I never gave it much thought before, but the other day I got into a conversion with a normie about cartoons and one thing led to another and the question came up, "How can you be sexually attracted to a cartoon character?"
I never gave it much thought before...
Jayden Thompson
Bentley Ramirez
I find it really hard to believe that there is someone from the western world who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s and never had a crush on a cartoon.
William Bailey
They are a fantasy form that have characteristics, colors and styles thats match and tastes and heart's desires. And bring happiness and good feels. And when thinking about them and hearing the voice you feel a connection that fills a hole you emotional wishes for in reality.
Daniel Robinson
how can you be sexually attracted to a thing on a computer screen, even if that thing is real or fake it's on a screen and you can't interact with it, since you're looking at it on the screen and not pursuing it in real life shows that there's a reason for that, so who's to say that something fake isn't real, they're both on a screen and you'll never achieve it, in the end they're exactly the same
Cameron Campbell
I like blonds with big tits it's not that hard to understand OP.
Justin Hall
Yeah, I usually imagine myself in a scenario involving said character(s). Kind of like how people can get off reading erotic literature by self-inserting into the scenario.
David Sanders
The same way people attracted to everything else, I think. Cartoon character is a caricature, an idea of the person, a twisted expression of reality. Sexual preferences and fetishes are basically the same way - they don't really represent reality, but rather exaggerate it and focus on some aspect that makes the object distinctive and desirable. I suppose love, in general, can be also seen that way, as when the person is in love, in his mind the object of affection is often represented as a collection of distinctive and somewhat exaggerated traits.
So, I suppose, it's only natural for people to be attracted to something that is more of an idea of a person rather than a real human being.
Carter Campbell
The human brain works in symbology. We simply cannot naturally process images as they truly are after the stimuli has occurred without extreme training. This phenomenon is why symbols, cave drawings and early alphabets formed. The same works in reverse, why can you look at a photograph of a naked lady and be aroused? For all intents and purposes you are viewing ink or pixels on a flat plane, that is not a lady, and yet, you are aroused.
Cartoon ladies being attractive is a logical extension of this idea. You are taking the symbology for women and simplifying it down, exaggerating desirable features while omitting undesirable ones. One’s sexuality has some amount of plasticity, and if exposed to cartoon pornography regularly, especially at a young age, one might even develop a taste for cartoons that are pretty far removed from human form.
That’s the basics. I’ve done a lot of thinking about sexuality and specifically how drawings play a part and these are the basics of my conclusions.
Henry Torres
CONT
If you really want to do your own research, start here: atlasobscura.com
Jaxon Nguyen
It would helpful to first define what a cartoon character is. is completely different from, say, Gravity Falls.
Austin Moore
Nobody is asking if it’s possible to be attracted to ALL cartoon characters. Both of those images are cartoons.
Joseph Kelly
His image is very realistic. It wouldn't be odd to find it attractive. It's not even a cartoon. Characters like those of Gravity Falls are a different story.
Julian Murphy
>it’s not even a cartoon
Yes, it is. All drawings that are not depictions of reality are cartoons. The question isn’t ‘how can someone be attracted to a cartoon like THAT’ the question is cartoons as a whole.
Ayden Johnson
Cartoon means the likes of Bugs Bunny, Calvin & Hobbes, Garfield, and things like political caricatures. It doesn't mean any and all illustrations and drawings.
Henry Nguyen
Anything with non realistic depictions is a cartoon. Those eyes are not reality. Comic art are cartoons. Anime are cartoons too.
Tyler Gomez
No, anime is not cartoons. Neither is the illustration I referenced.
Logan Price
Alright, you’re just wrong then. That’s OK I suppose. Either way, the philosophy behind symbolical breakdown of form remains the same between more realistic symbology and less realistic symbology, either way the sexual reaction treats it the same.
Liam Rogers
I'm not wrong.
>either way the sexual reaction treats it the same
On what basis are you claiming that people sexually react to and Gravity Falls in the same way?
Elijah Wood
How can you be sexually attracted to a human character? They are liars and cheaters. They are ugly, stinky and never look the same after a few years.
Jace Perez
What these guys said. Cartoon characters are ultimately facsimiles of people, a collection of exaggerated features that to us make a human.
Jessica Rabbit is the obvious example, a female character hyper-stylized to be hyper-sexual. big bust, big butt, thin waist, thick red lips. This was the artist's intent, to create the illusion of a sexual character, and that is how it is then interpreted. Job well done I'd say.
Ultimately we are aware that these characters aren't real, they're just illusions on a piece of paper or a screen, but that doesn't stop us from suspending our disbelief and think of them as human, even for a short while. Honestly, I'd worry more about people who can't do that, because they must be pretty fucking boring.
On the flipside, there's people who become attracted to certain assortments of line and colour that weird me the fuck out.
Robert Collins
Yeah, you are, but that’s alright.
