Peverted Justice and Pedophiles

I just came back from a friendly round of golf with some friends at church (yes, I finished in last place, though I am encouraged by the fact that I bettered my score by ten strokes compared to a few weeks ago - still, the score is nothing to write home about). My wife is busy in the other room preparing for work tomorrow, the kids at the daycare are all asleep (as is my son), so I thought I'd catch up on email from this week, something that I haven't been doing much of at all.

I got an interesting email from a person in the U.S. with whom I speak with often about U.S. / Canadian politics and social issues. The email had a YouTube link included, which played a video sniplet of a U.S. television show called Perverted Justice (it airs on NBC, it looks like), in which they set up live sting operations in which they get an over-18 "actress" to impersonate a 12 or 13 year old online, in order to lure potential pedophiles into meeting. With hidden cameras in tow, they show the whole sting operation.

While I haven't watched Peverted Justice previously, they did air something remarkably similar on the Canadian investigative/journalistic show W5, earlier this year. My wife and I watched it and she got sick to her stomach seeing how many married (and sometimes with kids) people showed up at this house to have sexual encounters with these pre-teeens. As if that wasn't bad enough, when everything was set and the pervert was engaging in conversation with the "teen", out pops the host of the show, with the online correspondence in hand and asks pointed questions to the perpetrator. Sometimes, the host will rummage through the bag(s) that the perpetrator brings, finding all sorts of disgusting stuff inside.

In watching this video clip on YouTube, it brings to mind something that I've been meaning to talk about on this blog anyway - which is why it seems that pedophilia and child porn is on the rise these days (or seemingly so). When I was a little boy, there was some mention of inappropriate touching in our school classrooms, but ultimately, the conclusion seemed to be that these were rare occurrences and that it was some mental sicko who was responsible for this. Some have argued that cases of molestation have always been there - it's just that it was much more hidden 25 years ago. There was a very negative stigma towards molesters in general. I was never molested, nor did I know anyone who was, so my sense is that it was "safer" back then than it is now.

I have no idea why it seems that pedophilia is so prevalent these days, but perhaps I can brainstorm some possibilities:

1) Like it or not, I think that the internet has played a huge part in this. In the old days, I would imagine that pedophiles would operate by mail and secret meetings and so forth. Now, with the anonymity of the internet, any predator can easily disguise themselves under a plethora of online monikers. I was listening to CFRB this past week, and they mentioned that the social website myspace.com, which I understand is more geared towards teenagers, has about 28,000 (that's right, twenty-eight thousand) registered sex offenders as members. That's kind of scary if you ask me. Because perpetrators now have the internet to hide behind, they can much more easily ply their craft and seduce kids.

2) This will be a controversial one for me to discuss, but as it is simple brainstorming, I thought I'd just throw it out. It would appear, to me anyway, that kids are dressing more and more provocatively these days. Yes, I know the response - no one invites an attack, a molestation, a rape. This is true. But knowing that there are probably more perverts out there than there used to be, by dressing in an even remotely sexual manner, I think that they are not helping to curb the fantasies of potential pedophiles. My wife went to the mall earlier this week, as it was our nine-year anniversary on Wednesday and I gave her some gift certificates, and she had mentioned to me that there were these girls there, who weren't any older than 11 or 12, who had "practically nothing on" (her words, not mine). My wife said that she was "very pretty". Now, you add the fact that she was a cute girl, coupled with the fact that she was wearing pretty revealing clothes - I think that is just helping to conjure up fantasies for a potential pedophile.

3) Porn seems to be considered somewhat acceptable these days, almost fashonable. I definitely don't believe there is the social stigma associated with viewing porn. Case in point - last month on a call-in radio show, they had women call in and expressed whether they would have any issues with working porn themselves or having their husbands / boyfriends watch it. To my surprise, all 12 women callers on that segment of the show had no issues with it, and some even encouraged it as a marital aid. To no one's surprise, all the men calling in (about 5 or 6) had no problem with it. I think with an acceptable view of pornography uses, that has cut some of the stigma out of variations of pornography. I'm not saying that society in general finds child porn acceptable, but I am saying that because porn in general seems to be more societally accepted, the makers of child porn have a pretty large audience to which they can cater their products (coupled with the internet's use of file sharing programs and what not).

4) Children seem to be pushed to grow up faster these days, by society in general. Look at the plethora of DVDs and toys and learning materials available for kids. We're churning out kids who act more like adults, speaking with more sophistication earlier. Children who act like typical kids are called "immature" and not as developmentally advanced. It almost goes back to the old days in England where kids who were 11 or 12 were expected to work full time hours in labourious conditions (and interestingly enough, the age of marriage was considerably lower). You even see this in various industries - kids who are young teenagers are becoming pro golfers and tennis players. Young actors and actresses abound (believe it or not, I heard on the radio a year or so ago that there was a website dedicated to some 12-year-old actress that has some running clock that counts down to when she turns 18. I can't think of too many noble reason for such a site, but that seems to be how prevalent this stuff is). Fashion and perfume companies are signing up models as young as 11. Children have much more pressure on them to grow up faster and of course, I would imagine this would make them attractive to pedophiles.

Ultimately though, I think it may also come down to the fact that we live, and have lived for the last decade or more, in a relatively permissive environment. People's individual rights of speech and expression are protected so fiercely that even if they are encroaching on the border between child pornography and artistic depictions of children, the law does not have enough provisions to shut them down early, in the interests of society as a whole. Parents don't correct their kids as much as they should, so their kids grow up thinking that everything is relatively acceptable, so what's wrong with fantasizing about a pre-pubescent? True, laws and governements can never tell people how or what to think (and it is not their place to do so), but surely they must realize their responsibility to protect their most vulnerable members of their society, even if it means that it infringes on someone's right to free expression. And lawmakers and law enforcement need to realize that those who are convicted as sex offenders are very unlikely to just "change". Urges can be suppressed, either with will power or through medication (and even then, the assumption is that the offender takes the medication). Those convicted of crimes against children should never be released to the general public again - they can be monitored all you want, but I've always believed that if you have a pre-disposition to this type of sexual attraction, it is not "fixable", so it would not be in society's best interest (nor the neighbourhood's, where the convict is being released) to release these perverts and hope for the best.