Over a decade ago, philosopher Morgan Luck raised the question of the gamer's dilemma:

https://philpapers.org/rec/LUCTGD

Specifically, he wondered why exactly virtual murder was acceptable but virtual pedophilia was not. However, I don't want to talk about the gamer's dilemma here but rather about a similar but somewhat different dilemma. Specifically, I want to focus on a particular comment on a particular blog post:

http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2014/12/should-we-criminalise-robotic-rape-and-robotic-child-sexual-abuse-maybe/

"Nikolas Schaffer says:
December 28, 2014 at 1:27 pm
Haven’t read the paper, just this article, but there seems to be an important question entirely overlooked. At the moment, it is perfectly legal for two or more consenting adult partners to undertake sexual intercourse as an act of simulated rape or simulated child abuse. Why should it be legal for couples (or entire dungeons of consenting adults) to explore such fantasies, but not legal for a lone masturbator, playing with a sex toy? It doesn’t seem to make an awful lot of sense, unless you’re proposing that consenting adult partners should also be forbidden from engaging in role-playing of this kind."

Basically, the moral dilemma goes like this: Why exactly do we tolerate sexual roleplaying between consenting adults that simulates forbidden acts such as rape and pedophilia (rape fantasy roleplaying and pedophilia fantasy roleplaying/ageplay, respectively) but are much less tolerant of other completely harmless virtual representations of these acts such as *cartoon/animated* child porn (NOT the real thing!), child sex dolls, child sex robots, staged scenes/videos of child rape that are done exclusively by consenting adults (for instance, for a movie, with an adult that has an extremely childlike appearance playing the role of the child), cartoon/animated rape scenes, and staged scenes/videos of other rapes that are done exclusively by consenting adults?

You could involve the desensitization argument here--specifically the argument that things such as *cartoon/animated* child porn and child sex dolls/robots could desensitize people, harm their moral character, and make them more likely to commit actual child rape, but one could also invoke the desensitization argument in regards to rape fantasy roleplaying or pedophilia fantasy roleplay/ageplay between consenting adults, especially when this roleplaying is sufficiently realistic to mimic the actual act. Indeed, if one rejects the desensitization argument in the latter context without sufficiently strong evidence, is it really reasonable for such a person to embrace the desensitization argument in the former context without sufficiently strong evidence?

It's also worth noting that societies do sometimes view it as being permissible to criminalize sex acts between consenting adults--for instance, consensual adult incest--if they believe that such sex acts actually serve a sufficiently compelling or at least important state interest--for instance, preserving family stability and harmony or whatever.

Anyway, what do you personally think about this dilemma of mine? Just how exactly would you solve it?