Internet Sex Offenders Don’t Lie
“Sex offenders who target youth using the Internet do not generally deceive their victims about their age or intentions, and few used force or coercion, a University of New Hampshire study has revealed. The researchers behind the study said the findings defy stereotypical views about Internet sex crimes involving minors, and suggests a need for parents and others to revise their approaches to preventing the crimes…. Key findings of the study: Offenders targeted adolescents — no victim was younger than 12, and 99 percent were between 13 and 17. Only 5 percent of offenders tried to deceive victims about being older adults. Only 21 percent of offenders lied about their sexual motives; in most cases, those lies involved insincere promises of love and romance. Few offenders used force (5 percent) or coercion (16 percent) to abuse their victims. Only three percent used abduction to do so… The research also found that victims, primarily teens 13 to 15, met and had sex with the adults more than once; half of the victims were described as being in love or having close bonds with the offenders. About 25 percent were boys. ‘A lot of these boys,’ Wolak said, ’seemed to be gay and they were online looking for adults to communicate with.’” —The Union Leader (US)
This is a really fascinating study that raises a lot of compelling questions. Given the prevalence of online sex crime and the amount of hysteria surrounding it, you’d think there would be more attention paid to a study that actually seems to illuminate the issue. But then again, perhaps the story hasn’t caught fire precisely because of the tough questions it raises.
On one hand, it should come as no surprise that online sex offenders are relatively forthright about their intentions. Even though lying and deceit are rampant on the internet — who uses their real name, their real age, their real email address? — sex offenders have to be relatively truthful for a simple reason. Ultimately they want to seduce the fourteen-year-olds they target, and it’s difficult to seduce someone when you’ve told him that you’re also fourteen but in reality you have gray hair and a paunchy stomach. When you take off your clothes in front of somebody, it’s hard not to reveal your age (or at least something close to it). Sex offenders know this and so they recognize that lying is ultimately counter-productive. They feel it’s better to use their age and experience as an asset than to scare the victim off with an obvious lie.
On the other hand, the really surprising thing about this study is the degree to which the victims collude with the predators. The minors know what the adults are looking for, and evidently the minors are looking for it too. Or to be clear about it, in some cases both parties are looking for the same thing: sex. In other cases, the adults are looking for sex and the teens are probably looking for other things: love, support, attention, affirmation. This is especially the case with gay teens, who use the internet to find the community that they otherwise lack. And this suggests that, although the internet facilitates predation, it also facilitates exploration and fulfillment. It enables adults to prey on teens, but it also enables teens to prey on life.
Maybe the question we really need to consider is what constitutes a sex crime. An adult can rape an adult just as easily as a child, and it happens all the time. Since “no victim was younger than 12, and 99 percent were between 13 and 17″, all of the minors involved here were post-pubertal, and thus capable of sex. Among adults, consensual sex, though it may be regreted after the fact, is never a crime (or at least shouldn’t be). As you pointed out, a large majority of the pedophilic relationships studied were consensual. What makes that different?
Perhaps the age difference makes the minors easily coerced, but is that any different that what often happens between adults? I postulate that there is very little difference ethically between adult consensual sexual relationships and consensual pedophilic relationships; in any relationship the partners should always make sure that the other is comfortable, and an age difference merely accentuates the necessity of what should be an already present dynamic. Perhaps legalizing pedophilia would also lead to healthier age-play relationships. Current sex education classes, though heinously flawed in other ways, place enormous emphasis on strategies to avoid abusive relationships, and that curriculum could be extended to pedophilia.
By the way, the study can be found here http://download.journals.elsevierhealth.com/pdfs/journals/1054-139X/PIIS1054139X04001715.pdf.
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