# Just how big a problem is online solicitation of minors for sex? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 18, 2005, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671 "2005-11-18T18:11:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671/21 "2005-11-18T20:53:03Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > 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. It’s a good point. 17 is above the age of consent in many places. But the idea here is… if you had been on-line at 13 – and presumably even more naive – there would have been guys trying to get it on with you. (Of course, today you’re in your late 20s and there are guys trying to get it on with you 🙂 – so _plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose._) ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671/22 "2005-11-18T20:56:24Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > It’s a good point. 17 is above the age of consent in many places. > > But the idea here is… if you had been on-line at 13 – and presumably even more naive – there would have been guys trying to get it on with you. > > (Of course, today you’re in your late 20s and there are guys trying to get it on with you 🙂 – so _plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose._) I had to wander off to Babelfish and translate this. Do you think we are all hoity-toity French speakers? 😛 “the more that changes, the more it is the same thing” Is that what you meant? But I’m sure guys would have been trying at any teen age…however, I do find it hard to believe that guys are regularly hearing “8 years old! Cool - it’s my lucky day.” ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671/23 "2005-11-18T20:58:10Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > But I’m sure guys would have been trying at any teen age…however, I do find it hard to believe that guys are regularly hearing “8 years old! Cool - it’s my lucky day.” regularly _thinking_, not hearing. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671/24 "2005-11-18T21:00:05Z")
I used to work at AOL in the network operation center. Part of that job was getting the security people(opsec) involved when AOL members reported certain activities like kiddie porn, abuse, suicide/murder threats, etc. We recieved the reports, evaluated them, made sure all the info was there and then passed the stuff up to opsec who dealt with the issue. Solicitation of minors happened quite frequently. I don’t know how many of those reports turned out to be real but we got a lot of reports. It was a daily occurence. Part of the problem, IMO, was that many kids were given unfettered access to AOL by their parents. AOL has a ‘Kids Only’ option. The Kids Only accounts had limited access, they could only get into approved areas, and chat rooms were heavily monitored. The Kids Only areas are a lot safer than full accounts. I think a big part of the problem is that parents are not monitoring their kids online usage. The scum doing this kinda stuff should be caught, tried and sent to jail but the parents need to be taught how to protect their kids. Slee ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671/25 "2005-11-18T21:07:18Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I had to wander off to Babelfish and translate this. Do you think we are all hoity-toity French speakers? 😛 > “the more that changes, the more it is the same thing” > Is that what you meant? > > But I’m sure guys would have been trying at any teen age…however, I do find it hard to believe that guys are regularly hearing “8 years old! Cool - it’s my lucky day.” “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” so Bablefish is pretty close. I agree that most of the Internet predation comes targetted at adolescents; strictly speaking it’s not pedophilia but ephebophilia. It’s still disturbing to picture an adult male plying his charms on a thirteen or fourteen year old. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671/26 "2005-11-18T21:22:31Z")
Why is it, I wonder, that so many teenage girls are apparently **willing** to hook up with adult males? Wouldn’t they find boys their own age more attractive, easier to talk to, and less threatening? ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671/27 "2005-11-18T21:26:37Z")
Humph. Obviously you have never talked to a \*real \* teenaged male. Useless things, they are. Seriously, what did teen boys talk about? Not serious stuff! Adult males have learned one thing - \*don’t \* talk about sex all the time. Don’t push it, don’t even mention it until she does. In my case I was a huge bookworm, and it wasn’t considered cool in my school to be smart. When I went online, I could discuss Shakespeare, and sci-fi, and stuff I read. At school it was all sports, cheerleaders, and with the girls, boys. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671/28 "2005-11-18T21:57:19Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Why is it, I wonder, that so many teenage girls are apparently **willing** to hook up with adult males? Wouldn’t they find boys their own age more attractive, easier to talk to, and less threatening? Through the looking glass, but when I was 14 I was a lot more interested in Cindy Crawford and Rachel Hunter than I was any girl in my high school. One assumes it’s the same on the other side of the issue. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671/29 "2005-11-18T22:02:32Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I had to wander off to Babelfish and translate this. Do you think we are all hoity-toity French speakers? 😛 > “the more that changes, the more it is the same thing” > Is that what you meant? Close enough. It’s generally translated as “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” ---
