I think directly equating fiction to reality is a form of critical and media illiteracy.
I’ll give a more absurd analogy as a reference. I tell someone I play first person shooter games, and they in turn tell me that I’m a violent person who can’t be trusted into public life. It’s absurd isn’t it? Let me break down the claim and state exactly why it sounds so absurd. Firstly to make that claim you have to ignore the UI of the game, the scoring systems, the music and the plethora of other mechanics that tells you a situation is a game hence a “safe space” (in this scenario safe space refers to somewhere you know is not real) this is a form of media illiteracy- secondly a pixelated gun on a screen doesn’t carry the same weight as a real gun, a corpse on the screen is not a real corpse- I would hope if I asked you “does killing a player over a digital terrain have the same impact as killing another man in war?” You’d tell me no.
So let’s carry over that logic to a more nuanced situation- how would you respond if I asked you “does killing a digital man over a video game impact your willingness to commit such an act in real life?” I hope your answer would be no. Because again, you should be able to differentiate and identify that killing a man over a video game carries a different weight as opposed to killing a real man. In learning psychology, for a behaviour to be transferred from a simulation into real life requires that the simulation be realistic, that it must in essence replicate the consequences and sensory feedback for behaviour to stick, There’s also desensitisation of violent behaviour through violence in media but that applies to witnessing and thinking of said behaviours and does not inherently lower the threshold an individual has to performing said act If this sounds like common sense to you then I pose you this question.
Why then can this logic not be transferable to fictional taboo? If we are going by the most commonly defended claim that “fiction shapes reality” then you must also fundamentally agree that if I were to play a violent video game means I will become a violent merciless killer?
Let me break it down again. Willingness requires 3 things. - a personal stake, real world consequences (ie, prison sentencing, shame, ostracisation and ruining of one’s life) that is absent when indulging in fiction. This might be less apparent in people who are too young to digest and recognise consequences (ie, a 16 year old might find that the action overrides the fear of the consequences but a 35 year old would find the fear of the consequence suffocating)
-sensory reality, the actual feeling of the action (ie, the weight, sound and struggle of a real person) which is also absent in fiction. Of course unfortunately this reality is only really realised the moment harm has been done, and a perpetrators realise that the action is not the same as the fantasy and it shatters their willingness to continue the act
-active and intentional choice. When an act of sexual violence is committed in real life there must be choices you make- those choices are entirely absent when you’re indulging in proship/lolicon content.
What I’m getting at is that fiction is no more likely to impact one’s actions (directly at least) unless the person themself is already at risk of committing a sexual crime. Media influences real violent crime only on the condition that the person already has- pre-existing vulnerabilities and would not affect someone who has no intent to act on fantasy. If a person is already at risk, they might seek out taboo media to soothe those urges but that is selection- not causation (correlation ≠ causation) and it would be unfair to point to a case like someone found with lolicon on their computer touches a child and use that as justification for why taboo media is harmful.
By saying this am I claiming that taboo media has no impact? No. It might not be the direct cause for any real world crime- but it is the influence for many of the crimes that is committed. Though media has no direct hold on committing the physical act itself, it undeniably shapes the cultural backdrop, we see this with the normalisation of violence, romanticisation of power dynamics within relationships (be it monetary, age or status). But as I’ve stated, though it might cause an issue to look more appealing primary determinant is still willingness to act on it. A lot of people overstate the impact of culture on decision making- culture can only serve to influence it cannot be the decision maker. Of course there is nuance to be had here, culture aestheticises the idea of purity hence a woman assaulted based on the 3 rules of willingness I’ve stated above would be more likely than not unwilling to report it to the authorities as they believe that the purity forcefully taken from them is somehow a personal failure. However in most cases, blaming media for the actions of an individual is stripping them of individual responsibility. If a sex predator was caught and he had proship content on his device it would be the ultimate insult to their victim if you went around claiming that taboo media is what caused this behaviour and not personal choice.
