This was just something that came to mind when I was reading over those posts (which I do plan on making something else later, as some other things came to mind that I wanna address later), but to keep to the title of the post, I do honestly feel like we're just throwing the word loli at anyone under the age of 18 in an anime when that has never been the case.
Kanna Kamui, from Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, is a loli.
Anya Forger, from SPY X FAMILY, is a loli.
Eri, from My Hero Academia, is a loli.
Genshin Impact specifically has a 'short female' model, which nine playable characters have, and eight of them would be lolis, using the actual definition pre-'New Right' era (Diona, Kachina, Klee, Nahida, Qiqi, Sayu, Sigewinne and Yaoyao).
Why am I going through these examples? Mostly because I want to show people what characters fit under the classical definition used before the past few years of the anti-anime movement trying to use 'language creep' to muddle the definition.
I don't care which side of the argument you're on, I just wish that people would at the very least use the actual definitions of words because saying that Satsuki Kiryuin, Ryuko Matoi, Marin Kitagawa, among many other 'under 18 but visibly not like the kids I mentioned above' characters are lolis is rather bullshit and only serves to work against the right.
Just my two cents on the topic, but overall, whether or not things become legal or illegal, I am hoping that people are at least able to actually work with the true definitions of words rather than abusing language to get whatever they want. Attempts to ban Eastern media isn't going to make people suddenly love current Western media, it's going to make people further check out of society.
I posted this in a reply, but thought it was interesting and relevant so I'll put a snippet here too, and expand on some parts too.
I was curious, and looked it up, because I wanted a Western equivalent cartoon. Daphne from Scooby-Doo is apparently sixteen, and is well known for being hot. No one accuses you of being a pedo if you say Daphne is sexy. It's some weird anime-exclusive thing. It's absolutely an attack on anime.
u/The_Shadow_of_Intent made a very good point and said "when watching a show you're forced into a peer perspective."
People get hung up on ages...of cartoon characters. Anime is often youth-oriented, but with adult themes. Highschoolers saving the world, and such. Putting aside the "loli" thing, we're often talking 15 year olds, or 16 year olds...the later of which I believe is legal in Japan, so that's already equivalent culturally to 18 year olds.
Some people take shit way too far and call you names for liking a canonically sixteen year old fictional character. That's absurd. They don't present as underage, physically, mentally, or story-wise. So that's even sillier than arguing over lolis. They're cartoon characters. If the story only works if they're very young, that's a bit weird, but almost always the story would work the same if they were twenty or thirty too because, again, all the actions and stakes are serious and adult.
You often wouldn't even have to change the character design at all to age up some of these characters from highschoolers to adults. If they're fictional characters already indistinguishable from adults in every way, and the only issue is that they're canonically sixteen instead of mid-twenties...yeah, there's nothing wrong with finding them attractive.
Back, briefly, to the loli discussion itself. Lolis are clearly very different from what I described above, because their appearance is not indistinguishable from an adult character. So this is what OP is talking about, that conflating "underage" with "loli" is silly and doesn't make sense.
Back to the Western example, thinking Daphne is hot does not make you a lolicon or a pedophile, and it would be absurd to argue otherwise. No matter how anyone feels about lolis, the overly broad application that OP is talking about is completely ridiculous.
Daphne looks like an adult. I only take issue with the clearly child like characters and I still don't say ban it but I refuse to allow people to claim it's not pedophilia when they beat off to it
That's the distinction OP and I are talking about.
Just like it's silly to call someone who finds Daphne hot a pedo, it doesn't make sense to call people into anime girls that are not childlike but are "underage" pedos.
Yeah. There's a few guys on here that argue straight up pedo bait isn't pedophilic and they piss me off