**Author:** ![Amaranta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Amaranta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amaranta)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671/30 "2005-11-18T22:39:46Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > Humph. Obviously you have never talked to a \*real \* teenaged male. Useless things, they are. > > Seriously, what did teen boys talk about? Not serious stuff! > > Adult males have learned one thing - \*don’t \* talk about sex all the time. Don’t push it, don’t even mention it until she does. > > In my case I was a huge bookworm, and it wasn’t considered cool in my school to be smart. When I went online, I could discuss Shakespeare, and sci-fi, and stuff I read. At school it was all sports, cheerleaders, and with the girls, boys. Mm-hmm. Remember high school? We were all soooo flattered when the older boys took interest in us, because it was like, we were sooo mature. And then you get older and realise that an 18 year old is only interested in a 14 year old because a) he can’t get a girl his own age and/or b) 14 year old girls are naive and stupid in many ways. So these young, hormone-driven and -confused girls go online, and there’s some older guy, who REALLY listens and doesn’t just talk about football practice and getting some, and this older guy cares, and thinks they’re soooo smart, and wow, magically is interested in everything they’re interested in, too! Even bad poetry! I bet he could just take me away and we’d talk about poetry and Shakespeare and all that stuff, though I don’t know why he keeps wanting me to send him pictures of myself… Yes, I was 14 when we got the internet. And I’d go to chatrooms, and people would “A/s/l?” me, and when the combination of “14” and “f” came up, MORE people would want to talk to me. I got solicited for sex, cyber and real, all the time. Cliffy: There was a great article on some website, the Slate I think, where some guy is talking about how when he was younger, they were drooling over these women in their 30’s (Cindy Crawford et. al.), and now every men’s magazine has half-naked cover girls who are 17 or 18. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671/31 "2005-11-18T23:06:52Z")
> [@Cliffy](#): > > Through the looking glass, but when I was 14 I was a lot more interested in Cindy Crawford and Rachel Hunter than I was any girl in my high school. One assumes it’s the same on the other side of the issue. > > –Cliffy Not a fair standard of comparison. If you’d polled guys in their 20s and up the same year, you might have found they were more interested in Cindy Crawford and Rachel Hunter than in their classmates or coworkers. ---
**Author:** ![archmichael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@archmichael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/archmichael)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671/32 "2005-11-18T23:13:24Z")
> [@sleestak](#): > > I used to work at AOL in the network operation center. Part of that job was getting the security people(opsec) involved when AOL members reported certain activities like kiddie porn, abuse, suicide/murder threats, etc. We recieved the reports, evaluated them, made sure all the info was there and then passed the stuff up to opsec who dealt with the issue. > > Solicitation of minors happened quite frequently. I don’t know how many of those reports turned out to be real but we got a lot of reports. It was a daily occurence. > > Part of the problem, IMO, was that many kids were given unfettered access to AOL by their parents. AOL has a ‘Kids Only’ option. The Kids Only accounts had limited access, they could only get into approved areas, and chat rooms were heavily monitored. The Kids Only areas are a lot safer than full accounts. > > I think a big part of the problem is that parents are not monitoring their kids online usage. The scum doing this kinda stuff should be caught, tried and sent to jail but the parents need to be taught how to protect their kids. > > Slee Can you put this into perspective for us? Did your group receive all the solicitation complaints? How big was the subscriber base? It sounded terrible at first, until I wondered if were talking about 1 complaint a day from a subscriber base of around 5 million ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671/33 "2005-11-18T23:14:02Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > 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. One reason why is if I am Chester the Molester, if it all happened in real life I could just look at Jane Slut and check her over to make sure she is of legal age. Have her show me her Driver’s License, etc. Maybe do some background checking. Not so easy online. And in real life if Jane Slut used her police influence to get from the DMV folks a DL actually issue a DL with a false birth date, this smells of entrapment. Please note the cops WOULD NEED TO HAVE ON THE PAYROLL a real 13 year old working in cahoots with them. If somehow she gets injured, the cops are gonna have a big liability suit against them. Thus the cops can’t use an 18 year old policewoman trying to pass as someone underaged with no ID. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2005, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671/34 "2005-11-19T04:25:34Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Not a fair standard of comparison. If you’d polled guys in their 20s and up the same year, you might have found they were more interested in Cindy Crawford and Rachel Hunter than in their classmates or coworkers. That’s my point, unless I’m misreading you. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2005, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671/37 "2005-11-19T05:57:58Z")
