How old is fifteen really?

[P K Duck]

Okay... so there's a concerned parent who notices their beloved son spending a lot of time on the internet.

Obsessed with paedogeddon as many mothers are these days, she secretly installs a keystroke logger onto her little angel's computer, and is horrified to discover all of those things about the internet are true: there's some dodgy Yank paedo grooming her precious boy!

So she monitors the situation, collects the filthy cock pictures and all the correspondence, and on the day the 26 year old nonce is due to arrive at the airport, she gets the law onto him.

Yay! You might say.

Oh, and her boy was 15 years old. I feel dirty linking to the Metro site, my apologies.

So... what do we make of this one then? As Dave Chappelle once observed "Just how old is fifteen really?"

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0ztxDvkPNo[/youtube]

[Lady Beaner]

I read this in the Metro this morning - of course horrified at the thought of what could have happened, but also thinking 'Woah, I wonder how she dealt with her precious boy afterwards?!' What a head-fuck.

[Totem Hokum]

I think it's a bit odd that she was collecting up pornographic pictures of her son and not saying anything for a while, confident that if she waits long enough she'll be able to catch the paedo. I mean, how would she have known when to reveal that 'she knows' if the meet was not organised?

[Oscar]

If my mum had done this to me when I was fifteen, I would've been furious. I can understand why she wouldn't want her son meeting up with this guy, but if the boy was sending the paedo nude photos of himself, then he was hardly a sweet innocent with no idea of what this man wanted.

[mook]

If my mum had done this to me when I was fifteen, I would've been furious. I can understand why she wouldn't want her son meeting up with this guy, but if the boy was sending the paedo nude photos of himself, then he was hardly a sweet innocent with no idea of what this man wanted.

But surely it is the mother's job to try and stop her no doubt willing 15 your old from sucking some 26 your old cock? When her little lad gets to be 18 I'm sure she'll let him do whatever the fuck he wants.

[Oscar]

But surely it is the mother's job to try and stop her no doubt willing 15 your old from sucking some 26 your old cock? When her little lad gets to be 18 I'm sure she'll let him do whatever the fuck he wants.

I'm not sure, actually, I guess I'm judging by how I would have felt at that age. By fifteen my parents had no clue what I was up to, when I spoke to my mum about it some years later she said "Well, I assumed that you'd be able to look after yourself and only do something if you wanted to."
I do think kids need some privacy, how else can they learn to be able to look after themselves by 18 if either they have no private life because they're scared of their mum reading about it; or make mistakes but never have to take responsibility for sorting out the mess?
Then again, I'm avoiding having kids so that I don't have to make these kinds of decisions,  so I'm not qualified to comment.

[Borboski]

The idea that a 15 year old is confident enough to know what they're doing, sorry, is a very risky one.  We're so fearful of the state these days that so often we don't say "No, you're an adolescent, you don't have rights nor do you the ability to make your own reasoned choice".

Can't help feeling, too, that because it's a bloke you think it's less risky.

Just the other day I was discussing a case of a girl who ended up being persuaded by someone to show pictures of themselves - that was all consensual, then he ended up extracting the telephone number of her and well, you can guess what happened next...

[Smackhead Kangaroo]

He tried to make her join a pyramid scheme?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Arbitrary age limits only exist because there's no fairer way. I know a few 15 year olds who I could rely on to make more mature decisions in a wide range of areas than a bunch of people in their 20's.

[fanny splendid]

Just the other day I was discussing a case of a girl who ended up being persuaded by someone to show pictures of themselves - that was all consensual, then he ended up extracting the telephone number of her and well, you can guess what happened next...

He travelled up from London, but was told in no uncertain terms to go away, and she became a model, and the face of Dirt Bike magazine.

[SOTS]

Arbitrary age limits only exist because there's no fairer way. I know a few 15 year olds who I could rely on to make more mature decisions in a wide range of areas than a bunch of people in their 20's.

Agreed. It really depends on the individual person.

[Littlejohn]

The metro journalist should at least be accountable for that pile of shit. Calling a man who seduces a 15 year old boy a paedophile is inaccurate on two counts; firstly that of age (15 is not prepubescent) and secondly on activity (paedophilia is an orientation).

The mother is also well out of order. The law is there to stop abuse, not the realisation of internet romances. You don't just draw upon the law as if it were some dogmatic moral code. You think before using it.

Now, an almost certainly harmless man could be locked up for two decades of his life. Just another day in the anglo-american withchhunt on pederasty.

[El Unicornio, mang]

It's legal in France

[P K Duck]

Usually in these cases we get a few paragraphs of prurient details from the victim recounting their ordeal masquerading as newspaper "tut tutting". Here, nothing at all. This really doesn't strike me as a "grooming" situation.

Computer security firm Sophos said spyware is normally used to combat fraud but in this case it might well have stopped an under-age teenager from having sex with an adult.

Which to me sums this up. The only thing stopping the young man in question from developing his homosexual relationship with someone he met on-line was the fact that he was 15 and had a maniacal control-freak for a mother. As the quote continues:

'However, for those worried about what their kids are doing online, the best advice may simply be to ensure the computer is in a place where other family members are present.

