- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
France’s consumer watchdog has reported the Asian fast fashion giant Shein to authorities for selling “sex dolls with a childlike appearance” on its website.
The Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said the online description and categorisation of the dolls “makes it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content”.
Shein later told the BBC: “The products in question were immediately delisted as soon as we became aware of these serious issues.”
I can see how this whole topic can be kind of tricky. Not letting a free citizen have sex with a child like doll is kind of like arresting someone for thinking about committing a crime. I am generally of the belief that people should be free to do as they please as long as what they do doesn’t impinge on other people’s rights and such. But this is one of those border cases. Making it illegal without proof that it leads to crimes is questionable. But waiting for the proof means some children were abused, which is unacceptable as well.
Also, a guy could just buy one of those things that is lower torso and upper legs only. Nothing on it implies an age. So he can think of it as a child in his head. Yet making those illegal seems a stretch. Maybe it would have to be something like all sex dolls need to include enough parts to clearly distinguish them from children? But even that would be hard to truely define.
The annoying part is having healthy alternatives actually reduces real world harm. So punishing these people for seeking healthy and harm free avanues to deal with their mental issues and sexual needs. Is just baffling.
The scant amount of good research we have all indicates it’s not a choice but a developmental or mental health issue. For the vast vast majority of people who struggle with this problem.
But we just keep demonizing any hopes to let people get mental help or express themselves with out harming a minor.
So all we keep doing is reinforcing the taboo and driving those who struggle to associate with those who actively choose to be abusers. Thus only creating more abusers.
I mean does it even look like creators are aiming to produce child like appearance? Full sized products would be more expensive to create and ship, and for customers - to buy and store.
You can easily buy a compact silicone alternative with human body features and… you’d be called a mutilation maniac?
I think there may be some social issues with a for-profit company being financially incentivized to promote and sell pedophilia to people.
How would you rather deal with this? A boycott? Do you have money in child sex doll manufacturing that you can withhold?
That’s not really what this is about. You’re trying to assess this on a personal freedom level when what we’re talking about is a guy with a megaphone.
God, giving capitalism a financial incentive to advertise pedophilia is a new nightmare to me now, thanks
You’re welcome 🫡
I really don’t understand what you are saying. I was in fact looking to open a discussion on a personal freedom angle. But the specific topic here was just what got me thinking about it. “A guy with a megaphone”. I really have no idea what that is referring to.
I did suggest that all sex toy type products could maybe be required to have some dimension that clearly marks the item as representing an adult. That would be my suggestion. But I am still curious where people draw the line on personal freedom vs something that isn’t proven to be harmful. Drugs and such are another good example. Should people be allowed to do whatever dtugs they want, as long as they don’t drive or something. Alcohol actually follows that example. Guns do to. Lots of ways to frame the debate.
The “guy” would be Shein.
Another neat way to frame the debate, to reach for the obvious example, is over swastikas. Of course, having a picture of a swastika tattooed on your arm isn’t harming anyone, so why should we as a society have any distaste for it?
To answer “we shouldn’t” is to cede ground to nazis. We do not, actually, have to tolerate their symbols.
The 4chan-nazi pipeline—yes, I’m still talking about pedophiles—if you’re not aware, is a strategy by which people are drenched in ironic, nazi iconography, which results in them being more permissive of that kind of thing, and thus makes them much, much easier to be groomed by king-master klansman, or whatever they call themselves.
Being too permissive of something is socially harmful.
I agree, pedophiles are often villainized way too much. I would like them not to be so afraid of being found out that they never get therapy. If they’re good people, I assume they want to be better as much as I want them to, even if it’s difficult. None of this means we need to sell dolls to them.
Think about it this way: I watch pornography all the time. I am not any less likely to fuck a woman. How is the doll supposed to satiate them?
I realize that I sound very condescending right now, but I’m sincerely asking: this idea that a legal outlet is actually more helpful to them, where does this come from? Does it even make sense?
Whether you mean to or not, I think that you are ceding ground to people who want pedophilia to be more popular. They do exist: middle America loves child marriage. This is why I’m not engaging with the personal freedom angle; it’s not really relevant.
