Ladies and gentlemen? I'm equally as anti-pedophile as the most of you are. However, before anyone goes accusing anybody of being a pedophile, they should always get the definition of pedophilia right. That is, a pedophile is someone 16 years of age or older that is primarily or exclusively attracted to a prepubescent child five or more years their junior generally under 13 years of age (under 11 years of age under certain circumstances).
I'm completely aware that many state jurisdictions of the United States set 18 years old as the statutory age of consent. Nonetheless, the American "statutory-rape" laws are not commensurate with the realities that sexually active teenagers are going to stray outside their peer circles in search of intimacy now and then.
Because there are more young adult men in their twenties that have never had a girlfriend in their life than there were in previous decades, there are going to be more situations in which adult men gravitate toward teenage schoolgirls. They're not going to find it as easy to relate to women their own age, especially ones that have high body counts, period.
In his video below, Norman Michael Achin comments about a news clip out of California in which journalists and law-enforcement officials talk about what they describe as child sexual exploitation. However, Mr. Achin has come across adults who have told him that when they were teenage minors themselves, they had sexual relationships with adults and did not suffer any kind of harm from it.
Norman Michael Achin Attempts To Differentiate Between Age-Gap Relationships And Actual Sexual Exploitation
As you can see, there are a number of ambiguities in the manner that authorities and journalists describe what they deem to be child sexual exploitation. The notion that any adult was attempting to have sexual intercourse with a 1-year-old infant clearly constitutes child sexual exploitation, among other things. However, the cases involving teenage sex in age-gap hook-ups are nebulous at best.
The most concerning thing about these online sex-sting operations that are described in this same news clip is that they involve fake victims. The journalists certainly should bring that fact to light.
At the end of the day, many police officials are more interested in pushing their agenda than ensuring the public safety. In yet another video, Mr. Achin points out how police have deviated from their own procedural manuals.
Norman Michael Achin Points Out What The Police Do Wrong And Unethically In Enforcing Sex Laws
Many of these cops are not saving anyone from anything. I agree with Mr. Achin that sexual exploitation can happen to anyone of any age. However, way too many people in our criminal justice system have a propensity to believe that teenage minors getting involved in age-gap relationships willingly is no different from an old man grabbing a toddler into his car and taking her off somewhere to commit unspeakable acts against her. This is where the American public gets grossly deceived.
Back when I was 16 years old, I got a letter from a gentleman in Costa Rica through a pen pal club. I had initially written to him. I had thought that he was 18 years old, and he had told me in his response letter that he was only 18 years of age. I wanted to practice my Spanish by writing letters to him and reading his letters back to me.
This man seemed to have many of the same interests as I did, and he appeared to like much of the same music as I did. However, much to my shock, at the end of his letter, he asked me if I could send him pornographic pictures. No, he didn't ask for pornographic pictures of me, but he wanted me to mail him pornographic pictures in general that I may have had in my possession.
Pornography was not my scene when I was in high school. Moreover, I was still a minor, and I didn't want to get into trouble with the authorities for mailing pornographic materials across international lines. I immediately cut all communications off with this man, because I felt very uncomfortable about what he had asked from me. My best friend at the time told me that I was being biased in doing so, but my gut feeling told me that I was doing the right thing.
So many years later, I read this man's letter again, and I noticed that his writing style was too sophisticated for that of a teenage boy. In fact, I detected that he could have been at least 40 years of age, if not older.
In hindsight, what he did was audacious, especially if he really was a middle-aged man. However, did I feel that he should have gone to jail for it? Of course not. Did he groom me? I don't feel that he did. He never harmed me in any way. He only got me feeling somewhat uneasy, but I didn't fall apart at the seams. At the end of the day, I cut all contact with him, and that was the end of it. I didn't let that one small event in my life ruin my adolescence or my future.
I realize that if an adult man were to do the same thing over the Internet in this day and age, he'd probably be arrested for it. Of course, I realize that we're living in a much different world now than we did back when I was a teenager.
At the same time, I feel that American sex laws have gone way too far. As there are teenagers who knowingly and willingly have sex with peers the same age, there are bound to be teenagers who will seek sexual intimacy outside their peer circles with older partners. It doesn't mean that we have to have police officers constantly running interference in these situations.
Other nations and other societies outside the United States have taken an awareness that teenage minors can and do get involved in sexually intimate age-gap relationships with adults that are not necessarily exploitative in nature. What does it take to enlighten both society and the law here in the United States in this manner?
The police forces in South Africa wouldn't have time to go on these types of witch hunts that I described above, because they have their hands full with child cannibalism cases in that nation. The American criminal justice system needs to focus on the important stuff instead.
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