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.'"

Comments

what's more, anyone can have a child

[raindrop#1]

Of course, anyone can get a child of their own without any vetting at all by the state - assuming they can find a willing partner. I wonder if we will see articles worried that this provide an easy way for a paedophile to gain access to a child? NYT to call for licensing of parents?

Mind you, "internet enables child abuse" makes for a good scare story. I don't suppose the headline "Families enable child abuse" is going to sell so many newspapers.

my thoughs.

[TK2K]

My name is Austin and I am 14. this whole thing sort of freeks me out a bit. I was bored so i did some thinking on this, and this is the gereral direction my thoughts went. I'm 14, that means its normal for me to like girls around that age, find them atractive, ect. Now, we asume as people age, the mature mentaly as well, but this asumption can not always be entirely correct. As my 22 year old friend once said, "If at 16 I found a girl in my class hot, what has changed to make me NOT find a 16 year old hot?"
To break this down, simply, there was no major change in his atraction to girls between 16 and 22, but unlike when he was 16, it is no loger 'right' for him to find a 16 year old atractive, now, the youngest he 'should' find atractive is more like 20.
Im no shrink or anything, but i guess its sorta the same thing with the guy in the artical...

Re:my thoughs.

[KenFury]

I just follow the seinfeld rule. ({your age}/2)+7= min age to be with someone.

As you get older you will realize that a 30 year old guy can not talk to a 16 year old. They are dumb! when I was 16 I did not think so but age changes interests and priorties. It is slow but it happens. Attractivness is not just physical but mental (in both meanings).

Tiffany (lamps)

[nagora]

This reminds me of the case where Tiffany tried to sue eBay because of the huge numbers of fake Tiffany lamps on eBay. They said that they had to have two full-time members of staff trawling eBay to catch them. What they didn't seem to grasp was that they only needed two full-time members of staff to catch them. Before eBay they wouldn't have caught 1% of them.

Likewise, a psychologist friend of mine was pointing out recently that the Internet has made it easier than ever before to catch child molesters without making any significent increase in the numbers of them. In other words: the Internet is the single greatest anti-child-molestation system ever invented.

But that's not such an interesting story and needs a little tiny bit of lateral thought, so it's not going to be in the mainstream press any day soon.

TWW

But his opinion MIGHT change sometime

[PCM2]

I was thinking along similar lines, but kind of backwards.

If I was 13 years old, and somebody offered to show me a copy of Playboy magazine, I'd probably say hell yes. On the other hand, if somebody's 45 year old mom were to "accidentally" wander into the room stark naked, I'd probably go "Yuuuucccchh" and tell all my friends what happened, and we'd all laugh at what a wrinkled, saggy old lady she was. (Maybe some of you were more advanced than I was at that age, but that's the simple fact for me.)

Nowadays I'm 32, and I've dated at least one woman in her 40s. Moreover, this particular woman I'm thinking of seemed cute to me -- not "attractive" in a sort of "she's a warm body and she's basically good-looking enough" way, but actually in an "I'd rather date her than anybody else in this room" kind of way. And when I talked to her and went out to do things with her, she didn't seem like an old lady at all. So something about my mind has changed there, as I've gotten older.

On the other hand, I doubt I'll ever date a 19 year old again. Those chicks are nuts!! Give 'em some time to sort their brains out, I say.

So something's definitely changed. When I was in high school, I was definitely attracted to 16 year old girls. Nowadays I just see them as little girls. When I see them dressing sexy, or making sexual comments or performing sexualized behaviors, body language etc., I think it looks like they're posing, imitating things they learned in the movies or something. To my mind, they're just not very good at it, and as a result it's not particularly flattering on them.

That's just me. I have other friends who see a young girl and go, "Hey hey heyy!" But part of the way this article was written seemed to have an undercurrent of, "any one of us could be a child molester, we're only steps away" ... and if that's what's creeping you out, I just don't think it's true.

If you showed me a sexy photograph of a 16 year old girl, could I be turned on by that? It's possible -- but that's a posed photograph, designed by a photographer who knows how to manipulate an image to get the desired result. Am I attracted to real-life, living and moving 16 year old girls? No sir, I believe I am telling you the god's honest truth when I say that I am just not. I somehow doubt you or your friend are two steps away from being child molesters either.