> [@homophobe](#): > > That doesn’t quite compute. After all, if you’re checking Jane Slut’s credentials in real life, to see whether she has reached the age of consent in your present jurisdiction, presumably you’d be asking her online whether she was of that same age–i.e., you wouldn’t be going after a 13 year old. Yet, as I understand it, the crime is soliciting sex with someone _you believe_ to be under the age of consent–if you go online looking only for people over the age of consent in both your and their jurisdiction, you’re not committing a crime. I could be wrong about that, though. In that case Chester REALLY wants to quit hunting for prey online. That “13 year old girl” in a chatroom could really be a 44 year old guy into sex fantasy online. Chester instead should troll outside the local middle school looking for 13 year old girls dressed up like sluts. This would mean not only are they possibly easily persuaded, but also that her parents even allow this implies they don’t supervise her much. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2005, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671/38 "2005-11-19T06:44:10Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > 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! If that’s the one I saw, apparently, they managed to fool him AGAIN, a few days later. He was just sitting there naked in the kitchen, then the people on the show came out, gave him his clothes, and he left. Then, they went back online, he’s still trolling for minors. So they put out another new screenname, got him to go somewhere else (a local park or restaurant?) and caught him again! Clearly, these people aren’t the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. ---
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2005, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671/39 "2005-11-19T08:05:05Z")
I know when I was a young teen, I did more than a little online solicitation of my own. Some my age, some significantly older. I have no problem believing that at least some of these young teens start things off themselves, then get quickly in over their naive little heads. (I never did, however. I have rather fond memories of that time.) ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2005, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671/40 "2005-11-19T09:40:27Z")
> [@archmichael](#): > > Can you put this into perspective for us? Did your group receive all the solicitation complaints? How big was the subscriber base? > > It sounded terrible at first, until I wondered if were talking about 1 complaint a day from a subscriber base of around 5 million Well, I don’t know how many complaints came in a day. We did not get all the complaints. There was (and probably still is) a group in the call centers who deal with “Terms of Service”, or TOS, issues. A lot of the TOS issues were porn, threats, cussing and the like. The people in the call centers filtered the incoming issues and passed the serious ones (death threats, suicide threats, kiddie porn, etc) on to us. There were also avenues to report the issues that bypassed us and went straight to OPSEC. On a busy day we might get 5. I think the most I had in one day was 10. Now, not all of these were solicitation. Some were suicide threats, some were death threats, some were porn related, some were just sick\*. At the time AOL had 10 million members and during peak hours there were ~1.6 million users online. I have no way of knowing how many complaints were made per day/week/month/whatever. I do know that we got quite a few reports I have no idea what happened after we passed the info to OPSEC. The OPSEC people wouldn’t tell us anything due to legal concerns. Note, while those numbers might seem small you have to remember that to get to us a member had to _report_ the incident. There is no way of telling how many times someone solicited a minor and it was never reported. My guess would be that a very small percentage were reported. Probably under 10 percent. But that is just a guess. Slee \*Before I went to the NOC I had a call from a guy who reported that his daughter (Call her Amy) had a friend (Call her Beth) that was being molested by her father. Beth IM’ed Amy that her Dad was touching her, etc. Nasty stuff. That was an unpleasant call. I reported it to OPSEC. I did later recieve an email from Amy’s Dad stating that Beth’s Dad was arrested, tried and sentenced to something like 20 years in prison for sexually abusing his child. AOL’s OPSEC was instrumental in getting the guy arrested along with Amy and her Dad. I only found this out because the Dad who reported the abuse emailed me a link to the article. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2005, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671/41 "2005-11-19T15:51:20Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Clearly, these people aren’t the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. Or, more likely, the bright ones manage not to be caught on TV… ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2005, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671/42 "2005-11-21T00:18:10Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Or, more likely, the bright ones manage not to be caught on TV… Ah, well, I can’t argue with that! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-how-big-a-problem-is-online-solicitation-of-minors-for-sex/331671.md?page=3)