Jelena Braum

So another wildly incorrect opinion presented as a fact, that's truly horrible for everyone, especially since spreading this kind of missinformation might cause other kids to get abused. First, I have never said that paedophiles never harmed any child - that's, of course, nonsense. But it's a similar nonsense as saying that any person who touches a child with sexual intentions is a paedophile. I would recommend using actual psychological and sexualogical resources to get educated about the definitions of paedophilia. In fact, most studies show that approx. 50 % of sexual abuse of children is done by paedophiles, and also that majority of paedophiles never sexually abused a child. Reliable resources regarding this topic are peer-reviewed publications, many of which are available online for free or through institutional subscriptions (libraries, universities, research centers) - for quick insight into the topic I would recommend review such as this one https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev.clinpsy.032408.153618 published in Annual Review of Clinical Psychology (top journal in the discipline).

I am sorry if you have a personal experience of this kind - it is a terrible thing and I wouldn't wish it for anyone. But exactly because we need to be able to prevent such a horrible thing from happening to other children, we need to truly understand the issue, all the motives behind it, the characteristics of the perpetrators, etc. Simply equating sexual abuse of children with paedophilia is not only useless, but also a dangerous oversimplification that might lead to sexual abusers being overlooked, paedophiles with real potential of harming children to stay longer without treatment, reports by victims of domestic sex abuse to be dismissed (most of sex abuse of children is done by someone within the family of close to it - and often these perpetrators are not paedophiles).

Sure, you are using incorrect terms, confuse paedophilia with child abuse, and use emotions instead of rationality, but I am coming from a place of stupidity and ignorance. Let's get some points straight:

1. Abusing someone sexually doesn't mean you are attracted to them, it's often more about dominance than attraction, and again: most of the abuse isn't caused by paedophiles.

2. Also, you are using specific terms incorrectly: "If an adult whether heterosexual or homosexual is attracted to a pubescent child regardless of gender that makes them a pedophile." Actually, no. It makes them a hebephile (or an ephebophile for late adolescence); a paedophile is attracted specifically to PRE-pubescent children.

3. "I hope I don't have to break down for you why having sexual relations with children is a crime and why it is damnable in modern society." I hope I don't have to break down for you why having sexual relations with children is a crime, while neither paedophilia nor hebephilia is. Oh, actually, I do... well then: Paedophilia and hebephilia are sexual disorders, and we do not usually punish someone for having a disorder. We punish people for actually abusing children and minors, while (I feel like I need to repeat it for you once again because it doesn't seem you're getting the point) most of the perpetrators of such crimes are neither paedophiles nor hebephiles.

4. If you are actually into the protection of children, you should be aware that the more hate people have toward sexual disorders such as paedophilia instead of correctly aimed hate toward sexual abuse of children, the more children are actually sexually abused. It has two reasons: first, people don't suspect sexual abuse of children from adults with perfectly working sexual life (Only paedophiles do that, right? Wrong.), and second, people who actually suffer from sexual disorders are too afraid to seek medical attention (they fear judgement, hate, discrimination), which increases the chance that they won't be able to cope with their desires and that they will actually sexually abuse a child.

You are accusing a series that is meant to be entertaining for not being educational enough, yet you are "educating" people with completely misguided information with these comments, making the matter actually worse. Please, stop.

I would like to point out that we don't know whether the person who abused Type was a pedophile. Actually, only a minority of people who sexually abuse children are pedophiles, and had Type explicitely said: "I now understand it was a pedophile and not a homosexual", he'd be installing just another bias into the audience - and let's face it, pedophiles are already hated enough, even though it's a medical condition and not a choice, and most of them never harmed a single child. Perhaps it's better not to use specific labels in fiction like this, because as this is not a documentary and full explanations cannot be provided without compromising the story, labels without the fine print might only confuse the audience.

Of course they/we are (me included), but the fetishization is there as well, and especially in the BL series... as I said, it has both positive and negative sides. I think it's good to be aware of the negatives of what we like to watch as well as of what we like about it. It might help us to better understand other people.

A lot of people fetishize homosexuality and most of the BL industry is built exactly on that - it serves romantic boy on boy stories to straight girls. On the other hand, it also provides content for actual LGBTQ+ people - the content which was missing from general pop culture - and that's a good thing, so I am far from being against BLs in general; I actually love some of them for bringing romance to those of us who are not straight and are bored by the tons of hetero couples in mainstream television. It's not a black-or-white issue, and even if we like it, we should be aware of the target audience and what it actually means.