The man was using the internet to seduce what he thought was a 14 year old girl into meeting him for sex. The 14 year old was, in fact, a Florida sherrif's deputy.
Here's a tip for you, dummy. Don't give the 14 year old your business cell phone, or use the office computer. How stupid is this guy? The mind boggles.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
I feel secure.
If this were 24, it wouldn't have been the sherrif's deputy. It would have been a terrorist that used this for leverage to gain access to some building or another.
Good thing real life isn't 24, because Kiefer Sutherland is nowhere near as badass as Jack Bauer.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Awww c'mon... these are the folks you trust to peer into your life anytime&anyplace without even having to get a search warrant. Obviously a nefarious plot by terrorist hackers to place their own mole into HomelandSecurity by filling in the newly created job vacancy. Then again...
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Hopefully they'll invent new ways of throwing the book, just for this guy. Bad enough he's attempting to be a pedophile. But in that job?
Posted by prolixshore (Member # 4496) on :
The last time I caught one of those news specials about catching online predators, one of the guys who showed up for sex with the 13 year old was an agent from Homeland Security. As someone who intends to work in the field of Federal Law Enforcement, this type of thing offends me to the core of my beliefs. Idiots and sickos, my friends, idiots and sickos.
--ApostleRadio
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
The DHS deputy press secretary has no authorization to conduct surveillance on foreign terrorists, so I think you are safe Aspectre on that point. Funny how this is just sooooooooooooo outrageous and terrible yet where is the same outrage for the students molested every day in schools? CNN Article Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
I think sentences should be automatically doubled for those who violate the public trust. To me a shady cop is at least twice as bad as a mugger.
Posted by prolixshore (Member # 4496) on :
DarkKnight, I'm not sure students are molested EVERY DAY in schools, but I do know that when they are, people tend to be quite outraged. I know I am. That woman who got off a couple weeks ago in Florida dominated the news for a couple days after because of all the people who were outraged.
--ApostleRadio
Posted by prolixshore (Member # 4496) on :
I agree KarlEd. One of the justifications for hate crimes legislation is that hate crimes are worse than their normal counterparts because they are detrimental to large communities of people. This reasoning seems to parallel crimes committed by dirty cops quite well, wouldn't you think? There are few things as bad as the loss of trust in those who are supposed to be protecting you. Dirty cops should be hit as hard as possible.
--ApostleRadio
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I'd totally vote for or support something like that, KarlEd.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
I don't think you can describe this as a violation of public trust unless he somehow misused his Deputy Press Secretary powers to commit the crime. As it is, except for the giving out of his work number, it doesn't sound like the crime was connected to his job. Hence, he hasn't violated that which he was entrusted with.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
<bitter> score another one for polygraph exams </bitter>
Posted by prolixshore (Member # 4496) on :
Tres, the man works for the Department of Homeland Security, which is charged with ensuring the security of American citizens. I would think preying on the sexuality of 14 year old girls constitutes a violation of that mission, thereby betraying the public trust. Press secretary or not, he works for a department ment to ensure safety from criminal acts, and he committed a criminal act.
--ApostleRadio
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
So did the female teachers who had sex with the 14 year old boys. The last teacher got off relatively light. I would think a classroom teacher has a much higher degree of public trust than a deputy press secretary. Not that I think the teacher or this guy should get off, it is just completely a double standard.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I'm pretty sure that there's a double standard at work, DarkKnight, but I don't think it's the one you think it is. The relative lack of outrage over the teacher's conduct had more to do with the fact that she is female and (in many people's estimation) relatively attractive, I'd be willing to bet. I would guess, though I haven't done the research to confirm this, that males are generally dealt with more harshly for this sort of offense than females, at least when the victim is solidly in the teen age-range.
Hm. Anybody know of a handy compilation of the punishments meted out over the past 5 or 10 years for teachers convicted of having sex with teenage students, with the results organized by the sex of the offender? I'd love to take a look at the report if so.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
No, that is the double standard I was thinking of, I just wrote it too vaguely. From the link that I posted above, I don't think there are many, if any, studies done to show sexual abuse in schools.
quote: Teacher-sex statistics: While there is no single tracking agency, it's estimated there are at least several hundred such incidents each year, according to Nan Stein, with the the Center for Research on Women at Wellesley College.
In 1998, Education Week searched newspaper archives and computer databases and found 244 cases in a six-month period involving allegations ranging from unwanted touching to sexual relationships and serial rape.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Oh, I see, I thought that you were saying that there was a double standard between perceptions of severity of wrongdoing when the perpetrator was a Homeland Secuity official vs. when they were a teacher.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Yeah, what's even better, in the case of that teacher in Florida, a lot of people said things like, "Why is he complaining? I would've KILLED to have sex with a woman that hot when I was his age. He's a lucky kid..." and so forth.
-pH
Posted by prolixshore (Member # 4496) on :
Yeah. I misunderstood you as well Knight. There is most definately a double standard when it comes to older females preying on minor males. It's stupid, and I don't understand it. I was still outraged at that woman, and all women like her to the same extent that I am outraged when men do it.
