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Shotacon (ショタコン,ショタ) is a japanese and animanga term for a sexual complex where an adult, usually male, is attracted to an underage boy. Classically shoutacon is considered a subgenre of yaoi, although if a woman is featured some Western animanga fans use the term 'Straight Shouta'. Shota-con characters are invariably bishōnen or depicted as such after the fact, and in doujinshi are often characters of (ironically) male-oriented shounen anime series.
Because boys are typically considered to have a larger interest in sex than girls, the term and genre among anime fandom has less of a stigma relative to its counterpart, lolicon. Generally, hentai art on the internet is labeled shoutacon if it depicts a noticably underage boy by himself or with a parter (of any age or sex) Characters under the age of 14 are generally considered shoutacon although depending on the age of the older partner this may extended into the teenage years.
A large amount of shotacon doujinshi is written by women for women, although many male fans enjoy them as a form of wish-fufillment. See MILF complex. Shoutacon is considered by some to be an extention of the bishounen concept, and depiction of an 'innocent' male with an older dominant partner (who may even be female) skews hentai's stereotypical misogyny.
Origins
The phrase derives from "Shotaro complex" (Shotaro is a hero character from Tetsujin 28-Go and is a popular generic name for young male characters in anime) and is sometimes contracted further to shota. Shotaro, in those anime and manga, often outwitted and was never afraid to say what he had to against ungainly grownups. Except for few occasions where his physical limits failed him, he had everything that could be had for an adult. His appearance was also deemed cute.
Where this Shota-con concept developed is hard to prove but one of the earliest root of this syndrome can be traced to readers responses to detective series written by Edogawa Rampo featuring a cool detective Kogoro Akechi. In it, Yoshio Kobayashi and his friends form "Shōnentanteidan" (Junior Detective Group, similar to the Baker Street Irregulars of Sherlock Holmes) to aid Mr. Akechi. Kobayashi was written as a perfect young teenager who, some might say, had a strong 'dependency' to Mr. Akechi. Every time he appears, he is either worried about Akechi's well-being or helping Akechi set the trap for criminals. On numerous occasions that he was captured, Akechi swooped in for a timely rescue. He even lived together in the Akechi's house who happened to be not married. In short, he acted almost as though he was Akechi's wife and no doubt not few female readers had read stories picturing them to be in Kobayashi's position.
Shoutacon as a Meme
'Bridget', a crossdressing young boy of the video game series Guilty Gear became infamous on image boards like Futaba Channel and 4chan as a shotacon sex symbol. Usually depicted in his blue nun habit, he became instantly recognizable even when his origin and sex wasn't.
Canonically, he dressed as a girl to avoid the supersitious persecution of twins, and has an honest desire to become more 'masculine'. Nevertheless, some otherwise vehenemently straight fans consistently depict him in a feminine or even lolicon style of dress, although his anatomy is nearly always male.
See also: shonen-ai, hentai, yaoi, child pornography, MILF
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