Sometimes people like something in art or role-play that they'd never do in real life.
I think this is an important point that goes along with another big one: that in nearly every asymmetric sexual interest, you have people identifying with both sides. For example, rape fetish stuff has people interested in only the victim side of rape fantasies, and it is hard to argue they are likely to go and commit rape on someone. This would be parallel to people identifying with the underaged part of cub and other underage porn material.
But frequently (but not always of course) when bringing either of those two big points about underage related porn, people will actively ignore it or otherwise claim that underaged fetishes are special and completely unassociated with any of the patterns seen to permeate other sexual interests. The result is some people claiming every person interested in underage material is on the verge of attacking young children. I think a serious consequence of this, besides causing problems for those with zero interest in real children, is that such mischaracterizations of the real threat, people who would and are doing things to children, is counterproductive to the goal of stopping child abuse.
(And the problematic logic isn't special to those against underage porn, I've seen people arguing against rape porn make the parallel mischaracterization: everyone who is interested in rape porn wants to rape someone if given the chance. Or maybe the parallel, massive over-generalization that some might have bumped into: all furries want to have, or are having, sex with real/nonanthro animals. It can be frustrating to see someone complain about the latter, but follow the same pattern when talking about other groups of people.)
I think this is an important point that goes along with another big one: that in nearly every asymmetric sexual interest, you have people identifying with both sides. For example, rape fetish stuff has people interested in only the victim side of rape fantasies, and it is hard to argue they are likely to go and commit rape on someone. This would be parallel to people identifying with the underaged part of cub and other underage porn material.
But frequently (but not always of course) when bringing either of those two big points about underage related porn, people will actively ignore it or otherwise claim that underaged fetishes are special and completely unassociated with any of the patterns seen to permeate other sexual interests. The result is some people claiming every person interested in underage material is on the verge of attacking young children. I think a serious consequence of this, besides causing problems for those with zero interest in real children, is that such mischaracterizations of the real threat, people who would and are doing things to children, is counterproductive to the goal of stopping child abuse.
(And the problematic logic isn't special to those against underage porn, I've seen people arguing against rape porn make the parallel mischaracterization: everyone who is interested in rape porn wants to rape someone if given the chance. Or maybe the parallel, massive over-generalization that some might have bumped into: all furries want to have, or are having, sex with real/nonanthro animals. It can be frustrating to see someone complain about the latter, but follow the same pattern when talking about other groups of people.)