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NYT On The Internet And Child Molestation
prostoalex writes "In a long and disturbing story on child molesters, the New York Times Magazine among other issues researches the impact of the Internet on the child molesters. While officially the number of child molestations did not change significantly, Dr. Fred Berlin, associate professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, considers the Internet to be a new vehicle for child molestation: 'There are three areas of concern. First, the illusion of anonymity -- an illusion because Internet use can be easily tracked -- leads to disinhibition. Second, there's a blurring of fantasy and reality. There's someone at the other end of the Internet conversation, but it's not quite a real person; there's a feeling of playing a game that can lead to actually doing what one otherwise wouldn't. Third, the easy accessibility can facilitate moving over boundaries.'"
More demonisation of the Internet. More FUD. More people scared of new stuff.
Nothing new, it happens time and again, wanting to blame something apart from the criminal who perpetrates an act.
"oh the internet made me do it"
bah.
... the data shows no increase, but we should be worried because some doctor wants some press by scarring the masses?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
While officially the number of child molestations did not change significantly
Then what's the problem? It made what they do easier? It makes much of what the rest of society does easier too. Stop criticizing the Internet for society's problems.
>> First, the illusion of anonymity -- an illusion because Internet use can be easily tracked
"Easily tracked" comes most often in conjunction with peer to peer and movie/audio sharing. The solution for this is encryption, and it's quite a popular Slashdot topic when it comes to peer to peer and sharing files. If the traffic would be encrypted, then there would be no more RIAA law-suits and debates because they couldn't figure out what does the traffic represent.
Sadly, the technology allowing anonymous traffic would also allow this kind of activities. If you ask me, the right to anonymity should be above all, but it kinda makes you sad when you think how encryption could be used by these molesters in order to avoid police, FBI and such.
The Internet can potentially allow a person to move from simply having a desire, to acting upon that desire.
However, it can also allow someone to satisfy that desire through sheer fantasy (written stories, role-playing, artwork, etc.), removing the need to act upon the desire in real life.
I think this applies to every aspect of human behavior, from the benign (sports, hobbies, etc.) to the harmful (murder, child abuse, etc.). The question becomes: is the 'net any worse than allowing the average person access to a public library, the phone system, and so forth? Any of these can either encourage behavior or provide a controlled (and harmless) outlet... it's all a matter of what the individual chooses to do.
And I think that's what many people miss in discussions like this. It all comes down to self-control and individual responsibility. One argument is that the 'net, through its anonymity, encourages people to deny responsibility and lose their self-control. The other argument is that anyone who does so was simply looking for an excuse to avoid responsibility anyway.
It's like people who claim that an AC/DC song 'encouraged' them to kill their girlfriend, or that comic books 'made' them think they can fly. The 'net cannot influence a person unless they choose to act upon their desires anyway.
Child pron was legal in Japan, in fact it was only very recently that they brought down the hammer on it (1999
Some northern european countries are more liberal in this regard too.
The thing is, centuries ago people used to get married as young as 13, and it is clear that many high-school students are full of sexual harmones. Thus, the cut-off age of 18 is somewhat arbitrary from a biological and historical perspective. I suppose it is "mental maturity" that is used to justify 18. However, some people are so stupid that they would never be allowed to have sex if that was the criteria.
Table-ized A.I.
True, that child molesters and purveyors of child porn exist in probably the same percentages as ever. No more, no less. And they will do whatever it is they do, with or without the Internet.
But.
The net does provide a new vehicle for them. A presumed layer of anonymity (and for those that are not entirely stupid, encryption and proxies makes it much harder to track). And a way to dissminate their crap in far wider circles than before.
Exactly like con artists. 419ers, phishers, and the like have been around forever. Fast online communications just make it easier to suck in a wider range of people.
Just because it existed before the net doesn't mean that the net's influence shouldn't be looked into.
Then I suggest you Google for 'Stefan Kiszko', he spent 16 years in prison for the sexual murder of Lesley Ann Molseed. He suffered from XYY syndrome, an extra Y chromosome, this results in infertility. The semen found on Lesly's body contained sperm. Ooops, it wasn't him. Still think the death penalty is the only option?
Exactly correct, and shows why, until we can have a system which never convicts an innocent person under any circumstances, we cannot even consider use of the death penalty. Ever. Since our system does (demonstrably) make mistakes, we must make sure that, at the very least, the mistake, if it turns out to be, is reversible. Letting someone out of prison with an apology (and a good-sized check, generally) if they are found to have been wrongfully convicted is possible. Pulling someone out of the ground and restoring them to life if it's found they were wrongfully executed is not.
While I am a father, and I certainly hate molesters as much as anyone, we can't let that cloud our judgment as to the proper way to operate a civilized society. Not using the state as an instrument of murder seems a good place to start, to me.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
I can speak with some authority on this, obviously I can't name names publically but I've knows some of the top people in this area and quite a few victims too. So this isn't my opinion I'm quoting, it's genuine expert practitioner fact.
Paedophilia means literally "Love of children"
Looking at a young woman with a womans body, eg hips, breasts, developed vagina, and seeing something sexually attractive does NOT make you sick, no matter how young she is or how old you are.
If you are a 70 year old man looking at a 16 year old bikini clad babe and thinking "phwooooargh" to yourself does not make you a paedophile.
pre-requisite #1 is the "target" of your lust must be pre-pubescent, eg sexually immature.
Paedophiles feel "threatened" for want of a better word, by things like developed breasts and pubic hair. (possibly its a power thing, you can have more power over a child, and sexual maturity is a sign of approaching adulthood, and much less power over them)
OK?, now lets move on.
