On Nov 30, 6:59 am, Stuart Bronstein <spamt...@lexregia.com> wrote:
> Mike Jacobs wrote:
> > David Chesler <ches...@post.harvard.edu> wrote:
> >> What about whatever it is they charge the predators with in To
> >> Catch A Predator? Aren't those older men doing the same thing,
> >> pretending to be younger in order to romance girls?
>
> > That's different. The deceptive mom in the MO case was just
> > trying to spy on the victim to find out what kind of things the
> > victim had been saying to her peers about the mom's daughter (a
> > former friend of the victim). The mom had no intention of
> > actually meeting, much less "going out" with, the victim in her
> > fake online role as a teen boy. All she wanted to get the victim
> > to do was talk.
>
> She must have known that what she was doing would be very painful to an
> already very disturbed young girl. Sounds like intentional infliction of
> emotional distress to me. Probably not a crime, but perhaps actionable
> civilly.
I don't disagree with that, Stu, per my earlier posts on this thread, but your reply has nothing to do with the difference I was trying to point out, between the MO mom and online sexual predators. She had no intention of actually meeting the person on the other end of the line for _any_ purpose, sexual or otherwise, in sharp contrast to the men whose only reason for online roleplaying is to entice the victim into a live, flesh-on-flesh meeting.
> On the other hand if she knew or should have known the girl was
> clinically depressed, it could be involuntary manslaughter.
That could be a possibility too, but again, off topic to the point I was trying to make.
> > Frankly, though, it usually happens the other way around. The
> > purported "victim" is actually not a 13 year old girl but a full
> > grown FBI agent or local cop of either gender.
I meant "usually" to refer only to the (IMO limited) subset of such assignations where one of the parties to the online conversation pretends to be substantially younger than he or she really is. And yes, IMO it's more common for such age-deception to be done by a law enforcement sting operation than by the typical perp.
> Usually? I find it hard to believe there are actually more FBI agents on
> that team than there are actual teens at risk.
Agreed. But, as I try to explain below, that's not what I meant. There certainly are plenty more teens at risk, and more predators trying to harm them, than there are agents trying to catch those predators. But IMO most of those predators are not pretending to be teens online, so it's possible there _are_ more FBI agents pretending to be teens online than there are meet-in-the-flesh predators pretending to be teens online.
> Of course, I haven't seen
> any numbers or statistics.
Me neither, but I have done some research on this issue since I represented a teen rape victim (the perp was her male assistant scoutmaster) a few years ago. Let me elaborate. I agree, there probably are in total a whole lot more pervs who get their jollies strictly from pretending to be teens online and talking dirty with underage girls on chat forums than there are FBI agents on the vice squad. BUT, of that subset of online creeps who actually try to arrange meetings with their victims, the impression I get from scattered news stories about particular arrests, as well as from common sense, is that they _don't_ pretend to be teens online, because they know that if they're setting up a meeting the girl is going to find out how old they really are, and what they look like, eventually. They probably even forward pictures of themselves to the victims and tell them stories (true or not) about the power and freedom they have as adults and invite the girls to join them in that world. Again, anecdotally, it seems this group of predators go shopping for a particular subset of girls who _want_ to go out with older men, who are looking for a sugar daddy who will talk nice to them, be suave and sophisticated, who will take them away from whatever they don't like about their home life, school, or hometown and who will give them money, clothes, jewelry, concerts, fancy dinners, travel, and so on. Those men may still try to hide their true identity to avoid getting caught criminally through their online postings, but IMO they don't try to hide their true age or appearance completely (even if they sugarcoat it somewhat, and touch up the photos they send) because that would be counterproductive to their ultimate goal of finding a willing partner who wants an older man to "save" her. And there are plenty of those.
Now, I'm sure there is also another subset of online predators who pretend to be teens to set up meetings, but I'm guessing that is a much smaller group. I find it hard to imagine that any girl would willingly go thru with a sexual encounter after she walks thru the hotel room door and experiences the shock of finding out how old and ugly their correspondent really was when she thought she was dating a teen hottie. That doesn't prevent the perp from forcing her to have sex once he has her in the hotel room or the deep woods or wherever they arranged to meet, but violent rape isn't what I was talking about. The average, typical pedophile is strictly nonviolent and believes, like the Greek root of the word that names his condition, that in his twisted way he truly "loves children", and that what he is doing is not harmful to them and maybe even beneficial. So, I still feel (without any statistics, true) that most nonviolent online predators who actually want to set up meetings with their victims do _not_ pretend to be much younger or handsomer than they really are, and actually try to capitalize on the "power" and "sophistication" that come with age and that the perp can use to "take her away from" whatever she doesn't like in her life.
Since it was invented, money has always been the strongest aphrodisiac. The older version, sweet talk, is still running a close second. These perps we're talking about know that, and take advantage of both methods.
--
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Mike Jacobs
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