Comment by Rea on PucksBetchi

@Rea As for why people might like this kind of thing in fiction, there's a bunch of reasons but you are laser focusing on the idea of people attracted to the shota charactes in particular which is not the only demographic reading this story.

Here are some of the reasons I've heard from friends who like this kind of content:
- the child characters are not repressenting real children but a fantasy of a partner who is not a physical or social threat to the reader.
- The child characters are a disempowerment fantasy for the reader to self insert into.
- Fictional size kink tends to be limited to dominant large man x submissive small (wo)man. This leaves people with the fantasy of being (with) a big woman or small man in the lurch.
- Adult characters are free to act more 'against type' when paired with child characters like being tall but submissive or shy and anxious but powerful or tomboyish or butch women being seen as desirable by their innocent partner. These traits are considered cute and appealing instead of being seen as whiny, annoying, clingy or something that needs to be 'fixed'.

@Rea  

- The boy isn't expected to take responsibility in leading the relationship or during s** by default.
- The boy ca get angry without it being percieved as a physical threat or as something that should be automatically accepted/taken seriously by the love interest.
- The boy can cry and act out without the audience throwing a fit and demanding an arc about him becoming a real man. Men in general getting to be emotional outside of anger jealousy and lu** is basically a core part of the subgenre's appeal.
- Childish characters can be bluntly honeest playdful prankish or nerdily passionate about things. A lot of people like these traits and consider them cute and wholesome but romance media tends to portray them as undesirable in a mature partner.
- For woman x boy in perticular the woman has to step up and be an equal partner to the guy in the relationship/bedroom without getting to coast by of the man having to do everything. If they are submissive to the guy in the bedroom they still have to be a responsible adult outside of it.
-Related to the above: some people like the fantasy of being taught how to have s** or being with a parter who is experienced and knows what they want which is a rarity among women in stright stories, and among bottoms in gay ones. It's much less rare in this subgenre.
- Men are often told that they shouldn't want to have someone take care of them and self inserting as a boy is a consistent way to find mommy/daddydom that is aimed at men.
- Shotadom is a full inversion of BL's typical seme/uke tropes something that is consistently hard to find. BL is already a full on daddy/boy dynamic in a lot of cases so why not lean into it at this point? If Jinx's uke is cansidered acceptableby most people's standards then is it just that they need to say they are over the age of 18? Or do they have to act mature, or is it about how they look and present themselves?