Not to backseat mod, but doujins are explicitly forbidden by forum rules, so can we maybe not derail this thread into discussing porn parodies?

Blockio wrote:Not to backseat mod, but doujins are explicitly forbidden by forum rules, so can we maybe not derail this thread into discussing porn parodies?

Honestly this, let's keep that stuff out of discussions.

C.T.1290 wrote:I’ll make a confession when I say that I came across some doujin works by Saigado, two of which features a grown up Asuka and a grown up Rei. And it might be disturbing because of how they featured some grown ups having sex with an underage kid.

Have you never read doujinshi before? This isn't something unusual in hentai.

Shinichir0 wrote:Have you never read doujinshi before? This isn't something unusual in hentai.

I’ve looked through some. But we’re not discussing that now. Like it was said, that stuff is prohibited in this forum. Let’s not go off the rails here.

We’re talking about the series itself, and possibly some spinoffs.

I saw it when I was actually younger than most of the characters but no less hormonal it pretty much matched where my thoughts would be going anyways; The same would probably be the case if you were older but repressed. The PoV character is both young and repressed.
Sometimes I look back at my old writings & realize I don't need to giggle anymore anytime there's boobs.

Perhaps some of the jokes didn't age well, but in any case depiction doesn't 1:1 translate to endorsement, and I don't think any dark content needs to be "justified" with secret clever messages or whatever; people are going to write down whatever is in their thoughts and needs a release valve.

We can certainly keep the social context in mind in doing criticism but

It#s also worth mentioning that in a lot of historical societies you were considered an adult at 15. You could ascend the throne of England! Maturity is very individual, 18 is just a number we've socially decided is a good average, which we create d social systems around that add a further layer of situation & life experience on top of biological maturity. Acknowledging that isn't the same as condoning creep behavior because your actions aren't directly dictated by whether you think some picture is hot.


Shoot me, but I don't think fanservice is actually always bad in every context. It's a problem when like everything bends to it with no regard for logic or story (say, everyone wears makeup regardless of wether it makes sense for their personalities), it's probably an issue that ppl have a hard time finding content without it; It's a problem when stuntwomen break their ankles while fighting in heels - but to look at things that have got sexy stuff in it, just like some primal part of us wants to look at gratuitous violence, fast paced action, or cute family bonding... isn't a problem in itself.

We can certainly put this in a context of a culture/genre where sexy content is sort of expected regardless of context & see this as a tendency that represents the overabundance of a certain Pov over others, even if it's old and comes with more 3D characterization and plot/thematic significance than your average cutesy love interest...

Like obvsly if I met 14 year old Rei today, I would not date her but maybe try to be a big sister figure to her with the life experience that I have now of having continued with life after being the weird universally avoided girl in the back of the classroom, but if my teenage self met her - whose memories & experiences influence me to this day - it would be a different matter, nor is it really fully captured in such simple terms. In some ways I'd want to be her friend, or, she's someone that I saw myself in, who's part of an appealing story & themes.

At the same time, aren't dudes allowed to express their frustrations? Wouldn't even cutesy brainless erotica be a valid genre?
The problem is more the obligatoriness & overabundance, but the answer is really to make more media that shows other Povs.

Morals are temporary. Why should we consider nudity exploative in pop culture, but norm in antique and renaissance?

Kendrix wrote:Like obvsly if I met 14 year old Rei today, I would not date her but maybe try to be a big sister figure to her with the life experience that I have now of having continued with life after being the weird universally avoided girl in the back of the classroom, but if my teenage self met her - whose memories & experiences influence me to this day - it would be a different matter, nor is it really fully captured in such simple terms. In some ways I'd want to be her friend, or, she's someone that I saw myself in, who's part of an appealing story & themes.

Rei is a weird one. We can not forget that that Tokyo 3 is build around the geofront and most are working for or under NERV this sort of makes Rei the queen of the city. This combinend with her odd appearance and character. With her not interacting and probably some MIB in the bushes you would probably ignore her like the rest as dangerous and scary.
The big sister concept also does not work well because you would be in the same classroom as her or otherwise it's yust a (boring) junior and you would have your own problems.
That said I do understand what you mean.

