Wednesday, November 08, 2006

When opportunity knocks, do you have to answer it?

The Internet is inherently neither negative nor positive. It is simply a tool. It and the related technologies offer an abundant of opportunities. And, how those technologies are used is good or bad, fun or annoying, productive or wasteful, etc.

A few weeks ago, I read the story about a national sting that netted 125 perverts in a child-porn case.
"I'm the father of four young children between the ages of 13 and 3," [U.S. Attorney Christopher] Christie said. "This is every parent's worst nightmare. It is just deeply disturbing to know there are people like this out there in our neighborhoods."
Out of courtesy to the "voice of reason," I'll include this line from the story:
Several of those arrested nationwide have prior records for molesting or sexually assaulting children, officials said.
Several. Not most or many of the 125, just several.

Still, it seems like we often are hearing or reading about sexual predators, child porn and other sick society stuff. Was this "stuff" as prevalent 10, 20 or 50 years ago? If alive 75 years ago, would these people still be participating and/or watching these deviant activities?

Or, is the opportunity to view this perversion on the Internet bringing it out from the evil bowels of their souls?
-- Mike

4 comments:

Tricia said...

Why am I just NOW finding this blog? You are added to my site!

Unknown said...

Hi Mike! Thanks for adding that line in your post to maintain the objectivity.

I don't know how prevalent the "sick society stuff" was in the past, and how it compares to today, but it is something I have considered as well.

There have always been deviants and perverts around, but I think the scale of the problem has increased, and can be attributed to two main causes.

If you didn't know, pornography is more addictive then most drugs, and actually affects the brain's chemistry in the same way many drugs do. I think internet access to pornography, and child pornography in particular, with the ability to find and view it "anonymously" has created an addiction. I believe you have a huge number of people who, in years past, would never dare walk into an "adult" bookstore and ask for porn, much less kiddie porn, can now find it on their computer without anyone else knowing.

Couple the easy and wide-spread access to pornography with our society's changing norms regarding children as sexual objects (witness the Calvin Klein commercials and "soft-porn" main stream movies depicting minors), and I think the result is the increasing scale we at which we are seeing these problems.

Just my musings; simplistic, but food for thought regardless.

Mike Driehorst said...

Aeryk,

"can now find it on their computer without anyone else knowing."

Well, that is true to a point, but as we see often enough, not totally anonymous.

It does seem that access -- or opportunity as I said -- can bring out the worst (as well as the best) in us.

It's especially surprising when you look at the hypocrisy of many. I heard (3-4 times removed from the source) of a guy who likely considers himself very much a Christian who commented that he knows how to get around not being caught at some teen (pre 18 I assume) porn sites. If I had any evidence or could find out more I'd nail him in a second.
Mike

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