/cm/ — Straight Male Shota: BFF Edition

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Latent homosexuality thread.

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>>3998242
Check the official website for more info, anon!

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Dante and Vergil are so cute

>>3998237
This would be more on-topic without Killua, he's definitely gay for Gon.

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>>3998244
Silver needs more love (but yeah I love Dante and Virgil, too).

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>>3998248
In that pic specifically he looks like that friend at the sleepover that gets annoyed with how much space his friend takes up in the bed

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>>3998227 (OP)
Did these threads start because of those old "female gaze" shota threads or what?

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>>3998323
These threads exist for straight men who love cute boys in a platonic sense, not in a sexual way. I'm pretty sure the OP of the female gaze threads was fine with lewds, whereas I prefer hugs and SFW content.

>>3998352
I can't imagine the mental gymnastics you have to come up with to not being called a homo pedophile

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>>3998355
What mental gymnastics? Are you saying that anyone who likes cute boys must have some sort of erotic feelings towards them?

>>3998357
yes you little retard, nobody, SPECIALLY no male, is obsessed with little boys to the point of making an entire website about them because "they are cute in a platonic way" without having clear repressed erotic intentions behind. are you a fucking woman or something to come up with these arguments? you shotafags really have some of the worst people ever

I was a gay shota OP who had sentimental boyfriendships but also crushes on my best friend… would I be allowed to exist in your utopia

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>>3998364
As long as you're not imposing sexuality on the actions or mere existence of intimate friendships between boys, then no, I don't have a problem with you at all. I've talked to other gay guys that absolutely hate the idea of behaviors or language being "gay-coded" since (from their perspective) it stigmatizes them from other people.

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>>3998363
The fact that we have academic journals related to the study of boyhood as well as excellent books by Niobe Way and films from A24, etc. on how imposed gender norms, performative masculinity and sexuality fracture boyhood friendships should demonstrate that I'm not the only one thinking about this important topic.

>>3998364
OP is a christard. He'd have you stoned to death to "atone" for his own repressed homosexuality.

>>3998367
>I'm not the only one thinking about this important topic
You're not, I do too. I'm still very much gay, though.

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>>3998371
Why are you so upset at the idea that straight men can enjoy looking at cute shotas? Do you see it as an attack on gayness or something stupid like that?

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>>3998379
That's fine! I'd love to hear what you have to say!

>>3998414
no, people (in this forum) see you as somebody who is utterly ridiculous, in real life they would call you a creepy pedo and nothing else

>>3998432
>in real life they would call you a creepy pedo and nothing else
... Doesn't that apply to everyone on this board?

>>3998445
not everyone is a shotacon in /cm/ really

>>3998414
I feel like if you named these threads "platonic shota general" or something like that you would have avoided a lot of unnecessary bickering, this board is allergic to the word straight

>"straight male shota"
>only posts the gayest pictures imaginable

>>3998227 (OP)
>the website
I think you're severely overestimating the impacts of shotacons in culture, anon. The VAST majority of people (outside of select internet forums like this board) are extremely averse to analyzing homoeroticism in boy dynamics. Homoeroticism isn't being "imposed" onto boys in any meaningful way. Shotacons are an extremely niche group - your "straight male appreciation for boyhood" isn't under attack.

>>3998549
He's just a snake. Look at this shit.
>What initally started as an attempt to have a conversation on what the nature of shotacon was quickly devolved into a schism between true shotacons and fake shotacons. It was not enough to see beauty in the male youth, to have nostalgia for one's boyhood, and to yearn for those intimate friendships one had in the past -- rather, in order to have a true appreciation for the boy, one must always sexualize him. This put myself in opposition with a number of people on the board. Characters and relationship dynamics that I saw reflect the unique, special qualities of the adolescent male experience (such as the friendship of Gon and Killua in HunterxHunter) could only be read with a homoerotic subtext in mind. Traditional or even conventional archetypes of youthful masculinity were looked down upon in favor of a personalities and tropes colored by Japanese pornography and fantasy.
He went out of his way to find one of the few places on the Anglophone internet where people are allowed to positively discuss romantic love between boys and started spewing shit about how wrong and impure it is. Then he acts like an innocent victim just trying to have a "conversation".
He doesn't even have the self control to rein in the gay bashing just for the portion I quoted, heavily implying that "Traditional or even conventional archetypes of youthful masculinity" are at odds with homosexuality. On the FAQ he says that if you're born male you're male and no one can take that away from you. And yet he refuses to acknowledge that a boy could ever have a genuine romantic attraction to another boy and consistently frames homosexuality as something that would make a boy lesser.
If he was just a moralfag, that would be one thing. But in reality he's just using the moralfagging to convince himself he's advocating for boys while trying to preserve the very psycho-spiritual disease that has been poisoning male intimacy.

