Paedo Hunt/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Pedophilia is seen as a cause for mass hysteria.

  • Played Straight: The Big Bad has a child Sex Slave. People keep their children well out of sight accordingly.
  • Exaggerated: He has an entire harem of these.
    • In this setting, even so much as looking in the general direction of a child can get an adult branded as a pedophile.
  • Justified: Children Are Innocent is an extremely important part of the culture of the time and sexual advancements toward children is seen as ruining their innocence.
  • Inverted: Lolicon and Shotacon are accepted, if not outright encouraged in this particular setting.
  • Subverted: The Big Bad has no indications of pedophilic activity (e.g. child pornography, underage sexual partners, etc.)
  • Double Subverted: But another lesser villain (maybe even one of the Big Bad 's own Mooks) does.
  • Deconstructed: Can lead to paranoia that perfectly normal activities (such as a completely innocent Intergenerational Friendship or even normal parent-child affection) could be misinterpreted as pedophilia.
  • Reconstructed: People are careful about how they behave towards children in public. Also, other people look at things like "Does this child seem uncomfortable?" or "Does that display of affection look like it's more appropriate between lovers than parents and children, such as a kiss on the lips?" before jumping to conclusions.
  • Parodied: An otherwise sane community goes on a vigilante Paedo Hunt, and treats it like the witch trials of Salem and Europe.
    • A child doesn't want to eat his/her vegetables, and accuses the adult who gave them the veggies of pedophilia.
    • Bob is supervising his own children on the playground, and is accused of ogling children at the park.
  • Lampshaded:
  • Averted: See "Inverted"
    • Alternatively, the topic of pedophilia simply isn't dealt with.
  • Enforced: Socio-political commentary, especially in a case of Writer on Board.
  • Invoked: Bob is seen at the playground, sitting on the bench, watching the children play.
  • Defied: Bob shows that he is merely supervising his own children, and has no sexual interest in those kids, or any kids for that matter, and the accuser(s) lay off.
  • Exploited: A politician is losing, and to make his opponent look bad, implies that the opponent is a pedophile.
  • Discussed: *sigh* "Another Pedophile Priest in the news..."
  • Conversed: "Yes, sex with children (who clearly aren't ready for sex) is bad, but we shouldn't be getting so paranoid that a parent can't even supervise their children or change diapers in a public restroom without being accused of such a horrible crime."

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