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Musician Jailed Over Prank YouTube Video
An anonymous reader writes "Evan Emory, a 21-year-old aspiring musician, edited together video of him singing a G-rated song to a bunch of giggling school kids with video of him singing a song with sexually explicit lyrics, and posted it on YouTube. For this stupid joke, done many times by professional comedians (all NSFW, obviously), and admittedly done without getting permission from the children shown 'hearing' him sing naughty words, he was arrested and could face 20 years in prison as a sex offender. On the pretext of looking for 'souvenirs' of child sexual abuse, his house has been searched by police, and the Muskegon County (Michigan) Prosecutor has insinuated (with no further evidence) that Emory actually wants to have sex with children and claims he 'victimized every single child in that classroom.' Emory insists he had no such intention."
Better jail Monty Python as well.
Welcome to United States of Iran
By railroading this guy, what the Muskegon County Prosecutor is actually doing is weakening the severity of real child abuse in the public's mind by diluting it with dumb but ultimately harmless comedy.
Gee, I wonder why he would possibly want to do that....
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
CSI just showed somebody shooting an underage person a dozen times in the chest. Better arrest those actors for murder, then. Idiot.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Here you go folks, let those at the Muskegon Prosecutors office know how you feel about their use of tax dollars....
prosecutor@co.muskegon.mi.us
Sadly, this feels all too true. I have a 2 1/2 year old daughter. I am a 28 year old male. I'm in a happy, stable marriage with my wife. Nothing that I can see is unusual about me in anyway. That said, when I take my daughter alone to McDonalds, or the grocery store, or the park, or (heaven forbid it) the bathroom it often feels that every eye is on me. I see other moms with their kids staring at me and I like to make myself think they are thinking "why doesn't my husband take our kids anywhere", but in reality I know they are probably thinking "I better keep an eye on that guy, he is alone with a little girl. He may be her dad, but who knows and even if he is, all men are sexual predators because that is what the media tells me."
Wow and people wonder why males aren't entering the education system as teachers.
You can say what you want about pedophiles, but at least they drive slowly around schools and playgrounds.
Legally, he is correct. Rationally, it's stupid that he's correct... But he's still correct.
I didn't read the book but the WikiPedia summary of the book makes it sound like child sexual abuse is no big deal when in fact it is a very big deal.
While the book's author is largely correct "that later in life, after the memories are processed, examined, and more fully understood, the experience becomes traumatic" this is precisely why child sexual abuse IS a big deal.
The fact that it is a delayed trauma does not make it non-traumatic, except perhaps to people who die fairly quickly after the abuse happened, before their sub-conscious or conscious mind reacts to it.
Another factor not addressed in the summary which I hope the book covers is the harm done by the ongoing subconscious processing of the experience before the conscious processing happens. This may come out as stress, physical ailments, physically aggressive or other socially inappropriate non-sexual behavior (socially inappropriate sexual behavior is easily explained by "daddy did it to me, it must be okay if I do it to someone else"), and the like well before the child consciously processes the fact that she was abused. I say "she" as most child-sex-abuse victims are female, but the same goes for male victims.
Also, the Wikipedia article says "[Susan] Clancy [the book's author] concludes that since sexual abuse of children is not violent per se." If Clancy does indeed say this then she is just plain wrong or she restricts himself to only certain definitions of violence. In my book, violence does not have to be physical or even overtly coercive. Any act which violates another person without being, on balance, good is in my book an act of violence. Parents and other caretakers frequently violate the personal autonomy of children, it is a necessary part of proper child-rearing. The "on balance good" test covers things like forcing a child to endure pain while he gets his vaccinations, forcing a child to go to bed at a certain time, and all the other things that parents and others can and must to in order to be responsible caretakers.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
What's even bad taste about it? TF summary links to six examples of the same thing. It's a common joke. Having a character do or say something inappropriate in front of children has been done forever.
This is just some retarded prosecutor thinking a clip of someone using dirty words in front of children is the same as a clip of someone actually fucking the children. This is just moronic. Saying "fuck" in front of little Billy is not the same as fucking little Billy.
Nice pun. See you in jail.
Table-ized A.I.
When did "sexually explicit" go from participating in sexual acts to just saying sexually themed things? Next thing you know, thinking dirty thoughts near children will be a crime.
The fact of the matter is, whether the guy actually did it in front of the children, or merely post-edited to make it look like he did, he should not be considered a sex offender. He didn't actually have sex with the children, or even have sex (with an adult) in view of the children. He is facing 20 years in prison for making a bad joke. People who actually had sex with children have gotten shorter prison sentences.
This hysteria has gone too far. It's one thing to investigate this video, determine that not only was no sexual act involving children committed but in fact the video was edited after the fact, and then drop the investigation. It's entirely another thing to decide to charge the creator of the video with sexual abuse of a minor. If successful, this will literally destroy this person as a human being. Assuming he survives the prison time (which most likely will involve frequent, genuine sexual abuse), he will be placed on the sex offender registry, which is essentially a life sentence. He will not be able to live or approach anywhere near any place that has anything to do with children (i.e., most of the country), his name will be publicly and legally slandered in perpetuity, and he will be unable to secure any meaningful employment. Even if the prosecution fails, his name will have been dragged the mud so badly that he may be disowned by his family and forced to move.
All for what? Because some child somewhere may have possibly been exposed to some slightly disturbing words? Even if the video genuinely showed some guy talking trash to children, chances are they didn't understand it or found him silly and ridiculous. Children are remarkably resilient to such things.
