Strange Bedfellows

September 7, 2006 1:19 PM

Strange Bedfellows:Xavier Von Erck dropped out of college, started a pedophile-hunting vigilante group, and spent months posing as a woman to trick an online enemy to fall in love with him. Meet the new savior of NBC News.
posted by P-Soque (68 comments total)

Why'd you link to the same thing twice? And copy/pst the text?

there is something that might be a good fpp hiding in there but this is skint.
posted by edgeways at 1:28 PM on September 7, 2006

Man. What Von Erck did to that Railey guy is just nasty.
posted by dead_ at 1:30 PM on September 7, 2006

Ugh. I took Von Erck for a run-of-the-mill creep until I reached this part:

After a spate of kidnappings and beheadings in Iraq in 2004, Von Erck wrote that he was "positively appalled at Nicholas Berg," who "kneeled meekly and struggled naught [sic] as his death was thrust upon him ... bending to the will of the kidnappers." He was even more enraged by the "shameless and pathetic" conduct of Kim Sun-il, a kidnapped South Korean translator who appeared in a video released by Iraqi insurgents (he was later beheaded). "The asshole, yes, the asshole, screamed in English, pleading for his life," Von Erck wrote. "Let me be the first and probably only American to wish for his speedy death.... No life of such a worm, a coward, can be considered important." Of 9/11 conspiracy theorists, Von Erck had this to say: "I wish I could fucking kill 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Yes, kill. I'd like to kill them. Kill them all... I want you to die. I wish you would die. Why don't you die? Just die."

That's way beyond the pale.
posted by Stauf at 1:33 PM on September 7, 2006

I guess they don't call it perverted justice for nothing.
posted by owhydididoit at 1:33 PM on September 7, 2006

Total scumbag. But you know, I can't wait until a few months/years from now when karma finally makes it way to his doorstep.
posted by dead_ at 1:34 PM on September 7, 2006

I hope the show has a "Van Erck Phreaking Cam" showing live chats.
posted by sonofsamiam at 1:35 PM on September 7, 2006

..."and spent months posing as a woman to trick an online enemy to fall in love with him."

Damn, and here I was thinking that I was the first one to ever do that. All my work here at Metafilter now seems so empty...
posted by Effigy2000 at 1:37 PM on September 7, 2006

Fate has something spectacular coming for this guy. I just hope nobody else gets hurt in the process.
posted by 2sheets at 1:38 PM on September 7, 2006

one of those stories in which there is absolutly nobody to like, you sort of hope everyone mentioned loses.
posted by HuronBob at 1:43 PM on September 7, 2006

However, week after week passed and the same guys who would mass-post things like, 'Any 14-to-15-year-olds in here want to make money modeling?' and other solicitations would still be there. It was disturbing."

What sites was he visiting? I have never seen this kind of post on any of the internets I frequent.
posted by batou_ at 1:44 PM on September 7, 2006

All I have to say is: I want you to die. I wish you would die. Why don't you die? Just die.

That is all.
posted by rand at 1:45 PM on September 7, 2006

Looks like the murder-mystery segments have finally worn thin.

Although these online-chat-pedophile-sting shows have already wore thin after the first episode for me.

I wish Dateline would do more investigative journalism rather than what amounts to ratings-getting sensational journalism.
posted by ruthsarian at 1:47 PM on September 7, 2006

MetaFilter: I wish you would die. Why don't you die?

The Alberta government has started an awareness campaign for kids, teaching them how to recognize internet "perverts" and their methods, and what to do if they're approached.

That sort of thing seems more productive than this sort of thing.
posted by Zozo at 1:52 PM on September 7, 2006

Wow, this guy sound b-s-i. He had cyber-sex twice with his male nemesis because ... um ... to protect the children, dammit!
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 1:58 PM on September 7, 2006

from his blog:

Look, yeah, it sucks that Holloway was murdered in Aruba. Sure, that blows. It sucks that the killers will never be prosecuted. Fine. But this case featured a moron Hilton-esque partygirl killed. This wasn't some great member of society. This wasn't a professor, or a scientist. This wasn't a doctor or even a lawyer. This was a bimbo that liked to go to dance clubs, likely do drugs, and randomly fuck people. An airhead future Girls Gone Wild video star, little else. That may sound harsh, but you know it's true.

