I have to say, the quality of my enjoyment of this fetish/kink was way better before learning of this moral panic about loli and underage fictional characters in general.
Personally, when I spot a loli, I am at best indifferent to it and, at worst, repulsed by it; and I'm also kinda suspicious towards people who (ONLY) enjoy lolis.
Having said so, I don't think it's right to equate lolis to real CSAM or the brand new problem of AI-generated CSAM: even if you consider loli questionable or wrong, I think it's on a different scale of concerning, if anything because no real person was actually harmed by the process. I am not saying it's not "wrong", but it would be like saying that smoking weed and murdering someone are equally heinous just because they're both illegal.
I am even more confused by people making such a big deal of drawing of fictional characters who are 16-17 years old: yes, IRL you obviously shouldn't do shit with someone of that age if you're older than them, but here we are talking about fictional characters, who often don't age like normal people do (look at characters from Marvel, for example). Like, it's really that difficult to just say "let's imagine that they're one or two years older and call it a day".
Again, I'd understand the quandaries if the character in question was a child, albeit fictional, but I honestly find this a waste of mental energy when there are other problems in this fucked-up world.
I'm even pissed off a bit, because I gave up on writing a short tickling fanfic about Runaways since the character is about 16-17 yo, and I don't want people to get mad at me in case I posted it: then I see that the same online spaces (TMF) who would straight up ban you if you posted a 17 yo fictional characters getting tickled, yet allow AI generated de facto deepfakes of real people (e.g. celebrities).
So I take than making shitty AI deepfakes of real people is fine because they're of age/public figures, but God forbid you fantasizing about fictional characters who are one or two years from the age of reason. I honestly find the former to be more disturbing and problematic than the latter, but probably I am just a fucking closeted pedo who is rationalizing his need to abuse children, am I right?
Sorry for the vent everyone, I just had to blow off steam.
Sometimes I wish I never had this fetish in the first place: I am already too much paranoid on my own.