The Simplest of Terms

Every once in a while, a blogger posts about the interesting, freaky, frightening, funny or just plain weird searches that turn up on their statcounter. It makes for fun reading. There are some...er...unusual people in this world, and the internet brings them right to our front door.

When I first installed my statcounter, I waited anxiously to see what kind of funky searches would turn up. But nothing did. Perhaps because for several months, the only person reading Blogs Are Stupid, was me.

Almost two years have gone by, and I'm both disgruntled and relieved to report that I never get anything interesting on my statcounter.

Well no, that's not entirely true.

I do get various boob searches that inevitably lead to a picture I posted quite a while back of a woman with a pair of ginormous bolt ons that are as hideous as they are mesmerizing. I removed the picture because of the number of hits it was getting, but that doesn't seem to have slowed the boob lover traffic at all.

Since appreciation for and pursuit of attractive mammaries is a fairly mainstream interest, it doesn't particularly skeeve me out.

And other than that, it's all fairly mundane.

But recently I got one that made my blood run cold. It was a Google image search, and the search terms were chillingly simple.

"Children"

Now, it's perfectly possible that the search was a completely innocuous one. But something deep in my gut told me that it was not so.

You may have noticed that I don't post pictures of my own kids. I have once or twice, but I removed the photos when the posts archived. But I have posted pictures of other kids, anonymous smiling children that I found out there in the vast treasure trove of images that is the internet. I used them to illustrate posts about innocence, the purity of childhood, the beauty and potential that lies in every child.

I have never used someone else's personal images for that purpose. I was always careful to choose commercial images. But is it really any better? Sacrificing another child to save my own?

I'm going to be very blunt here, because it's important that we be very clear about what kind of dangers are out there. What kind of EVIL lies in wait, hoping for an opportunity to victimize our children.

If you have posted images of your children on your blog, a message board, ebay...anywhere on the internet, the chances that a pedophile will use it as masturbatory fodder are pretty good. And not only will they jack off to images of your sweet, smiling offspring, they will steal those images and post them places where other pedophiles can do the same. They will talk about your child as a sexual being. They will attribute sexual desire to your child. They will project seductive behavior onto them in an effort to normalize and validate their deviant behavior.

The will say things like...

"Look at those pouty lips. She's just asking to have something put between them."

"Do you see the look in his eyes? He wants Daddy to punish him."

I'm not trying to be sensational here. I'm not trying to shock or disgust you. But I see and hear things like "I'm not going to let the sickos win. I'm still going to post pictures of my kids."

And it truly frightens me. Because either way, they win.

Parents, we need a wake-up call. The internet world of child erotica is a vast and highly profitable cesspool of human depravity.

Here are some things you need to see:
(WARNING: DISTURBING, NSFW)

NAMBLA

SVETLANA

Young Beauties

(I've removed the links to these sites because it was leading the pervs right to our collective doorstep. You can search and find them on your own if you like. )

People...you are fooling yourselves if you think you can keep your children's images from being used for this sort of thing.

Also, if you let your older children go online, have chat and IM privileges, play online games...you are basically giving pedophiles carte blanche to seduce, abuse, and possibly murder your child.

It doesn't matter how much you tell them that it's not safe to give out personal information. It doesn't matter how many times you tell them that there are people out there who want to hurt them.

It does not matter how many times you explain.

Because they don't think like adults. They don't see danger around every corner. They don't know how vile human beings can be.

My oldest son is 13. He does have internet access, because an increasing amount of homework is done online, but it is heavily monitored and locked down so tightly that many harmless sites are blocked. He does not have email. He does not have IM. And he is not allowed to access sites with chatrooms or message boards.

And we have explained why. Many times. In brutally honest terms. I even had him watch a news program where a sting operation was set up to catch internet predators. He was shocked and disturbed, which is exactly what I wanted. After that I would have sworn that he would never do anything foolhardy in that regard.

I would have been wrong.

Last weekend, he used Husband's email address to sign up for several online RPG games. All of the sites featured message boards and chat rooms.

Let me tell you, some serious caca hit the rotary oscillator over that one.

Not only because of the deceit, but because he knows WHY he shouldn't do that. And he did it anyway. Because he's 13.

So if you think that simply teaching your kids about the dangers and telling them not to do anything foolish is going to keep them safe, then you are wrong. Possibly, dead wrong.

Of course, he didn't think about the fact that confirmation notices would be sent to the purloined email address, so he didn't realize he would be busted pretty much immediately. Husband was actually online when he did it got the notice as soon as Pre-Pubescent One hit the submit button.

So no harm was done. This time.

But all I could think about was that one word, staring at me from the blue-white glare of my computer screen...."Children".

I hope you will think about it too.

ADDENDUM: There is some GREAT dialogue taking place in my comments, so please take the time to read there as well. I have the best readers. Even those who have disagreed with me have done so with tact and eloquence. This is an important thing to discuss, so if you have something to say, please feel free to say it. As always, all points of view are welcome.