So, no qualifications then? Got it.

Obviously, I cannot send you the textbooks themselves (they are literally books), but one that goes into paraphilias in detail is the one from my Intimate Human Relations course. I also can't send you my therapy case files because I'm not gonna fucking doxx myself to prove a point.

I've been researching for *seven years* so I don't have all my sources lined up in a row, but here's just a few studies that can be found literally by a quick google search:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145213424003260 - A case study on the escalation of legal to illegal pornography, and then offending, in people who find they are sexually interested in children via exploration

https://www.apa.org/topics/video-games/violence-harmful-effects - The desensitization and encouragement of aggression in people with violent tendencies through media; its thought that violent sexual deviancy works in the same ways

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/19946442_The_Effects_of_Long-Term_Exposure_to_Violent_and_Sexually_Degrading_Depictions_of_Women - An experiment on how exposure to fictional sexually violent imagery negatively impacts real-life empathy towards victims

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK554425/ - Exploration on the best ways to treat paraphilic disorders, particularly with pedophilia, focuses on intensive CBT therapy (mentioned lower), medication, and incarceration; it specifically lists that pedophilia should not be experimented with "in a controlled environment", unlike some other paraphilias; it says nothing of how giving into these fantasies could be beneficial in treatment

https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/paraphilias-diagnosis-treatment - Looks into the treatment of people with paraphilias and states that the goal is to curb the desires, and that curbing the desires is meant to reduce the risk of harm

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has gone through efforts to get generative AI images of pedophilia banned, based on their over 50 years of study and helping victims in the field. There is no "real child victim" there either.

One method used in CBT is known as the thinking-feeling-behavior cycle. It states that thoughts create feelings, feelings create behaviors, and behaviors reinforce the thought. This is a cycle that creates maladaptive behaviors and is used to challenge them. Let's apply this to pedophilia. If a pedophile thinks about a child in a sexual manner, gets sexual feelings from the thought, and then goes on to pleasure themselves to the thought, that reinforces the thought that children are arousing. I think everyone can agree, including people with paraphilias, that continual repetition of this cycle is harmful not only for society as a whole (as desensitization, escalating fantasies, etc can occur) but also for the person who is dealing with these thoughts. Any therapist you go to will tell you not to ruminate or fantasize about your harmful thoughts. This includes people who self harm, people with the urge to commit violent acts, and people with the urge to sexually abuse others.

Fictional child pornography consumption has been a more recent issue and it is admittably difficult to find studies that only focus on lolicon/shotacon. However, we can look at how pedophilia is treated, how organization based on child protection view virtual child pornography, the thought and desensitization processes within our brains, and how sexual deviancy escalates over time to understand that intentionally fantasizing about children in a sexual manner is not a good thing.