Kawaii Culture and the Sexualization of the Innocent
Did you know that in China on wechat, you can get “erotic” (I say erotic but do gangbangs count as erotic?) emoji that feature children. And if you are the kind of person that thinks “Nothing says sexy, like small children and smut” might I suggest consulting your doctor about chemical castration. These emoji include lines such as “你打游戏吧，我和其他男人先睡了 You play your video games. Meanwhile, I will sleep with other men.” (Apparently using the term sleep with and not I am going to go cuck you is what makes this emoji ok for China’s strict censors.)
Another of these emoji reads. “我的床很大，可以睡五个小哥哥 My bed is so big that I can sleep with five older brothers at once.” In Chinese culture 哥哥, gege/older brother is used in the same manner as Daddy or Papi is used in western culture.
“哄完其他老婆了吗 可以轮到我了吗 Have you finished coaxing other people’s wives? Can I have my turn now?”
“我洗好你，你懂我的意思吧。 I will wash you well if you know what I mean.”
These emoji have been around since 2019, and I know most people like to see things on the other side of the planet as not their issue, but what if I told you that many of these images are non-Chinese kids. The use of foreign children is done to get around the whole digital rights issue. So right now, dear reader, your kid and their image could be a part of some sexting and aggressive masturbation in mainland China. Please also remember that every time you upload your kid’s photo to Instagram and Facebook, trolls are scouring these platforms to gather images for a plethora of sordid uses.
These emoji are the tip of an iceberg and in China where censorship is exceptionally high. (I mean porn is legally banned in this country) One would think that the internet would be sterile. However, the party really only care about themselves and looking like they are policing pornography rather than actually doing it. The reality is, I can go on Weibo (Chinese Twitter), and I can find predatory accounts which openly discuss young boys and girls as if they are slabs of meat or sexualized toys.
These images are out there and get quite graphic. Again I will reiterate we are one of the most censored internets globally, where porn is outright banned, and people must register their accounts with their phone number which is attached to their governmentally mandated ID. If the world's heaviest restrictions are still allowing predatory paedophiles to roam free, then society has a more significant issue than it believed.
You can couple this disturbing “trend” (that does not feel like the right word) with the countless rape cases with lenient sentences in this country as well as the notion that teachers who rape children can still be teachers in China.
I do not understand this world. We ban, block, mute and antagonise those who have differing opinions than our own, but in the meantime child rapists and paedophiles (who know not to rock the boat just in case they get caught) float freely amongst us. They have done so for centuries and will continue to do so if we do nothing to stop them. Just a simple search button can ultimately be their greatest weapon. Yet, we are all too full of ourselves to bother dealing with them, and we could stop them if we all put in a little effort. However, we are all too busy arguing who is the greatest at putting a ball into a netted area or which fictional character is better than the other.