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>>3998549
>I think you're severely overestimating the impacts of shotacons in culture, anon. The VAST majority of people (outside of select internet forums like this board) are extremely averse to analyzing homoeroticism in boy dynamics. Homoeroticism isn't being "imposed" onto boys in any meaningful way.
Intimate male friendships in history and literature have been tossed aside in favor of liberal revisionism. Boswell did it with Sts. Sergius and Bacchus when he lied about them being lovers by distorting the purpose and meaning of the rite of adelphopoiesis. And Horner did the same with David and Jonathon in "Jonathon Loved David" when he deliberately misinterpreted scripture, Jewish idioms, and translations in order to paint a false narrative that they were gay. That's imposed homoeroticism. If we're talking about imposed sexuality on boys - look at how boys must prove their heterosexuality or their masculinity by living up to impossible standards that society has set up. This puts barriers between boys and their friends as they must now act and behave in a way that is "manly" (can't be too affectionate, can't show too much emotion, can't show too much physical affection).

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>>3998559
(Cont.)

"Boys know by late adolescence that their close male friendships, and even their emotional acuity, put them at risk of being labeled “girly,” “immature,” or “gay.” Thus, rather than focusing on who they are, they become obsessed with who they are not—they are not girls, little boys nor, in the case of heterosexual boys, are they gay. In response to a cultural context that links intimacy in friendships with an age (childhood), a sex (female), and a sexuality (gay), these boys “mature” into men who are autonomous, emotionally stoic, and isolated. The ages of 15–19, however, are not only a period of disconnection for the boys in my studies, but also a period in which the suicide rate for boys in the United States rises dramatically and becomes four to five times the rate of girls, whereas in early adolescence it is only three times the rate of girls (Youth Suicide Fact Sheet, 2006)."

Niobe Way - Boys Friendships During Adolescence

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>>3998550
>He doesn't even have the self control to rein in the gay bashing just for the portion I quoted, heavily implying that "Traditional or even conventional archetypes of youthful masculinity" are at odds with homosexuality.
I'm talking about how the "true shotacon" only ever cares about the topic as a means of sexualization. It's a fetish. And imposed homoeroticism on boyhood friendships is just another fetish for these shotacons (which is why I'm against shipping culture and other aspects of otaku culture). I never once implied that a boy could not be gay. Of course there will be boys who are gay due to genes, environment, trauma, or a combination of the three.
I'll reiterate. I don't have a problem with gay people or gay men. He who has not sinned, et al. My issue is with imposed sexuality - seeing homoeroticism (or any eroticism) where there clearly is none. It just so happens that where there are people who are affectionate for boyhood, there are those with impure intentions who are only there because they desire to eroticize the boy himself.

>>3998559
>Intimate male friendships in history and literature have been tossed aside in favor of liberal revisionism.
I don't have a problem with your point of view, but I've seen you come close to doing the opposite, which is just as bad - erasing homoeroticism where it exists (Greek antiquity, for example) or painting it as inferior or somehow more vulgar than platonic friendship.

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>>3998568
>I don't have a problem with your point of view, but I've seen you come close to doing the opposite, which is just as bad - erasing homoeroticism where it exists (Greek antiquity, for example) or painting it as inferior or somehow more vulgar than platonic friendship.
I don't think I've done that specifically. As far as Greek homoeroticism goes, I've read Adonis Georgiadis' "Homosexuality in Ancient Greece" since he believed that while the practice did occur, it wasn't as widespread or tolerated as other scholars would make it out to be. Of course it's been a while since I've read his book and some of his explanations didn't make sense, leaving me with more questions than actual answers. So I don't have an opinion one way of the other on the nature of ancient Greek sexuality or pederasty. That said, again, be gay all you want. I don't care. What I do care about is the stigmatization around platonic male friendships. From Jaeger:
>"We have no vocabulary that can come to terms with the love of Richard and Philip Augustus. "Homosexual," "homoerotic," even "male friendship," are colored by the erotic. Even when the erotic is unstated ("male friendship") the terms still operate in the same force field... Sedgwick's term "homosocial"... sets sexuality to one side, eliminates its automatic inclusion, while holding it in readiness... it posits nonsexual male-male desire... 'chaste voluptuousness' (casta voluptas)."

