The question is whether we’re legislating against things we find unpleasant, or things that are harmful to children.

The production of real child pornography is quite inarguably, and directly, harmful to the children involved. We have long established legal principles about age of consent, and against sexual acts with minors. All well and good.

But putting a guy in jail because he’s turned on by drawn images, that require no illegal action to produce (unless you specifically say that the law is against drawing such things)... that feels like crossing a line. If it harms no-one, what right do we have (as a society) to intervene via the police/courts? We already have those wonderful laws against the real thing, so for anyone making the slippery slope argument that it encourages real abuse… well wait until they’re demonstrably sliding down that slope.

The only tenable argument I can see in favour here, is that ‘use’ of loli might make someone more likely to abuse actual children. The same way we ban drink driving because you’re a danger to others rather than relying on laws regarding vehicular homicide to catch people at the bottom of that slope. Difference being that the link for that case is not just demonstrable, but virtually inevitable – if you’re drunk, your driving is impaired, QED. Can’t say the same about loli-enjoyers and child molestation.

Sometimes seems comparable to the outbreaks of moral panic around homosexuality… but with the complication of ‘the children’. The two aren’t really comparable for reasons that should be obvious, but like I said… if the porn can be produced without actual children, where’s the harm?