I’m not sure that sexual activity that young is optimal for maximum breeding even in a premodern (or post-apocalyptic) situation, given the higher risks of underweight/premature births and death in childbirth. Just because many males share that impulse doesn’t mean it’s a healthy one, even in a crudely reductive biological sense. And if many 13-year-olds can pass for 16, doesn’t that imply that many 16-year-olds could still be mistaken for 13 (as was very much the case for me) – and aren’t really ready for sex even if the laws in some states say they might be?
You have to draw the line somewhere.
I watched tonight’s installment too, and I wonder why they don’t make a greater effort to vary their methods. It appears that many of the pervs are beginning to get wise to the more formulaic aspects of these sting operations and are growing increasingly wary.
Do all the online decoys have to type the same lame way? Couldn’t a few of them pose as A.P.-level students near the top of their classes, with the exacting prose and pretensions to match? (A decoy could even let drop, with self-evident pride, that she/he is taking honors or A.P. classes, etc.) I’m sorry, but I could relive my life a hundred times, and never fall into l33t-speak. All the decoy online characters are similarly passive, enthusiastic, and generally not sufficiently inquisitive or suspicious of their potential hookups. You’d think a few more of these underage teens would be worried about getting pregnant, catching a venereal disease, insisting on condoms, suggesting the man pay for a motel room (out of fear of the stranger knowing where they live), etc.
Then again, they do manage to line up plenty of perverts who buy into their act, so what do I know?
If I were one of the Perverted Justice crew, I’d consider a multi-level operation in which one decoy is conspicuously more suspicious/critical/stuck up and rejects ugly, old, fat, or even “ethnic” males, while another decoy in the same chat room is their more-typical decoy (who takes all comers, no pun intended). That would be a more realistic smorgasbord of decoys, IMHO, and they could rope in everyone, including those who are too suspicious of the typical decoy. I don’t recall any of these TV sting op decoys rejecting any male, no matter what – and they’re getting some very candid photos by some very ugly guys. If I was a pervert trolling for jail bait, I’d like to think I’d be too shrewd to fall for that.
Another thing that bothers me about the decoys actors… in person, they all act out the same come-ons to one and all, regardless of their age or physical attractiveness. “Hi, come on in! Would you like a drink?”, my foot. A real teen on the verge of a sexual encounter with a stranger (especially if it involves losing her/his virginity with an ugly, perhaps unexpectedly older male on a work visa) should be a tad more diffident, even critical, no? Even the pitcher they offer looks the same from show to show.
If the decoy posters all type the same, the decoy actors are even worse. Most of them don’t seem to think this encounter thing through, even as a duff acting gig. Why the same enthusiastic welcome for one and all? Wouldn’t even a teen slut still experience some sense of uncertainty, trepidation, embarrassment, guilt, or foreboding? Most of these actors can’t even suggest a hint of the quivering excitement, curiosity, and even lust that a genuine teen slut would have to have to go through with one of these hookups. A really realistic moment of decision at the door would be for the decoy (either female or male) to just stand there for a moment, dumbstruck, as if weighing the possibilities of begging off in one way or another… perhaps to be persuaded or guilt-tripped into allowing the pervert in the door after all.