So your mum spys on you and finds you in correspondence with a 26 year-old man, sex pictures, webcam captures, the lot, and instead of talking to you, keeps it to herself and calls the police. Still feigning ignorance, she waits until you arrange to meet, and calls the cops to arrest your internet boyfriend as he gets off the plane. And you're fifteen years old.

This isn't paedophilia, this is homosexuality, and mother needs her head examined.

Interestingly enough, I was wondering if the young man's age really had that much effect on my opinion. When I first saw the headline on the page (the one after the long-shot of the barely-legal BB twins in their bikinis, the article just above the fit young model wearing a recycled glass bikini) I thought great, the kids 8 or something, why does he have a computer in his room? So in a way, I guess when I saw 15, it changed the whole interpretation.

This:

The mother is also well out of order. The law is there to stop abuse, not the realisation of internet romances. You don't just draw upon the law as if it were some dogmatic moral code. You think before using it.

expresses it better.

[thomasina]

It seems an odd way to go about things. (On the mother's side, I mean).  Personally, I would have had a word with my son. 

[P K Duck]

It seems an odd way to go about things. (On the mother's side, I mean).  Personally, I would have had a word with my son. 

Exactly. And confiscated his computer if you were really concerned.

Next time we'll read about this family will be when the off-license that sold his mates a six-pack of Fosters gets closed doen due to the the night-vision photographs the mother has submitted to trading standards, the FBI and her Majesty the Queen.

[Dark Sky]

Twenty years in prison for arranging consensual sex with someone you've known for a year?  Seems a bit extreme.

They should've just waited until the boy was sixteen so it was actually legal.

[Picolho]

The scariest part of this story is the effect that all this is going to have on the boy.

Let's give the boy the benefit of the doubt, and accept that he knew what he was doing and what the potential consequences were.
"And hey, if I come over there, would you like to have sex with me?"  is hardly a confusing question - especially as they had already exchanged snaps of their respective parts.

So now we have a young guy who was finding his feet, finding himself, finding someone he felt he could communicate with and relate to (talk to his Mum about being gay? Yeah, I bet!) and (heaven forbid!) find someone he could express himself sexually with - and all of a sudden the police are at his door and poking through his pc and the rest of his private life, and his already hysterical Mother is going ballistic, and his school friends are whispering and sniggering, and he sees the man he quite probably felt good about being dragged off in chains and likely to spend the next 20 years in prison.

Is that a recipe for a healthy and well-adjusted gay teenager?  He'll be lucky if this doesn't f**k him up for a looong while.

[P K Duck]

In many ways it's worse than even that. The 26 year old was actually prosecuted for possession of the photographs exchanged, and a webcam capture, not intent or grooming.

[hoverdonkey]

This is one of those stories where I don't know what I'm supposed to think. Although the Mum's actions were very odd.

It seems that she was more interested in capturing and punishing the man rather than protecting her son.

[Artemis]

"Fifteen, to me, is old enough to decide whether or not you want to be pissed on. If you can't make a decision like that by the time you're fifteen, then just give up, motherfucker, because life is way harder then that."

Fantastic Chapelle clip, thanks!

The age of a consent is a desperately flawed law but sadly a necessary one. Like somebody else said, I've met people in their twenties who needed protecting more then some fourteen year olds I've met. The idea that it's a crime until the day you become 16, at which point it immediately becomes a 'choice' is a nonsense.

There's a degree of voluntary indulgence on the part of a fifteen year old boy who strips off in front of a webcam, but why bother exploring that angle when you can feed the scaremongers who'd have us believe every other person is out to rape kids?

[P K Duck]

Them what got LiveJournal in a strikethrough tizzy define internet grooming, and I'd trust such a dedicated group to spell out exactly the terms of their creed. They aren't the bonkers they're-everywhere advocates they've been painted out to be by the way, and their stuff is full of caveats and warnings to look at what is happening in a situation rather than see paedogeddon everywhere.

Later on, they offer advice to worried parents:

How can you protect your children?

Talk to your kids - Parents are one of the single most effective tools in the fight against child sexual abuse. This may be an uncomfortable subject, but remember, you aren't talking about sex, you're talking about personal safety. You can use other safety issues as a 'lead in' to this topic.

Read to your kids – Sit down and read about safety. We have a couple of books on our side bar, or you can choose some of your own. You don't even need a book. Set time aside to sit down and have a discussion.

Listen to your kids – Dictating, preaching, demanding, are all negative ways to talk to your kids. Even very young children need to be able to tell you their feelings, thoughts and fears. Make sure that you take the time to listen to your children.

Teach your kids – Teach them to trust their own feelings and instincts. Tell them it's ok to say "no" and to be rude to people in order to protect themselves. Teach them about "good touch, bad touch". Bad touch is where their bathing suit covers them. Make sure your children know to tell you if something does happen or even if someone makes them feel uncomfortable. Keeping secrets is not only wrong, but dangerous. If you don't teach these things to your children, then you are leaving them open for the predators to teach them whatever they want.

Watch your kids – Keep a watchful eye on your children. Kids get distracted and often don't think about dangers until it's too late. Know where your kids are, what they are doing, and who they are doing it with at all times.