JonL wrote:Morals are temporary. Why should we consider nudity exploative in pop culture, but norm in antique and renaissance?

Romeo's juliette was 13 years old

JonL wrote:Morals are temporary. Why should we consider nudity exploative in pop culture, but norm in antique and renaissance?

Who's to say that the antique & renaissance art shouldn't be criticised as well? I mean most of it did come from deeply effed up societies. You're certainly right in pointing out that we can't just throw it all away or we'd have to throw everything every 10 years. "Exploitative" is probably not the right world cause a statue, like a drawing, doesn't involve an actual actress who could be maltreated; certainly the overabundance of certain images can reflect something about society - see the old adage that "you painted a naked woman because it gave you pleasure and then you called it vanity", but is the problem that you drew a naked woman, or not rather that you called it vanity?

But given how ppl in the past thought they had morals all figured out and then they didn't, our present day discourse could really use a dose of humility instead of pretending that now we definitely got it all correct for sure and we have found ~the~ standard for the rest of eternity.
I'm all FOR social justice, but nothing good comes of taking the whole complexity out of morality & pretending there is the one immediately obvious right way to do things. Clearly it is not obvious.

In a sense what you're seeing is that more open-minded ideas are becoming more mainstream, but ppl still have the same personality types and many were still raised with the old social programming, so you end up with a left-flavored variant of puritanism. I'm really curious about what the next generation is going to do as a reaction to it in another three years tho.

Like clearly not all the fanservice in the show is there for deliberate planned reasons, some is but to some extent it's copypastey genre convention which we can certainly point out and be aware of & maybe wonder if it's really necessary/ should be this way (the amount that's annoying probably also varies by how old you are & your background; It's fully possible for something to be uncomfortable to some people but not be objectively bad)
IDK if it's constructive to label individual creators - especially old work that can't really change anymore - instead of, say, pointing out how the next ppl can do better & demand more from newer media.


Another thing to keep in mind (because some ppl earlier in the thread were complaining about, say, scenes of ppl changing clothes) is that not all nuditiy is immediately sexual, sometimes ppl are just naked in everyday situations, or you'd use the motif of the human form thematically (e, many scenes with Rei... and in those cases the camera doesn't really pan to the "goodies" or whatever) - the plugsuits in particular there's certainly scenes that get played for embarrassment etc. but for the most part having the pilots silhouetted etc. is used to create a mood of vulnerability & being alone with one's thoughts(ppl are naked in the womb after all, we are all born naked...)

EVA certainly has lots of all three: just scenes where ppl are naked, scenes where sexual content is used for intellectual points and sexy scenes framed as sexy scenes (and where, from the camera use & framing, it would be idiotic to argue that they're anything else).

Also the modern tendency to call everything involving younger ppl "pedo". Words mean things. That refers specifically to grade school and younger. That doesn't mean that material involving adolescents can't be objectionable, but that's not the right word for it.
This leads to situations where you can't tell if someone's talking about actual CSEM or just a ship between a 17 yo/ and a 19 yo that you personally don't like.

Thank you for that big essay, Kendrix. You put everything I could ever say about this debate into words.

I agree with you about how bizarre the modern combination of progressive thinking and conservative social norms is. Most people call it "cancel culture," but you're right that it's basically just a left-wing variant of puritanism. I'm thinking that as Gen Z grows up, and starts rebelling against the previous generation more, the current thinking might change into something completely different.

And FINALLY someone pointed out the misuse of the word "pedophile"! It's so frustrating when people misuse that, especially in anime fandom. It just feels like an excuse to attack fans of a character someone doesn't like. Like in Eva fandom, Misato fans love to say "You can't like Asuka/Rei, she's 14! If you don't prefer Misato over all the other girls, you're a pedophile!" I think Misato is one of the best characters in the show, but at the same time I don't think liking imaginary teenagers can be considered "pedophilia."

orcot wrote:Rei had:2278
Asuka had:2645
Shinji had:1873
Toji had: 105
kaworu had:320
Misato had:612
Ritsuko had:371
Gendo had: 179
Kaji had: 135

