Psychology

January 23, 2005 12:28 PM

How does a man enter the realm of the monstrous? How broad or thin is the border between the normal and that realm? The Making of a Molester (NYT Mag.).
posted by semmi (51 comments total)

How crazy is it that the author managed to get comments from a "Dr. Kafka"?
posted by The Thnikkaman at 1:15 PM on January 23, 2005

Very interesting article. I've often wondered about the hard lines the law lays in regards to "adult" and "child". In the article he mentions that he became sexually attracted to the girls as puberty hit them. A bunch of questions spring in my head:

• Were our great-grandparents pedophiles when they married and had children at 15?
• Do European children somehow mature faster than Americans (age of consent is lower)
• Given the young ages some kids lose their virginity these days, are their partners pedophiles?
• Is there any difference from fantasizing about a 21 year-old Asian girl that looks far younger than her age?

An interesting quote from the article:

The data show that sexual abusers of children are more likely than the general population to have been child sexual-abuse victims themselves but ''most pedophiles have not,'' he emphasized, ''been sexually abused.''

When I read stories like this, I am reminded of the lust-fest that followed Natalie Portman in The Professional (which, not surprisingly, was dealt with more specifically in Beautiful Girls).

Lots of questions, no answers.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 1:30 PM on January 23, 2005

C_D, I don't deny that there's a lot of gray areas surrounding this issue, and that the current mode of thinking can lead to bad things like hysterical witch hunts. But at the same time there still needs to be some protection for those children who are actual sexual victims of pedophiles.

I realize that you didn't suggest abandoning any regulation, so don't take this as an attack, I'm just attempting to explicate the mix of squick and apprehension (at both the men described in this article, and the ugliness that can manifest itself from that apprehension.)

Generally, our legal system should be about protecting the weak from the tyranny of the strong. We do that for racial and ethnic minorites, women, and gays. Protecting children from adults (and I don't mean just sexually) would be the most clearcut and simple case of this you'd think. But it doesn't seem to work out that way.
posted by jonmc at 1:45 PM on January 23, 2005

I just finished reading this in the in-print paper and it was clear that even the author didn't know what to make of the guy who was the central person in this article. The guy has 35 years of probation which in his case is basically tantamount to house arrest. The writer's not totally sure if they guy is a habitual liar or just having a very very hard time coming to grips with what he did [which was fantasizing about his 12 year old step-daughter and solicting her [unsuccessfuly] for sex via IM when she was in the same house as him, and playing weird grab and tickle in the dark flashlight games with her that went into the realm of the inappropriate]. There's so much of a weird shroud around talking about any of this -- the author at one point says it's easier to talk about hitting your children in moments of rage than it is to talk about being attracted to them in monents of.... what? -- that it's hard to have open dialog about what works and what doesn't in terms of treating sex offenders.
posted by jessamyn at 1:54 PM on January 23, 2005

Our society celebrates and sexualizes youth, then puts on great airs about protecting the children from the evil, sick pedophiles. So it's OK to portray an 18 year-old model as a 13 year-old in her underwear ("I love my Calvin Kleins"), but "Keep those sickos away from my precious!" whenever someone actually responds to those messages on anything more than a consumer level.

It's like, "We're glad that these images of very young girls arouses your interest to buy this product. Let's just leave it at that, OK?"

I particularly liked the psychological test that was done where the participants would rate images from 1 (Beast!) to 7 (I'd hit it!). The testers knew the exact ages of the people in the pictures, but obviously the test-takers didn't. So how's that work, exactly?

"I find this girl very sexually attractive." "Ah ha! While she might look 17, she's actually 12! Ergo you're sick!"

On preview:
"the author at one point says it's easier to talk about hitting your children in moments of rage than it is to talk about being attracted to them in monents of.... what? --"

I agree, jessamyn. It was pretty sad to see that, even in group sessions, they felt the need to censor their true feelings. It wasn't until the lie detector came out that you actually got some real honesty and openness. But you know that it would be used against them... which is why they're not going around telling everyone they're a "predator." But the author responds to this deception as if the guys don't have a handle on their problems. I don't know, either, but I don't think the dishonesty is necessarily proof of anything but their shame.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 2:08 PM on January 23, 2005

the author at one point says it's easier to talk about hitting your children in moments of rage than it is to talk about being attracted to them in monents of.... what?

