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The Internet is emerging as a tool that individuals
with pedophilia can use to attract young children. An Internet
user explores the virtual dynamics of cyberspace that facilitate
pedophiliac impulses and the tragic behaviour that can follow.
Last July, a 14-year-old Victoria, British Columbia girl
was lured from her home and forced into a car by a 28-year-old
travelling salesman she had met online. He convinced her to
give him his address and phone number after the two had developed
an intimate relationship during weeks of online chats. In
June 1998, a 28-year-old electrical engineer from Missouri
had sex with a 13-year-old girl he had lured into his house
after meeting her on an AOL chat room and telling her he owned
a modelling agency. And earlier that year in March, a 34-year-old
Seattle man arranged to meet a 13-year-old Los Angeles girl
whom he too had met in an online chat room. After several
months of "foreplay" on the Internet, he asked to meet her
in person to talk, play, and have sex.
In the last case, the 13-year-old girl was actually an FBI agent
and the man was promptly arrested. More shockingly, the 34-year-old
was Patrick Naughton, a well-known dot-com high-flyer who had
helped develop Java and had recently been hired by Disney's
Michael Eisner to launch its Web portal, Infoseek. He was also
married.
The perpetrators in these incidents are examples of individuals
with pedophilia—a mental disorder characterised by recurrent,
intense sexual fantasies, sexual impulses, and behaviour involving
sexual activity with prepubescent children. These fantasies,
impulses, and behaviours are significant enough to impair the
individual's regular functioning and are abusive to the children
with whom they may occur. Pedophilia, which occurs in both males
and females, may involve sexual attraction to males, females,
or both.
As the examples above illustrate, these individuals are using
the Internet to meet, entice, and have sex with impressionable
young children. And many of them are those we would least suspect
of doing so. But why are these individuals attracted to the
Internet? It is a worthwhile question to consider, not to sensationalise
what is a highly sensitive issue, but to increase awareness
of the Internet's potential to harm children. At the same time,
it can encourage us to address the underlying circumstances
and long-standing psychological problems that manifest as abnormal
sexual relationships online, but which actually originate
and are best targeted offline.
The Internet is a vast network of computers linking together
users of all ages. Its global reach has revolutionised the way
we communicate with one another. Unfortunately, it has also
given individuals with pedophilia increasingly convenient access
to children anywhere on the planet. With its chat and game rooms,
IRC (Internet Relay Chat), ICQ, Usenet groups, and webcam-equipped
personal homepages, the Internet has become a font not only
of young children, but young children with whom one can readily
interact. While writing this article, I visited numerous chat
rooms disguised as a young female teenager and within 3 minutes
was inundated with requests for sexual favours. My experience
is not uncommon. In fact, according to a recent U.S. study,
"Online Victimization: A Report on the Nation's Youth", 1 in
5 children aged 10-17 are propositioned online for sexual activity.
The Internet provides not only a source of young children, but
also a convenient means by which they can be reached by those
with pedophilia. Such individuals are able to assume any number
of friendly online personalities seemingly harmless to unsuspecting
children. In fact, they may also seem harmless to other adults.
Whereas in broad daylight we may notice potential offenders
staring at and following children, in cyberspace all we see
are static pseudonyms carrying on conversations invisible to
the rest of us. This degree of anonymity may be particularly
appealing to individuals who experience pedophiliac fantasies
and urges but who, because of their high profile, would almost
never act them out with children in their own vicinity (i.e.
in their own family or neighbourhood). Thus it is not uncommon
to find, for example, doctors, lawyers, policemen, or even members
of the clergy using the Internet to engage in pedophiliac behaviours.
And since there is an absence of observable censors that help
keep check on their impulses, these users may unwittingly fashion
for themselves the illusion that what they are doing is normal
and natural.
Individuals with pedophilia provide support for one another
in large online communities, which serves to reinforce such
illusions. Congregating in chat rooms titled "dad&daughtersex"
and "youngboylovers", users can discuss their tastes and inform
each other where to find children. They can also readily exchange
a wealth of child pornography, which has the dual effect of
both satisfying pedophiliac urges, and increasing sexual appetite
by associating visually-arousing material with text-based interactions
with young children.
Complicating matters is the degree to which online communications
offer opportunity for fantasy, especially during the initial
`courtship' between an individual with pedophilia and a young
child. While the two may exchange photographs and webcam images
to `get to know' one another, the absence of two people in the
same physical time and space promotes the development of all
sorts of illusions.
