shotas (Pixiv Fanbox)

so, i'm from the eastern hemisphere, right. and i like drawing young boys, "shotas" we call them. and it has always been baffling to me why this is such a big deal in the west. i guess it's a cultural difference, but i feel like this is a bit of an extreme case.

i had people calling me a pedophile, calling my drawings child pornography (which is extra wild because i don't do nsfw), and i got kicked out of communities for it. which is extremely dumb, if my drawings are child porn, violent movies might as well be gore videos.

fiction can remain a fiction, and people should be able to distinguish between fiction and reality. would actual pedophiles be into shota content? maybe. does that make everyone in the niche a pedophile? absolutely not.

this is extra frustrating, because again, this is such a non-problem here in the east. even some of the big names are into shotas/lolis. no one's going to cancel people over liking this stuff. but suddenly, because i speak english and interact with the western community, it's a huge fucking problem.

and i don't even do nsfw, because i appreciate the wholesome part of the niche much more. i get suggestive sometimes, say, them in bunny outfits, but that's about it. and that's pretty rare too. usually i try to depict everything in a matter-of-fact fashion. as-is. catie and jade in underwear? i use wide shots, letting them meld into the environment around them, and i don't accentuate any parts. i want to capture their innocence, their day-to-day lives, as-is.

i'm an artist. i have a vision, i wish to achieve that vision, and i wish to share it. but as far as the western art community goes, outside of a, in the grand scheme of things, very niche, group of people, all people do is reduce my vision, my artistic merit, and my worth as a person to child pornography and pedophilia.

it's sad, i wish to make connections outside of this niche, but people seem extremely paranoid/neurotic about this. i don't hide my twitter account, because i don't think i should be ashamed of it. but people seem to think i should be.

i suppose sometimes cultural difference is a gap too big to bridge. i'm just hoping the image for this niche improves in the western hemisphere. more and more of eastern culture is being introduced to the west, so maybe it'll improve with time.