Well, as abhorrent as beating children is, most people can related to the urge to violence in moments of anger, even agianst kids or our own family. The idea of veiwing your own children or any child as a sex object fills most people with an elemental revulsion for a multitude of reasons. So, it's just tough to get inside their heads, which I imagine must be a huge barrier to therapists. So they turn to the only other people they can relate to on that score-other pedophiles, with predictable results.
posted by jonmc at 2:09 PM on January 23, 2005

That was a fascinating, if chilling, article. One bit stood out for me in particular:

How did he get there? What are the causes of child sexual molestation, which is committed against perhaps 20 percent of girls and 5 to 10 percent of boys under the age of consent in the United States, according to David Finkelhor, the director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.

Those statistics are terrifying, and way, way higher than I had previously assumed.
posted by simonw at 2:14 PM on January 23, 2005

Civil: A pedophile is aroused by prepubescent children. I don't really think society uses prepubescent children as sexual objects, at least on a large scale. Even when minors become sexual objects, it is almost always by accentuating their more adult features (ie Brittany Spears and Lindsey Lohan are far from flat chested).
posted by Doug at 2:16 PM on January 23, 2005

Ecch. I can only get to the second page on this. NO desire whatsoever to click to the next part of the story. I hope further understanding of this only leads to prevention, and not the arming of such predators with knowledge to further their unhealthy desires. No matter how benign and misunderstood they seem to be.

On preview: I don't think benign is the right word.
posted by bdave at 2:41 PM on January 23, 2005

A pedophile is aroused by prepubescent children.

Ok, so in this guy's case, he said he was first aroused when he noticed that they had started developing. That means he's not strictly a pedophile.

And no one's addressed one of the questions I had: are guys that are attracted to "just legal" Asian girls with prepubescent features pedophiles? (young skin, flat chests, small height -- gross generalizations, but you get the point) Just as an example, this j-pop star (Kwon Boa) is 19. Hell, there's an entire industry in Japan devoted to school girls.

Even when minors become sexual objects, it is almost always by accentuating their more adult features.

Come on.

and not the arming of such predators with knowledge to further their unhealthy desires

Well, perhaps if you had read the article, you'd know that this article has nothing to do with arming the crazies with crazy knowledge to further their crazy desires. But it's exactly this kind of deliberately ignorant knee-jerk reaction that amazes me.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 2:56 PM on January 23, 2005

Several decades ago, I spent a few years in the Philippines where a large percentage of the ex-pats are a) male and b) there for the sex. Needless to say, there were plenty of pedophiles.

Nothing can describe my initial horror at living among that group who considered sex with young kids as normal and reasonable. And certainly nothing can describe how terrible I felt about myself and my beliefs when I' been there for awhile and I realized that most of these guys were actually pretty likable. I wanted to hate them for what they were doing to those women and those kids, but other than the fact that they lived with and slept with children, they pretty much seemed like most other guys one meets in Australia or Germany or The States.

It's much easier to look at predators as strangers in trench coats than it is to think that they're the same guys that you have barbeques with and who tell jokes and adopt stray cats.
posted by leftcoastbob at 3:04 PM on January 23, 2005

Generally, our legal system should be about protecting the weak from the tyranny of the strong. We do that for racial and ethnic minorites, women, and gays. Protecting children from adults (and I don't mean just sexually) would be the most clearcut and simple case of this you'd think. But it doesn't seem to work out that way.

Nicely put, jonmc. But yes, the psychological terrain of the family (what Alice Munro called 'the cauldron of intimate life'), with all its secrets and frustrations and angers, will pretty much always confound social control. This doesn't let anyone out of the human requirement to be responsible and empathetic, to not abuse their power over others, to try their best to keep what the writer in the article called the 'anarchy of lust' from harming anyone else.
posted by jokeefe at 3:05 PM on January 23, 2005

Civil Disobedient: And no one's addressed one of the questions I had: are guys that are attracted to "just legal" Asian girls with prepubescent features pedophiles?

