Child sex abuse doll torsos and disembodied heads being sold on China’s Temu, Shein to get around laws forbidding the importation of sex abuse material
Child sex abuse doll torsos and disembodied heads are being offered for sale on Temu and Shein in what advocates say may be a bid to get around Australian laws.
Campaigners say the products are advertised in parts as hairdressing mannequins and are often described as “adult toys” despite their child-like features.
The Australian Border Force has reported a “disturbing” rise in attempts to import child-like sex dolls, seizing 47 in the past year alone.
They keep using that phrase, but keep repeatedly describing a distinct lack of child sex abuse. While extraordinarily distasteful, I decidedly prefer the idea of a pedophile using one of these distinctly-not-abusive dolls instead of practicing their sexuality on an actual child. Ironically, demonizing this relatively healthy expression of sexuality increases the odds that an actual child actually gets abused.>
I’ve heard arguments both ways, and frankly I don’t know which is better supported by evidence. One, that things like this, AI CSAM, etc. might provide a safe outlet for people with paedophilia, and the other is that it can encourage them and act as a “gateway drug” of sorts. It’s an area that I assume the experts are already doing/have already done research on, and I’ll defer to them because I don’t really want to investigate too much further. It may even be the case that some substitutes work well and others don’t.
Well, one of the enormous problems here is that there really isn’t very much evidence either way, and what little evidence there is is of dubious quality. Most studies are done on the basis of self-reporting, which is fine for things people are proud to talk about like politics, but with “are you a pedophile, what is that like for you” some people are somewhat prone to fibbing, would you believe? I’ll just ask, do you buy the purported “gateway drug” effect in any other context, and if so, to what extent do you think it’s valid in that context?
Sooner or later they would want the real thing, if they become desensitized to the fake ones
Just like how I started my car jacking career in GTA
Obviously I’ve always wanted to steal cars but the virtual hit stopped being enough and my preconceived morals were overwhelmed by my digital addiction.
I think that’s down to each individual case, but I’d fear that some, if not most, users would eventually want more than just screwing a doll…
The crucial, and often ignored, fact is that many people with pedophilia live their entire lives without ever harming a child. You never hear about them because, for obvious reason, they stay in the closet, fearing they will be hated and feared for an attraction they did not choose and have never acted upon. You won’t find useful statistics on this, I’ve looked. It’s impossible to collect valid statistics, again for obvious reasons.
Further, not all child sex abusers are pedophiles. Many rapists do so not out of some deprived desperation, but out of a desire for power over another person, a desire to dominate. Children, the elderly, the disabled make great targets for this because they are so vulnerable. And yes, you’re right, it is a temptation to have an unsatisfied urge hanging around your neck, as anyone who has tried to give up cigarettes can attest, but it need not be a burden, and people do in fact manage to overcome their urges. There are support groups, there is therapy, and there are safe legal and ethical fictional stories and sexual images (and apparently childlike dolls) which provide outlets that do not require a child to be harmed or an ai to be trained on CSAM for a person to manage their sexual urges.
I repeat, with emphasis, demonizing a safe alternative to actually interfering with a child ironically increases the odds of what you rightly fear. A pedophile is not more likely to rape than anyone else, but any person whose sexuality is repressed is likely to develop some very unhealthy coping mechanisms and a fractured sense of self which can make self-harm and criminal behavior much more likely. Instead of thinking of it as something like feeding an appetite larger and larger meals until it demands a “main course,” think instead of a “release valve” providing a control mechanism. Less like handing an alcoholic a beer and then they crave whiskey, and more like giving a smoker a patch to help them manage their urge without acutally smoking. For clarity, yes there are valid addictive concerns here too, I’m not dismissing that entirely.
If it seems like this is a personal issue for me, that’s because it is. I was raped as a child, and I have been given more reason than most people to think of how to prevent that from happening to others. From that perspective: I wish my rapist had every available alternative, including a childlike doll, if that’s what would have kept him off of me. The critical question in my mind isn’t, “will they get bored of the doll,” it’s “what will they do if they don’t have access to something like a doll?”
There, now I’ve said entirely too much on the subject and am all the way grossed out and want a cigarette.
Ok i draw the line at “relatively healthy” as being sexually attracted to children literally requires the part of your brain that identifies viable sexual partners to be malfunctioning
Also looking at the link there was like one genuine skeevy doll, the rest was wild asian BESM fetish shit or loli, which although not my cup of tea is not CSAM because, you know, adults playing dressup aren’t fckn’ children.
“Relatively” was the direct comparison I made between practising sexuality on a childlike doll, and practising sexuality on a child. That is relatively healthy; healthier than the alternative. eta: i agree with the sentiment you’re expressing.