Primary of these is a user's unrealistic conviction that his
or her sexual interest in a particular child is mutual. When
he or she cannot see the indifference, the hesitation, the confusion,
or the fear in the child's face and body language—signs
which are usually more conspicuous in person, especially over
time—the child may quite easily become sexualised in that
user's mind. Not only does this escalate the individual's physical
arousal, but it also seems to feed his or her justification
of the pedophiliac relationship. As one online user known only
as "Patrick" tells me, "If she's talking to me, giving me her
pic, not telling me to leave her alone, I think there's a pretty
good chance she wants to have sex." In some cases, a person
suffering pedophilia does not initially approach a child merely
for sexual favours but may after many weeks or months of online
chatting delude him or herself into believing that a healthy
relationship has naturally `developed' between the two. This
may eventually serve as justification for the relationship,
and, of course, all the more reason to continue it. While it
may be said that this dynamic-if not most of the ones discussed
in this article-is not unique to pedophiliac relationships because
it may also occur between two adults online, it is especially
problematic where children are involved because it adds to the
degree of obsession that often seems more pronounced in cases
of pedophilia.
But what of the children themselves? Far be it to suggest they
are fully rational, consenting agents in these abhorrent interactions,
but we cannot help but ask: why in the first place do they respond
to older users who randomly solicit them for chats? Why do they
continue corresponding with them? What is, in essence, the nature
of this peculiar attraction—for in the absence of physical
coercion, what else can there be but attraction to bind the
two users?
While all children are at risk, it appears that lonely children
are the most vulnerable to falling into pedophiliac relationships
online. With the alarming disintegration of the modern family,
the family stretched so thin that it can no longer nurture its
members, young children are more and more likely to accept the
attention of anyone who will offer it—even an online stranger.
In some cases, a child may not initially suspect any ulterior
sexual motives. In others, he or she may not like what is suspected,
but will succumb to the hunger for affection. As 12-year-old
"Mindy" tells me, "Nobody's at home. And even when they are,
they don't give a shit about me. When I'm online, I meet people
who really care about me and will take care of me. . .who love
me." Attention from a virtual father or brother figure seems
better than none at all.
It also seems that a lack of guidance, social support, and role
models for gay youth—particularly crucial in the developing
years during which they may start coming to terms with their
sexuality—leaves them searching for human connection online.
Sexual offenders may be more than happy to take these youth
`under their wings', initiating them into a world of gay sexuality
and fulfilling their longing to become part of the larger gay
community around them. During my exploration of cyberspace,
it was not uncommon to see chat rooms frequented by users such
as "YoungPup" or "MusclBoy" being courted by users calling themselves
"Dad4Sons" or "Bear4Cubs".
What makes all these interactions all the more powerful is the
tangible trail they leave behind. Online chats and messages
can be saved permanently, allowing users to review and relive
their interactions with children line-by-line, word-for-word,
for hours on end. This may amplify the user's belief that the
child is demonstrating genuine sexual interest—even when
the child is understandably confused about the relationship
and in reality harbours no sexual interest at all. Of course,
while this may occur between any two users online, it is particularly
troublesome when children are involved, because, as suggested
earlier, it may feed the already obsessive quality of pedophiliac
fantasies and urges, and in turn increase the likelihood that
these fantasies and urges will grow into actual sexual behaviours
(either online and offline) with the unsuspecting children a
user meets on the Internet.
All of these factors demonstrate the need to monitor children's
Internet use. On a more general level, they also hint at some
of the pre-existing psychological and interpersonal deficits
that are rooted offline and are merely amplified through
a medium such as cyberspace. A simple example is empathy. Sex
offenders often appear unable to realistically appreciate what
it is like from a child's point of view to be introduced to
sexuality at such a young age. The nature of this difficulty
becomes salient when we notice an increase in the development
of sexual behaviour in an environment devoid of children's facial
expressions, body language, speech, and so forth. In considering
such factors in detail, I believe we can try to distil what
general circumstances, cognitive patterns, and emotional dynamics
are involved in pedophiliac relationships, in order to help
us manage them not only on the Internet but also in the general
community. If lack of impulse control, as another example, is
a significant precipitating factor in pedophiliac behaviours,
then we can focus on devising new ways of restricting adults
from Internet zones in which they have quick, immediate access
to children, and at the same time we can place more emphasis
on impulse control cognitive therapy programs for individuals
with pedophilia.
The Internet has certainly come a long way since its early beginnings
in the 1970's. It will surely grow exponentially in size and
become increasingly complex. And so will the sophistication
with which we will be able to connect with one another. Unfortunately,
not everyone will be able to handle this sophistication, least
of all those with limited cognitive and emotional maturity—our
children. This leaves some adults with grossly disproportionate
dominion over this fragile segment of the population. I believe
a thorough appreciation of the dynamics involved in this variant
of the `digital divide' can help us tackle this inevitable problem—and
the more complex problems underlying it.
Copyright © 2001 Eddy M. Elmer. All Rights
Reserved.
Eddy Elmer is a psychology student at Simon
Fraser University in Burnaby, BC. He may be reached through
his website, http://www.eddyelmer.com
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