Classy!
posted by boo_radley at 1:59 PM on September 7, 2006

The story was interesting.

So. Anyway ...

Any 14-to-15-year-olds in here want to make money modeling?
posted by Astro Zombie at 2:00 PM on September 7, 2006 [2 favorites]

"These anti-PJ activists describe themselves as combating vigilantism..."

Grab some friends and get yer guns. We're declaring War On Vigilantism! We'll WOV them to death! Who's with me?
And everyone gets a share of the residuals!
posted by hal9k at 2:00 PM on September 7, 2006

ack. i feel covered in yucky.

vigilantism or whatever, what is that Nietzsche quote about staring into the abyss?
posted by YoBananaBoy at 2:04 PM on September 7, 2006

Astro Zombie strikes again.
posted by dminor at 2:05 PM on September 7, 2006

Look, yeah, it sucks that NBC is paying this guy a metric ass-load of money to keep the rubes glued to their seats. But this guy isn't some great member of society. This isn't a professor, or a scientist. This isn't a doctor or even a lawyer. This is a pear-shaped guy in a baseball cap and goatee that likes to hang out online and pretend to be a chick to get revenge, likely drinking Mountain Dew to fuel his self-parodic screeds, dispensing advice to hostages on how to die like men even as he wipes the sweat off his man-boobs. That may sound harsh, but you know it's true.
posted by mph at 2:07 PM on September 7, 2006 [6 favorites]

With smarmy host Chris Hansen onboard, the show takes on the classic elements of Aristotelian drama. First, viewers feel pity for the marks, who slowly come to understand before our eyes that they've just wrecked their lives; next comes fear, enhanced by creepy graphics and hard-to-prove statistics indicating that everybody on the Internet wants to molest your daughter; and finally we experience a satisfying sense of purgation as each sucker is taken violently to the ground by local police waiting outside the house.

What does the author mean by "Aristotelian" drama?
posted by delmoi at 2:14 PM on September 7, 2006

I admire a man confident enough in his heterosexuality to repeatedly have cybersex with another man and solicit videos of this other man masturbating for some purpose wholly unrelated to cultivating a homosexual relationship that he could safely end once he announced it as an act of revenge.
posted by eddydamascene at 2:15 PM on September 7, 2006

i've always had a problem with any police agency that would participate in an entertainment program, as has become popular...but if they're not going to do what they can to discourage citizen vigilantism (much less participate in it or encourage it), they're going to pay for it down the road...these groups attract the kinds of people we would generally rather have remain in their weaponized bunkers, away from the kids and the normal folks...

...i'm curious as to what the police/government liability would be if such a group or vigilante were to employ excessive force or violate rights in a manner the police cannot get away with...or if their actions result in harm to an innocent (or even guilty) person...that the police will work with them seems to constitute an endorsement of their activities, and it diminishes their argument against whatever brand of vigilantism i would like to dream up...
posted by troybob at 2:16 PM on September 7, 2006

It would seem to me that this could provide way too easy an excuse for a potential pedophile to escape any legit law-enforcement sting. If one were to send an email to a friend saying "I think I'm going to be on that new NBC reality show" before meeting with someone you suspect is 14, wouldn't it provide you with the defense that you knew you weren't talking to a kid but a law-enforcement official and that you were really going not for sex but to be on tv? People have done dumber things to be on tv.
posted by allen.spaulding at 2:16 PM on September 7, 2006

Fate has something spectacular coming for this guy. I just hope nobody else gets hurt in the process.

That's a nice fantasy, but my gut tells me that anythinng fate has in store for "Xavier" (seriously, he's an X-Men fan, right?) will not leave the people surrounding him untouched. The stuff he engages in ruins peoples lives, and even if they totally deserved it -- that doesn't mean it would stop one of his perverts from coming for him with malicious intentions.

What sites was he visiting? I have never seen this kind of post on any of the internets I frequent.