Being attracted to underage girls is to pedophile as fantasizing about killing your boss is to murderer. It's the act, not the thought, that counts.
posted by Bort at 3:13 PM on January 23, 2005

Ah, statistics. If we go to something approaching the source we find that the 20% figure is self-reported, and includes both "sexual assault" and "sexual abuse". It is not clear what how either category is defined, or what "self reported" is. However, I see that "sexual assault" is rare (2 per 1000) and the rate is declining (it was 5/1000 ten years ago).

I've emailed the centre for clarification, I'll report back if I get a reply.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 3:14 PM on January 23, 2005

jokeefe-it's that "sanctity of the family," bullshit hobbling us. I understand that children need support and love to grow up well, but deifying genetic relations to the point of overlooking physical, sexual or emotional abuse is dangerous.
posted by jonmc at 3:16 PM on January 23, 2005

C_D: I think the Asian comment may be a bit of an unintentional red herring (note I say unintentional), because if you've lived for any time in an Asian country, you'll find that you get an instinctual sense for ages. I think Boa is a hottie, but I also think she looks 19, and as far as I know, thinking a 19 year old is a hottie is not pedophilia.

Pedophilia isn't the pure mathematical "being attracted to a person who is underage", but "being attracted to a person because they either look like they are underage, or because you know they are underage". In Boa's case, I think she looks like she is of age, and she is of age, so I don't think pedophilia ever comes into it.
posted by Bugbread at 3:24 PM on January 23, 2005

My thinking is pedophiles have some sexual inadequacy and have to turn to inexperienced children to be aroused or feel comfortable with themselves sexually, an experienced mature female would bring attention to their inadequacy.
posted by disgruntled at 3:35 PM on January 23, 2005

disgruntled: on a primitive level I can understand how you came to that conclusion, but what about pedophiles who marry, father children, and molest their own kids?
posted by jonmc at 3:38 PM on January 23, 2005

That 20% figure has to be inflated. A sexual assault taking place before the age of consent could mean a 17 year old having someone grab her ass on the subway - hardly in the same class as child molestation, and possibly more common years ago (when the adult women surveyed were minors) than today.
posted by amber_dale at 4:01 PM on January 23, 2005

Y'know... a friend of my family got busted for sexually abusing a shitload of kids. He'd been a missionary to China, a respected member of the community, a godfather to some people I knew and rally cared about...

And he was a complete fucker. I understand, intellectually, that we muts try to 'understand' and not 'shame' people so that they hide the real issues they're dealing with. But, y'know. I'll be honest and say that I have no ability to do that when I look at the life of a man who molested dozens of kids from the time they were toddlers to their early teens. People I love are still working through the aftermath of that a decade later.

While I think the sexualization of youth is part of the problem, and the whole 'age of consent' question is fuzzy and tricky, there is something cracked, broken, and dangerous about someone who experiences the impulses that he did. Even if one doesn't act on them, I think it's more than enough reason to get his ass into a psychotherapist and keep him away from kids.

Sorry. Rant mode off.
posted by verb at 4:29 PM on January 23, 2005

This is why I'm totally amazed when people think everything is "black" and "white."
posted by Hands of Manos at 4:49 PM on January 23, 2005

Bort, I would say the exact opposite. Pedophilia is a psychological condition, not a criminal classification.

Civil: I will give you that CK campaign, but I would also say that, to me, that campaign was an exception, and possibly created specifically to engender controversy. We're bombarded with sexual images every day, and the vast majority are nothing like that.
posted by Doug at 4:59 PM on January 23, 2005

The problem is, there is no genome of human desire.

To 'want' is a fairly fundamental urge with humans, and we go to extremes to satisfy it. When the bar keeps moving - for example, the age of consent being a legal construct rather than anything real - people are going to get caught out. They can't honestly adjust what they want to meet legislative standards.

