For me, personally, it's about the power dynamics, usually with a younger person wanting to "prove" themselves to an older person, who struggles with their attraction to the younger person, often with an element of "can't help myself". Sometimes it involves an older person "seducing" a younger person, completely overwhelming them, but not forcefully. Generally the age of the younger person ranges from early to late teens. I am also a CSA survivor, which does tie into my sexuality.

There's so much people don't realize about this interest, and it's a shame because it's so varied!

I wrote a post about this, but like, it's not just rote porn to me, it's me and my other 30-something friends using the medium of art to re-contextualize our (often shitty) childhoods into something so personally fulfilling it's hard to explain in words. "What if I was young, full of vigor and had no responsibilities, but also was comfortably out as bisexual and allowed to just explore and play with my other young friends who wanted to do the same in the comfort of a completely idealized scenario (and also we had hyper lite bits just for fun)" is such an incredibly powerful wish-fulfillment vector that it beggars belief. Like damn bro I just wanna bump unbelievably fat shotabutts with my friends and be ambiently horny while we enjoy all the things we did in childhood with none of the bad stuff, of course this is my favorite thing!

The power dynamics are also a big element, and it's kinda obvious that the scenario is very idealized because in the first place; almost nobody playing the kid in the scenario is doing so realistically. And I mean that should be a big giveaway right there: An adult has to play the kid. A kid wouldn't even appreciate what a kid is "supposed" to act like in such a fantasy scenario, so beyond the moral framework they'd also be a terrible partner for something like that.

And then there's scenarios where I'm the kid– usually either playing with similar aged friends like above, or interacting with a hot adult who would have been wildly out of my league (to say nothing of the morality) like a teacher or a babysitter or someone else that I'd look at as a beacon of mature sexuality. It's like a hyperidealized "do-over," so to speak.

mostly attraction to the prepubescent feature(huge plus on chubby) + the fantasy aspect of it & the fact none gets hurt(and last but not least, the fact my brain finds it hot, idk hard to put into words, might be related to the fact my mental age is half my chronological age, no idea)

For me? I was a very early bloomer, who, because I was already withdrawn, felt even more so after being told that the feelings I had were bad, and adult, and not for me, and it led to me feeling no one my age understood them, or me, even more.

For me, having a safe way I can interact with the space of being those boys having a healthy experience with what they're feeling, or otherwise having known or meeting people who were like me, or understood and accepted how I feel, regardless of their age, is incredibly cathartic.

Warning Csa survivor here
i used to be a anti too it sounded right made sense at the time ll these people drawing porn of young characters are pretty weird and tbh some of them are so i decided to go see for myself why lolicon/shotacon is so appealing i wasn't trying to report or out folk like other people i just went alright trial proshipper time
and tbh i started to love it and it made me feel horrible ashamed at first
but this fantasy is fun and it helps me
recently i was assaulted by my older cousin in his 30s now im now 19
he used to do that when i was younger too when he was teen
i thought i would never like the type of fantasy ddlg adult content but i do
and i think of lolicon/shotacon as the same thing
when ever im panicking and thinking too much about what happened to me
these fantasies are here to help me take control of the pleasure of my sexuality and reclaiming the agency i didnt have
as a fuck you to cousin after he left my room and fell alseep on the couch in the living after violating me by jerking it in my room
i would pleasure myself
strange guess i made a good thing out of a horrible situation
sorry if this was too explicit
things in my life have hurt me and would never want that feeling for anyone else
recently i came across a reddit post bashing these kinds of fantasies these people assume and have no empathy no understanding but i can't blame them
made me feel terrible and hurts me honestly Maybe i am a weirdo freak that needs to fixed and " go to therapy " man the way people use that as a insult is just terrible.
i dont think of lolicons/shotacons as real people or childlike in the human sense
but as the general way humans see anything with a cute design cute
thinking of myself as being weak or helpless and in need of care and someone to tell me what to do what to say is a part of my sexuality to say no i actually like this but its with someone i trust and feel safe with.