Even if you don't think cub porn should be illegal, some of your arguments are the same that are used to argue for making it illegal or at least parallel enough to have similar pros and cons (unless I misread them).
Be careful not to conflate certain arguments and intentions especially when those arguments were meant to counter something specifically (interpreting them more generally can almost be on the level of equivocation). By the way, I'm not defending those on either side that are saying the right things for idiotic reasons, I'm giving the benefit of the doubt about when countering counterpoints (i.e. I'm not trying to put words in their mouths, but defending the better arguments that were implied, if intended or not).
First off, the "cub porn does no harm because it is not real" can be referring to a specific kind of harm. I see this argument used to specifically counter arguments based on the idea cub porn is bad because sexually abusing children is harmful. The quoted argument puts cub porn on the same level as any other fantasy image, capable of harming someone on an emotional or idealogical level (although proportions of people bothered may be different from other images obviously), but not involving children in harmful situations for their creation. It is not saying a cub porn is incapable of any harm, as if it would be incapable of papercuts if printed out, it is saying it is not a source of child harm usually associated with child porn.
Also, people complaining FA should not have banned cub porn is not the same as saying they should be forced to host it and not allowed to control what they do with their own server. This is something I've seen people use to counter complaints in general, and it often tends to be just a flat out straw man. It gets confusing sometimes because people complaining about FA's decision are often trying to counter someone defending FA's decision by arguing cub porn is or should be illegal. Or people expressing the opinion that freedom of speech is beneficial to a community, and that FA's or AlertPay's actions are against those community ideals even though they should be allowed to make such decisions.
And lastly, we assumed art is defined in terms of conveying or invoking emotions (I don't want to how to define art, just going to use this often argued class of definitions here), does that not include all emotions, or are some more special than others? Why does invoking things like lust, arousal or offence not count to some people? That makes it seem like they a priori wanted to excluded pornography. And should the intended target audience be considered, since it is not surprising the invoked emotions is different outside of that?
Maybe I should have left this last paragraph out though, as I think it is a complete tangent to the issue of things like cub porn, as art and definition of art only seem to get dragged out so people push a valuation system that values what they want and devalue what they dislike. I feel like a solution to such problems needs to be above what a subset of people like and dislike.
Even if you don't think cub porn should be illegal, some of your arguments are the same that are used to argue for making it illegal or at least parallel enough to have similar pros and cons (unless I misread them).
Be careful not to conflate certain arguments and intentions especially when those arguments were meant to counter something specifically (interpreting them more generally can almost be on the level of equivocation). By the way, I'm not defending those on either side that are saying the right things for idiotic reasons, I'm giving the benefit of the doubt about when countering counterpoints (i.e. I'm not trying to put words in their mouths, but defending the better arguments that were implied, if intended or not).
First off, the "cub porn does no harm because it is not real" can be referring to a specific kind of harm. I see this argument used to specifically counter arguments based on the idea cub porn is bad because sexually abusing children is harmful. The quoted argument puts cub porn on the same level as any other fantasy image, capable of harming someone on an emotional or idealogical level (although proportions of people bothered may be different from other images obviously), but not involving children in harmful situations for their creation. It is not saying a cub porn is incapable of any harm, as if it would be incapable of papercuts if printed out, it is saying it is not a source of child harm usually associated with child porn.
Also, people complaining FA should not have banned cub porn is not the same as saying they should be forced to host it and not allowed to control what they do with their own server. This is something I've seen people use to counter complaints in general, and it often tends to be just a flat out straw man. It gets confusing sometimes because people complaining about FA's decision are often trying to counter someone defending FA's decision by arguing cub porn is or should be illegal. Or people expressing the opinion that freedom of speech is beneficial to a community, and that FA's or AlertPay's actions are against those community ideals even though they should be allowed to make such decisions.
And lastly, we assumed art is defined in terms of conveying or invoking emotions (I don't want to how to define art, just going to use this often argued class of definitions here), does that not include all emotions, or are some more special than others? Why does invoking things like lust, arousal or offence not count to some people? That makes it seem like they a priori wanted to excluded pornography. And should the intended target audience be considered, since it is not surprising the invoked emotions is different outside of that?
Maybe I should have left this last paragraph out though, as I think it is a complete tangent to the issue of things like cub porn, as art and definition of art only seem to get dragged out so people push a valuation system that values what they want and devalue what they dislike. I feel like a solution to such problems needs to be above what a subset of people like and dislike.