The grey area is getting larger as youth becomes somewhat more overtly sexualised. Of course, there are some fairly clear cases where black and white does exist - such as with extremely young victims. It mystifies me, but I don't think humans legislating humans is a way of dealing with something like this. Or rather, it's not a solution, but only something to restrict it's frequency until a real solution can be done.

Doug, 'homicidal' is a psychological condition, and 'sexual abuse of minors' is a criminal classification. I thought Bort's analogy was appropriate, even if there was some crossover between conditions & classifications.
posted by cosmonik at 5:14 PM on January 23, 2005

Just as an example, this j-pop star (Kwon Boa) is 19. Hell, there's an entire industry in Japan devoted to school girls.

She's Korean. It is amusing perhaps (and instructional, but not in the way you might suggest) that I've seen Japanese skit comedy which satirizes her as fat and haggard-looking.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:34 PM on January 23, 2005

The differentiation between mental health psychoses and criminal actions seems to be getting blurred here.

To have sexual desires toward prepubescent children is sick. To decide that your sick desires take precedence over that child's safety and personhood is criminal.
posted by jonmc at 5:40 PM on January 23, 2005

disgruntled, that may be one reason, but I doubt it's the only one. I know John Money's been rightly criticised for the dreadful mistakes he made, but I still think there's something in the notion of the "lovemap" - a constellation of stimuli for arousal or libido that get imprinted fairly young, that's more fragile in males, and which can turn the sex drive on to inappropriate objects. Your suggestion sounds too rational to me.

jonmc, dunno about your jurisdiction, but in mine the insanity defense rests on showing that the accused did not understand that what they were doing was wrong (basically the so-called M'Naghten test). There is much debate about this; imagine a mental illness where you know that act X is wrong but are powerless to resist the urge. It's an argument that goes way beyond paedophilia into just about any crime that can be motivated by disease. Especially when mental disorders are diagnosed by the presence of a checklist of behaviours, if most of them are criminal, there's a certain difficulty in separating the culpable from the blameless.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:14 PM on January 23, 2005

I'm talking morally, not legally, genius.
posted by jonmc at 6:58 PM on January 23, 2005

To have fantasies of sex with prepubescent children is sick. So are fantasies of rape. Daydreaming about killing a man, even one who has wronged you horribly, that's sick too. It doesn't matter. If you fantasize about horribly raping and murdering every person you ever see, but never do it even once, who does it hurt?

Act out on it, and you've become a monster, someone to be stigmatized, hated, loathed, feared. The gut instinct is to protect the children, throw these inhuman bastards away and treat them as if they made Charles Manson look like a kindly neighbor from a 50's TV show.

There's a few problems. Kids have longer to grow up now, most children 13-18 at least have solid opportunity to obtain a full education, learn within the safety of parental reach, and delay raising a family long after that. However, that's not how it always was. Once a girl became old enough to bear children, that was old enough to do just that. Men were preferred to be older, physically developed fully, so that they would be better providers. A 25 year old man taking a 14 year old bride was considered normal only a few hundred years ago.

Now, we're given an arbitrary age to limit ourselves at. It's inexcusable to infringe upon someone who doesn't know any better, but how does one's 18th birthday change things? Many, many women are mentally and emotionally immature enough at 18 that only a fool would say she is capable of true consent.

What these men have done is absolutely horrid, but the line truly is far thinner than you would imagine. It is only right to keep them away from children, it's far easier to commit a crime the second time. However, we can't consider them to be "freaks". They just acted on their sick fantasies, they committed a crime that we don't want to consider any of ourselves capable of.

I hate to bring up something so overused, but consider Nazi Germany. They were normal people, but so many of them committed such horrible and atrocious war crimes that even calling many of them "human" is considered far too kind. People can become monsters far too easily. Do not think of a child molester "This man is sub-human and beneath anything that real people do", think "Why did this fool commit such a horrible act, and how can we prevent it in the future?"

Just my thoughts on the matter, of course.
posted by Saydur at 6:59 PM on January 23, 2005

"... imagine a mental illness where you know that act X is wrong but are powerless to resist the urge."

