Don’t you just want to protect her?
Lolicon or the Lolita complex is a very interesting phenomena within the otaku community. Rather than talking about the full on description of it that is generally about hentai or the depiction of underage girls in sexual poses and connotations, I prefer to stick with merely a more innocent usage of it, which is the depiction of characters that are of a young age for the discussion of the topic: Why guys like lolis.
As many people have happily labeled me a lover of lolis, the fascination of this growing amount of young girl characters must be examined much further. After a random anime blogger called me lolicon, an idea struck in my mind. Why do guys like lolis? It might be due to a few reasons, but the perception of this loli liking is definitely different in terms of gender.
Why is the loli is such an interesting entity to the male viewer? Let me bring you into the world of lolis (that sounded wrong).
I want such a younger sister that is so cute, darn it!
Innately cute
Rather than trying to represent the male population as a whole which is a futile attempt to say what the ideal beauty or cute babe is to all men, I will describe the reasons why I like lolis. The first main reason why I like Lolis is because they are practically cute. To me, young girls in real life tend to be either obnoxious or downright annoying. However, in the anime world, all the younger looking characters simply looks so adorable and cute. It is perhaps a very hidden closet liking of most guys toward females that are relatively cute, since guys do like cute girls. Admit it, those who like Aya Hirano, that cute girls are often the one that is the secret delight of many men.
We all want to be an older brother
I feel that there is something in most guys watching anime. It’s perhaps the onii-chan syndrome in which the male viewer finds loli cute and desirable to protect. It is also the dream of guys innately to have a younger sister to play with, who is extremely cute rather than the annoying girl that you see everyday. The transcendence of appearance cannot be underestimated here, and it must be said that all guys like to be an elder brother (of course without all the hassle to really take care of the younger sister for 24hours and gain all the benefits of being called one).
Forbidden fruit? No way!
There is yet another reason often stated that I do not agree with. The reason for the interest of lolis by males is the sexuality of forbidden fruit. As we all know that the sexual behavior toward younger girls is frowned and chastised by most humans of a sane mind, the medium of anime allows this forbidden fruit to exist without any serious repercussion to the society by presenting a sexualized version of a younger girl in the form of a loli.
I personally find that the reason for forbidden fruit is quite weak nevertheless, and it seems to perverse the male too much, like how a female does. Most say it merely for a joke but hardly any normal male will actually think of sexual things with a loli. I mean, honestly, the whole notion of forbidden fruit is mostly a deviant idea that will be pursued by deviants. Hence, even though I am often teased as a lolicon, I am not in the strictest sense in terms of sexual thoughts. It’s just too wrong for me to even consider.
The compensation of the feminist movement
On a slightly deeper level, we are living what is still quite a patriarchal society, where the male is often seen in preference to the female in terms of social status. It’s probably less apparent in the meritocratic and modern societies but the alpha male (the male anime watcher) has an unsatisfied need to protect someone cute and weaker than her due to the growing feminism in society. It’s to establish that disparity that exists in real life, where females are getting stronger and more affluent.
To summarize, the main reasons I feel is the cuteness and the innate need to protect little girls in our righteous hearts of men!
Crusader’s Counter (Take that!)
Innately Cute
While the typical loli oozes with cuteness their huge saucer eyes make them by default more cute. Not to mention the fact that in the US the average loli is now packing on pounds and while fat may be the norm it is not to me cute. Thus the physical fitness of these little ladies hearkens back to a bygone age when people in the first world were not obese, mostly since these damned Americans are eating too much to make up for the rest of the world. Besides they have perfect teeth which is not the case for many girl children as they have not completed the loss of their baby teeth. Nothing kills aesthetic looks like a screwed up mouth.
Much of the appeal of being around lolis is that they make the average dopey male look tall. Indeed it feels good to pick up other humans using the mild levels of otakus’ underwhelming strength. I know every time I lift kids high into the sky I feel like a giant.
Wanting to be an Older Brother
While the squeals of onii-chan can bring the average male otaku to his knees the required maintenance is of much concern. More so because of the requirement of absentee parents to breed complete dependence on the unreliable scally wag that is the aspiring onii-chan.
