The prevalence of sexualised children in Japanese media has resulted in a lot of ethical debate online. I think a crucial part of this conversation that's often missing is its cultural context. This issue is complex so this post will be long.
This post will contain triggers relating to pedophilia, grooming, and the sexual abuse of women.
What's first important to understand, for Americans particularly, is that protection of young girls is not a universal nor long-held standard. In many countries around the world an adult having sex with someone who is under 18 remains legal and culturally accepted. This includes many developed, first world nations.
In the UK, I live in a bizarre dichotomy where sexual images of under 18s are classed as child porn, but my government still allows adults to have sex with 16 year olds. This is despite campaigns to have the age of consent raised in response to the very large number of reports of teenage girls feeling groomed and abused by adult men. (Note: most campaigners do of course acknowledge and advocate for the fact that abuse can occur between any genders.)
In Japan the age of consent was 13 until 2023. This was raised to 16 in response to significant campaigns from young women in Japan asking for legal protection from an extremely widespread issue of sexual abuse from adults.
The recency of this change means that the cultural acceptance of pedophilia in Japan is still high. "Pin-up" style catalogues featuring photographs of real children are still widely distributed, and people can identify themselves as being sexually attracted to children without always facing significant social pushback, particularly in otaku circles. A vocal synth-relevant example would be the Vtuber and Voisona UI, who has made "lolicon" content involving real young girls, and remains one of the most successful influencers and vocal synths of the modern era within the Japanese fanbase.
An anecdote: my friend reported a man taking upskirt photographs is young girls coming home from school while in Japan last year, and was unable to get a serious response from authorities. This corresponds with widespread criticism from Japanese feminists of the police still failing to take sexual misconduct seriously.
Long story short, pedophilia is far less taboo in Japan than it is in the US. This is naturally reflected, as all aspects of culture are, in their art and storytelling.
This brings us to our unpleasant cultural context. The reason you're more likely to see lolicon fanservice in an anime as opposed to American media is not because Japan has an enlightened sense of difference between fiction and reality: it is because in Japan, being attracted to young girls is more widely accepted. The state of CSAM in Japanese fiction is a reflection of their past and present real life cultural context. This is not exclusive to Japan.
This is still not to say that every Pixiv artist who identifies themselves as a lolicon has participated in real life child abuse. But it is to say that in Japan there is far less discourse about the difference between those two things, due to an overall reduced taboo. In Japanese-language otaku circles, you will notice that their logic has more in common with 'antis' than 'proshippers'. Meaning, they don't really distinguish between fiction and reality and will assume that if you identify as a lolicon, you are also attracted to real children; in the same way that you would generally assume someone who enjoys anime women is also attracted to real women. The difference is the ethical consensus on the morality of the act.
So it's important to note that in Japan, saying you're a lolicon does contain the implication that you are attracted to real children as well: the word 'lolicon' in its Japanese usage (derived from 'lolita complex') has never been specific only to illustrations. If you are from a culture where sexual acts with a minor are largely shrugged off, there is no reason to defend or debate sexualisation of minors in art.
The "it's just fiction" refrain is a Western argument constructed retroactively by apologists looking for a way to reconcile their values with the prevalence of sexualised children in Japanese media. The idea that 'lolicon' excludes real children is a Western addendum to its original definition.
This understanding is important for informing how we interpret pedophilia in Japanese art.
The first, is that while yes, Miku can be 18, if a Japanese depiction of a 16 year old doesn't look or sound older, they probably haven't been aged up. There isn't much cultural pushback against sexualising 16 year olds in Japan, so they do not have the same impetus to increase Miku's age as an American.
The second is that if a Japanese artist identifies themselves as a lolicon, that probably does include an attraction to real children, because the Japanese definition of the word does not distinguish between the two.
The third is that, while this does not prove that they have ever committed a sexual act with a real child, it is important to consider the possibility that they might not share our ethical perspective that this would be a terrible thing to do.
Fourth, the existence of this art is influenced by a reality of sexual abuse, and to entirely disconnect the two is to undermine the real life struggles people in Japan are currently facing.
And the final point is that no country is a monolith. While patriarchal culture has normalised the sexual abuse of children over many centuries, there are many Japanese people within that culture whose fight against it has continued to shift laws and perception over time.
Look back to English-language media from the 80s and 90s, and you will see fetishised schoolgirls galore, including many examples of underage celebrities being sexualised by media and press, and jokes about relationships with minors laughed off. One aspect I can say that younger generations may not appreciate is how swiftly we have changed, and how different things were.