Pedophiles do resist their urges because they don't molest children in the middle of the schoolyard when everyone is around.
posted by disgruntled at 7:00 PM on January 23, 2005

This thread makes me think of a site called Perverted Justice, which was posted on Metafilter last year. Volunteers who work at Perverted Justice pose as underage girls and boys, and chat with men (it's always men) over instant messenger. The text of the chats are posted, and there are hundreds of them on the site.
I find these chatlogs really fascinating, mostly because of their similarity. The men almost always ask the same questions (for instance, they almost always ask if the girls are "shaved"), use the same techniques in asking about the kids' family situation ("risk assessment") or making the kid feel comfortable ("grooming"). Their fantasies are remakably similar (so many of them ask the girls to wear a short skirt and no panties when they meet). Even though there are some real predatory sickos on the site (just check out the Top 5 Slimiest, and this one in particular is mind-blowing) , sometimes I can't help but feel sorry for the guys. Most of them just seem like lonely men who didn't get laid enough in high school/college and whose heads are full of the Britney-esque images any American is bombarded with daily - "this is the female ideal - if you aren't sleeping with/haven't slept with a girl who looks like this, you haven't really made it..." But then, isn't American consumer culture all about making people feel unsatisfied, by setting the standard for happiness beyond what most of us can ever hope to reach?
posted by banishedimmortal at 7:02 PM on January 23, 2005

this is the female ideal - if you aren't sleeping with/haven't slept with a girl who looks like this, you haven't really made it

I think that's a huge part of it. But it's so much easier to just call them crazy sickos.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 7:30 PM on January 23, 2005

Pedophiles do resist their urges because they don't molest children in the middle of the schoolyard when everyone is around.

Actually, and I know this both from personal accounts and from the court reports, some do. Apart from the fact that the best place to hide something often in plain sight (which is a prudential, how-can-I get-away-with-it sort of decision) there definitely are people who cannot restrain themselves even at the risk of severe penalties.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 7:34 PM on January 23, 2005

The differentiation between mental health psychoses and criminal actions seems to be getting blurred here.

To have sexual desires toward prepubescent children is sick. To decide that your sick desires take precedence over that child's safety and personhood is criminal.

I actually agree with you jonmc but who makes the rules? Where is it wrong and where is it right? What is your definition of "prepubescent"?
Others here and here
posted by darksmiler at 7:49 PM on January 23, 2005

I think the difference between prepubescent and pubescent (and...post-pubescent) is fairly clear, since it's a biological state as opposed to anything abstract. The greying comes when you say at what level of (post-)pubescence is one able to give consent regarding their own sexual activity?

Society says 16-18, as a rule. There is no magic number, since it's down to the individual's development.
posted by cosmonik at 8:01 PM on January 23, 2005

What is your definition of "prepubescent"?

My definition of prepubescent would be "before showing the sins of pubescence, or adulthood."

Now, obviously that varies from person to person, thus making a precise age difficult to pin down. That's where the "gray areas" I referred to earlier come in.

But in terms of figuring out the psychology of the perpetrator, I think this view is crucial. The details in banishedimmortal's comment bear this out. The "non-adultness" is what makes them appeal to these people. But, those human beings who exhibit these traits tend to be young, and weak physically and pyschologically, compared to an adult which makes them more vulnerable and deserving of extra protection.

on preview: cosmonik's on the right track.
posted by jonmc at 8:06 PM on January 23, 2005

Where is it wrong and where is it right? What is your definition of "prepubescent"?

Prepubescent: Newborn to age 12. Really, this is not a tough one.
posted by mlis at 8:13 PM on January 23, 2005

MLIS, why 12?

Girls are reaching puberty at much earlier ages, and this trend continues, particularly among cultures which wed young, give birth in their early teens, and then go through menopause in their 40's.

So you can define puberty as a biological state, but it's not as easy as narrowing it down to an number.
posted by cosmonik at 8:47 PM on January 23, 2005

an number.
posted by cosmonik at 8:50 PM on January 23, 2005

jonmc wrote: "before showing the sins of pubescence, or adulthood."

