That's the sort of thing that starts to hit some really grey areas, and also starts to illuminate some of the differences in the justifications for banning CP. If you're against CP because it means the exploitation of children, animated images of children that do not exist should be fine - but if you're against it due to it being disgusting or normalizing the abuse of real children it's not. However, I believe that the Supreme Court has thus far held that drawings fall under the 1st Amendment, as (IMO) they most certainly should.

There is an important shade of grey between "clearly artificial image" and "real image", where "artificial but real-looking image" sits. It has the same normalizing effect as a real image.

Otherwise there's no reason to oppose real images, since the harm is done before the image is ever seen.

> Otherwise there's no reason to oppose real images, since the harm is done before the image is ever seen.

We ban specifically real images for two general reasons - one is that allowing them encourages the production of more such images, necessitating additional abuse, and the second is that for the children involved, knowing that other people are looking at those images is a huge violation.

Neither of those applies for "artificial but real-looking" images.

Animated images and videos of prepubescent girls having sex may be distasteful, but under US law it's not considered child pornography.

Fun fact, there are places in the Western world where it is considered illegal to the same degree as photographs of children being abused. And ditto for textual descriptions of this fictionally happening. Scandinavia, for instance. Which is admittedly not famous for its uncompromising approach to freedom of expression.

There are also places where sexual content of adult women is illegal if they look young.