champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends
I just saw something on television that truly sickened me. I actually almost vomited while watching it. Dateline NBC did a special on child predators who go into online chat rooms to solicit minors for sex. This amazing, wonderful group called Perverted Justice, who does what I consider to be some of the most useful and charitable work in the world, set up 19 men over 3 days to come to a house in Virginia, all of them having talked to whom they believed was a 12-14 year-old boy or girl who was willing to have sex with them. In reality, they came into a house and were unknowingly filmed while a Dateline anchor grilled them about what they were doing there. I was sickened by what I (and millions of other viewers) saw: a bus driver, an army sergeant, a doctor, a special-education teacher, a rabbi, white men, black men, Indian men, married men, gay men; all predators, all claiming they'd "never done this before."
I cried throughout the whole episode. These men looked normal. Like your neighbor or your kid's soccer coach, or your uncle or your accountant. And one asshole, after being caught, went online the next morning and solicited again. Cameras followed him again to the McDonald's where he was going to meet his victim... and he said he was just getting a hamburger. (Twenty miles away?)
What makes me so ill is that people like that are out there. They'll never stop. They're not so rare as the foolishly bold who would snatch a child from their home or the street, but just as bad, if not worse; grooming a child for sex in the comfort of their own home, where they are supposed to feel safe and at ease. These men would have walked in the house and committed rape, sodomy, bestiality... and they do, every day, as opposed to the "lucky" few who were merely publicly embarrassed and exposed for who they truly are. I don't know. Something about the story touched me and made me want to help catch people like this, people who steal the innocence of beautiful children whose only crimes are curiosity and naivete.
I had to get this off of my chest somewhere because if I didn't, I don't know if I would have slept tonight or not. I don't know if I will. But I do know that I am joining this organization, or one like it, and I will be one of the good guys, one of the protectors. Someone needs to keep children safe from disgusting, heartless monsters like these men, and I can only hope to be part of a successful effort at catching one of them.
I'm making this public because I want everyone to read it and get involved if it so moves them. If you're a friend of mine who just got my LJ name, or someone who's curious, this is friends-only but leave a comment and I'll add you if I like you. :)