All the Better to IM You My Dear
One lonely Sunday a boy of impressionable youth logged in to his MySpace chat room type booth. He typed and he typed to all his friends about this or that between LOL’s and emoticon sends. All while watching HULU.com he came across that adorable Michael C. Hall. The young boy knew that he favored the boys to the girls but kept it a secret that he crushed on the Earl’s and the Troy’s. His urge was a hunger night after night as puberty crept up to what seemed an indelible spike. All of his will power and all of his might couldn’t stop his mind wandering from the twink porn website. He found it one day all by his lonesome, now to come think of it, a day similar to the one now in question. His parents? Unknowing of his sexuality and internet access never stop to realize their parental inactiveness. The problem was not his gayness or his search for this knowledge but all will come clear much later we’ll acknowledge.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children funded a study by the Crimes Against Children Resource Center in 2006 of youth Internet users over a five year period. They found:
1) An increase in encountering unwanted exposures to sexual material (from 25% to 34%)
2) An increase in cases of online harassment (from 6% to 9%)
3) A decrease in those receiving unwanted sexual solicitations (from 19% to 13%)
4) 40% of all youth Internet users said online solicitors asked them for nude or sexually explicit photographs of themselves.
5) Only a minority of youth who had unwanted sexual solicitations, unwanted exposures to sexual material, or harassment said they were distressed by the incidents.
6) One-third of the solicitations (31%) were aggressive, meaning the solicitors made, or attempted, offline contact with youth.
On the opposite end of town on that same lonely Sunday was a middle aged man creepy in his ways living the life of your typical predator cliché. We’ll call him the wolf for his hunger for his prey. He spent his days looking for boys impressionable towards his sway. Now the boy in question he had seen around the MySpace and such thus pegged him for his next boy he would touch. He saw our boy currently logged in and sent him an IM. They chatted and became quite friendly but the boy didn’t know the inappropriate intentions. This went on and on weeks upon weeks. Until one day our wolf asked them to meet. The boy said ok but where shall we meet. Why my house of course we can play Nintendo and eat cake.
The boy felt comfortable due to the attention the wolf gave. He rode his 10 speed all the way across town wearing his favorite little red hoodie that was old and beat down. He pulled up to the wolf’s lair at his apartment complex and knocked on his door while wiping off his specs. The wolf opened up and said hey little red hoodie while won’t you come in for play time and cookies. The boy was surprised by the wolf’s size and age but went in despite his stomach’s uneasiness gauge. Things started out ok but quite soon they progressed in no time they were unclothed within the wolf’s purpose. We won’t go into details but the boy came out feeling used, unsure about what had just transpired, his soul was quite bruised. He never told anyone, not his parents nor his friends, he kept it inside scarred deep within. It took him years to recover and understand to be gay was OK. But that the wolf took advantage of his youth, his access online, and made him his prey.
This is a story that happens daily through the internet. Parents need to understand what their kids are doing , who they’re talking to, and where they’re going online as well in the real world. Perry Aftab, writer of A Parent’s Guide to the Internet, said in a recent msnbc interview, “Pictures don’t hurt kids. People hurt kids . . . As long as parents think the only real risk is that the kids will see adult sex content, they won’t do anything.” Parents need to have a real world conversation about who’s out there, who can, and most likely will, try to talk with them. Children and Adolescents access to information is detrimental in that they can easily be taken advantage of by predator’s ease of access to them.
Parents should teach their children to:
1. Think before they click: With whom are they chatting or e-mailing, what are they saying and how are they saying it? Will the person on the other end know they are joking?
2. Walk away from the computer and “Take 5” before responding to something that upsets them online
3. Avoid spreading rumors, assisting in cyber bullying or sharing private communications online.
4. Follow the golden rule of cyberspace: Don’t do anything online that you wouldn’t do in real life!
Follow responsible safety practices yourself:
1. Install spyware and adware blocking software on your computer
2. Make sure you have a working firewall
3. Install anti-virus software and update it regularly
4. Take advantage of spam-blocking tools offered by your Internet provider or e-mail software
(Read the opposing argument)
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