Take it from the older brother of a shouta, granted its not a loli, but bear with me here. Besides both loli’s a shoutas are small, flat, and annoying. The worst part about these little demons is having to help them with homework its an ordeal every time to explain for the nth time that 2+2 is 4!
Hey if one of you guys wants to be an onii-chan I know plenty of guys who would gladly give up their imoutos for a day. Provided you give you finger prints and a photo of yourself at the police station. Otherwise squeal away!
Forbidden Fruit
I have very low opinion of promiscuity with under aged minors more so with children. Suffice to say if you do think about this sort of stuff your reproductive organ must be small since you obviously want to feel big when copulating. If your partner were any older your poor sick self would feel inadequate. Suffice to say don’t ever do it. You can fawn and squeal like a school girl but under no circumstances will it ever involve a couple of Mike’s hard lemonade and a sleeping bag.
If you do, know that prison guards are fond of playing inmate pairing games. Suffice to say even murderers have scruples about banging children. Funny that.
Compensation for the Feminist Movement
Perhaps Impz is right even if if that is one hell of a stretch. Still since women now are more independent and no longer need badly disciplined heavy cavalry knights in shining armor the average peasant can now rejoice. For these women are no longer damsels in distress, hell they can save your ass now too. Not only that independence makes for cuter lolis and hawter women.
As for alpha males they can die off I have no use for wankers with huge egos in my line of work. Those idiots go looking for trouble! Nope being the baddest means not having to show off or brag about it. Heck Darth Vader never had to brag about being cool and awesome like freaking Hideaki Ano Shinji Ikari. Nope Vader just choked people to death with the force no bragging required.
I think this infatuation with loli’s is an extension of some God/Haruhi-sama/Allah given quirk of finding smaller versions of our selves adorable. Most likely it was given to us to prevent bad things happening to kids. To preserve the future of the human race if you will, not that we have much a future to look forward to so that we can all have iPhones and SHnY 2.
19 Comments
(Disclaimer: my following comment includes vast amount of generalization; it is only for the sake of comparison and easy reference and not because I think all women or all men are the same or have the same taste.)
Lolis = cute, huh? I do wonder if this is strictly aimed for male viewers, because women are just as (or perhaps more?) inclined to liking cute things. Who buys teddy bears for guys anyway?
The gender of the loli makes a very big difference, IMO. Women are probably more attracted to shouta than loli, although I think women are also more attracted to bishounen than shouta. I just don’t know if lolicons possess even a shred of sexual interest, or not. But the fact that men like lolis and not the equally cute shouta should be significant.
Or maybe cuteness itself is differentiatable between gender. Oh dear, it seems that gender stereotyping and conditioning has prevaded our entire society.
Well I think you seem to have a much idealized view of human sexuality and taboos, which is refreshing but limited.
It is commonly accepted by most sexual psychologist that pathologies, i.e. the level of acceptance of certain behaviors, taboos, and sexual preferences run on a sliding scale, meaning everyone is attracted to certain things and it is the degree of that attraction which constructs behavior and preference; what maybe cute, or wholesome can also be sexualized depending on the degree of attraction and level of response to that impulse.
You should read Nabokov’s Lolita, the book which created the root term for loli, if you want more clarification as well as any contemporary guide to human sexuality.
Sexual repression is what many psychiatrist view as the impetus behind the degenerate behavior of priest and other cloistered individuals. While I myself, as a fan of Anime and Japanese culture in general, am grateful to what the animators, writes, and people of Japan have contributed to my life, it would be a mistake to forget the severe level of sexual repression and the resulting high levels chauvinism within the country
Impz’s point about anime lolis being more perfect and cute than real-life kids is important. I would hope that most otaku look upon lolis in anime as something super-cute, but not really real. Liking them need not be sexual–they are cute like stuffed animals are cute. They represent an ideal of childhood that should not be tainted. It is that ideal, as represented in anime, that guy otaku wish to protect.
It is true that Japan is patriarchal and the presentation of lolis is probably sexist. According to stereotype, little girls are thought to be both cuter and more mature/smarter than boys the same age. Ichigo Masimaro would not work with boys, they would be too rough/gar/into physical activities. Miyu as a boy would just be annoying and not cute. A clumsy boy of that age would be seen as dorky and pathetic, not adorable. Those are the stereotypes we are stuck with. But most shows are made for male otaku. Girls in these shows seem to exist in a world without boys.
