Nico on Animation

“Animated porn has a long, international history—from the erotic woodblock prints of Japan’s Heian period to some of the earliest animated erotic cartoons of the Roaring Twenties (because of course once the moving picture came along, porn came with it). So if hentai and anime communities still thrive online and there are sites dedicated to Disney-inspired porn, it seems a shame that more people don’t talk about what makes this type of erotica so great. Clinical psychologist David Ley, PhD, author of Ethical Porn for Dicks, says that “animated erotica has been underground for a long time, largely because it’s often misunderstood.” Not only are cartoons something we regularly associate with childhood, but the style of a lot of pornographic cartoons is such that some characters featured may appear to be under the age of consent. “Though I might question how exactly you determine the age of a fictional animated character,” Ley added in an email to Glamour.”

“To some people, even acknowledging these desires is a kind of taboo act, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t totally healthy and appropriate ways to do so. Writer and therapist Dr. Meg-John Barker says that if we want to explore those types of fantasies, “It’s important to find ways of experiencing them which aren’t unethical or non-consensual.” You can satisfy desires of all sorts because—one more time!—people and scenarios in animated porn are not real. You are not actually looking at a guy being fucked by a unicorn because not only is that not a real guy, but unicorns don’t even exist! (Sadly.) A friend of mine once told me that she’d never been triggered by a cartoon, and it got me thinking. Could animated erotica be a way to offer arousing stimuli to someone who is negatively affected by most live-action porn? Dr. Ley thinks so. “I’ve had several patients with trauma histories where this was their erotica of choice,” he says. “It’s a good example of the diversity of human sexuality, and the ways we each adapt our sexuality to fit our needs and personalities.” OK, and sometimes it might just be about seeing our favorite childhood characters having sex. Which is totally fine! “For a lot of people,” says LCSW and Certified Sex Therapist Melissa Novak, “their first memories are of being turned on by Beauty and the Beast or Snow White, and with animated porn you actually get to [as an adult] play out those childhood fantasies that you didn’t understand.””