May 17th, 2008
I admit that my husband and I are avid watchers of the show “To Catch A Predator”. It’s interesting to see what kinds of men are performing these unconscionable acts, and how they present themselves prior (ie, the “25 year old” who is actually 52).
After a Hollywood, FL man was found not guilty of charges brought against him by the NBC sting, a local radio station decided to do a social experiment. They created a fake MySpace page for a 14 year old girl who is a latchkey kid and often home alone. The results have been creepy, yet intriguing.
The vast majority of respondents have been men over the age of consent, usually in their 30s and 40s. One man has been particularly aggressive, becoming sexual in chat and in e-mail, all the while reminding her that he is old enough to be her father. When they peruse the man’s MySpace, his friends are primarily girls under the age of 17. (Names have not been released.)
The other day they were reading an exchange between him and the 14 year old (the female dj did the typing) about her wanting the top spot on his friends list. He told her she would have to do something really special to get it, then began to describe what. They didn’t get graphic on the air, but what they did say was enough to make me switch to another station.
Hootie & The Blowfish can’t quite eradicate some mental pictures.
When I was 14 (more than 20 years ago), the internet was just BBS. I used to go online and chat for hours, much to the consternation of my dad, who paid the bills. Internet was not cheap back then. The more you used it, the more you paid.
I made some good friends that way. In fact, I was a bridesmaid in the wedding of a chat mate I met when I was 14. I also had an experience with online predators.
One night I was online and got a private message from a man. I was 14, and I think he told me he was probably 28 or so. We began chatting, and we talked about books and sports and the world in general. He told me he was married, and that his wife was away and he was bored.
I thought nothing of it. The chat didn’t become sexual, or even inappropriate, that I remember. I have always been precocious, and he made me feel very sophisticated and smart.
The next day I came home from school and my mother was waiting for me and very angry. She’d gone online earlier in the day and checked the e-mail (back then having your own private e-mail was a luxury no one could even fathom) and found an e-mail from my chat buddy from the night before.
He started the e-mail with how nice it was to talk to someone so smart and funny. He liked my sense of humor and my easygoing manner. Talking to me made him less bored, less unhappy and less lonely. In fact, he had been thinking about me all night. He had gone to bed imagining what it would be like for me to be there with him.
And then he proceeded to describe in graphic detail what he had imagined us doing.
I was horrified, because I had no prior inkling of this from our previous conversation. My mother was convinced I had been having such a conversation online, and she was horrified because (a) I was 14 and (2) this was a married man and what did I think I was doing?
I think I might still be grounded, actually.
So this whole online predator thing is not new, just more illuminated. The question is, WHY is it so prevalent? If we extrapolate the numbers out, just what percentage of the adult male population has fantasized about, or attempted to act on, or God forbid acted on the urge to have sexual relations with a minor? It seems like it must be quite high.
When I was in my early 20s I met a man online who was a few years older. He lived in PA, and I was in OK. We were in an AOL chat room, and by the end of the night he had my phone number and called me. We talked for about 15 minutes, and I found him boring.
A few weeks later he called me again out of the blue and made a much better impression. In fact, we traveled to see each other several times, got involved, and were off-and-on (for various reasons) for a couple of years, all long distance.
One week I was on a business trip out West, and he didn’t call me the whole time I was gone, which was unusual, since we talked several times a day and had actually gotten engaged just a month prior. When I got home there were just two messages from him. One said that he needed to talk, and the other said we REALLY needed to talk.
When I called he told me that he’d been arrested the day after I left town and had only just been released the day I got back. The reason? He’d been caught having sex in the back seat of his car with a 15 year old girl. He was (if I remember correctly) 28 at the time.
He had been bored and lonely and went into an AOL chat room. They chatted, then talked on the phone, then decided to meet up for sex. As the story progressed, she got younger and younger until he finally admitted she was 13. I would imagine she was probably 12, but I’ll never know for sure.
Suddenly I just knew without question it wasn’t his first time doing this. His sexual proclivities, those fantasies I had participated in at his whispered urgings, the school girl outfit, had all seemed so racy at the time. Now I know he was just trying to transplant his misguided urges on someone he thought was more age appropriate.
He was convicted and is now a registered sex offender. I broke up with him during that phone call. This was many years ago (at least 10) and we have kept in touch sporadically over the years. He’s been married twice since then, both times to younger women (of legal consent age) from South America.
The thought of what he did, and what other men are out there doing, it sickens me. I just wonder why this is so prevalent, not for the blame factor, but to figure out how to stop it. How do we protect our children? How do we retrieve those lost men, the ones who should be good husbands and fathers, not trolling the internet looking to live out some sick fantasy with a child who doesn’t even realize he or she is being taken advantage of?
Posted in Whatever | No Comments »
