An actual child in real life - as well as some adults - is either not psychologically prepared for or is actively terrified of sexual contact. They can either be forcibly raped or coerced into sex by a psychosocial dominant figure, both of which are sickly acts.

Children are furthermore anatomically underdeveloped and generally of small scale, meaning they're much more likely to be physically injured by sex.

Most people known to sexually pursue children in real life are indeed abusive of these children and the case has indeed resulted in gross lasting trauma to the child and future adult.

It is not "sex with children" that is wrong, it is manipulation and abuse of someone who is naive, vulnerable, and/or terrified. This includes select adults.

We cannot in good conscience stop and think over every single instance of child sexuality to determine whether the individual child is one of the 0.0001% who is not all of those three things AND whether their partner is one of the 0.0001% who is not an abuser - this will in practice never happen - and thus we must presume it is abusive in all real life circumstances because that will almost always be correct.

But this does not apply to fiction, which is not bound to any statistics, mechanics, or patterns of the world of reality.

In fiction we very well can have neomorphic characters who are not harmed by sex (at least not any more than an average mature adult would be) and are therefore fair game. Characters who are "older than they appear" are almost always clearly psychologically developed and it isn't at all a stretch to presume they may be sexually developed as well. They are adults in everything but their most superficial appearance.

Even if they were harmed by sex, it would not matter because they are fictional characters. Similarly, we may freely portray violence, murder, gore, psychological torture, etc. in fictional media because there is no victim and if there is no victim there can be no crime.

And no, being uncomfortable with a concept does not make you a victim.

Ironically, because they are babies.

• Small children are not able to discern anything beyond the superficial. If you show a young child an abstract drawing of an animal, he/she will pick the closest animal they already know and adamantly state that the drawing is of that exact animal. Subsequently, whatever they expect to be traits of that animal will be irrevocably assigned to the creature in the drawing as well. In short, "The closest thing to x I understand is y, therefore x is y".
• Small children also think that everything in the world is divided into two teams: the good guys and the bad guys. Everyone who likes what they like is a good guy and anyone who isn't clearly a good guy must be a bad guy.

Immature adults are no different. Despite the REASONS THE FUCK WHY sex with real children is virtually always abusive and sickly, anti-cubs do not and cannot comprehend them, instead presuming that everything that looks enough like a child literally is a child no tag-backs and therefore automatically off-limits end of discussion.

To even consider otherwise would mean they were not on the GOOD GUY team which would instantly make them BAD GUYS. This means they will go out of their way to stretch what constitutes a child in order to avoid bad guy-ness as much as possible.

These mechanics are also responsible for:

• "Furry is the same as zoophilia"
• "Natural is good and artificial is bad" / "Vaccines give u autism!!"
• "Um wow furry artist try being ~anatomically correct~ where's the [udder / cloaca / etc.]"

After many back-and-forths and panics, U.S. law can be summarized by the furry community as: "Furries do not count as people so the law doesn't give a shit."

While U.S. law makes multiple references to minors, a minor must be a human being, therefore CP laws do not apply to furry artwork. This is why some furry communities allow furry cub art but not human "loli" et al and related to why Inkbunny does not allow erotic human content of any kind.

However, laws against zoophilia may be extended to furry depending on how crotchety, old, and Christian the judge & jury are.

There is a far more powerful force in society than law - tradition. Traditions are, effectively, laws that aren't written down and have no formal punishment, because neither is needed.

Some cultures are more open to exposing children to sex, alcohol, etc. than others are, such as Japan. Most of these cultures have been this way for generations, possibly hundreds of years.

But the United States has not. It's dropped rapidly down a slippery slope of oppression and inquisition, no doubt related to its dense concentration of extremist Christians.

All businesses that rely on a sufficiently large chunk of the public must honor those traditions or else they are - you guessed it - BAD GUYS, which usually means they will be out of business within months.

Bad Dragon already targets pervs as it is, so e621 is more or less completely unaffected by deviant content - but any site relying on more mainstream funding will be whimsy to society's infantile demands, because their benefactors are.

It really doesn't matter what the law says. The people fear what they don't understand and seek to destroy it, with or without it.