--ApostleRadio
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
I don't think there is necessarily a double standard there. The difference between the two is that the teacher cases given were often by most practical standards consensual relationships, in which the child seemingly wanted the relationship. I don't think it is surprising that this is considered less severe than going out to seduce someone - attempting to persuade them into doing something they probably know is wrong.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
The reason behind it is, I think, related to the double standard about girls and sex vs. boys and sex.
Girls should always be pure. They should always be virgins. It is not okay for a girl to have sex. If she chooses to do so, it is because the boy preyed on her or because she is a horrible person. Girls who have sex are sluts.
Boys can have all the sex they want. In fact, if they aren't going after sex, there's something wrong with them. It is always okay for a boy to have sex, so long as he's having sex with a girl. Boys who have sex are cool.
If boys are supposed to have sex and girls aren't....who's having sex with the boys?
-pH
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
I don't know about punishments for female versus male abusers.
I do know that as recently as 1990, there were LPCs and/or psychologists who publically maintained that males could not be the victims of sexual abuse because males were, by definition, the predators in any sexual relationship (From a vignette in The Courage To Heal Workbook wherein the author explains why she changed her book to include men... I think it's telling that she felt the need to justify her decision at all).
I also know that it is much more difficult to find a support group as a male victim of sexual abuse than it is as a woman... but I also understand this is, thankfully, changing. In just the few years that I have been seeking therapy, there are a host of books specifically directed at healing *male* victims of sexual predation. I think that's a very good sign for our society as a whole given the number of people who they estimate are in that particular ugliness.
Posted by vonk (Member # 9027) on :
quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: Good thing real life isn't 24, because Kiefer Sutherland is nowhere near as badass as Jack Bauer.
I just wanted to say that Kiefer Sutherland is 100 times more badass that a mere Jack Bauer. I mean, did Jack Bauer ever kill the usurper to the King of France? I think not. An was Jack Bauer ever a rebel teenage biker vampire? I think not. I mean, you can't even compare. Its like saying MacGyver is better that Richard Dean Anderson, it's sacrilege.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Tres,
the point is that someone that young, especially involved with someone in a position of authority CAN NOT consent. The problem is the chief damages from sexual abuse of a minor are the horrifically bad and conflicting messages about sex sent by the action. Indeed, one of the more damaging types of abuse is that which was entered willingly and felt good... because then the secrecy surrounding it and the general societal disapproval of any extramarital sex slam home to the kid that he is shameful, disgraceful, and at *fault* (edit: for wanting/enjoying it).
Then you add the situations pH has brought up-- you have boys being encouraged to be not only sexual, but outright players, and have their manhood and value called into question if they aren't. Simultaneously, you have the outright puritanical nature of this very sexually confused society beating down on them... from conservatives blasting anyone who ever has sex outside of marriage as unfit for heaven to the radically feminist propositions that all heterosexual sex is rape (which infiltrates in some very subtle ways, such as the idea pH referred to that a girl is only as good as her ability to keep her legs closed and, therefore, when a guy talks her into bed, he's done her harm). That makes for a huge dose of shame-- a lot for a developing kid to have hanging over his head.
You combine these two and you get a kid wandering around, wondering why his sexual urges seem so uncontrolled, feeling immense guilt over them, wondering if he's a predator, and, simultaneously, being taught that the only way he's valued is as a sex object. Disaster in a bottle.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jim-Me: Indeed, one of the more damaging types of abuse is that which was entered willingly and felt good... because then the secrecy surrounding it and the general societal disapproval of any extramarital sex slam home to the kid that he is shameful, disgraceful, and at *fault* (edit: for wanting/enjoying it).
*nod*
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
It seems as though women who have sex with boys aren't punished as harshly because the attitude is that they're giving the boys what they want anyway.
All boys want to have sex with any attractive woman. Any boy would be lucky to have sex with any attractive woman. A boy who feels victimized because a woman had sex with him just doesn't understand how lucky he was.
Whereas girls by default never want to have sex with anyone. Therefore, men who have sex with girls are committing a worse crime than women who have sex with boys.
Or something.
-pH
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Not bad, pH, but in some extreme cases, the boy is still the bad one because "he wanted it".
Hard to stomach, but watch the reaction of the victim in the interview on page 6 of this excerpt from Abused Boys: The Neglected Victims of Sexual Abuse (warning: disturbing content)
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
*@#!
I wish I hadn't read that.
That "covert" abuse is similar to some things that I encountered as an adolescent (to a much lesser extent, because it wasn't perpetrated by family).
This is why I can see myself as capapble of murder, this rage. I think I need to go for a jog or something.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Sorry for inciting your rage, Olivet, but I thought this point about the way vicitms blame themselves was worth sledgehammering home-- that abuse is no less abuse, and no less damaging, when it's not "forced."
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I couldn't bring myself to open it, Jim-Me, for fear of a similar reaction.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Not gonna read it at work. Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
No worries. The warnings are there for a reason.
It's a little graphic about the abuse itself, but, more disturbing, it is a vivid example of the aftermath of an abuse that was "seemingly wanted" (the victim identifies that he allowed the abuse to go on into his early teens because he didn't want to hurt the perpetrator's feelings).