Apparently, he sticks to the main strip:
XvE: "Our three main "working" grounds are Yahoo chats, AOL chats and Myspace profiles..." (from his response article, below)

His response to the Radar Magazine "slam piece":

Earlier in August, I was informed by someone over at NBC news that a guy named John Cook was looking to write some negative tripe about To Catch a Predator and Perverted Justice. Soon after, Cook emailed me. Knowing that he was looking to do a slam piece, I decided to limit our contact to email. Why?

I've found that reporters, especially print reporters for already failed magazines are not usually top journalists. Radar Magazine itself is little more than a paper that will try to twist, turn and attack anything and everything possible. I knew that doing a phone interview with this guy would be suicide. I'd be misquoted intentionally and I'd have no record of it. I knew that no matter what I said, Cook would find a way to try to attack me.

I don't know if it's that he's just not a very subtle guy, immature, or on the defensive... but he totally makes the Radar Magazine journalist's point about his penchant for "vicious, unhinged screeds against various targets."


Don't miss his latest post about people who are not comfortable with his usenet-style vigilantism, or as he likes to refer to criticism: anti-PeeJ ramblings.

He concludes that anyone who doesn't agree with his vigilante group is a) Bat-shit insane b) Bat-shit creepy or c) out for themselves.

My question about people like this is... aren't the police hiring? If you want to stop crime so bad, and you're only interested in doing what's right why can't you join the legitimate legal system in some way?

My conclusion is that people who engage in vigilantism are either a) Bat-shit insane b) Bat-shit creepy or c) out for themselves -- ironically enough.
posted by illovich at 2:20 PM on September 7, 2006 [1 favorite]

Jesus, Von Erck sounds like a psychopath.
posted by Paris Hilton at 2:21 PM on September 7, 2006

And secondly, why the hell do pedophiles actual fall for this crap? Are there really that many under age girls out there to make the vigilantes statistically insignificant? There must be at least a few hundred of them.

Just how common is pedophilia?
posted by Paris Hilton at 2:22 PM on September 7, 2006

Look, yeah, it sucks that Erck was murdered in his mom's basement. Sure, that blows. It sucks that the killers will never be prosecuted. Fine. But this case featured a fat, passive-aggressive, virgin mysogynist killed. This wasn't some great member of society. This wasn't a professor, or a scientist. This wasn't a doctor or even a lawyer. This was a slovenly little turd that liked to have cybersex with other men, drinks cases of Bawls, and pretend to be a little girl. That may sound harsh, but you know it's true.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 2:23 PM on September 7, 2006

Well, he's probably not using it correctly. Aristotelian drama concerns characters of high station; kings and noble warriors. These characters are speak in polished, vivid language, and are raised up and then brought low. The general idea behind tragedy is as he describes, but there's several characteristic missing from the narrative that don't fit Aristotelian drama: pedos getting caught on film don't fit the mold of valorous, larger than life heroes.
posted by boo_radley at 2:24 PM on September 7, 2006

Jesus, Von Erck sounds like a psychopath.
posted by Paris Hilton at 2:21 PM PST on September 7

Jesus, Xavier Von Erck sounds like a pro wrestler.
posted by YoBananaBoy at 2:28 PM on September 7, 2006

boo_radley: I think it's referring to capturing doctors, lawyers, and Rabbis (y'know, people of stature) in the sting.
posted by mazola at 2:29 PM on September 7, 2006

"I think it's fascinating television," says one former NBC News producer who loathes the show but often can't look away. "Although I find myself rooting for the pedophiles."

Yeah, I think that's pretty much the biggest unintended result of this show: it actually humanizes the bad guys. But I guess pretty much any villain short of Atilla the Hun would benefit by a side-by-side comparison to that smarmy, lacquered manbot of a host.
posted by gigawhat? at 2:30 PM on September 7, 2006

"What does the author mean by "Aristotelian" drama?"

You could probably read the Poetics and figure it out.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:33 PM on September 7, 2006

You could probably read the Poetics and figure it out.

