Firstly, this isn't really meant to attack anyone specific, and certainly not anyone on my friends list (I don't think any of you guys do this kind of thing anyway).

What I wanted were people's opinions and thoughts on a so-called art form called "shota", which, as far as I'm concerned, is legitimized child pornography. I know that likely sounds a little harsh to many of you but essentially it's artists drawing sexual/pornographic pictures of young boys under the guise of cutsy anime. If you're unsure of what I'm talking about you can read the wikipedia article here: [link] . I won't link to any shota works on this site, or the artists who draw them, because I think that would be inviting drama, which is not my intention at all.
The thing is, there are many otherwise talented artists on this site whose galleries I have been turned off from due to content like this. People who know me and know my characters are probably aware that I'm no prude, and I don't mind sexual fetish art or homosexuality or incest, etc, etc, but I find that there's something profoundly disturbing about artists who post work of half-naked, underage boys having sex with each other and/or adults. It's as if labeling it shota, and therefore anime, makes it safe or harmless, and I think that's bullshit, personally. For instance, if I were to post a "shota" style drawing of one of my male characters as a child jerking off one of my older characters, claiming it was "hot" or "cute" and did it in my style or in a more realistic style I expect I would receive a LOT of angry and repulsed comments. Take the same picture and draw the characters with huge eyes, lots of shines and anime hair and you'd get a whole lot of comments like "kawaiii" and "omg they r so hott i luv them."
It's the same picture, but they anime style somehow makes artists feel as though they're not doing anything harmful, and that, to me, is kind of scary.
Now, drawing pictures of two kids innocently kissing, or something that has some meaning behind it or purpose is fine and dandy, and that's not what I'm criticizing at all. What I think is questionable are the pictures people upload that are quite obviously neither of those things.
ANYWAY. There's my two cents. Opinions? Comments?

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