Part of me worried that linking it was inappropriate... that it was too strong. A bigger part insisted that it was worth the risk and that there's nothing inappropriate about explaining the damage that can come from sexual abuse of power by authority figures over teens.
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
I think you made the right choice, and I think it's good for this stuff to be known.
My anger issues are my own.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
quote:the point is that someone that young, especially involved with someone in a position of authority CAN NOT consent.
Legally, he or she can not consent, but practically speaking children consent to things all the time - many of which are extremely bad for them, including drinking, doing drugs, shoplifting, commiting violent acts, joining gangs, etc. (most of which they are held responsible for by the law.) Hence there is a difference between a consenting relationship in practical but not legal sense, and a outright nonconsenting rape. The latter should carry a harsher penalty than the former. Internet seduction fits somewhere between these two, because it intends to get a child to consent, but is manipulating the child in order to get him to do so. For that reason, I don't think it is unfair bias to be less outraged at the teacher's case, more outraged at the deputy press secretary's case, and most outraged by somebody who kidnaps and attacks children against their will.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Tres, if the child or teen could practically consent there would be no need for the law. The whole point of the law is that with respect to certain age and authority differences, there is an implicit coercion. My whole point is that it is extremely damaging to talk about the minor's consent in these things because it reinforces in the victim the already devastating idea that they are to blame...and perhaps even more so in males because of the messages pH talked about.
Posted by Tresopax (Member # 1063) on :
I think the point of the law is to make it harder for child rapists to escape prosecution by claiming the child consented. It's too hard to legally prove someone did not consent or that they were tricked, so a somewhat arbitrary line is drawn for legal purposes. But I don't think that line changes the physical reality of the situation - that people can in fact consent to things even if they aren't 18 yet.
Compare it to assisted suicide if you want. Legally, you can't simply decide to kill yourself, and you can't agree to have someone kill you. Nevertheless, I think it is clearly a greater crime to murder someone against their will than it is to help them kill themselves by their own request. The end result is the same (death of the victim) but there is a difference in terms of the degree to which it was agreed to, if only in a practical, nonlegal sense.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Jim, the only reason I didn't mention condemning the boy because "he wanted it" is because I have much less understanding of that particular viewpoint. I haven't personally encountered it at all; as I said, in the case of the boy in Florida, (male) radio DJs and the like would go on about how lucky he was to have lost his virginity to such an attractive woman.
The other attitudes, however, are much more familiar to me. I was raised in a family where my father was very strict on the double standard (my brother was allowed to have girls spend the night in his room, whereas if a boy slept over at my house, we were not allowed on the same floor together alone). My mother, however, was much more equal in her views on dating and sex. In my particular case, in terms of relationship attitudes, at any rate, I ended up the "boy," and my brother ended up the "girl."
I had more to say, but the fire alarm just went off.
-pH
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Edit: To Tresopax
Perhaps the problem is you are extrapolating fine shades with a broad brush.
It's obviously more horrifying to think of someone being physically forced versus someone who goes along for other reasons. That does not imply that we should ignore the very real problem with consenting to someone in a position of physical and emotional authority over you (like a teacher or parent).
Insofar as you say that physical coercion is "worse" because it brings violence into an already ugly situation, I can agree with you. To argue that point by describing sexual abuse as "consensual" to any degree is disturbing to the point that I can't really argue with you anymore without making it personal.
I wonder, did you read the link I posted?
Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
quote:Originally posted by pH: It seems as though women who have sex with boys aren't punished as harshly because the attitude is that they're giving the boys what they want anyway.
All boys want to have sex with any attractive woman. Any boy would be lucky to have sex with any attractive woman. A boy who feels victimized because a woman had sex with him just doesn't understand how lucky he was.
Whereas girls by default never want to have sex with anyone. Therefore, men who have sex with girls are committing a worse crime than women who have sex with boys.
Or something.
-pH
Yet it's amazing how completely the perception changes if the victim remains a boy, but the perpetrator is a man. One could argue that a man in this position is just giving the kid what he wants (assuming it's at least arguably consensual). Yet almost unanimously, a man in this position is labeled a pedophile and a monster.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Excellent point, Karl. Not that I support, for example, NAMBLA... but viewing the horror with which people react to them compared with the prevalent, if not majority, reaction of "gee, lucky kid" with respect to the teacher situations is rather instructive about society's prejudice.
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
Karl: Yeah, and I think, to a certain extent, the horror comes from people who think that homosexuality is wrong and relate pedophilia to homosexuality. Which I don't understand because the body and appearance of a grown man or a grown woman is drastically different from that of a child. I mean, I like men, but that doesn't mean I also like prepubescent boys.
I don't know how objective and scientific it is, but I remember being surprised at its conclusion: that females that abuse underage kids do not necessarily get lighter sentences than males that abuse underage kids, given a bunch of factors like age of the kid and the likelihood of repeating the offense.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
I'd be willing to bet that there's an underreporting of abuse by females in this particular case (precisely because of what we were just discussing)... but it is good to know that the sentencing appears to be fairly equal.
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