We’ve all seen the TV ads warning parents of the dangers of their children being solicited for sex by adult strangers online. But how big of a problem is this, really? How often does it actually happen? And are the victims usually teenagers or pre-adolescent children? (Makes a big difference, IMO.)
Also – how can it be successful? I can chat online with teengirl23 and call myself pimpleface69, and I can suggest we meet in real life, but as soon as she sees me she’s gonna know I’m no teenager. Why would she even stay for coffee?
Perhaps this belongs in GQ, but it’s about a public issue and it’s bound to turn into a debate of some kind and there might not be any reliable factual answers anyway, so I’m starting it in GD; mods, please move it if you think appropriate.
If the logs there are any indication, older men are not all that surprised to find younger teens in a receptive state for solitication to meet for sexual encounters.
I’d surmise it’s happening a fair bit.
And your concern about being revealed as not-so-pimply-faced69 is meaningless; these guys don’t pretend to be teens themselves; they present themselves as adults.
In preactice, online solicitation of minors for sex is a negligable problem. Main problem for Chester the Molester: they need victims they can get easy physical access to. Odds are any prey they find on the Internet will be a long distance away. Chester would do better to find out where the sluttiest underage teens can be found locally, and show up with cash to make them more cooperative.
Almost without fail, when I hear of someone getting busted for acts of soliciting from a minor, it’s because a cop posed as a 13 year old girl in a chat room.
I’m always sceptical of these “older men are stealing our children to be sex slaves!!” stories. People love to sensationalize crime, technology, sex, and threats to children, making the internet molesters luering children an irresistable topic for the media. My gut feel is that it’s a few isolated cases being blown out of proportion, rather then any sort of legitimate threat to the average US child. Anyone have any statistics?
Dateline recently had a great article on-line about just this problem. It seems that there is more of this going on than one would think, and at least some people who solicit minors are (stupidly) fearless.
Dateline recently had a great article on-line about just this problem. It seems that there is more of this going on than one would think, and at least some people who solicit minors are (stupidly) fearless.
It was less shocking to see that kids were getting themselves into potentially sexual situations on line than it was to see the types of men who were drawn to children. They had counselors, rabbis, etc. The bit I saw of this on TV had a man who actually took his clothes off before he even met the person he was chatting on line with. IN THE KID’s HOUSE!
I don’t think most of these people would have grabbed the kid and forced themselves on him or her, but the fact that there are that many people “in positions of trust” who are attracted to under-the-age-of-consent kids was a bit startling. How much was sensationalism? I don’t know. But what I saw surprised me.
I always figured it was mostly Sheriff’s Deputies posing as 13 year old girls not realizing they’re talking to Municipal cops pretending to be 14 year old girls, with the occassional 14 year old boy pretending to be a 33 year old man getting involved.
Ok, when I was 17 and young and naive (more so anyway), there were *plenty * of guys who *knew * I was 17 and freely admitted their age and tried to get it on with me.
I don’t really think 17 fits into the whole pedophile category, though. 17 is quite old enough to be sexually active…whether they should be that is another matter of course. From what I saw, though, it was mostly adolescent and teen children these guys targeted.
Buuuuut…I wasn’t online until my teens. (I don’t really think pre-teen kids should have unmonitored Internet access, anyway.) so I never hung out where there were a whole bunch of little kids, anyway. Way too cool for that.
