Child Molesters on the Web

I haven’t been erotically interested in 14 year old girls since I was about 17 years old myself, so I don’t know much about what it takes to hook up with them. I do know one thing: there are no 14 year old girls looking for love on the internets. All kids on the internets are really FBI agents or local cops trolling for child molesters. Falling for the cop posing as a kid is like falling for the Nigerian spam scam. It’s a weird sort of crime that consists of a man pretending to be a child to set up a meeting with a cop pretending to be a child.

I used to deal with child molesters as part of my job. They come in a wide variety, but they are much more rare than folks are led to believe. They usually “groom” their young targets for long periods and are known to the child and the family. The creepy pervert waiting in the bushes to abduct and molest your child cold is extremely rare, so rare in fact that there is no good reason to take any steps to deal with such a contingency beyond telling your kids to avoid strangers and to stay out of their cars. That worked for my generation. We didn’t need law enforcement to spend a lot of time and money protecting us from potential molesters. Of course, we didn’t have the internets back then, and child molesters had to try to arrange man-boy trysts in person. It would have been difficult for cops to pose as cub scouts or altar boys in order to entrap perverted scoutmasters or clergymen.

In my career, I dealt with many more accusations of child molestation than actual incidents. In some segments of society, false allegations of child molestation are not unheard of. Having trouble with your neighbors in the next hovel? Call the child abuse tip line and suggest that they are child molesters! That will put them in some serious jeopardy and get their noisy kids put in foster homes for a while. In the middle of a nasty divorce and custody battle? An allegation of child molestation will put your spouse at a serious disadvantage, and you will never be held accountable! Your investigation of a child molester is hampered by a lack of physical evidence? Interview the child repeatedly and suggest what might have happened until the child adopts the narrative as his or her own!

I’m not saying that there are no child molesters and that allegations should not be taken seriously; rather, I’m suggesting that the risk of child molestation is relatively small. It doesn’t really warrant the investment in law enforcement resources and the anxiety that it provokes in parents. Let the kids out to play, for crying out loud! No wonder they’re obese. The risk is minute compared to other risks to which parents don’t blink an eye at exposing their kids. Car accidents pose a risk far greater than child molestation, but parents put their kids in motor vehicles almost daily. Yet the same parents will not let their offspring walk down to the playground and play without surveillance.

That some idiots troll for kids on the internets should not necessitate much in the way of state action. Just explain the dangers to your kids, and that should be enough to solve the problem without imposing costs on everyone else.