Yeah Impz is such a lolicon.
tj: 13sugars has been lying to him all this while, she’s actually a 10 year old girl. So Impz is trying to reaffirm his “no sex” stand while clarifying that he’s not sexually attracted to little girls, killing two birds with one stone.
“Take it from the older brother of a shouta, granted its not a loli, but bear with me here.”Best line……I almost died lauging.I try to imagine crusader helping his shouta brother while thinking about loli.It’s hilarious.
“They represent an ideal of childhood that should not be tainted. It is that ideal, as represented in anime, that guy otaku wish to protect.”Isn’t that moe?
You two stab at the same issue from different sides.
Loli = cute, No i don’t think so you guys who like loli are just pedohile face it you all need to go to jail.
Loli = need to be protective, No maybe you want to protect them so afterwards you can tell them to get in the car so you can take pictures of them and that you won’t hurt them unless they ask you too.
You people are sick in the head go outside you f@gg0ts!
I can’t say I LIKE loli I just like flat chest and most people prefer women with HUGE chests except for loli.
hey!!
im a gal n i loooooove lolis too ^_^
i like dem coz dey r cute.. actually.. i lov all non-hentai anime.. anime is like a dreamland for me.. cute n sweet…wid good lookin people ..heehehee… lolis are cute… n evn i feel like pickin dem up n playin wid dem lik i would wid my lil sis.. *wish i had 1*
btw… nice pix…
n nice blog……………
I agree with you completely. I too love loli, but when I told my friends this they immediately teased me and called me a pedo. They totally misunderstood. Most, if not all, loli lovers know that it’s forbidden to actually indulge in your desires of loli in real life.
The anime/manga world help satisfy our need of cuteness whether you be a guy or girl. More than half the manga I read have loads of loli/moe content that sparks a warm feeling in my heart. I think, “I wish I had a sister like that!”, “She’s just too frekin kewt!”, and if something bad happens I’m like, “How dare you make her cry!” If anything, Loli content intensified my maternal instincts, AND I’M A GUY!! The more I read and see the more I want to take care of my baby siblings. Read the manga Aishiteruze Baby and you’ll see what I mean.
Some people often mistook the meaning and some principle of lolicons For example
Lolipedophilism = a man who has a lust for under aged girls mostly 17 Below,
Some of the purposes that the lolicons are here for are for the sake of protecting Lolita T-T but some of them mistook the meaning and began using this as an image to ones self PEOPLE LOLICONS ARE NOT ALL ABOUT Lolitas (=.=)
Because of this misunderstanding Child pornography is being advertised and popularized for example the game,s
1. Please teach me ABC
2. nursery Rhyme
3.ECt….
Note Reverse Shoutacon for the ladies
really nice text,
myself take it not so seriously (srry my bad english)
i think loli in anime and manga is not a bad thing.
Its a product from japan and there other rulez and culture
it’s normal for a 13 year old japanese girl to raise her own pocket money
to go out with older men (you find a huge system of, meet and call services for that)
they have another view (for us mostly un-understandable)
in japan a large group of men (hikimoris) love lolita style
its a normal way to live there.
i like anime lolis because they are over-extreme-cute
i never saw in real life a little girl who made my heartbeat skip
and that will never be happen, in animes girls are perfect
(even that what we wish for)
so in my opinion there is no wrong to like anime loli stuff
i so agree with u, Impz
Hi all.
My understanding of lolikon is the sexual attraction towards adolescent girls. Lolikon is also used to name adults who like adolescent girls. Nabokov’s book ‘Lolita’ set the definition pretty well. But here you talk about “a more innocent usage of it, which is the depiction of characters that are of a young age”.
To me, this type of lolikon you are talking about is different. This cute female characters with extremely big eyes resemble young girls somehow, but it seems pretty clear that they are not real girls. I’m not into them but I do like them when I see them. I feel no sexual attraction for them at all, though. They are imaginary cute entities. That’s all. Is this the kind of lolis you like? Do people call you a Lolikon because you like this characters? No big deal, the way I see it.
