this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2026
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I don't understand this. They're dolls, they aren't alive. Why people would care? This may be controversial, but I'd rather have a pedophile fucking a doll than raping a child
They are making these legislations to steer people's focus away from the real CSA.
Remember. CSAM is just the symptom. CSA being the actual cause.
It's a moral panic - pure and simple. The same reason some countries want to ban cartoon/animated pictures where the fictional character looks too young. I guess the underlying assumption there is that it'll increase the number of people offending towards real children but I don't think there's any evidence to back that up.
If it was up to me, the criteria would be whether an actual person is being hurt directly or as a consequence of. That would include real violence, real pictures and possibly also GenAI stuff if it's trained on real content.
Reduction in real pictures being distributed is not a real indicator of reduction in CSA and CSE either.
A simple anecdote to show it:
How many pictures of Epstein with children are in distribution? How many for his clients?
vs the actual lives he and his gang destroyed.
The small timers are easier to catch and cull with traditional policing and internet restrictions/surveillance is going to do nothing to them in the face of what it will do to absolutely everyone else.
As far as the company in the post goes, better of letting them sell in your country, so you can easily put their customers on a watchlist, rather than be unknown until they start harming real people.
Exactly. Same with faux bait stuff. I personally think it's gross so I don't consume it, but if everyone is a consenting adult and it stops people from consuming real CSAM I can't really support banning it.
But the problem many people have with stuff like that is they assume the people consuming it will go on to do it to real people, which is the same argument they tried to use against violent video games.
A less obvious problem with AIGen CSAM is that the sheer volume of it could make it nearly impossible to track down actual cases of abused children. I am not particularly morally concerned with someone generating it — I don't think it directly harms any child and I'm not entirely convinced it harms the consumer. And if those were the only considerations, I'd say have at it (subject to further research because I don't think it is conclusive that it is harmless to the consumer, either).
But if it means law enforcement agencies have to give up prosecuting pedo rings of actual abusers because they can't tell which images among the thousands are real, well that is real harm to real victims and that is enough to ban it.
It wouldn’t compel me to hurt people, but I definitely get more into kinks the more time I spend with them (to a point). Violence in media has never had a noticeable effect on me though.
Society would probably actually benefit from a non political purely objective science-based commission to review published data, make recommendations for new studies, and come up with an evidence-based recommendation to governments about whether virtual CSAM (no actual children harmed or in AI training data) and lifelike child sex dolls result in statistically more child predation.
I haven't deep dived on this so maybe it's already well known among sociologists/psych pathologists. But the key is a trusted science-based policy. We did it for violent video games and found no correlation. Not at all obvious to me if that also holds for pederasty.
Yeah I know, the trusted scientific commission is not going to happen
It could but I doubt that it would. Pedophiles don't rape children - rapists do. Being both is rare. Having been born with attraction to children doesn't mean they automatically also lack a moral compas and self-control. Most of them know it's wrong and never offend. The vast majority of people in prison for child sexual abuse aren't pedophiles but just good old rapists. Kids simply make an easy target.
Most reformed pedophiles also get reformed before offense, so...
This is the most relevant point I have seen to the current scene, so far.
Also, boarding schools.
Generated CSAM is banned. For the same reason, something like this should follow.
The case for banning simulated CSAM produced with GenAI is that if the training data contains actual CSAM then it would be directly contributing to real children being hurt. Obviously generating those pictures doesn't further cause physical harm to anyone but someone has to already have been harmed in the past for that training data to exist in the first place.
This however is not true with cartoons for example nor does it apply to sex dolls either.
I believe the last time something like this came up, the argument was raised that it normalizes the behavior and leads to escalation, i.e. “they’re just illustrations” “it’s just a doll” to “I’m just taking photos” or “it’s just touching”, this time against actual victims
They said same sex marriage would lead to bestiality
Fake kids to real kids is very different than some crazy fucko thinking same-sex marriage would lead to fucking animals. Are you for real?
Slippery slope fallacy. We know that consumption of real CSAM might increase frustration and lead to pursuit of real crimes. However, we don't have the same level of evidence for illustrations or sex dolls. It's a massive blind side in the scientific literature. It's very hard to study.
Despite this, the number one risk factor still remains unsupervised access to minors. Regardless of whether the abuser consumes abuse media or not.
Does the research support this argument though? (Spoiler: it doesn't)
To my knowledge, there is very little research at all - the programs that would look into whether this might protect or endanger children struggle to get funded, because it's icky.
And anyone looking into it immediately gets labeled as defending abusers.
In theory this is non-harmful. In practice this is part of a fantasy escalation ladder that leads bad places. Your actions are led by your thoughts, and you are the thoughts you feed. In reality it's a good thing to not feed thoughts of abusing children.
I'd note that I'd be similarly uncomfortable with people buying hyper-realistic dolls to practice amateur torture on, but I'm ok with people buying silicone dolls to practice tattoo art and wound stitching on. The difference being intent, which is a line I'm equally unhappy with the government drawing. Someone slicing up a slab of silicone shaped like a baby because they have a desperate desire to hurt babies that they are actively feeding into is bad. Someone practicing stitching up silicone babies after injuries because they always wanted to be a doctor and never got the chance is healthier and fine. It's the "what are you feeding with this action?" Problem of governance.
This is 'videogsmes cause school shootings' logic. There are better arguments than this.
If it's lifelike, I can understand it, because that's where I also draw the line when it comes to drawings and the likes.
Hey if nothing else it gives you a decent idea of who to watch
Sex dolls are pedophile training tools, they only increase their desires to rape kids. But, blowup sex dolls have been a thing forever and legal.
Slippery Slope Fallacy. It's the same thing as saying Doom and Grand Theft Auto train school shooters, or marijuana is a gateway drug to hard substances.
This is not me defending paedophiles, I'm just pointing out the flaw in the logic here. Nothing says that having access to these dolls increases the likelihood of them carrying out their desires on a real child, or that by not having access they would never take that step regardless.
https://people.com/man-jailed-risk-children-discovery-secret-sound-attic-11904272
The people interested in these dolls are serious risks to society.
I would rather see every single one of them locked up than let a single child be harmed.
I feel like this is the exact argument made against playing violent video games, especially having lived through the 90s.
I'd rather see if there's any actual data supporting the assessment.