>>3998568
I entirely agree with this anon and the general feeling of others that some of your (way too long) prose sometimes paints actual homoeroticism and homosexuality in boys and young males (which exists!) as inferior, less pure (you actually use this word), more vulgar, than non-sexual close friendships between boys and young males. This makes you come off as homophobic in a subtle and insidious way. I strongly suggest you read your website from an exterior viewpoint and rephrase some of it in more neutral terms if you are hoping to convince anyone besides yourself.

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>>3998590
I think I should note that my reasoning for my tone is because of the arguments that were had in the main shota thread. I've said it before on multiple occasions before I even started the /sms/ threads, but it is possible for a male to have a affection for cute boys with eroticizing that feeling. Any time I tried to explain that sentiment, other anons would suggest that I was "in the closet" or a "closet homophobe." What am I supposed to conclude from that type of reaction?

>>3998685
That's not why we say you're in the closet. We say you're in the closet because your behavior and fixations are characteristic of a person who feels guilty about being attracted to the same sex.
Regardless, your belief that romantic love between boys is impure does not logically follow from strangers on a Rwandan stamp collecting forum being mean to you.

I'm actually a fed btw

>>3998769
i knew it

>>3998814
I think a pretty straightforward way of figuring it out would be to reciprocate the boy pics and see how he responds if you send some more homoerotic ones. Not anything explicit, just stuff like lovey dovey KilluGon pics.
If he doesn't sperg out like OP, then he is most likely both gay/bi and OK with that.

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>thi entire thread
Calling it "Platonic Shota Love", "Boyhood Appreciation" or literally anything else would have saved everyone a headache.

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>>3998988
I specifically gave these threads the "straight male shota" name because I want to emphasize that a love for cute boys is not exclusive to any one sexuality. Beyond that, it's a shared love of being male and of conventional/archetypal masculinity. I've thought about using Sedgwick's term "homosocial," but even in her own words, she's used that word to attack male camaraderie (since apparently men being close together is just another way of 'upholding the patriarchy'). So I'll have to find something else or maybe make my own word, that's something the Discord group and I are still figuring out.

>>3999028
>I specifically gave these threads the "straight male shota" name because I want to emphasize that a love for cute boys is not exclusive to any one sexuality
A word for non-romantic love? that would be Platonic Love

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>>3999061
>A word for non-romantic love? that would be Platonic Love
Yes, I agree. But do we all share the same sensibilities when it comes to a love of boyhood? Do we all come to /cm/ or shota threads for the same reason? I'm trying to de-emphasize the erotic element that is assumed with the word "shota."

OP idk if you've watched the 2022 Belgium film "Close" by Lukas Dhont, since you sound American to me and I'm not sure that film was ever released there, but as I see you quote psychologist Niobe Way I think you'd like it, that film was inspired by her research

It's also a very good film, though heart-crushing, I cried

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>>3999086
Anon, do you know where the word shota comes from? The erotic element isn't assumed. It's an intrinsic part of shotacon. And using the word straight doesn't address your issue anyway. While not allowed on this board, /ss/ is more common than homoshota and every bit as erotic.
Your conflation of "straight" with "not erotic" is yet another example of your anti-homo bias leaking out. And it is this bias that is preventing you from understanding what eroticism even entails.
This topic was brought up a while ago back in one of the female gaze threads; eroticism isn't limited to the things that make men's dicks hard. There's both levels to it and different erotic elements that have more or less appeal to different sorts of people. The simplest way to explain this is via an example. And I'm going to choose one that contradicts both your assumptions about eroticism and the way you present boys and boyhood.
FLCL's Naota is not especially popular with shotacons. Anons here do like him, but he doesn't have a dedicated superfan like Selim or Allister and he rarely comes up in discussions of the best/cutest shotas. And outside of here he's even more forgotten, barely having any fanart. He was also never popular with girls in the way some shounen protagonists get fangirls. No, the audience he appeals to is boys. Not as the object of eroticism, but rather as its subject.
Naota is a very sexual character. There are boner metaphors every episode, he makes all the female spooks' noses bleed with his "guitar", and he's constantly finding himself in erotic situations. He isn't a wish fulfillment MC. But he is a self insert for the confusing, frustrating, exciting, and uncontrollable sexual urges of boys his age. He is erotic, but in a way beyond the selective limitations you try to place upon the concept. And boys, who his eroticism is designed for, are not the sterile, sexless dolls of your purity fantasies.