It's not really surprising that it's the three main pilots because,

a) They are the main characters & primary Pov characters where much of the emotional tension & investment is & which the ppl project themselves into; That might involve imagining them a bit more like yourself. (So if you're an adult who boinks...)

b) Unfinished tension - there isn't as much fic or pr0n of, say, Misato & Kaji because they confess their feelings, boink just barely offscreen, & even get this resolution scene where Misato finds the data capsule... in other words, the catharsis has happened in the main work; You don't need fanwork for that (There also isn't terribly much material about Touji & Hikari. ) - whereas with the pilot trio everything's kinda unresolved und ambiguous & doesn't really go any way... not unusual for school crushes rly, but some part of you probably wishes something would happen even if it's not realistic. This is why the most popular ship is often not the lead couple but some fan favorite side character cause you're not wanting more content... unless there's a love triangle or sad sad ending or something else that makes it "unresolved"

I dare say most of the erotica in any fandom will fulfill these characteristics, even if it involves a character played by then mid 50s Peter Capaldi or a nonhumanoid robot like Glados.

Kendrix wrote:not all nuditiy is immediately sexual, sometimes ppl are just naked in everyday situations, or you'd use the motif of the human form thematically (e, many scenes with Rei... and in those cases the camera doesn't really pan to the "goodies" or whatever)

That's an important part, and I personally do believe that people who can't make that distinction are the root cause of quite a lot of problems in pop culture discourse well, also outside of that but that's politics; if you think that every bit of nudity is automatically sexual, you are probably going to complain about it every time, and if you don't paint it as literally satan or dare imply that you like it, people who do the former are going to take that as "proof" that they are correct in seeing every bit of nudity as sexual. It's a vicious circle that really needs to be broken.

Blockio wrote:That's an important part, and I personally do believe that people who can't make that distinction are the root cause of quite a lot of problems in pop culture discourse well, also outside of that but that's politics; if you think that every bit of nudity is automatically sexual, you are probably going to complain about it every time, and if you don't paint it as literally satan or dare imply that you like it, people who do the former are going to take that as "proof" that they are correct in seeing every bit of nudity as sexual. It's a vicious circle that really needs to be broken.

As an extension to this, condemning nudity as sexual in of itself will inevitably extend toward condemning showing any skin at all. Breast cleavages become sexual when they don't need to be, and further so will ankles and eventually even lips, till the point where one might as well be expected to cover their entire body to hide the shame of sexuality (this isn't hyperbole because historically this sort of thing has been practiced). Plenty of people can accept seeing a nude infant as nonsexual (and plenty of people can accept witnessing a woman's ankles without becoming problematic about it), and when a parent shares a picture of their infant bathing, this is normally not considered as the same thing as the sexual exploitation of a minor (until it is). To correlate this logic to, say, the graphic artist; drawing artistic nudes is never inherently sexual until it's intended to be. Most, if not all, art students need to study human anatomy at some point, and plenty of nude portraits are meant to be ugly, melancholic and entirely nonsexual. What becomes of importance outside of the nudity itself is the context; is the image intended to be sexualised, etc? And if so, is this intentional sexualization a part of the artistic conversation? Surely Eva brings up problematic sexuality, and I hope we can appreciate how Eva attempts to inform us about such behaviors. But as well, there should be no reason to be ashamed of the human form. This is your body, and nothing about it is sexualized until you allow it to be (my partner sexualizes my eyebrows for some reason, but it makes me feel pretty so I allow it; I think her ears are sexy). Again, context matters.

JonL wrote:Why should we consider nudity exploative in pop culture, but norm in antique and renaissance?

That usually depends on how it’s portrayed.

BusterMachine4 wrote:Like in Eva fandom, Misato fans love to say "You can't like Asuka/Rei, she's 14! If you don't prefer Misato over all the other girls, you're a pedophile!" I think Misato is one of the best characters in the show, but at the same time I don't think liking imaginary teenagers can be considered "pedophilia."

How is that not considered pedophilia?

And yes, I know they’re fictional, but normally, some average folks would consider that the same thing.

