You seem to be doing exactly what people at ResetEra do regarding various "SJW" topics. That is, you find something absolutely in every slightly hinted way completely intolerable, drum up correlations and insinuations between those things and their words in your head, then on the confirmation of your presumptions alone, paint them as perpetrators of the worst deviancy.
If you want to make a properly reasoned argument you're going to have to deal with several key points of nuance that appear to have flown over your head so far:
1) They weren't saying "player" in the sexual social sense, but in the sense of playing a videogame. They were saying how a person close in age to a depicted character would find them attractive and that would not be questioned by anyone, but an older person playing the same game would be. Their point is that the same media would be considered morally permissible for some audiences and not others, and so to ban it on the basis of one demographic is not entirely sensible to them.
2) You are calling people attracted to 16-17 year olds pedophiles. I hate to break it to you, but people have been attracted to 16-17 year olds for millions of years. They are pointing to that reality and saying that to feel such things is not inherently immoral. You are then interpreting that statement as them trying to justify to themselves fantasies and/or sexual relations with persons of that age. This is not necessarily what some of them are saying. They may still believe that there are many psychological, social, and life development reasons to prohibit relations with such persons and that it is bad to cultivate such feelings through media. They may recognize that very clearly and maintain clear boundaries for themselves, and simply do not want to feel shamed for natural attractions they experience and keep under control.
3) Some did try to say that sex with teenagers is perfectly fine on account of the fact that it happens often. You may find this reprehensible, however it is true that it occurs often and is legal in many places in the world. If you wish to condemn this mindset, you should use better argumentation than a mere sentiment of moral outrage, the fact that the age of consent in your country is older, and moralistic grandstanding to publicly shame them. That will not change the mind of anyone who has these sorts of views, especially if their surrounding culture affirms their view. The social pressure of your presentation also does not in itself justify your position. If you believe something so strongly, you must have very good reasons for it, and if you have good reasons, you should by all means bother to articulate them. If no one articulates such things, then persons such as these will continue to consider normalization as dependent upon frequency rather than sound reason.
4) Before you jump on my ass to say I am defending them, I am not. I actually have extremely conservative views about the appropriate contexts for sexual relations, even so far as to say a husband and wife in their 30s may be failing to practice their sexuality with each other in healthy, moral ways. I am likely more cautious about sexual liberties than 99% of the population. However, in having conservative views myself, I understand the importance of not merely casting them upon everyone else as a blanket expectation and getting outraged when someone does not see life precisely as I do. If I am to hold anyone to a standard of mindset and practice, I must be willing to assist in equipping them with the understanding they may lack when it comes to upholding it. It is very silly to condemn someone for ignorance, and you set yourself on a path of endless outrage if you require a world of billions to all think and be like you.
I post this because I did not appreciate these sorts of heavy handed witch hunts on GAF before the split and I don't appreciate them at ResetEra and I don't appreciate them here now. Not with views of what standards make sexual relations appropriate, not with issues of race, not with issues of gender relations, not with issues of religion, not with issues of free speech, not with issues of demanded attention/respect/celebration of anyone in particular. It is a cowardly, passive-aggressive intimidation tactic to push people into hiding against a mob of emotional people who have thrown out all reason or patience to regard the other as worthy of engaging through the dignity of human intellect. It starts as an effort to silence and expel from the intellectual sphere but is historically followed by expulsion from the physical spheres of society, either by imprisonment or violence.
I believe we can do better. We don't have to be fascists or communists. We can be outraged and still use our brains to express precisely what we find outrageous. If we find something harmful and another does not, we can express to them where and how the harm occurs and in what ways they are mistaken to believe it does not. In making this effort rather than just letting them fall off the edge of our expectations, more persons remain in social engagement with a broader spectrum of viewpoints, they are more-likely to find moderation of their extreme views, and they are less-likely to become ostractized into their own secluded groups of likeminded persons where their views become more extreme and at times drift into terrible practices. If you believe your views are light and their are darkness, you ought to be willing to let that light illuminate the dark and lead people out of it. Many of the ills of our society take place because we let people slip away into the shadows too easily.
