I just need to say that when i was a minor i used to look for erotic material of people closer to my own age then because i felt i could relate more to it. I ended up stumbling into the works of genuine pedophiles, works depicting children made by adults. To be honest i consciously, logically, knew it was all done by adult pedophiles but i hadn’t quite internalized that, i didn’t put it all together or think hard enough about it, and it ended up becoming a decent portion of the material i got off to at the time. Not only did seeking out “shota” as a child leave a permanent imprint on my sexuality that I’m still struggling with, I’m kind of only now coming to face the fact… that even though there weren’t any direct interactions these adult pedophiles normalized pedophilia to me as a child. They made me think it was okay, as a child. And i think they probably knew on some level that kids would be finding their material, even if they gave it all the warnings (most didn’t put up any warnings), because that’s what kids do when they’re discovering their sexuality they run into all kinds of shit including stuff they shouldn’t see.

The age ranges that these artists featured went from 12 to 18, with mid and older teens being more common. And i want to make it very clear that they drew older teens with the exact same spirit and intent that they did younger preteens. They were always drawn in some way that made them lookore adultish and acceptable like being tall or having big muscles or a strong jawbone (usually not all three) but they often maintained certain features which were in context infantilizing, meant to remind the viewer of their juvenility, like rosy cheeks and innocent faces. Juvenile features I’m seeing now on the kid in that trailer.

As someone with intimate experience seeing the erotic material pedophiles and predators put out, that trailer is all too familiar. And i know younger individuals will end up seeing this film, orchestrated by two middle aged men about a grown man falling in love with a child, and they’ll think it’s okay for people significantly older to be hitting on them, they’ll have their guard down and not understand the motives of older people who pursue them. I didn’t understand the motives when pedophiles managed to convince me it was normal, and i really wish i had understood more when i was a kid. I wish i understood more about WHY sexualizing children was not okay instead of just “oh it’s icky”.

The fact is, this book and movie are men in their 40s sexualizing a child. He may be of legal age cannonically in italy but compared to 40 year olds he is very much a child. What place do men in their 40s have writing a story normalizing love between a child still practically an adolescent and a GROWN adult? I can kind of understand if the writer/director were younger but knowing how old they are and the relationship they decided to display, what does that say about them? What does it say about these old men that they’re making a movie/book about such a large age gap? And what does it say about our culture that it’s being so vastly accepted?