Depends on the “people” there is no such thing as a default human. Gravity Falls is super simplistic but not generally an attempt to convey sexual traits. There are shows that are as simplistic as it that do. Say OK KO or Panty and Stocking as an example. People may interpret desexualized characters like Mabel for instance as sexual through fanart, or they may sexualize her through her personality.
Jackson Martin
>Personality is a significant part of attraction
Next.
James Sanders
I’ve found out i’ve become that. Pink in general just gets me going, no matter how illogically placed on a character (like princess bubblegum for example)
Robert Gutierrez
Saltillo - Forced Vision
“When it is provable that you are nothing but a temporary agglomeration of atoms
Wavelengths of energy, as it were
Though this moment has this form, but not for long
And is not even fully present in this form
For do you not think?
And in thinking, do you not think of places?
Am I then to think these places of which you think are... thought in your head or are they in your head?
Or are they somewhere else?
In thinking of them, do you see them?
In seeing of them, are they real?
If they are not real, will you then say that what you see before you now is more or less real, therefore you only know it by the seeing?”
Great song, too.
Tyler Rodriguez
I'm not.
>Depends on the “people” there is no such thing as a default human.
You could say this about anything. Obviously we are talking about what people generally think. It's either far more normal or entirely normal to find a realistic illustration attractive compared to a cartoon.
Michael Kelly
There are sexualized and desexualized cartoons, both with less symbolical truncation and more. Gravity Falls is mostly desexualized, but there are cartoons just as or even more simple that are that get people going.
Just as a person without sexual traits is less sexually appealing, so will a cartoon be, regardless of closeness to reality.
Personality plays a big role as well, as well as fan interpretation in fanart.
Brody Gomez
It's not just a matter of sexualized vs. desexualized. The less realistic the drawing is the less likely someone is going to find it attractive. The vast majority of people aren't sexually attracted to cartoon characters.
Cooper Nelson
Incorrect. Jessica Rabbit is less detailed than a photorealistic naked renaissance painting, and yet Jessica Rabbit is deemed far more sexual.
Landon Miller
>On what basis are you claiming that people sexually react to and Gravity Falls in the same way?
Not that user, but the associative mechanism in our body that matches our senses with pleasure is the same everywhere. It just comes to what system of "pleasure associations" the person's mind has cultivated, and I'm not even talking strictly about sexual preferences: tastes, smells, tactile sensations, hearing, sight - all of it comes down to the basic associative mechanism. If it makes you feel pleasure - your body starts to develop reflexes and drag you to the objects that stimulate the same response as if they were magnets, and the opposite is true for things that produce negative sensations.
Whether the object that produces a stimulus is "normal" or not boils down to cultural perception or background, and that includes the moral and ethical side of the question.
Austin Adams
And now we come back to the question of what a cartoon character is. Jessica Rabbit is not equivalent to Mabel.
>It just comes to what system of "pleasure associations" the person's mind has cultivated
We are talking about people in general, not individuals.
Eli Turner
Because Jessica Rabbit was stylized to be explicitly that, whereas renaissance paintings weren't meant to be sexual in nature. There's a reason Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe and l'origine du monde were such controversial paintings in their respective time periods. They weren't just nude paintings, they were considered vulgar.
Ryan Ortiz
It all has to do with symbology. Both are representations of the female form, Jessica is slightly more detailed, but also more sexual, Mabel is less detailed and essentially asexual (visually).
As the renaissance painting vs Jessica Rabbit test provides, realism is not a fast track to more inherently appealing, THUS the common element is sexual expression, generally expressed through exaggeration or highlighting of sexually dimorphic traits like tits, ass, hips, lips and legs.
Luis Bailey
Exactly! It’s not about detail, it’s about intent. Mabel is not drawn to be sexual, so she isn’t (visually/inherently) whereas a character like Sedusa or Daphne is.
Hunter Bell
Mabel could be in some fetish outfit and people still wouldn't care, because she is an oversimplified cartoon character. People also have feelings other than sexual lust, and can find a character just generally attractive.
Bentley Reyes
>fetish outfit
You misunderstand what sexual dimorphic traits are and how they influence sexuality in a character design. Compare this Mabel vs the real Mabel. Both simplistic, one more inherently sexual.
Matthew Mitchell
You misunderstand how people actually think, because you live in a fantasy world where it's normal to find cartoons sexually attractive.
Ryder Kelly
Normalfags post on twitter all the time how they found Kim Possible or Lola Bunny hot as a kid. Normal people have cartoon crushes. Normal people find cartoons hot, they just choose not to act on that or seek out more.
Deal with it.
Ayden Hernandez
Normality is subjective.
Hunter Wright
Like I said, fantasy world.
Once again we are not talking about individuals.
