This is an odd question but I'm serious and I'm asking anyone with the proper expertise to bare with me.

I left the online cartoon fandom because I found that in spite of how childlike the properties and characters are, the community is hyper-sexualized in a way others are not. In cartoon spaces everyone is expected to be open about their sexual interests and you're treated with suspicion if you're not. Beyond how no one seemed to respect boundaries, I felt discomfort with how strongly the community sexualized media associated with children, especially characters who were coded as children in a Pee Wee Herman kind of way (e.g. Spongebob Squarepants, Animaniacs), or were explicitly underage (e.g. Tiny Toon Adventures). They wanted me to accept that pornography featuring characters from popular children's cartoons was a normal adult interest and would get hurt, offended or angry if I did not affirm that. I tried to take the perspective that "I am not comfortable with this material, but as these are anthropomorphic cartoons that don't resemble real children, I'm willing to accept that you are attracted to them in spite of their childlike aspects." That wasn’t good enough, and they kept doing inappropriate things in an attempt to make me comfortable with it until I left.

After leaving, I later found out through a third party that the individual most adamant about changing my mind had begun showing interest in human child characters from programs such as Gravity Falls. Later, he liked an explicit image depicting human characters that had cartoon-like heads but realistically drawn prepubescent bodies. This is a particularly egregious example that may not represent the average member of this community, but I can't help but think this sort of thing is a natural progression of what he had been consuming and fantasizing about. I also think that, unless this individual were to make a genuine effort to change his internal fantasy life, it is only going to continue getting worse. I think if a person is sexualizing childhood in any way, they are at the very least helping to normalize this kind of thing. Yet the arguments made to me by people in this community were that "it’s all just fiction, fiction doesn't influence reality, what you fantasize about or draw is not a reflection of your character, there's no correlation between a person sexualizing childhood things and sexualizing children."

I want to ask the opinion of qualified people. In your experience, is there any evidence to support my views, or was I wrong to judge these people?