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>>3999109
I have watched it, it's beautiful. I think everyone should watch it.

>>3999110
>Anon, do you know where the word shota comes from? The erotic element isn't assumed. It's an intrinsic part of shotacon.
That's why on the homepage of my website I have the following written: "Likewise, shotacon, by definition 'portrays pre-adolescent boys in sexually charged situations as objects of attraction.' It's this definition (and subculture) that we take issue with." Unfortunately we don't have a word for a love of youth and masculinity that doesn't assume eroticism.
>Naota is a very sexual character... constantly finding himself in erotic situations. And boys, who his eroticism is designed for, are not the sterile, sexless dolls of your purity fantasies.
I never once stated that boys can't experience erotic desire. Am I supposed to believe that my attraction to characters like Black Cat or Zero Suit Samus at age 12 was not real? Of course those feelings were real. Once again, the problems I'm addressing are 1) imposed sexuality where there is none (including historical revisionism) and 2) seeing the boy or normal boyhood experiences as nothing but erotic. Let me put it this way. A lot of anons here seem to think the simple act of bedsharing between boys has some hidden homoerotic attachment to it (either when in fiction or in real life). By that logic, I must also have an Oedipus complex because my sister and I would sometimes share our mother's bed until I was around age 8 or 9. This is what Lukas Dhont's "Close" was talking about. Boys can't express genuine intimacy or physical affection with each other for fear of erotic attachment. Having to "prove" one's sexuality or masculinity is an exhausting, endless frustration much in the same way saying "no homo" is an unnecessary qualifier that didn't exist prior to sexuality being imposed everywhere.

>>3999182
You're going to have as much luck changing the meaning of shotacon as someone trying the same with lolicon. Which is to say, none at all.
>I never once stated that boys can't experience erotic desire.
You consistently assert that homoeroticism is anathema to boyhood on the basis of its supposed "impurity". And, up until this very moment, you have treated purity and asexuality as one and the same. I guess this is you outright confessing that you think a boy's erotic desires are only impure if they are for another boy.
>including historical revisionism
Fuck off. You and yours are at odds with over two thousand years of historical consensus across multiple religions and cultures with radically different views of homosexuality. A pagan ancient Greek scholar, a medieval European christian monk chronicler, and a 20th century atheist historian would all be in closer agreement with one another about the history of homosexuality than any of them would be with the traplarper revisionists like you that have spawned in the last ten years.
>seeing the boy or normal boyhood experiences as nothing but erotic
No. It's you refusing to tolerate any acknowledgement of eroticism because you have a deranged sense of eroticism and an even more deranged sense of causality. You and everyone else who has ever lived would recognize that an unrelated 12 year old boy and girl sharing a bed together would be an erotic situation for the both them. So if you put two boys in the same situation they are going to perceive it as erotic as well. It has nothing to do with what society thinks of it. The boys just simply aren't retarded and can recognize the situation for what it is. The reason boys fear this kind of intimacy and feel like they have to prove their sexuality is because of people like you instilling them with the idea that doing anything homoerotic is wrong and makes them lesser or impure.

>>3999182
>>3999195
cont.
During my childhood, I was fortunate enough to have very physically intimate male friends. And not a one of them thought that all the hugging and lounging on one another wasn't gay as fuck. They just didn't care. And they were all incredibly straight. They were simply not raised to think gay = bad, so they weren't afraid to do gay stuff. They weren't going to suck a boy's dick because they didn't want to, not because "oh no, that would be gay."
I was the only homo among them and yet I was the one most afraid of physical contact because, unlike them, I was raised to think gay = bad. I did have erotic attachment to the friend I had a crush on. And yet I was the one that was uncomfortable with his hugs as the specter of my father's disgust and disappointment loomed over me.
If you truly want boys to be able to bond more deeply and share physical intimacy with one another without feeling ashamed then you have to stop perpetuating the idea that homoeroticism is impure. Boys will always have an innate understanding that if something would be erotic if they did it with a girl, it will still be erotic if they do it with a boy. But straight boys are perfectly capable of being comfortable with homoeroticism if you don't raise them to believe it's wrong. This is ultimately because the modern understanding of sexuality is totally at odds with reality, but that's a whole other issue.

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>>3999196
100 years ago men would freely cuddle, sit on each other's laps and even go skinny dipping together. The modern post-WW2 invention of homosexuality as some kind of "identity" one is born as is one of the major things stifling platonic male intimacy in the West. A 1920s man holding hands with his best friend while walking down the street probably thought as much about sodomy as he did cannibalism, or whatever other fringe reprobate behavior you could think of at the time.