Alexander Russell
It’s ok to be wrong because you’re angry that normal people find cartoons attractive and you don’t. Oh, wait, you do, you just refuse to call the cartoons that you fond attractive ‘cartoons’
Normalfag cope is so fucking funny
Wyatt Hall
I'm not wrong, and you're constructing this fantasy reality because you are so insecure that you can't find cartoon characters attractive unless you think that society is cool with it.
In Japan, "sexualizing" anime characters is common enough that there are loads of pornographic manga sold in stores, and there are pornographic anime and games produced commercially and distributed physically, and this has been going on since the 80s. But even in Japan it's not as if everyone is attracted to anime characters. You are delusional for thinking that the West gets even close to this.
>Normalfag cope is so fucking funny
Except I never said anything to suggest that I'm a normalfag or coping.
Alexander Reed
it's not living in a fantasy world to find cartoon characters attractive. It's living in a fantasy world if you somehow delude yourself any of it is real.
Jeremiah Powell
How many times do I have to explain that we aren't talking about individuals?
Camden Jones
Kayden Butler
Isaiah Cruz
>We are talking about people in general, not individuals.
But whether we're talking about people in general or individuals, the mechanism by which people are attracted to something is the same, the difference is the stimulus, which development is rather complex and unique for most people. Whether the stimulus is "odd" or not is more of a question of cultural standards. From the standpoint of a very generalized image of modern Western culture - yes, it would be considered "odd", but from a psychological standpoint, it is natural.
>whereas renaissance paintings weren't meant to be sexual in nature
Off-topic, but I don't really agree on this one. Renaissance art and ideology, in general, are heavily influenced by Antique Greece, which had a really prominent fetishizing of the ideal body. You can obviously see that influence in sculpture (Lookup Michelangelo's Dying Slave, for example), but the same fascination with form is one of the key characteristics of Rennaisance art, whether it's painting, sculpture, music, etc. I suppose it can be called the fetishization of form, and a lot of notable sculptures and paintings certainly have some sexual undertones.
Carson Torres
Did you miss the cartoon character crush twitter storm a few weeks ago? Nobody freaked out. It’s normal. Not normal to be obsessed like Yea Forums is, but normal.
Most people don’t even watch cartoons, that doesn’t mean the capacity to find them attractive isn’t there, as it is in all humans (symbolical truncation in the brain)
Your cope that ‘sexy’ characters aren’t cartoons makes you look like a normalfag. You GENUINELY asked if Jessica Rabbit counts as a cartoon, lmao.
Jaxon Campbell
It’s really just based on personality and physical appearance in shows. For me at least.
Connor Robinson
Again we are not talking about individuals. I do not understand why nobody can understand this.
In Japan it's as close to normal as it's likely to ever get, and the West is nowhere near that level. And if we go by twitter then it must be normal to be a tranny.
>Your cope that ‘sexy’ characters aren’t cartoons makes you look like a normalfag.
There was no cope.
>You GENUINELY asked if Jessica Rabbit counts as a cartoon, lmao.
I said:
>And now we come back to the question of what a cartoon character is. Jessica Rabbit is not equivalent to Mabel.
Liam Walker
normality is still subjective depending on the society and culture one is in mate.
Blake James
We are talking about most people in the West. That is CLEARLY what we are talking about, yet everyone keeps trying to deny that. "But what about individuals? But what about different cultures? But what about alternate timelines?" I'm done with this thread.
Alexander Phillips
You asked what a cartoon character is and then gave Jessica rabbit as a potential example of one who isn’t. Don’t backpedal now that you’ve been called out.
>it’s more normal in Japan so it’s not normal here
Faulty logic. Grass is always greener/no true scotsman etc, etc.
Jack Collins
Good, leave, it’s obvious you can’t read or grasp the concepts presented to you.
Luis Ward
How is any of this about individuals? The whole point is that at a certain level none of it is weird, none of it is unusual. Our ability to see fake cartoon people as real people to a degree is a perfectly normal form of human self-delusion. Much like how we ascribe human characteristics to the weather, to cars. People give names to their GPS'.
It's hardly abnormal then for a kid to develop a cartoon crush, or for an adult to find cartoons sexy. It only becomes a more individual thing, a more unusual thing, when the object of attraction is unconventional itself. Furries, Bronies, the ones who think any of it is meaningful or real and not just a convincing falsehood.
It's not as strange as we might tell ourselves it is, but it is one of those things we keep quiet, something you don't bring up in polite conversation, though it's hardly abnormal.
Jack Jackson
>The "west"
Sou realize not everyone is an american right? somethings are acceptable culturally in Canada that aren't in the US.
Heck depending on the stater what is acceptable is completely different.
Try to act like a "normal" person in L.A and you will be viewed as weird.
Brayden Parker
Let me present his logic:
>i’ve already come to the conclusion that being attracted to cartoons is abnormal
>so anyone talking about the brain patterns that determine attraction or symbology are only talking about individuals
>stop talking about individuals!
>repeat
Charles Evans
When someone ask that just reply. How could someone get hungry by looking at food on an ad?