But, what about hentai lolikon? I’ve seen many hentai lolikon. Some of them depict characters similar to the ones in the pictures shown here and some depict much more realistic female characters. I guess I consider the former kind of acceptable, since they are like the unreal characters in the pictures shown here. I would place them in the same category as fairies orleprechausn. The latter… Well, they make me ponder a lot about where’s the limit of child porn. Furthermore, there are lots of hentai lolikon mangas depicting sexual abuse, rape, torture, etc. over these realistic-looking characters.
In Western porn comics, female characters are usually young women. There might be some MILFs, and, occasionally, some 16-17 year old girls. The characters are sexy, sensual, voluptuous rather than cute or child-looking. There might be rape, torture, etc. but usually no underage characters are involved. Nowadays, we can find some Western porn comics depicting underage girls and boys having sex, but they are not so mainstream as hentai lolikon in Japan.
I wonder why this happens. It seems that in Japan there is a clear preference for young characters in hentai manga and anime. How many hentai mangas featuring high-school girls and boys are out there? How many hentai mangas featuring elementary school girls and boys are out there? How many hentai mangas featuring ONLY sex between adults are out there? When searching for hentai on the net, the number of mangas featuring adolescents and children is huge. There are mangas that depict only sex between adults, but they are not so numerous. And I keep wondering why there’s this difference between Japanese erotic mangas and Western erotic comics.
What is the cultural explanation for this? Are the majority of Japanese men attracted to underage females? What’s the reason for this clear inclination towards lolis?
I think you guys are thinking way to far into this, seems to be some of you have issues with people liking animes with younger girls, any of u seen Aishiteruze Baby? well im a guy and sort of liked that show..im not a pedophile its just anime girls in most cases young or not they all look cute, you do have to realize anime isnt real just because i like how a girl looks in anime doesn’t mean they look the same in real life =Þ
AS previously stated above me, there isnt many hentais that really have only adults in it, why you ask? well do u think its the person watching a loli that is a pedophile or did u think about it some more and think well maybe its the person who wrote thats more like the pedophile…just stop thinking so deeply and enjoy the damn show lol
thats the way they are cute and they make you happy when you are down they are there when need them and they really a have nice bodys and sometimes they have their clumsy moments they just turn you on but you no that you can’t touch but you can watch
Though I concider myself having a Lolita Complex, I feel that it’s more then just simple sexual feelings towards little girls. As Impz put it, the cuteness of the girl has some reason behind Lolicon feelings, mostly if it’s things that a guy is attracted too. (Me for example, long pink hair and blue or red eyes are my favorite ) But it’s mostly due to the fact that in anime and manga, you will NEVER find a girl as cute as her in the real world, nor be as sweet either (Depending on the girl of course, Etna from Disgaia can be pretty heartless at times.)
Also, to me anyway, there is more to it then just a sexual feeling. That “Big Brother” complex that Impz talks about is true, though that doesn’t necessarily have to mean I’m “Onii-Chan”. Like the whole “Moe” phenomenon, there’s a desire to be protective, nurturing, loving and just being there for a little girl that can just as well as be misplaced feelings of parental desire. Which is why most Loli-based hentai makes me feel dirty and disgusted, because a majority is either sexual abuse, rape or monster/tentacles based stuff.
But then again, it’s because I feel more attracted to fictional little girls that the same feelings aren’t the same with real ones, which is a good thing. Perhaps the reason the sexual part of lolicon artwork is because a majority of the time, the girls are partaking in activities that hint at something provocative or are blatantly doing so. Most consensual Loli Hentai has the little girl asking an older boy or man about sex she saw in a show/book/movie and wants to try it with the male she has a childhood crush with. In other words, despite being only a little ways in her double digits, there’s a part that’s been written that she KNOWS more then one her age should know.
In conclusion, I think most men who are into Lolicon desire a Loli who can been cute, innocent, dependent but also a little naughty as well.
That “little naughty” part is truely powerful. The first time I had sex with a women, I was seduced by her cute but naughty charm. Right after we finished, she giggled and said, “by the way, I’m fourteen.” She was actually twenty, but got a kick out of the look on my face when she said that.
It never occuered to me before that to think about the age of anyone to whom I was attracted. I was barely over 18 myself so most of the girls I had been attracted to up untill then were under 18. It seems weird to me that a lot of western society calls you “sick” if you don’t surpress the memories of feelings you had in junior high school when you first noticed the appeal of short skirts.