>If having sex with animals is bestiality; having sex with dead people is necrophilia; what is sex with 2d anime girls?
Some would say it's the pinnacle of the society of the spectacle, in the pamphlet of the same name, Debort begins it with:
>But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, the appearance to the essence... illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Nay, sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness.
(Feuerbach, Preface to the second edition of The Essence of Christianity)
Perhaps that's more relevant now in late capitalism than it was in Feuerbach's time, or maybe just in a different way. There's amazing work done inside and outside Japan on the relationship between reality and fiction, a topic which Japan has confronted in a remarkably different way to "the West" - and comes into play with the distinct ability in Japan to enjoy fiction without its real world equivalent, and to be satisfied with that much. 2D wives and the lolicon phenomenon seem to be good examples. As much as we like to talk about media normalizing the events depicted, Japan bravely (and empirically) stands in the face of it all when it comes to anime and manga.
Some would say it's the pinnacle of the society of the spectacle, in the pamphlet of the same name, Debort begins it with:
>But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, the appearance to the essence... illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Nay, sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness.
(Feuerbach, Preface to the second edition of The Essence of Christianity)
Perhaps that's more relevant now in late capitalism than it was in Feuerbach's time, or maybe just in a different way. There's amazing work done inside and outside Japan on the relationship between reality and fiction, a topic which Japan has confronted in a remarkably different way to "the West" - and comes into play with the distinct ability in Japan to enjoy fiction without its real world equivalent, and to be satisfied with that much. 2D wives and the lolicon phenomenon seem to be good examples. As much as we like to talk about media normalizing the events depicted, Japan bravely (and empirically) stands in the face of it all when it comes to anime and manga.