Question about pedophila, prompted by the furor over Cuties

[conuly]

So you know how people are all talking about this movie and the messages, marketing, and/or filming thereof.

Several people known to me have expressed the opinion that showing children, tweens, or teens doing things which adults know look "sexual" is clearly something "designed to appeal to pedophiles".

But what I want to know is - is it? Obviously everybody is different, even people who are sexually attracted to children, but is it the case that people with those desires are, in general, more interested in this sort of scene than pictures of kids acting less overtly "sexual"?

I don't even know how to find this out without ending up on some sort of watch list or, worse, seeing things I actually don't want to see.

Note: this is a separate question from "are those scenes appropriate in this, or any movie" and "whether or not they'd be appropriate in some movies, are they appropriate when acted out by actual children" and anything of that sort. Those are all good questions which people are arguing strenuously over everywhere.

Comments

[oursin]

There's a much longer tradition of children dressed up as/performing as adults being seen as 'cute'/'amusing' - I read somewhere a cringe-making account of 'child weddings' in ?Canada in the early C20th - rather than sexualised, but this does in places in contemporary context blur into the 'countdown 'til she's legal' thing.

There is also, presumably, a reason for the school uniform fetish (but maybe also about power play?)

[kengr]

Uniform fetishes are usually about power play. A local guy who is well known in the kink community often gives talks/classes about uniform fetishes at kink events.

And he includes schoolgirl (and the occasional school *boy*) fetishes in them. Ditto for boy/girl scouts and related.

Given that we have a few folks in the local community who *look* like they are still in their teens in spite of being in their *late* twenties (or older!) this raises some "interesting" questions

I think part of the schoolgirl (especially "Catholic" schoolgirl) bit is that they have a reputation for *looking* innocent, but actually being anything but.

And most of the folks who go in for that sort of combo age-play/uniform fetish stuff play that up. Far more apt to be the aggressor than the "helpless" victim. Though you see that too.

Alas, that *does* play into the "she wanted it" script that many molesters use. :-(

Hmm. I wonder how many of these folks heads would explode if they saw one of the more recent St. Trinians movies.