Our legal system puts a lot of weight on intent. If you shoot your buddy in a hunting accident, it’s probably not a big deal. If you shoot your buddy because you would like to kill him, you are going to jail.
This act is sexual to him, and that’s what matters.
I remember being a young girl and having all kinds of men try to bring me into their sexual whatevers in all kinds of creepy ways. It’s amazing the weird shit people can foist on you for being eleven years old and walking down the street. We don’t need that in our society. If you need to get off, leave strange children out of it.
Your intent matters if you do something illegal or try to. It might be possible to prosecute this guy for loitering or for pursuing these children if there’s a law against that, and I think most of us would agree that doing something with children for your own sexual gratification is wrong. But it doesn’t the actual sock part of this incident is covered by the laws against molesting children.
Of more concern – and, luckily, something that’s much more addressable by authorities – is that the accused, Robert Mark Van Wagner, works in a high school as a “media specialist.”
While his act isn’t criminal, it’s weird and creepy, and there should be no problem whatsoever in firing him for it.
Or how shut-ins presume to tell people who aren’t afraid to leave the basement what’s mushy-brained?
Sez you. But given your behavior here, I’m not even remotely surprised you’re white-knighting a pervert who tries to involve little girls in his fetishes. Is it that you empathize with him?
Allow me to try to educate you. For those of us who are socialized normally and don’t live cowering in fear in our mommy’s basement, we know that grown men who
A) Drive around a park for hours, staring at little girls
B) Stop their car, approach little girls and ask them to do something weird
C) Continue to stalk them/stare at them afterwards
are indeed a potential threat.
Of course, if I lived a sheltered life in my mommy’s basement, sucking on my thumb, terrified to interact with others outside of the context of a message-board, I might not understand real-world threats either. However, if that were me, I wouldn’t presume to discuss what is “irrational” behavior for non-shut-ins.
The fight against ignorance is indeed taking a long time.
Have other people been charged like this, or is this the first time they’re giving the law a workout? I have no idea.
But … it seems to me … that van Wagner’s problem is that he asked them to do something he would find sexy.
van Wagner asked them to provide sexual arousal - that’s what I see as the key issue, not the method which he wanted them to use.
I see what you’re saying here, and in the further law which you quoted there. But if I was approaching this, I would phrase it:
Would an ordinary person know, by reading the law, that the conduct of asking a young girl to provide sexual stimulus is prohibited by law? Vinyl Turnip -
The way I see it - this is what tips van Wagner’s case into illegal activity. He asked the girls to do something to cause his sexual arousal. If he was just quietly thinking to himself, “Gosh, I bet their socks smell sexy” - I don’t think it would be a legal problem (and I personally wouldn’t care.)
When he asked the girls to turn him on - that’s where he crossed the line.
Plenty of people have been charged under this law.
But look at the offenses:
In Chesebrough v. State, the accused showed a stepchild “how babies were made” by allowing him to witness an act of sexual intercourse.
In State v. Paul, the accused rubbied his penis on the victim’s stomach area.
In State v. Sholl, the accused exposed his genitals via webcam.
In Capron v. State, the accused masturbated in view of the victim as she showered.
In Kulling v. State, the accused washed his car wearing no lower garments, then stood in front of the victim and began masturbating.
In Lowe v. State, the accused waved a dildo to get the attention of the victim, and then inserted into his mouth, simulating fellatio.
In Paul v. State, the accused rubbed his penis on the leg of the victim and then ejaculated.
Other cases are of similar variety, but they all have one thing in common, and that’s the over act used in conviction is clearly itself lewd and lascivious.
I can’t find a single case of a conviction under this statute where the only lasciviousness is in the mind of the actor and the act itself is blameless.
It’s not the key issue. A crime must have an actus reus.
Being creepy and weird with children not old enough to consent to be creepy and weird with, could be. Especially if the creepy and weird is sexual in nature. If he is just sitting on a bench, leering at the girls, I agree with you. But when he interacted with them, (assuming his "fetish is sexual), then asking them to wear the socks was sexual in nature. Just because they dont know that, doesnt mean there isnt a sexual interaction.
JMHO, this is a crime.
Again, presuming the Fetish is sexual in nature, his request was a sexual request, with children. I disagree on principle here. Asking them to put on the socks is a sexual interaction with children based on his admitted fetish. This isnt a thought crime, he admitted to this.
Just because they arent naked copulating, or having intercourse, doesnt mean sexual pleasure isnt derived on his part.
“Media Specialist” is the fancy new name given to what we called the librarian. (And sometimes lets school systems get away with hiring someone who doesn’t have a Library Degree – union contracts may require that for a “librarian”.)
But here’s the problem: what actually happened – the facts of the case – are often a matter of opinion. But whether an agreed upon set of facts constitutes a crime is not a matter of opinion. It’s a matter of law.