Or I could just ask in thread and then read boo_radley's response.
posted by delmoi at 2:39 PM on September 7, 2006

Well, the Poetics are good. Also try to squeeze in the Art of Rhetoric if you can.
posted by boo_radley at 2:44 PM on September 7, 2006

This was a bimbo that liked to go to dance clubs, likely do drugs, and randomly fuck people.

but this is exactly the kind of person we need more of in this world, especially if she's not a lawyer!
posted by snofoam at 2:53 PM on September 7, 2006

As a long-time net vigilante myself (anti-spam, anti-pyramid schemes, etc.), I hate being lumped in with this guy. Gives me the heeby jeebies.
posted by thanotopsis at 3:04 PM on September 7, 2006

No one really knows how many pedophiles are out there because research on the subject is underfunded, plagued by definitional problems and in some instances, illegal (it is illegal to view or possess child porn, even if you are a researcher).

What certainly is the case is that far more children are molested by family members and family friends than are by strangers.

To me, pedophilia really has to involve sex with prepubescent children-- but a lot of the rhetoric around kids being "solicited" for sex online turns out to be about 16 year old boys trying to pick up 13 year olds, and I really don't think that counts as pedophilia.

On the Dateline thing, most of the PJ people seem to pose as 13 or 14 year olds, and while a sexual attraction to teens that age is gross and illegal and wrong, I think the people who engage in it are a very different group from those who rape babies or are attracted to 6 and 7 year olds.

Presumably, there's a whole lot more who want very young but pubescent-- and attraction to actual children is rarer.

There are also some who are opportunistic sociopaths and will rape whoever's nearby and weak but who are not especially or exclusively attracted to children.

And there are also some who may only be a risk to their own relatives-- but no one seems to know, even though the laws of many states treat perpetrators far more leniently if their victims are "only" their own kids.

Bottom line is that no one really seems to have very good data so the media can run scare stories and debunking stories ad infinitum without really getting us anywhere.
posted by Maias at 3:05 PM on September 7, 2006 [1 favorite]

"What does the author mean by "Aristotelian" drama?"

The author is referring to the Aristotelian unities, which Wikipedia in its infinite wisdom (not!) refers to as the classical unities. Anyhow, here's Wiki's quick and dirty summary of the three unities:

The unity of action: a play should have one main action that it follows, with no or few subplots.

The unity of place: a play should cover a single physical space and should not attempt to compress geography, nor should the stage represent more than one place.

The unity of time: the action in a play should take place over no more than 24 hours
posted by jonp72 at 3:06 PM on September 7, 2006

wow...checking out the nbc news site is even more infuriating...sometimes i have to be reminded why i stopped watching tv news altogether...but, damn, it's gotten bad...

...i mean, sexual predators--bad...no question about that

...more support for the police to catch them...great, if there's a need, go for it, people should throw their support into it

...vigilante groups--bad idea...these people aren't trained and aren't appropriately accountable should they screw up, and their actions could result in having a case against a real predator getting thrown out because they screwed something up...and somebody is going to get overzealous and go after an innocent person...or will try to set up someone as revenge (as this guy has demonstrated)...or someone innocent will get hurt...

...tv newscast making a killing on it...as disgusting as the sexual predators, i think...not the least because they are offering this as entertainment...sex crime sells!...but also that nbc participates in the larger trend of ramping up sexual appetite...so now a network that amongst all its channels has spent many hours flashing provocative pictures of jonbenet ramsey far beyond what was necessary to accommodate a news-distribution function, a network on which entertainment in the form of 'law & order: special victims unit' has turned molestation and rape into a cozy night at home in front of the tv (and further hypes the sexiness of the stars thereon, an unfortunate mixed message)...now they get to offer themselves as a tool for justice and not, say, provocation...

...and popular response...well, expected, in light of how much we've seen people are willing to give up for the illusion of security...and now the illusion of justice...yeah, people are going to get prosecuted, maybe even the right ones...or mostly the right ones, we hope...but going the route of televised vengeance is a lazy one (and dishonest, in that it conflates purient entertainment consumption with a self-righteous claim to informed citizenship), considering that the same degree of attention given to such enterprises by law enforcement agencies could have a real, lasting effect and would at least be consistent with what (or at least what we suppose) our ideals are...
posted by troybob at 3:20 PM on September 7, 2006

"What does the author mean by "Aristotelian" drama?"

