they've heard that word tossed at, say, an adult in fandom space who is clearly absolutely fine, and scoff.
So that's part a of this post - on to part b.
In 2016, Australia held a plebiscite, to see whether the country was overall in favour of gay marriage.
At the time, my grandmother, who knows that I'm queer, and who has always accepted me, and who has been atheist her entire life, fell victim to a conservative propaganda campaign. This campaign, designed by conservative christians, announced that if the Gays were allowed to get married, it was tantamount to legalising paedophilia. My grandmother told me to my face that she would be voting against gay marriage, because next they would legalise paedophilia.
Paedophilia as a reactionist is buzzword, has always been used against queer people. Gay people shouldn't be allowed to adopt, because they're perverts, and therefore related to paedophiles. Queer people shouldn't be allowed near their own children, near their nephews and neices, near their cousins and younger siblings. Because they are disgusting and perverted and basically paedophiles.
About 15 years ago, before ao3, there were very few safe spaces for gay fandom on the internet. I remember when any sort of mlm or wlw ship was considered M rated, simply by the fact of its existence. When gay people and ships were banned from fandom spaces because they were "disrespectful" and "disgusting". They still think trans headcanons and theories are these things, though not to the same extent, thankfully. It wasn't that long ago, because I am not ancient.
And here's another thing - the majority of fandom is straight. We see queerness because we exist in queer spaces, because we're lucky, and despite pressure from advertisers, tumblr has always been queer-friendly. But it's the absolute truth that the majority of fandom is cishet. There are studies about that too, look it up.
So how long before queers are the ones attacked again? How long before our shaky first steps into being morally ok is swept away by purity culture which, again, seems to have similar values to evangelical conservative christians. How long before you're called a paedophile for headcanoning a character as queer - because I can tell you it's already happening. It's just not overt yet.
How long until it's considered perverted just to think about the sexuality of a character, disgusting just to ship two men, or two women. How long until someone comes onto this blog and tells me I'm a pedophile for theorising a character who is a minor is trans. Oh wait - that's already happened. Multiple times.
And here's the thing - it's no going to be this sudden, ham-fisted swing to hate. If you lived it first hand you know these old moderators always proclaimed they "weren't homophobic". They just believed queer culture had its "place".
So no, I don't believe paedophilia is harmless. But the conversation has never really been about paedophilia.
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