I put the childhood friend option as a joke. I forgot to add power imbalance (example slave/master). I agree I didn't phrase the last 2 well. I saw there weren't many suggestions for polls so I did one quick.

My thought is the most problematic is adopted child becomes lover (unfortunately becoming more common). Child love interests are problematic when there is an age gap. I actually prefer a child protagonist to have a similarly aged love interest.

Don't expect proper grammar from me. I am not being paid here, so you get internal monologue in written form.

I choose "no opinion" this time, but as the previous commenters might have noted, there's a huge difference with huge age gap romance and loli/shota.

I don't really mind huge age gap romance. I don't even mind a student-teacher romance story. For me, high school is the limit, considering the age of consent in Japan is 16.

But loli/shota, that's a turn off for me. That's why, as much as I love Cardcaptor Sakura, it still bothers me that Rika and Terada-sensei are having romantic relationship since she was in elementary school.

If you separate these two categories, I might consider to choose loli/shota.

I wish I could vote both for “Adopted child turned lover” and “Lolita/Shota and extreme age gap” because they are both disgusting since both of them involve grooming and pedophilia.

Not defending or accusing anything/anyone here. Just a curious question to the people having problems reading stories about grooming and/or pedophilia. Do you have the same problems reading stories involving murder or people killing others in general? Or kidnapping? Or rape? You know, since those are just as illegal, digusting and wrong...?

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For me it is all about the portrayal and tone. To use your example of rape. If the story is fluffy and positive about the rape then I won't enjoy it. If it depicts it as a negative thing to work through then it depends.

When my feelings and the tone don't match it breaks the story immersion for me. Kind of like the uncanny valley effect in animation.

A good example to use is Madoka. It starts off with a fluffy tone but as more is revealed it goes darker. If it had kept the fluffy tone that would have been a problem for me.

It is why I hate Usagi Drop. My emotions/feelings on the topic was too far from what the manga was trying to make me feel.

Don't expect proper grammar from me. I am not being paid here, so you get internal monologue in written form.

So more "how" they tell the story than "what" it's about. Fair enough.

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Quote from Aremon

Do you have the same problems reading stories involving murder or people killing others in general? Or kidnapping? Or rape? You know, since those are just as illegal, digusting and wrong...?

Depends. There are justifiable reason for killing or kidnapping. Also depends on if it's portrayed as good/bad/iffy.
Please note, that you can have stories where the main character is the villan. Like Death Note, for example.

Rape, however, can never, in any way, be justified or mitigated or anything...
The disgusting nature of pedo/age-gap/incest can be ignored, to some extent, because of how it's just fiction (still has a negative impact, but I may be able to still enjoy the story, despite it ...but I'll still very much be critical of it)
...but rape...
No.

Edit: Yeah, tone is also a factor, of course.
Edit2: I'm also VERY critical of how a ton of isekai/fantasy stories tend to present slavery as fine/okay/acceptable.
Okay because it's not illegal there (as if it's legality, that is the problem with slavery!), and/or extremely whitewashed, or whatever. (they might go "sure, slavery can be bad, but the way it works here, is perfectly fine!", all the while ignoring some of the more fundamental problems ...and how a lot of the stuff that supposedly makes it okay, don't actually work. Or in Tate no Yuusha, where the author apparently thinks slavery is okay/necessary, in more primitive economies...)
Or not even addressing the issue, at all, just having slaves as if it's perfectly fine and normal.

This is definitely a set of poll questions that are, unfortunately, loaded in different ways. I see 2 answers significantly worse than the rest, because they're crimes (loli/shota, which, in the context of "extrem age gap") is straight-up pedophilia. The other, assuming the child is grown up, is still mostly grooming.

Both are criminal and immoral.

With that said, there is a weird case where adopted child doesn't count as grooming: the adoptive parent never has time for the child—leaves them with a nanny—and only adopted them because maybe they were the child of a close friend who died. One day, when the child is no longer a child, they meet more often (maybe the adopted person was offered a job at the adoptee's work) and at some point sparks fly.

So it can, theoretically (unlikely as that is, but there are over 8 billion people on this planet), be a legitimate and moral(y neutral) thing (I think). Honestly, I've never thought this deeply about such a question, so... that's the answer I have on-hand.

I'm a jack of all trades but master of none. Too many jars and not enough hands.

I'm sure there are several other types of "problematic love interests" that many people could think of but are too politically incorrect to call "problematic" as they're in vogue in reality. I wish those would have been properly included. This poll was created as basically a way to hate on people who like loli/shota/age-gap content.

There is no such thing as "pedophilia" when we're talking about purely fictional characters.

Quote from LazyReviewer

I see 2 answers significantly worse than the rest, because they're crimes

You think that they are worse, not because of actions and circumstances involved, but because of the legality?
That is a completely morally bankrupt statement.

Quote from Ergzay

This poll was created as basically a way to hate on people who like loli/shota/age-gap content.

There is no such thing as "pedophilia" when we're talking about purely fictional characters.

Whilst there is a massive difference between fictional loli/shota content, and real life stuff...
Liking loli/shota content, because it is loli/shota content, is still inarguably problematic.
Not something that should be banned, as it isn't actually harming anyone, nor is there any suggestion that it leads to real life acts, but...
That doesn't mean that it shouldn't still be condemned and discouraged, and looked down on.

Condemning and looking down on someone for liking something you don't like is also quite problematic in my opinion...

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Quote from Aremon

Condemning and looking down on someone for liking something you don't like is also quite problematic in my opinion...

Not when it's something immoral. Then it's the opposite of problematic.

Never really thought of anything FICTIONAL as immoral really. In that case wouldn't depictions of killing someone be just as immoral... and yet people go to the movies to watch just that in droves, but you don't really see them being condemned all across media do you. So I still don't think that someone should be condemned or disliked for enjoying FICTIONAL content created to entertain.

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Quote from Aremon

Never really thought of anything FICTIONAL as immoral really.

So you think that, for example, the movie The Birth of a Nation, isn't in any way problematic? 🙄
A fictional work can praise/encourage/normalize immoral behaviour, demonize minorities, spread harmful propaganda etc, and you'd still say that it can't possibly be immoral, because it's "just fiction"?
You either don't understand what fiction actually is, or are acting as if you don't.

In that case wouldn't depictions of killing someone be just as immoral...

Ah, so you're ignoring how I've already answered that, are you?
How pretty much all movies/shows/whatever, that have killings, either clearly show how/why those specific killings are justified (not always properly, to be fair), or portray them as bad?
That does rather suggest, that you're not actually discussing in good faith. Not being honest. At all.