You know that really pretty 10 year old girl neighbour / cousin / sister / daughter, you know the one who people say things like "she's gonna be a real heartbreaker when she grown up"
That's the ones you think the paedophile will be after, so that's the ones you try to protect, you couldn't be more wrong.
Paedophiles like androgynous kids (neither especially male or female to look at) and shy kids and quiet kids and lonely kids and neglected kids and overlooked kids, but most of all androgynous kids.
So, if you find pre-pubescent androgynous kids sexually attractive, you are a __potential__ paedophile. Do something about it and you are a paedophile.
If you see a sexually mature pretty and feminine 14 year old and think "phew, never like that when I was at school" then you're not a paedophile, and if you end up doing something about it and having consentual sex with her then you are a sick fuck and a pervert, but you're still not a paedophile.
HTH etc
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
From what I remember when I was at school 13-14 was the average age people started having sex. I don't recall there being anything particularly problematic about it. In all likelihood, the age is probably a few years younger these days...
Not much point setting the age of consent at 18 if everyone's going to ignore it (including the authorities, FWIW).
The article refers to these people as monsters.
I can see how someone who hurts children is a monster.
But, I wonder. What about those that are in the initial phase of this "monstrosity". Does that are feeling sexually attracted to children, who have thoughts about acting on those feelings, but haven't harmed anyone yet.
What can they do?
The thoughts they have makes them monster to 99% of people. They're not gonna get help, they're gonna repress those feelings, let these frustrated impulses fester, until it overruns their reason and they finally go ahead and find themselves a small defenseless child to make their victim.
I think that making this a thought crime to be hidden is making the real crime, the one with victims, more common. The article mentions judgement, and a treatment to learn to controll their evil impulses. Wouldn't it be better if they learned to controll themselves before they did things that they can't take back?
I wonder how many people we know have these feelings... just waiting to find themselves in a situation where it'll come out... scary.
You can't take the sky from me...
I read the article before seeing the link, and never in its many pages did being "anti-internet" seem like a salient point of the story. It was a fascinating exploration of a sexual predator who doesn't fit the common dehumanized stereotype, who wasn't himself abused as a child, who gets along very well with his coworkers (who still hang out with him), who suddenly awakens to this destructive fetish well into his 40's.
The author reports on a number of perspectives: the offender, the leaders of support groups (discussing their design decisions), the offender's coworkers, and his wife's. I found two points particularly interesting from a policy perspective. One was that recidivism rates for child abuse are actually lower than 20% (still pretty high, but not as high as other crimes, and not as high as made seem in popular depictions). Second, a few very gossamer layers of denial are all it takes to seed the fields for future transgressions, and how that denial can be so hard to catch, even under the seemingly very close scrutiny of a wife and support group.
What I DIDN'T take away from the story was how dangerous the internet in general is, and how everybody needs to worry about scary relatives over the internet any more than in person. I especially didn't take the article, as some post patronizingly suggested, as a befuddled and clumsy strike by Old Media against New Media. Seriously guys, can't you get your heads out of the Slashdot talking-point framework for an issue as important and undiscussed as the sexual ause of children?
I imagine that this will be one of the next big awkward social issues that U.S. society has to deal with, as was the Kinsey Report fallout (e.g. widespread infidelity), domestic abuse, drug abuse, etc were in decades past. A possible artifact of this starting trend of reckoning (if it is one) is that recent Kevin Bacon movie which got pretty good reviews; I plan on seeing it.
Those are some very important sentiments. Some people are pedophiles, just like some people are gay and (more often) straight. It's not a choice, and it's not decidedly a result of childhood traumas (some who have traumas turn out pedophile, some who have traumas turn out "normal", some who were not traumatized turn out pedophile).
So these people simply exist. They are not inherently evil or monstrous, they simply are, like some people simply are gay. What they (and everyone else) can choose, is how they act. Resisting your primary sexual urges for the duration of your life takes some (often considerable) effort. Such an effort needs support from those near you, from people you believe in. As you can imagine, if nobody nowhere believes in you, it takes considerable character to believe in yourself. A pedophile will meet universal condemnation and rejection, from everywhere he can turn -- newspapers and TV, but also his closest family and most dear friends will call him the most gruesome things, without knowing it's him they speak of. In case you lack in empathy, let me help you: That's harsh, that wounds.
That is the birth of the child molester. A uniform society which tells you day after day, every day, that you are a monster, that you are one of the last things on earth society allows to be universally hated. As far as height goes, you're the lowest. Oh, you may not have "done anything" yet, since you're only 17 (and hey, we hate you), but you can't hold out forever. Just you wait, you will molest. And we'll be here to spit in your face 'till you do.
Unfortunately for society's expectations, the internet has done wonders for pedophiles everywhere. We suddenly have support fora -- I can tell you most of us really did think we were the only one of our kind (feeling love for children but appalled at the thought of molestation). Now we are united, and we are many. And weekly, places like boychat.org sees new, amazed users who are just finding out they're not alone. Here, we can speak openly without the usual fear that haunts us everywhere else. We can share joys and regrets, frustration and philosophies. Thanks to the internet, I have learnt to live with what I am and not hate myself, and not be afraid of what I am. And most importantly, I was able to start from a confused teenager and build a firm set of ethics which I believe in strongly, and which guide my decicions for what I do.
And my hope remains, that we may one day be judged for our actions, not our attractions.
(Posted anonymously, for obvious reasons)