Freudian slip?
posted by brevator at 9:02 PM on January 23, 2005

Found an interesting and somewhat alarming website about how to not come off as a pervert on the abel test mentioned in the article...I wondered about how easy it'd be to cheat the test when I was reading...
posted by nile_red at 9:18 PM on January 23, 2005

nile_red, since it measures reaction time rather than what it tells you it measures (the 1-7 rating) then I'd assume it'd be easy to beat. They need to combine it with a biometric measure of arousal (blood flow monitoring, a plethysmograph or something. The Abel Assessment is severely flawed as it is, and yet law enforcement and psychological services view the results as valid or indicative, and really, they're neither. There are a myriad of reasons you spend longer on one image than another.

Upon further reading of that NYT article:

But in itself the strong erotic response to adolescents was entirely normal.

That's not taken out of context...talk about mixed signals.
posted by cosmonik at 9:53 PM on January 23, 2005

I am perplexed by (what seems to me to be) the relatively calm and measured discussion on this thread, as compared to, say (what seemed to me to be) the near bloodythirstiness on the internet sex offender registry thread. Why the difference? Is it because this article is about an actual person, rather than a faceless horde?
posted by kyrademon at 10:58 PM on January 23, 2005

Girls are reaching puberty at much earlier ages,

Worse, children in general are socially treated as children until much later in age. There's the catch. A hundred years ago, it would not seem strange for a 13 year old to work for a living, or be placed on a ship to immigrate to a new country alone, or marry. Ever since after WW2, Western society has been trying to delay maturity as long as possible, leading to obvious social dissonance among teens and their parents.

We conveniently ignore biology with some kind of idealized notion of childhood, then are positively shocked! when we hear of kids having sex at 13.

I am perplexed by (what seems to me to be) the relatively calm and measured discussion on this thread

I think it's because we've gotten most of the mental dichotomy out of the way from the onset. But if you peruse the thread, you'll still see plenty of people trying to prove they're good little citizens with their knee-jerk, unthinking outrage. It's a bit like charismatic church followers trying to out-do each other speaking in tongues. "I hate these sickos!" "Well I think they should all die!" etc.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 12:12 AM on January 24, 2005

Maybe the term ephebophilia would be useful in discussions like this: an attraction to adolescents.
posted by pracowity at 1:07 AM on January 24, 2005

We conveniently ignore biology with some kind of idealized notion of childhood, then are positively shocked! when we hear of kids having sex at 13.

There's a big difference between sexual experimentation among similar-aged pubescent children and an adult family member or or other trusted person 'training' or exploiting a person of the same age. If you read the article it's pretty clear that the abuser's stepdaughter had, in fact, been doing a little experimentation. It was then that the abuser became aroused by her *actual* sexuality and chose to exploit it.

Speaking as a woman who started experimenting sexually around age 13, I would have still been traumatized if any of that stuff with my peers was found out about and an adult took advantage of it. And yes, I am making a distinction between 'adult' vis a vis age and 'person in power.' At 15 I had a 23-year old boyfriend, but he certainly wasn't a teacher or family member or anything like that-- he was a 'peer' to my mind. And age-wise there's a big difference (or there was, to me) between 23 and, say, 40.

Personally I've long believed that ephebophiles want to relive the thrill of experimentation of those years and that's why they fixate on pubescent kids. Perhaps adult sex, without the thrill of transgression and the utterly new sensations, pales in comparison?
posted by miss tea at 5:20 AM on January 24, 2005

There's a big difference between sexual experimentation among similar-aged pubescent children and an adult family member or or other trusted person 'training' or exploiting a person of the same age.

There's definately a distinction, but it's completely one-sided -- that is, the adult's side. bannishedimmortal's link shows some pretty clear-cut cases of this: youthful curiosity meets older predator. The adult has curiosity as well, but in almost all the cases this is tempered with acceptance that what they're doing is wrong (for instance, they almost all make a point of suggesting they could get in trouble for their actions) and subtle forms of manipulation.

Personally I've long believed that ephebophiles want to relive the thrill of experimentation of those years and that's why they fixate on pubescent kids.