Sachi wrote:Breast cleavages become sexual when they don't need to be, and further so will ankles and eventually even lips, till the point where one might as well be expected to cover their entire body to hide the shame of sexuality

Ankles? Really???

C.T.1290 wrote:How is that not considered pedophilia?

And yes, I know they’re fictional, but normally, some average folks would consider that the same thing.

Definition of pedophilia: A sexual interest in prepubescent children. The Eva characters are 14, therefore they’ve already gone through puberty, therefore it’s not pedophilia.

And if someone considers sexual interest in fictional characters on the same level as sexual interest in real people, I can’t help them there.

BusterMachine4 wrote:Definition of pedophilia: A sexual interest in prepubescent children. The Eva characters are 14, therefore they’ve already gone through puberty, therefore it’s not pedophilia.

And if someone considers sexual interest in fictional characters on the same level as sexual interest in real people, I can’t help them there.

Ok, but isn’t ephebophilia just as bad? The kind were some guys are attracted to late teens?

C.T.1290 wrote:Ankles? Really???

Absolutely. A woman's dress that is raised above the ankles? Once upon a time, scandalous, and even when things got more liberal here in America, it was still terrifyingly puritan. Even in relatively recent times, my own mother was expected to be raised into the American military as an officer by her military step-parents, and her only path of rebellion against this was specifically tattooing her ankles and shoulder blades so that she wouldn't be accepted to into the social pantheon of elite bred officers, because during this time women officers were expected to wear formal dresses at officers clubs, dresses that would show such parts. Military tattoos were seen as a jarhead thing, belonging to the working class recruited soldiers and not for the elite class of officers that she was born into. And that's just in America. Let's not get started on the ways woman have historically been repressed from expressing themselves in other parts of the world.

BusterMachine4, C.T.1290, we could split hairs about dictionary definitions all day, but I think the key here is "sexual attraction," not "depiction naked legal minor." The "Philia" out there all specify how one person relates to another, not how they're drawn or photographed. (Though, it can be argued in artistic fields whether or not an artist relates to a character a certain way simply be how that artist draws or photographs that character.) Whether or not something is pornographic is different (but not entirely separated) from the philia. "Porn" is a cultural colloquialism and not really a legally defined term, so what it can refer to changes depending on context. For example, if a couple decides to videotape their child performing a gymnastics routine in a competition, where all of the contestants are wearing official leotards, and uploads it to YouTube, the video itself is not considered pornographic. But if that same video is discovered sharing space with other videos and/or photographs of children performing explicit sexual acts in a creepy person's personal hard drive, then that innocent gymnastics video can be categorized by law enforcement with the rest of the materials as child pornography, since the viewer allegedly exploited that content to service his own sexual fantasies involving legal minors. This is what I mean by the "philia" involved not always being separated from the art work in question. Sometimes law enforcement might use the philia as evidenced by the very explicit content possessed by the perpetrator in order to help define other non-explicit materials as "child pornography" in certain circumstances. The categorization of that gymnastics video as "child pornography" doesn't have a lot of reach outside of that particular case, however, and no one else found watching or possessing that gymnastics video can be accused of viewing or possessing child pornography, unless they are found doing so under similar circumstances.

At least, that's my current understanding of the situation. I might be wrong about all of that. I'm no lawyer, after all.

Three sorts of posters in this thread:
*Those encultured such that they see it as obviously utterly morally abominable to jack off to Asuka and/or Rei.
*Those encultured such that they see it as clearly morally acceptable to jack off to Asuka and/or Rei.
*Those who are at pains to elegantly & eruditely to explain how ~not all nudity is sexual~ and how ~sexuality can have a valid place in art~, as if the question here weren't whether it's morally acceptable to jack off to Asuka and/or Rei.

Lavinius wrote:as if the question here weren't whether it's morally acceptable to jack off to Asuka and/or Rei.

Link?

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:Link?

Yes, that is a closely related question, though it has even more interesting subquestions- for instance, is it morally acceptable to jack off to 17-year-old Link considering that he apparently still has the same mental experience as 10-year-old Link in spite of his advanced physical age, and can freely revert to being 10-year-old Link by returning the Master Sword?