Opposite of Platonic, obv
posted by grobstein at 3:24 PM on September 7, 2006

Pedophile ring sting? Owww.
posted by Joeforking at 3:31 PM on September 7, 2006

s/\.{3}/ /g
Learn it, love it, live it, Troybob.
posted by boo_radley at 3:35 PM on September 7, 2006

s/T/t/g bud!...wow, week 4 of perl class and it's already coming in handy...
posted by troybob at 3:42 PM on September 7, 2006

All my work here at Metafilter now seems so empty...

What are you saying, Effigy2000? What about all the plans we made? (runs from room sobbing)
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:52 PM on September 7, 2006

boo_radley writes: Classy.

More like actionable. I hope the Hollaways catch wind.
posted by owhydididoit at 3:55 PM on September 7, 2006

Van Erck responds.
posted by CRM114 at 4:04 PM on September 7, 2006

Any 14-to-15-year-olds in here want to make money modeling?
posted by Astro Zombie

I'm "in"! U sound hot. meet me at the starbcks on third l@@k for the gurl in pink where do you work again? cant wait ;)
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 4:08 PM on September 7, 2006

This guy reminds me of Harry Neale.

How about a reality show team-up, When Harry Met Xavier?
posted by stinkycheese at 4:31 PM on September 7, 2006

#1. Natalee Holloway: It's just too bad she wasn't fat

This is the number one of the toptenshittieststoriesthatboredmethisyear for 2005.

Wow. This guy is messed up from whichever angle you come at him. Personally when I saw his pic my gut reaction was 'oh look, a pedophile mugshot'. Who's gonna be surprised in a year or so when it comes to light he's an offender himself?

My question about people like this is... aren't the police hiring?

This is just the sort of guy that doesn't qualify after taking the psych test. The last place he belongs is on the force, yikes.
posted by zarah at 4:37 PM on September 7, 2006

YoBananaBoy : Jesus, Xavier Von Erck sounds like a pro wrestler.

Do you smell what the Erck is cooking?
posted by Shecky at 4:42 PM on September 7, 2006

I read the PJ site for a while a couple of years ago. It was like a car wreck, I couldn't stop rubber necking. One of the other founders made Xavier (it's pronounced oz-we-PAY) look like the sane one. He would make the marks pick up McDonalds or KFC for the 'girl' and then meet them at the door with a camera and a baseball bat. They claim never to make first contact, but this guy took down a friend of a friend who made some derogatory comment about him and really went over the top with this really large early 20-something year old woman who complained of her loneliness in their chats. The woman agreed to meet the "15 yo boy" for coffee and ends up with her picture on the Internet labeled "pedo." This guy had a falling out with Von Erck and all his busts over a year and a half were purged from the site, after his marks had their lives ruined.

OK, I know that the marks are sleazy, some more than others. But these guys get off on destroying people's lives. They pick people they can label pariahs so that they can portray themselves as the 'good guys.' I think that is a sicker fetish than wanting to screw a 14 year old. NBC really exposes Dateline as the non-news ratings whore show it is.
posted by spartacusroosevelt at 5:17 PM on September 7, 2006

He's freaking out about crap in Yahoo chat rooms? Last time I was hanging out in Yahoo chat rooms (yes, I was that bored) all I saw were stupid porno site spam bots pasting one of 5 messages into the chat room. That was it. I think I found 3 actual humans the entire time.
posted by drstein at 5:35 PM on September 7, 2006

"Or I could just ask in thread and then read boo_radley's response."

I guess I misunderstood your question. I thought it was rhetorical and intended to question whether there was such a thing.

(In fact, I have a bit of a problem with the author using "Aristotelian drama" as synonymous with "Aristotelian tagedy", which is incorrect. His use gives the strong impression of a Phil 101 gloss on the subject.)
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:52 PM on September 7, 2006

I hate this show with a fucking passion, and one of the things that's always bothered me is this (please explain to me if you can, i can't make sense of it):

-18-19 year old woman poses as 13 year old girl, in chat and cam.

-Gets 34 year old man interested in her.

-Man does not see her nude, nor does she see him. graphic emails exchanged.