I am a 44 year old male. I was at the park a while ago and I always take my labrador and my chicken(she's very free range). Two young girls(probably about 12 or 13 years old) came up to me and started to talk to me. They sat down and were patting the chicken who is very tame and interesting. The whole time they were there I was nice and polite but couldn't help wanting them to just fuck off(mostly because they were inane little twits). A lady walked up and complimented me on the dog and talked about the chicken and said it was nice to see a father out with his kids. I said they weren't my children and they had just come up to pat the chicken. She gave me a filthy look and walked away. Fifteen minutes later a police car pulled up at the park wanting to know everything about me and why I was at the park.They weren't shy about trying to claim I was a molester who used my chicken to attract children.
Also, my wife writes children's book and has 26 published. I was pulled over by the side of the road one day talking on my cellphone and a police car pulled up wanting to know what I was doing. One of the cops saw some kid's books in the car and asked me how old my kids where. I responded that I didn't have kids and he asked me if I used the books as bait. So rest assured USA this pedo-hysteria happens in Australia too.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
Thank God it was not a rooster. The wording might've killed you.
"Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.
Potentially jailing someone for 20 years after making a parody is a slap in the face to victims of real child rape.
So true. One day my cable Internet went down (I work at home). My city has WIFI coverage, so I took my laptop to the park directly across the street from my house to get better reception. On the other side of the park (over 150 meters away) is an elementary school.
While I downloaded my email a couple walked past on the way to pick up their child from school. We made small talk about the speed & cost of the city WIFI.
Five minutes later a police officer walked up and began questioning me. He said that a few parents reported a suspicious man in the park near the school with a computer. I told the cop exactly what I was doing -- Using the WIFI I've paid for in a public place. He asked if I was waiting on the children to be let out of school, and if I would mind if he took a look at the computer.
I told him that my fiancée's son goes to a different school, and I had no children of my own. I also refused any searches unless he had a warrant to do so. The officer became visibly aggravated at this point. He called his partner over while he checked my ID and asked asked why I preferred to be working on my computer closer to the school than in the comfort of my own home (across the street). I pointed out the WIFI antenna above my head, explained in detail how signal to noise ratio relates to WIFI speed, and asked his partner if he didn't prefer being couped up in the stuffy police car instead of this park on such a pretty day.
After a questioning me for another half an hour (trying to get me to slip up and say something suspicious?) the officers eventually left me alone. I thanked them for "doing a fine job", and finally realised why I never see anyone in the park. Apparently, being a 30-something male in a public place is suspicious -- especially if the place is a park near a school (regardless of the proximity of your home).
I say bull to this. I'm in exactly the same boat - happily married with a toddler girl.
THAT IS DISGUSTING.
The place where I worked opened a day care center right in the front of the building for children of employees.
They built a playground in part of where the parking lot used to be, in front of the entrance.
They also had picnic tables for employees who didn;t want to be ramped in the depressing cafeterias during lunch on nice days.
I like kids. I have 6 nieces and a nephew, had a large part in raising my eldest niece, and what it more pleasant and stress reducing than watching a playground full of happy kids? I should add here that I worked for - A TOY COMPANY.
We made toys, we needed to understand kids, we made products for them, needed to see how they interacted with them. And it would be pretty good if you're working at making kids' toys that you - ya'know, kinda LIKE kids, care about them, understand them, be able to see through their eyes, etc. All of that. Would be hard to work for a toy company and not have an understanding of kids.
So I sat out there one day at a picnic table eating my lunch, looking around, sometimes watching the kids play. I was maybe 26 and was also hoping to be a dad someday, I think I would have made a good dad.
The looks I got from people - that was enough, I never went outside for lunch by myself ever again.
For fuck's sake, I was an employee of a toy company on lunch break, and people gave me strange looks for watching the other employee's kids play in the company playground.
There's something wrong when a male of child-rearing age cannot even say "I like kids" without that coming across as creepy to a lot of people.
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My friend and I once decided to go to a fast food restaurant (at the time we were ages 20 and 21). It was raining and my friend didn't have a coat, as a joke we cut up a garbage bag and he put it on, and even though I had a coat I thought it would be goofy if I wore my girlfriend's lab coat. We took a camera to record people's reactions (note what GP said about cameras) which I put in my vest pocket, where it was quite obvious / visible. We stood in line and placed our order, a few people working in the store thought we looked ridiculous and it was funny.
There was a lady in front of us there with her daughter who looked like she was about 15 that suddenly turned around and accused of taping her daughter for sexual purposes. Her daughter was dressed as a whore but obviously that was not our aim; If we were there to make videos of girls we would probably not wear weird costumes to attract attention to ourselves, and we might actually try to hide the camera. I offered to delete all the video we had shot because I understand some people might be uncomfortable being taped without their consent, but she insisted that we had hidden the pornographic material on the camera and that we wouldn't really delete anything. Her husband called the cops and at that point my friend and I figured we should just stay and explain ourselves to them because if we leave it's going to look like we fled, so we sat around and waited for the cops to show up. They eventually showed up and escorted my friend and I to the squad car where we explained our side of the story. After another half hour of waiting while they talked to the insane lady in the restaurant the cop came back and asked to see the camera which I happily handed over and showed him how to retrieve what was on it. Eventually he let us go, and the restaurant banned us for "causing" a disturbance.
Long story short the moral of the story is that it is a crime to 1) Be male and be near girls under 18 2) Do / wear anything weird 3) Be in possession of a camera. Even though we weren't actually arrested or charged with anything we still had to waste a few hours of our day to deal with the incident and suffer the embarrassment of the situation in public just because we were accused.