That's a possible element. There's also the fact that youth is celebrated in the media and in advertising. When all you see in magazines, billboards, advertisements, television shows and movies is young people, should it come to any surprise that someone might think that's the ideal? And I would bet the biological factors involved in youth preference outweigh the "youth mispent" argument. But it feels a lot better to think that these guys are losers, and they've always been losers.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:33 AM on January 24, 2005

Seriously though. Are people here willing, at least, to draw a distinction between a guy who has the hots for a mature 17 year old, and a grandfather who molests his 6 year old granddaugher? There's nothing about "reliving the thrill of that age" involved.
posted by verb at 8:18 AM on January 24, 2005

Some UK statistics and myths relating to child sex abuse.

As usual, knowledge is the key to understanding and dealing with this issue.

It reminds me of the time when some girls at my school (14 and 15 year olds) used to work for a 40 year old hair-dresser who used to engage in sexual activity with them all. At the time nobody thought anything of it, as the girls were also busy sexually with their male peers.
In retrospect, I believe that this was a case of serial child abuse, although the girls who got it the worst were those who were already getting it at home, as I understand it.
Low self esteem, lack of support and peer pressure to be sexually advanced may have contributed as well. Also, I know some of them said that they liked the attention.

Not easy to untangle.
posted by asok at 8:55 AM on January 24, 2005

To comment a little more on Perverted Justice...

I worked there as a volunteer, catching the guys who were doing that (my name there was Valdez, the logs are in late 2003). Within minutes of entering a Yahoo regional teen chat with a profile indicating an age of 12 and a picture that was pre-pubescent, between five and 20 men would begin asking inappropriate questions. Several, inevitably, would show penis cams. I developed a permanent revulsion to webcams due to this stuff.

Some of the men would discuss taking the girls away, running away with them to another state/country. Often these seemed to be people who were too experienced to be caught by P-J methods - which require a photo and a confirmed phone call to a legit number prior to nailing the guys' asses to the wall. They would not give any personal information but wanted to meet in private places. Very disturbing stuff.

When a 35 year old guy's third question to a prepubescent he's just met online is "what kind of panties do you like to wear?"....there are problems.

I had to stop working for P-J even though I believed very much in what they were doing. It just sickened me. The worst part was that after a while I felt they were actually making these guys tougher to prosecute - rather than learning "don't be a fucking molester," they were learning "don't give any personal information." And that's bad.
posted by u.n. owen at 9:21 AM on January 24, 2005

When I was 14, I dated a guy who was 25. I looked pretty mature for my age--same height and weight as I am now, with a c-cup bra. I told him that I was 15. We dated for 2 years. I was the one who initiated the relationship--I kissed him in his truck on the way to a mutual friend's house. It's reasonable to assume that he had some interest in me prior to me kissing him, but that must have allayed any fears that he had about being a sexual predator. In retrospect, this was not a very healthy arrangement, if for no other reason than our life-experience levels were completely different. He had a job. I had home room. I eventually did fall in love with someone else my own own age--much younger and prettier--and broke up with the old guy. He was devastated. He had planned to marry me. Like I said, I know this wasn't terribly healthy for either us, but I certainly don't think it was criminal. He hasn't dated any minors since then, to my knowledge. At 14 it seemed reasonable for me to be dating him. I thought it meant that I was cool and mature. Now, as a 29 year old, I can't even imagine going after someone so young.
I think my experience really illustrates just how gray these gray areas can be. Which is not to suggest that we can excuse people who prey on children. The guy who propositioned his 12 year old step daughter was clearly way the fuck out of line. Even if she had come on to him, it would still be out of line for him to go for it, but maybe just a little less creepy. I can tell you that my first boyfriend wasn't the only 20-something male I met as a 13-16 year-old who tried to have sex with me. I guess it's creepy, but I can also see how it's completely natural. I dressed like a little tart. I liked the attention. Their instincts took over.
posted by apis mellifera at 3:01 PM on January 24, 2005

Instincts and biology mean fuck-all in this context. For every morally ambiguous situation of this nature there are probably thousands that are completely what they seems to be, some creepy fuck acting without regard to the well-being of another under the directive of their own selfish, shit-filled soul.
posted by nanojath at 9:34 PM on February 22, 2005