Sexual Predators

          There is absolutely no excuse for an adult talking in a sexual manner to a child over the internet.  Adults should not even be talking to a child via internet at all unless there is a family relationship of some sort.  The lectures this week discussing the protection of children in relation to the internet and child pornography made it feel like the internet was a sex world full of predators, which may very well be true. 

            It was stated that some feel that the law enforcements are actually luring the lures to meet children or the cops posing as children.  I do not want to hear the excuse that someone was only trying to fulfill their fantasy and did not actually want to meet the child.  Those people have no business, to begin with, to be talking to children about sex.  If they were lured that easily, then if that cop who was posing as a child was an actual child I do not see how much different it could be.  The child may not have been as persuasive, but the sexual predator would have been likely to meet the child.  If these adults are that fantasized about having sex with children, then, as bad as it sounds, they should simply stick to searching for child porn on the net.  Even if it illegal it is better than sexually assaulting a child.  What they really should be doing is facing themselves and knowing they have a problem and seeking professional help.

            It was also stated in the lectures that not much is really affective when it comes protecting children from the internet.  I do agree with the fact that parents should be talking to each child about the dangers of the net and almost instilling a fear about the internet.  Children listen to their parents more than anyone else and if you start at a young age about the internet just as you start at a young age about manners and using the bathroom it will be no problem when they are in their pre-teen years.  One thing that I think would help, but is almost impossible to do is to monitor every child that is on the internet.  A software or program could be created where automatically if a child was a user of a computer, then that child would be limited to the sites they could visit.  This would give no question to what the child was doing on the net and would minimize chat room involvement. 

            Out of all the subjects in this course discussed I feel this is the most obscene.  It is more obscene than bestiality or hardcore pornography.  A child should never be put through that kind of physical or emotional pain that can leave lifelong scars.  Sexual predators should be locked away just as long as those Rockefeller Laws put away cocaine users and dealers.  This is something that should not be taken lightly, but it almost seems like it is since parents are doing very little to prevent this from happening.