-A plan is made, he heads over, NBC swoops in and has him arrested before he's even in the door.

What, exactly, is the crime? He was flirting with a legal adult and went to meet a legal adult - how can anyone prove he believed her to be 13? If he had even fucked her, he STILL would have fucked an adult, yet committed a crime?

I am baffled.

(P.S. - Dear Homeland Security - pedophiles suck and I hate them, I swear.
posted by tristeza at 5:57 PM on September 7, 2006

I think the Aristotliean drama referred to is the use of catharsis, as the next sentences list a number of emotions that viewers can feel as they watch.
posted by Sparx at 8:34 PM on September 7, 2006

Network news divisions are businesses: they have customers and they sell a product to those customers.

You, the viewer, are not the customer. Viewers are the product, which the network sells to its customer, advertisers. The more people like you that the news division can convince to watch their show, the more money the advertisers are willing to pay to include their advertising in that show.

So the goal is to create show which will get high ratings. When it comes to news and documentaries, and for that matter any show, no one knows how to do that reliably. But there's a pretty standard formula for documentaries which will guarantee at least moderately good ratings.

One of my readers called it anxiety pimping: "Your children are at risk of dying a horrible death from some cause you're not aware of. If you watch our show we'll tell you about it so you can protect your kids." If the teaser for the show is sufficiently lurid, it's difficult for a lot of parents to turn away. (What, you don't care about keeping your kids safe?)

Toss in a dollop of misleading vividness and some confirmation bias, and you can convince people that damned near any threat is huge.

Various fear-mongers have been peddling the danger of perverts who kidnap/molest/murder children since I was a kid, lo these (cough) years ago. But what they don't tell you is that the majority of kids who are kidnapped every year are kidnapped by a family member, usually a parent, because of custody disputes.

There are occasional amazing and horrifying cases (like that girl that just was found who had spend 8 years held in a private dungeon) but those are the rare exceptions.

But no one will tune in to a show that says, "You don't need to worry, your kids are safe!" No ratings in that, and no advertising dollars. And that's why you never see any shows that say that, but do see lots of shows that trumpet all kinds of hazards which are absurdly improbable.

When I was in grade school, one of my teachers read an article in Reader's Digest that she thought was important, so she brought it in to school and read it to us in her class. It was about quick sand, and it began with a very graphic story about a guy dying in it. I was thoroughly traumatized and spent years terrified that quicksand was going to get me. It was only when I was an adult that I learned that the conditions that cause quicksand are extremely rare, and only about 3 people a year in this country are killed by it -- less than are killed by lightning.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 9:20 PM on September 7, 2006 [3 favorites]

I was wondering the same thing, Delmoi!?
posted by pwedza at 10:23 PM on September 7, 2006

"What, exactly, is the crime? He was flirting with a legal adult and went to meet a legal adult - how can anyone prove he believed her to be 13?"

They don't need to prove he believed her to be 13 because there's no reason he wouldn't have thought otherwise.

On a rape charge, prosecuters don't have to somehow prove that the man really did understand "no" to mean "no", at least not anymore, because "no" is now taken to be self-evident. The defense may try to prove that somehow the natural presumption anyone would make in the same situation would have been that "no" means "yes", but it's going to be an almost impossible uphill climb.

This is similar to this sort of thing because attempting to seduce a minor is specifically against the law. Whether she's really a minor or not has no bearing on the attempt.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:11 AM on September 8, 2006

Attempting to seduce a minor is against the law, even if the minor is over 21.

Glad to have that clarified! Rule of Law, and all that jazz!
posted by Goofyy at 5:08 AM on September 8, 2006

The Phoenix Newtimes ran a story about Xavier Von Erck in July of 2004. I hadn't heard that he hooked up with NBC... I'm surprised their lawyers would allow it.
posted by ph00dz at 5:12 AM on September 8, 2006 [1 favorite]

"Attempting to seduce a minor is against the law, even if the minor is over 21."

Right.

If with a gun you shoot a nearly undetectable mirror image of me, you've attempted to murder me even if you've shot a mirror. Because of course, your attempt was against me, not my mirror image. You simply have bad aim.

Just so a pedophile. Their attempt was at a minor...they just aimed poorly.

