I suppose this is another thing where the internet changed everything, but I wonder about before.
How exactly did pedophiles meet? This isn’t exactly something like pot smoking where most people are comfortable talking about it in social settings. I really cannot imagine how exactly you’d bring it up, the possibility for total social isolation is so high. Hell I remember a guy bragging about having sex with a nine year old girl at a party in high school and that killed the discussion in the whole house :eek:
So when you see things about pedophile rings…how the hell do they meet?
I’d guess you just know a guy who knows a guy. It’s not likely that once you’re “in” that circle that you’ll ever come out of it. Word will spread among the right people, and they will keep it among themselves so as to not incriminate either them or any of their friends.
I’d also bet that an awful lot of it happens while incarcerated.
I’m still trying to figure out how gay people met. I ask and they always come back with, “Well after awhile you can tell.” How? They give you some stuff about eye contact, but well I’m just glad I’m straight, because unless it’s blatantly obvious, I can’t tell
Well, we used to … I mean… why do you think we would know?
Did they meet? Where there pedophile rings in the Before Times? I assume it happened if it was convenient, but it’s not like it’s necessary to meet up with other people to abuse kids.
Or are we talking about child porn rings, which would require some form of contact with other pervs?
How do devotees of BSDM meet? or any other fetish? I would guess that you could obtain hints from things that they mention, recognition of a glance that others wouldn’t make. That and the fact that child pornography was openly sold until the mid-Seventies and you would see fellow perverts browsing the racks in the back room of your local newstand.
A lot of them met at seminary when they were studying for the priesthood. In a similar fashion, others might have taken jobs or volunteered at places that gave them access to and control over children and met that way.
NAMBL used to be in the NYC phone book. They had a phone number with an answering machine message. The message said something like they met every third Wednesday at some hall some where.
Howard Stern used to play it occasionally on his radio show.
BDSM aficionado have the advantage of being discrete for privacy purposes without being arrested and sent to prison if that discretion is insufficient. It might be a better analogy if you go further back in time and/or small conservative towns where being found out would have harsher consequences.
But I don’t think you can compare the two for the most part because being embarrassed and gossiped about, which scary to plenty of people, is a far cry from being reviled and jailed.
Well, terrorists and drugrunners and underage-prostitution pimps also existed at the time, so scorn and jail is a deterrent but not an absolute one.
Go far back enough (and that’s not so far as we may like) and you get to a time when We Did Not Talk About Such Things, accusations by children were not believed, incidents were hushed up and suspects were told to just get out of town because we did not want to cause a scandal. No revilement or jail because the preferred solution was for you to just go away and the family to stay quiet. No offenders registry even for those caught. Fertile soil.
(Plus, speculation: when all alternative sexualities are considered sick and criminal, would not a lot of the venues for contact and communication end up being shared with the really sick and the really criminal, who’d use the other persecuted groups as cover?)
Are you talking about NAMBLA? if not, do you have a cite for that?
Is this really true? I grew up in the 70s, but obviously have never heard of this. Is there any way you could point me to something so I could read up on it?