I understand what you mean, but you seem to be doing exactly what people at ResetEra do regarding various "SJW" topics. That is, you find something absolutely in every slightly hinted way completely intolerable, drum up correlations and insinuations between those things and their words in your head, then on the confirmation of your presumptions alone, paint them as perpetrators of the worst deviancy.
If you want to make a properly reasoned argument you're going to have to deal with several key points of nuance that appear to have flown over your head so far:
1) They weren't saying "player" in the sexual social sense, but in the sense of playing a videogame. They were saying how a person close in age to a depicted character would find them attractive and that would not be questioned by anyone, but an older person playing the same game would be. Their point is that the same media would be considered morally permissible for some audiences and not others, and so to ban it on the basis of one demographic is not entirely sensible to them.
2) You are calling people attracted to 16-17 year olds pedophiles. I hate to break it to you, but people have been attracted to 16-17 year olds for millions of years. They are pointing to that reality and saying that to feel such things is not inherently immoral. You are then interpreting that statement as them trying to justify to themselves fantasies and/or sexual relations with persons of that age. This is not necessarily what some of them are saying. They may still believe that there are many psychological, social, and life development reasons to prohibit relations with such persons and that it is bad to cultivate such feelings through media. They may recognize that very clearly and maintain clear boundaries for themselves, and simply do not want to feel shamed for natural attractions they experience and keep under control.
3) Some did try to say that sex with teenagers is perfectly fine on account of the fact that it happens often. You may find this reprehensible, however it is true that it occurs often and is legal in many places in the world. If you wish to condemn this mindset, you should use better argumentation than a mere sentiment of moral outrage, the fact that the age of consent in your country is older, and moralistic grandstanding to publicly shame them. That will not change the mind of anyone who has these sorts of views, especially if their surrounding culture affirms their view. The social pressure of your presentation also does not in itself justify your position. If you believe something so strongly, you must have very good reasons for it, and if you have good reasons, you should by all means bother to articulate them. If no one articulates such things, then persons such as these will continue to consider normalization as dependent upon frequency rather than sound reason.
4) Before you jump on my ass to say I am defending them, I am not. I actually have extremely conservative views about the appropriate contexts for sexual relations, even so far as to say a husband and wife in their 30s may be failing to practice their sexuality with each other in healthy, moral ways. I am likely more cautious about sexual liberties than 99% of the population. However, in having conservative views myself, I understand the importance of not merely casting them upon everyone else as a blanket expectation and getting outraged when someone does not see life precisely as I do. If I am to hold anyone to a standard of mindset and practice, I must be willing to assist in equipping them with the understanding they may lack when it comes to upholding it. It is very silly to condemn someone for ignorance, and you set yourself on a path of endless outrage if you require a world of billions to all think and be like you.
I post this because I did not appreciate these sorts of heavy handed witch hunts on GAF before the split and I don't appreciate them at ResetEra and I don't appreciate them here now. Not with views of what standards make sexual relations appropriate, not with issues of race, not with issues of gender relations, not with issues of religion, not with issues of free speech, not with issues of demanded attention/respect/celebration of anyone in particular. It is a cowardly, passive-aggressive intimidation tactic to push people into hiding against a mob of emotional people who have thrown out all reason or patience to regard the other as worthy of engaging through the dignity of human intellect. It starts as an effort to silence and expel from the intellectual sphere but is historically followed by expulsion from the physical spheres of society, either by imprisonment or violence.
I believe we can do better. We don't have to be fascists or communists. We can be outraged and still use our brains to express precisely what we find outrageous. If we find something harmful and another does not, we can express to them where and how the harm occurs and in what ways they are mistaken to believe it does not. In making this effort rather than just letting them fall off the edge of our expectations, more persons remain in social engagement with a broader spectrum of viewpoints, they are more-likely to find moderation of their extreme views, and they are less-likely to become ostractized into their own secluded groups of likeminded persons where their views become more extreme and at times drift into terrible practices. If you believe your views are light and their are darkness, you ought to be willing to let that light illuminate the dark and lead people out of it. Many of the ills of our society take place because we let people slip away into the shadows too easily.
