How to Get Kids Into Your Van

Step #1: Buy, like, 20 puppies...

No, I'm kidding. I would never write an article like that. It's so cliche.

I just saw a commercial that said 1 in 5 children has been sexually propositioned on the Internet. Could this possibly be true? My roommate Nathan's immediate response was, and I quote, "use the part of your mind that is not retarded to deduce that that's stupid." I'm inclined to agree.

I know there's a lot of pervs out there, particularly on the Internet. It's the whole connected-to-the-world-from-your-bedroom thing that really brings out the freak in people. And, for the most part, I'm for that. I'm glad there's guys out there who are able to look at one another's genitals via webcams for kicks. I wish I didn't know about it, but I'm glad it's there.

But are there really that many adults out there trying to seduce young children? And when I say seduce, I mean ply for real-world sexual contact. I don't mean goofing around on the Internet flirting with children. That's disgusting and wrong, but that's not what the commercial seemed to be talking about. It's also probably the responsibility of parents - if your child is on the Internet at all hours chatting with strangers to learn about sex, you've got some problems.

I suppose it's a larger problem that I would assume. I remember when Internet chat was the new hotness, when I was at UCLA. Everyone got ICQ and Yahoo! Chat and fooled around with it and played tricks on one another for a few months, and then most of us (myself included) got very tired of it. Frankly, I don't even enjoy Instant Messenger very much. I prefer e-mail. Call me old-fashioned.

But out there in the trenches, there are apparently a lot of adult men looking to hook up with young girls. How revolting. Check out this website, Perverted Justice. They try to expose these creeps, the ones that try to seduce kids into meeting up in real life. It's pretty clever, actually. They pretend to be young girls and then lure older guys into conversation, and of course the older guys soon enough try to get the girls to meet up with them at a bowling alley or a movie theater or next to the dumpster behind the Piggly Wiggly on Route 219, near the outhouse where Cousin Jedediah lost his pinkie toe in the moonshine explosion of '74. Gross!

At the site, they actually post the whole online conversation, along with Blind Date-style commentary. I think whomever the guys behind the project are doing a great public service personally, even though they seem to be getting off on exposing these weirdos. Maybe if they get enough publicity and word gets out that there are perv-hunters on the loose, less dirty old men will be inspired to hunt down children on the Internet, and will go back to hunting children the old-fashioned way, with promises of ice cream sundaes and a good length of duct tape.

Anyway, I was surprised this was a big problem in the first place, then I find out there's this huge website set up to combat this exact problem. Sigh.

Don't know quite was inspired me to write about this issue. I suppose I'm feeling particularly Dostoevskyian tonight (Dostoevsky-ish? Dostoevsky-esque?) Every time I think I have people figured out, they stoop about 10 degrees lower than I thought imaginable.