Are male Shotacons are female Shotacons more common? Common reasoning makes me think it's female Shotacons, but aren't most of these anime-adjacent communities male-dominated?

>>3999207
100 years ago English schoolboys were still engaging in the behavior that gave the word "fag" its associations with homosexuality. There has been a change in how people think about sexuality. And this has had a part in making male intimacy taboo. But back when it was more accepted for straight men to be more intimate with one another they were not ignorant of the existence of homosexuality nor were they unaware of the homoeroticism of their behavior. They just simply weren't bothered by it because they didn't have the modern absolutist stance on eroticism. Even now we understand that holding hands is not the same as sex. But, in some ways, they are treated as the same. They are both taken as equally authoritative expressions of sexual interest. In both directions. If a boy who is believed to be gay holds hands with a girl people will question his sexuality just as they would with straight boys holding hands.
This is a broader issue that goes beyond non-sexual male intimacy and shotacon. The entire modern paradigm concerning sexuality is broken and wrong. You seem to understand that yourself. And yet you still reinforce some of what makes up that flawed understanding.
You're right that innate, immutable sexualties aren't real. But what this means is that aversion to homosexuality is mostly artificial. And we know this is true by looking at cultures that were never influenced by a prohibition against homosexuality. This is also why even modern Westerners have to tacitly concede that the dogma is wrong with concepts like "prison gay".
And while the different forms of love do exist, there is no clean separation between them. Sexual and paternal love have the least overlap. But best friends and romantic lovers are adjacent seas that seamlessly flow in to one another.
Without these artificial barriers, there is no male intimacy problem. Men and boys would simply love their male friends to whatever extent they personally feel without any external constraints.

>>3999208
The genre was invented by women and that's a cut and dry fact. Nowadays it's probably a 50/50 mix but who really knows.

>>3999208
The ratio has fluctuated over the years. The original shotacons were overwhelmingly women. But by the late 90s/early 00s there had been a shift towards more male shotacons and it eventually became a male dominated community. However eventually (it's hard to pin down when, but maybe around the mid 2010s) there was a resurgance of female interest in shota which we are still experiencing today. No one has hard numbers, but it's probably close to an even ratio nowadays with a slight male bias.
That said, women in general are more prolific producers of fanart, doujins, etc. So female shotacons have always been well represented in that regard.
That's for Japan. In the West I'm pretty sure it's always been male dominated. There has been some growth of Western female shotacons mirroring the trend in Japan. But Western shotacons are still overwhelmingly men.

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Huh, really? I know there's a surprising amount of female doujin mangakas, but they were the majority at one point? Interesting . . .

>>3999210
>Without these artificial barriers, there is no male intimacy problem. Men and boys would simply love their male friends to whatever extent they personally feel without any external constraints.
Really well said anon. Ironically OP's mentality, if adopted, would just introduce an element of pervasive neurosis and watchfulness

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Anon, I think you made my point for me. I want boys to be able to freely be affectionate and intimate with each other without a care. As you said, your straight friends were able to do so because "they didn't care." What I'm proposing instead is a type of return to innocence of the mind. Go watch Close and see what destroyed Leo and Remi's friendship. Another girl imposed sexuality onto their friendship where it wasn't present because she saw their physical affection as homoerotic behavior. And so naturally, that put an artificial barrier between their friendship - which inevitably led to its demise (not going to spoil what happens, everyone should go see it). I was able to be physically affectionate, be half-naked, and share the same bed with other boys because sexuality was out of the equation, it's that type of relationship or "space" where there is a mutual understanding that this boy I'm with is the same as me (same body, same thoughts, same skin). Even in my adolescent friendships with other boys, we subconsciously acknowledged each other's heterosexuality in some of the more awkward moments we found ourselves in and shrugged it off. It wasn't until someone else brought up the possibility that our behavior could be perceived as "gay" that I was forced to recognize what "gay-coded" meant and was forced to say things like "no homo," or "gay" as a qualifier. As far as historical revisionism goes - yes, I absolutely do hate when revisionists like Boswell posit the fake narrative that David and Jonathon were gay. Just look at morons like Jeffrey P. Dennis who think Spongebob "present same-sex desire as ordinary and even vital."

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01956050309603674

That's because Boswell and Dennis see everything through a queer lens - how is that different from the majority of what happens in the main shota thread?