Recently a group of men calling themselves menimists have rallied together to take down feminism. The latest person they have gone after is Nintendo representative Allison Rapp. Who was accused of defending pedophilia in a thesis she wrote on Japanese culture and fictional child pornography.
Allison Rapp claims to be a radical feminist. Looking over the thesis she wrote and her Twitter comments, she argues that fictional child pornography should not be something that the U.N. regulates.
There is a subculture in Japan known as Loli-cons. Which is a subculture of Japanese people that enjoy reading fictional child pornography depicted in Manga (comic books) and Animation.
But again this is something that is not culturally accepted by everyone. I can also argue that there is a subculture in America that enjoys S&M (just look at the sales of 50 Shades of Grey). But this doesn't mean that the public accepts this subculture as part of the norm.
In fact Japanese society is notoriously conservative (They make American Conservatives look like liberals). Yes it's true, they have their risqué Animation and Manga. But the general public has scrutinized even these for some time now. The Japanese artists have had to use freedom of speech laws, to keep their material from being pulled off the shelf. Even then, most of it is kept next to the pornography sections at convenience stores.
Now just like we can't generalize all Japanese people of being okay with pedophilia, we can't generalize all feminists as being supportive of Allison Rapp and her individual ideology behind fictional child pornography. Not to mention much of the material I saw that was questionable were a few Twitter comments that Menimists put on their blog articles. The problem with Twitter comments, is that they only allow 140 characters per comment, and they can easily be read out of context.
But looking at it for face value, it does seem like Allison Rapp is okay with fictional child pornography. Which from a psychology stand point encourages Sexual Child Abuse (Horn et al, 2015, Seto et al, 2015). Not to mention from a feminist standpoint, is sexually objectifying women and in this case little girls. Showing that from each field it is not approved of.
There are many conservatives that fear a Mad Max world of liberalism. People like Allison Rapp don't help calm their fears. But just because someone claims to belong to a group doesn't mean the entire group thinks the way they do.
Take away Points:
1- Japanese people do not approve of pedophilia
2 -Feminists do not approve of pedophilia
3- Don't make rash generalizations about groups based on individual ideology!
Social Gelo with Angelo
Angelo Ferrer (M.S. Psychology)
References
Horn, J. V., Eisenberg, M., Nicholls, C. M., Mulder, J., Webster, S., Paskell, C., ... & Jago, N. (2015). Stop It Now! A Pilot Study Into the Limits and Benefits of a Free Helpline Preventing Child Sexual Abuse. Journal of child sexual abuse, 24(8), 853-872.
Seto, M. C., Hermann, C. A., Kjellgren, C., Priebe, G., Svedin, C. G., & Långström, N. (2015). Viewing child pornography: Prevalence and correlates in a representative community sample of young Swedish men. Archives of sexual behavior, 44(1), 67-79.