we live in the world of ads and things like clipart or animation widely used for communication, it's easy for real life-focused people to get confused, who are also have a great tendency to react and judge first, and only then think, and think in the most predictable and conforming way, thinking it must refer to something real (well, they're real focused after all, as I mentioned b4, they mostly consume media with real ppl talking and acting, etc). you say it like you have real kids in your mind looking at loli images, but no, they're different, if you ever saw a child up close. first of all they're *static* images, everything is up to the viewer, either to accept it and enjoy the fantazies, or to immediately reject it as baaad or uninteresting. but even within the most obvious reading of the medium, inside their universe, they rarely behave like children do. first of all, they just do not fuck that much and in that mature way, lol. ok you can call it just a p*do excuses, but after 10+ years on lolicon I can say it barely resembles real world, it's a completely different universe. as to why it's so controversial, it's because age gap is the last norm of sexual relationships, spiritual bond, moral code, the last thing remaining there to defend in the West. and so are children in general, being holy, while adults are responsible for every step and can be treaten like shit - yoiu're an adult now, eat dirt and do not complain. look, they built a terrible society and now blame completely unrelated people for it. 2d lolis, in the form they exist today, are pure symbols meant to stimulate and activate your brain, symbols, onto you project your most naive fantasies and expectations, always comfortable and predictable, just as ordinary porn girls. i'm not going deeper in the men psychology here. they can be as sweet, pure, and mature at the same time as you wish, and yes that's an unrealistic combination, but we love it. as to why the child body, it's pleasant to look at, they're naturally at model level/slender, while older girls have to work really hard for that, because nature love women to have fat deposits. of course you're expected to have certain disposition to see it as pleasant and to think of kids as cute, and then to accept the Japanese concept of cute and sexy, kawaii and erotic at the same time, blending it all together. now good luck making any sense out of this, maybe paste it all into ai and it'll rewrite it clearly, lol!