Illegalizing attempts and not just completions has in many cases much more social utility, especially when the consequences of completion, as in the case of murder or pedophilia, are so dire.

All this is not to say that I favor what seems to me and a lot of other people to be entrapment (though it most certainly is not entrapment strictly speaking by most legal standards). I don't.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:05 AM on September 8, 2006

I didn't think you did, EB. I was being a smart ass. The story disgusts me. But I was a sexually active teenager who dated adult gay men, and was damn thankful for the opportunity! (And I do not mean for money).

I do not at all approve of the way teenagers have become increasingly regarded as 'children' that need (over) protecting. This is not a clear-cut area and should not be dealt as such by the legal system. To force it to be so is injustice.

Surely I have known plenty of teenagers more than capable of making their own sexual choices. I have also known plenty 20-somethings that were not. It's a hot-button topic for me.

If you take joy in destroying the lives of people, you are just another predator yourself.
posted by Goofyy at 7:12 AM on September 8, 2006

I like to masturbate and think of killing the predators of online predators who stalk pedophiles. Maybe some day... I'll kill one.
posted by sonofsamiam at 7:15 AM on September 8, 2006

This now in: Dateline changes background color to yellow.
posted by klangklangston at 8:23 AM on September 8, 2006

Ethereal Bligh

I'm still unconvinced. You describe an attempt to kill you, an actual living breathing Ethereal Bligh (heh, heh), whereas this is an attempt to seduce a fictional minor. Could I be convicted for attempting to kill, say, Batman?
posted by Mental Wimp at 8:58 AM on September 8, 2006

........pose as 13 or 14 year olds, and while a sexual attraction to teens that age is gross and illegal and wrong

I don't think sexual attraction to 13 or 14 year olds is illegal, gross or wrong.

After puberty, with the hips, hair, breasts etc. etc. I am more suprised at how strong the social taboo is that people insist that any attraction would be gross unnatural.

Sex with those of that age is of course, often illegal, often gross and often wrong.

Some would say always gross and always wrong but sometimes legal.
posted by skinnydipp at 11:14 AM on September 8, 2006

"I am more suprised at how strong the social taboo is that people insist that any attraction would be gross unnatural."

It is strange. But we already know that cultures can socially condition disgust, especially sexual disgest. Our culture, and others, have advanced the notion of childhood through adolescence and up to the arbitrary line we draw at 18. No doubt that will creep up, too. We lump all of that into "childhood", and there you go. There's other things going on, too—for example, we are generally intolerant of large age differences between sex partners now and that is a new thing. I'm not sure if there's ever been a time when a western culture has been generally cognizant of the fact that all humans from birth have some sexual response and that therefore even children are sexual creatures in many ways. But whatever it true historically, we seem especially determined in our time to deny that children are at all sexual. Therefore we very strongly think of sex as exclusively an adult thing—so we have to deny even adolecents sexuality in order to keep the taint of adulthood away from adolecents now that we define childhood to include this time.

Note that all I'm writing is about how our culture thinks about attraction, not actual sexual interaction. The latter taboo has some rational practical basis, that being the theory of power imbalance and sexual exploitation.

I suppose that what's imlicit in my argument for the utility of laws against attempts of a crime apply here, as well. If we can culturally "turn off" the sexual attraction that adults have toward adolescents, then we've mostly eliminated the bad things that often come from actual sexual relationships between adolescents and adults. It's prevention.

It's seems doomed to fail, though, in my opinion. One of the only two universal cross-cultural attributes of beauty is youth. I think, therefore, it's reasonable to assume that this sexual attraction to youth is a biological imperative and unlikely to be eliminated culturally. In fact, we may be intensifying it because there's good reason to guess that this biological imperative defines youth as "adolescence" for sexual reproduction purposes and so in culturally including adolescence into "youth" and then denying that it's properly the object of sexual desire, we've fully invested that desire into the prohibited. At the very least I'd guess this would make the dominant beauty culture even more youth obsessed than it was before. And, in fact, I think if you look at it you'll see that's happened. The current female beauty standard today is more adolescent than ever before.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 9:39 AM on September 9, 2006