Time to revisit the world of “queer studies,” via the academic journal Qualitative Research:

I wanted to understand how my research participants experience sexual pleasure when reading shota, a Japanese genre of self-published erotic comics that features young boy characters. I therefore started reading the comics in the same way as my research participants had told me that they did it: while masturbating.

Hey, I’m just reading what it says here.

In this research note, I will recount how I set up an experimental method of masturbating to shota comics, and how this participant observation of my own desire not only gave me a more embodied understanding of the topic for my research but also made me think about loneliness and ways to combat it as driving forces of the culture of self-published erotic comics.

It’s embodied, you see. And before you go getting any untoward ideas, it’s all being done selflessly, high-mindedly, for the greater good:

Untangling this largely unresearched knot of desires for fictional boy characters will give us a better understanding of human sexuality and provide a more solid basis for policymaking.

And in, er, child-molestation-fantasy news:

A professor of Ethics at Oslo Metropolitan University in Norway has called to legalise AI-generated child pornography, claiming that paedophilia should be seen as an innate sexuality that requires destigmatisation. Ole Martin Moen, a gay man who identifies as “queer,” currently serves as a member of the advisory board on Norway’s Patient Organization for Gender-Incongruence (PKI), a social and political lobby group for trans rights. […]

Moen details arguments for and against “adult-child sex” before ultimately coming to the conclusion that “adult-child sex is not categorically very harmful” but may result in “risks” of children being harmed… Moen also argues that paedophiles who do not sexually abuse children should be “praised” for their “admirable willpower,”

Not raping children – so far, that is – but really, really wanting to and thinking about it a lot – is praiseworthy, you see.

Update, via the comments:

If readers will forgive a little paraphrasing:

Frisky Nonce: “I didn’t utterly ruin a small child’s life today. I wanted to, quite a lot, but I didn’t.”

Woke Academic: “Oh well done. Have a sweet. And some more child-abuse pornography.”

We could, I think, paraphrase a little further:

“I didn’t stab any random passers-by in the face today.”

“Oh well done. Here are some pictures of random people being stabbed in the face.”

Farcical as it sounds, the dynamic is not entirely dissimilar.

Update 2:

Writing in the Independent, consultant psychologist Glenn Wilson reminds us of the benefits of, er, paedophilia:

In my studies of the Paedophile Information Exchange in the 1980s, many members admitted sexual feelings for children which they had been able to contain or turn to social good. Some gravitated toward occupations such as schoolteacher or social worker, where they could enjoy the company of children without plotting abuse. This fitted with personality profiles indicating that they were gentle, rational and not disposed to harm anybody.

It is, I think, commonly understood that people who fantasise about having sex with children who cannot legally consent – which is to say, who fantasise about raping children – often gravitate to jobs which place them in regular and intimate contact with their potential prey. And this, apparently, is a “social good.” Because every parent wants their child to have a teacher who harbours fantasies of molesting them.

Update:

In the comments, David Gillies adds,

People who have a yen for shagging kids but no wish to act on it do not join an organisation called Paedophile Information Exchange. We know that PIE was not a support group to help people to control and overcome their urges but to actively enable them and even normalise them.

And likewise, if a person bedevilled by fantasies of child molestation seeks out employment among children, this doesn’t exactly signal the best of intentions or a basis for applause.

And yet Dr Wilson thinks we should approve of paedophiles who claim to remain celibate yet seek out employment in positions of authority over children, and intimate contact with children, where temptation will be concentrated, routine, and much easier to act on, should one be so inclined.

Supposedly, we should regard this as a “social good.” As if we’d struggle to find enough teachers without this selfless contribution.