Karl Andersson, currently a student at The University of Manchester School of Arts Languages and Cultures in Manchester, Great Britain, was writing a paper on shotacon or shota comics while in Japan. As part of this research, Andersson would interview people who self-proclaimed to be shota consumers, and try to assess why exactly there was this fixation on the comic books that often feature young boys in sexually explicit situations. Andersson found himself frustrated that even after extensive interviews, he was unable to really understand why exactly these research participants consumed such media. His research participants often said they consumed these comics while masturbating, and often didn't read them to "completion" (orgasm). He understood that interest in these comics were often multifaceted, individual, and sentimental. His frustration and lack of understanding confounded him.
So he took the nuclear option.
In this paper, linked at the end of this blog post, Andersson decides the only way to truly understand the connection his research participants have to shota is to do as most of these participants do, consume shota material whilst masturbating. In this blog post, I will go over the most hilarious excerpts from this paper. The paper is not exactly long, and might be worth reading, but the actual quality of the research and subsequent write-up is quite poor. Let's get started, shall we?
What follows is an abridged version of the sections in the paper.
Masturbation as a method
>
For a period of three months, I would masturbate to only shota comics. I [...] masturbate in the same way that my research participants did it, [by purchasing shota comics]. After each session, I would write down my thoughts and feelings. No other sexual relief would be available to me during the course of this experiment.
>Brief findings
>From my journal:
Started reading on the toilet: Boy who is staying with relatives happens to see his same-age friend masturbate. He can't let go of this sight ... I continued in bed, arranged the pillows until I was in a comfortable position, a bit ceremonial. ... The boy is now observing Tokio-kun through the window, on the veranda, while jerking off. He slips on the snow and is discovered. Tokio-kun angry, but also excited even as he keeps repeating 'I'm not homo!'. The boy who has admitted to everything has nothing to lose, so he throws himself over Tokio-kun and starts sniffing his cock and licking his smooth balls, and while waiting for the shot I came!
>Took long time before any action. I read everything and once they started undressing and comparing their cocks I came immediately. Vague memories of me and [name retracted] ... What was exciting was definitely the whole atmosphere with two new friends who discover sex together. Something you only do once in life. ... I was there, was one of them, not sure who, or wait a minute: I was Haru! The new boy. Whereas Ken was the active one, and the one who was sexy!
Self-care
>I experienced a sense of self-care, [during these masturbation sessions]. Paraphernalia of [masturbation], such as buying a special lamp that made reading while masturbating easier, showed that I respected myself and that masturbating to shota was something to feel proud and not ashamed of.
The following exerpt is given in it's entirety.
Desire by proxy
>My desire did not only emanate from the content of the dojinshi, but from the fact that other people too were excited by this often extreme content and masturbated to it. Safely separated in time and space, we were sharing a sexual moment and maybe coming on the same pages, to the same frames. I did not want to see these people (at least not while I was masturbating), but just knowing that we were, in a way, doing it together added something to my pleasure. This feeling was enhanced when I read a secondhand dojinshi, which I assumed had been used for masturbation by its previous owner, and thus been 'charged', like a magic charm that would continue to bring happiness to new owners.
Holy shit, what utter derangement. Under what circumstances this person thought this was a good idea perplexes me. Why the hell would you ever admit to masturbating to drawn child porn?
As you might imagine, after the publication of this paper, it was widely ridiculed. This caused the publisher to actually do their peer-reviewed research into the paper and have it taken offline. Luckily, due to the sheer derangement, someone had the bright idea of archiving it.
Article, if you're interested: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/I_am_not_alone_%E2%80%93_we_are_all_alone:_Using_masturbation_as_an_ethnographic_method_in_research_on_shota_subculture_in_Japan