Also, requiring child dolls to have some dimension by which they are clearly identifiable as adults is an effective ban on child dolls—it’s the same thing.
I don’t debate that people should have distaste for nazi tatoos. But illegal, I would say no, that is clearly too far in my book.
As for dolls satiateing anyone. I never intended to suggest they do. I asked, do we have evidence that they cause harm. And if not, how do we decide what should be banned despite a lack of evidence proving it harmful.
As for the requirement being the same as a ban. It’s really not. Cause just .ike they are doing, they can sell various parts separately, and let the user assemble. That is really hard to enforce. My suggestion isn’t perfect, but it is easier to enforce.
The danger is in sexualizing children, it’s not a normally occurring part of human sexuality, and if people can sexualize children easily that can lead to sexual abuse of actual children, and that’s always harmful, seems like a 2=2 type of thing to say, but it is. Anyway, modern psychology shows that therapy for people who do sexualize children, who haven’t actually abused any children in any way, are unlikely to ever abuse children, so the doll or child sex abuse images, or other ‘outlets’ of sexual behavior aren’t shown to reduce the likelihood of sexual abuse, but therapy does. They don’t need sex dolls, they need therapy. And then maybe a healthy sex life with an adult.
This feels a lot like the “violent video games cause violence” argument, but because it’s about child abuse, people don’t want to defend it.
Are there actually any studies supporting your comment? I briefly looked and couldn’t find anything.
Very few companies will fund any research into this field and they almost always have it locked in private libraries and you have to request for it specifically. You basically won’t ever find anything on the subject publicly or hell, even behind a publicly accessible paywall.
There have been a number of people over the years who have done this very research and spoken about it publicly and that’s a key complaint they have on it.
Few times that research has been shared and I’ve had the privilege to actually read it. It has been shown that one. It is totally normal for sex preference development to just be stunted. It is a thing that just happens. That yes therapy does help and for the most part those who would not abuse so long as they get therapy show no indication that they would change in become an abuser.
It has also been shown that when there are healthy alternatives for the expression, those who are abusers and do so due to mental health, developmental or standard sexual preferences have access to those healthy alternatives. They are more likely to stop abusing or seek therapy once they have found a healthy outlet.
Pretty much the only case where you can say that not having a healthy alternative and therapy shows no help or those who choose to be abusers do entirely to personal reasons.
Basically the only time not having harm free. Healthy alternative material helps is when you’re talking about rapists not pedophiles.
That’s the other part of the problem. So many people just assume pedophiles are rapists. When one is just the sexual attraction, the editor is someone who is a abuser. And while common for those two things to be labels on the same person they don’t have to be, nor do they need to be.
We demonize the issue so heavily that we do frequently drive people to seek out a healthy alternative and a safe method of expression into circles with abusers who will then use those people to make a profit. Which only drives the need for more abuse material.
It’s the same problem that you see with basically any other drug vise issue that we overly demonize in society. If you don’t give people a healthy alternative and a clear path from problem to safe solution to therapy, they’ll never make it to therapy.
But unfortunately, due to the nature of the subject, finding anyone who’s willing to fund more research, finding anyone who’s willing to have their name publicly attached to that research and finding anyone who’s willing to fund actual help for the issue is basically impossible.
For obvious reasons, I’m not going to read any reply to this comment. I’ve had enough death threats to last a lifetime. So if you have a differing opinion or if you want any more information then share it with others and do your own research.
I’m only sharing my personal knowledge that I have on the topic. Whether or not you choose to believe me is your prerogative. As always, this is the internet. Do your own research. And if you do not know how blame your public high school.
See now that brings up a good question. Is there any evidence that shows that child like dolls lead to an increase in abuse of children? If so, then this is a bad example for the personal freedom vs percieved threat question. But I am not sure I have heard of any such evidence. Maybe it’s just neutral. That said, whether it be this, or the right to do drugs in your own home, or the right to assisted suicide, or even the right to alcohol. The question I am asking is, where is the line between needing to have evidence versus having percieved evidence?
It’s a question that will likely never be answered. Is it worse to have a child-like sex doll or a horny pedophile with no legal outlet?