Can't see spy on your kid with a keystroke logger anywhere on that list.


Gratuitous excuse for Brasseye Special clip
(err... to demonstrate what WFI don't do):
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NesjvRihbEg[/youtube]

[glitch]

In many ways it's worse than even that. The 26 year old was actually prosecuted for possession of the photographs exchanged, and a webcam capture, not intent or grooming.

That's not as bad as it could be. Normally when someone is busted for digital photographs of minors, they're not prosecuted for possession, they're charged with distribution which carries much harsher penalties.

[Picolho]

"Protect your kids" is hardly appropriate here.
In this case it could be argued that the only person this boy needed protection from was himself.

It's interesting that we didn't get told what the cops found on the boys' computer: the chances are that it held at least one explicit video or set of pics of at least one adult man.  Of course, by telling us that they would burst the carefully created myth of "man = predator / boy = victim", and that would never do.

An imaginary Internet scenario:
Teenboy to hunky young man with *** ****;
"You know how much I've enjoyed our chats over the past year.  Thanx for the pix - I really fancy you, and I'm sitting here with a boner just talking to you, and I'd love to be with you, but my Mum says I have to be Rude to you and Just Say No, because what you want is Bad Touch, and anyway the Law says I don't have the right to consent to your Abusing me sexually, and although my Mum has taught me to Trust My Own Feelings And Instincts (is my stiffie any indication of how I feel?) society tells me that our relationship is wrong and you are a Predator, so I'm going to say goodbye and delete you from my contact list and go and play soccer with my mates, and try and feel some attraction towards girls".
Problem solved. and another Innocent Victim saved.

[Borboski]

Again - if this was a 15 year old girl, and a 26 year old man - would you feel any differently about this?

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

Yeah, I'd think it was HAWT!

[P K Duck]

Again - if this was a 15 year old girl, and a 26 year old man - would you feel any differently about this?

In general, I would be inclined to tut-tut adults who chat up teenagers as a matter of course, as much for being sad than anything else.

Yes, I am well aware of the historical nature of human sexuality, Juliet being twelve, and the suppression of sexual desires as a form of social control under the guise of civilised behaviour. But it is still pretty sad if a man or woman repeatedly picks soft, inexperienced targets, before self-destructing a relationship that was never really there in the first place. It just shows a lack of maturity, like the adult is refusing to learn anything from the last time.

Then again, good relationships do form between people of wide age gaps, so we're back to considering the people involved.

Then there are predatory, malevolent, evil bastards who do nothing but destroy. How can a young person tell the difference at such an inexperienced age? Moreover, it's not like TV sitcoms where parents automatically know everything themselves, so for parents this must also be a fingers- crossed- shit- I- hope- our- kid- is- sensible situation at best.

I can see your point though. There is a lot of social programming into thinking young women are in grave danger from sexual thoughts and deeds, much more so than the idea of a similarly aged young man in the same situation. This is becoming more and more outmoded though, isn't it?


In the case in question, was the boy also pretty stupid for not bringing up the subject with his admittedly manical mother? He could have politically omitted the age of his potential boyfriend, and after his mother picked herself of the floor, they could have battled out a compromise. Some young girls must have to go through a similar thing, admittedly without the "I'm gay" preamble.

[Dark Sky]

In the case in question, was the boy also pretty stupid for not bringing up the subject with his admittedly manical mother? He could have politically omitted the age of his potential boyfriend, and after his mother picked herself of the floor, they could have battled out a compromise. Some young girls must have to go through a similar thing, admittedly without the "I'm gay" preamble.

Ehhhh I'm not convinced telling his mother "hey ma, I'm just off to fuck this American guy I met off of the Interweb" would go down much better than mentioning the other party was eleven years older than him.

When I was fifteen I'd only just admitted to myself that I was "one of them gayers" (although I'd been sexually attracted to males since I was six)...  The idea of telling anyone else about it, let alone a control freak of a parent (and to be honest, does anyone know a gay male whose mother isn't a control freak? DOMINANT MOTHERS CAUSE HOMOSEXUALITY SHOCKER!!!) is just incredibly incredibly frightening.

It's not stupid to want to explore your sexuality without your mother knowing about it.  The only stupid thing about this situation is the actions of the mother to get the American guy arrested.  I understand that she has every right to worry about her own son, but to get his close friend potentially locked up for twenty years is just plain vindictive.

[rudi]

and to be honest, does anyone know a gay male whose mother isn't a control freak? DOMINANT MOTHERS CAUSE HOMOSEXUALITY SHOCKER!!!

Shit - how did I miss out then? [stereotype alert] I'd love to be a gayer. Better fashion, looser so-called attitude, more style, the kudos that come with being a minority and so on. My bestset friend from ages 15-24ish was one of them (you) lot. Perhaps he nipped my nascent man-love in the bud by being a gawky twat.

Bah! Damn my averageness...

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

and to be honest, does anyone know a gay male whose mother isn't a control freak? DOMINANT MOTHERS CAUSE HOMOSEXUALITY SHOCKER!!!

What about all those Jewish comedians?