Think you know the truth about online luring? Guess again! According to most media reports online grooming, solicitation, and enticement of minors is at an all time high. How is that possible with all the focus of law enforcement, task forces, vigilantes, victim support and outreach? In 1998 the federal government created and funded the ICAC DOJ program with a 2.4M grant. Since then this program has been awarded over 500 million dollars! 25 years later we not only haven’t made a dent but are falling further behind? Making sense of the news reports requires information we, the public, are not being given.
Myth – Men caught in proactive online sex stings were seeking minors.
Truth – Proactive stings are now run exclusively on adult dating sites. Someone on an adult site, where adults go to connect with other adults, would be very unlikely to be ‘seeking a minor’.
Myth – Stings target men who have been reported as ‘creepy’, ‘shady’, or whatever.
Truth – ‘Reactive’ stings target people reported to police as potential criminals. ‘Proactive’ stings target John Q Public with police created scripts designed to manipulate incriminating conversations, regardless of true intent. Arrests are made in a ‘Minority Report’ manner, hedging bets on what the person ‘might have done’ if approached by an actual minor.
Myth – Men who continue to communicate with someone who claims to be a minor must be a pedophile.
Truth – A ‘Pedophile’ is a person attracted to pre pubescent children, defined as up to the age of 13. Someone looking for a child would not be on an adults only site. However, a ‘Little’ is someone that likes to act younger than they really are. How would one know, on an adult site, if they were conversing with a minor or a ‘little’? The only way to know for sure is to meet in person. If you arrive to find an adult who pretends to be a minor that is a form of sexual play. If you arrive to find a minor (or more likely the police), you are labeled a ‘pedophile’ and arrested.
Myth – Men caught in proactive sex stings are ‘groomers’.
Truth – By definition, ‘groomers’ are adults seeking the trust and emotional connection that will allow them to manipulate another, often a child. Groomers, unlike men caught in proactive sex stings, use a fake persona. After all, they are planning on committing a crime! Men arrested in proactive stings are easy targets, as they use their real names, age, and photos while attempting to connect with another consenting adult.
Myth – If the men choose to discontinue communications after being told the other person is under age, they would not be arrested.
Truth – In a disturbing majority of cases men have been recontacted after telling the other person they are not interested. One man deleted all messages with a person who claimed to be a minor. He was re-engaged days later. Another man went months before police re-engaged him. Both were prosecuted.
Myth – Law enforcement and vigilantes run proactive online sex stings to save children!!
Truth – Persons seeking children online require a target rich, anonymous environment in which to select and groom their victims. Internet chat rooms, social media, and gaming forums aimed at youth are ideal hunting grounds for such a person. Proactive stings are not being held on these sites because true ‘groomers’ are hard to catch, and even harder to prosecute. No children have ever been saved in a proactive sting.
Myth – These people responded to the profile of a minor.
Truth – Adult dating sites do not allow minors to place ads or create profiles. Here is an example of an actual police created profile picture, off the adult site Badoo, claiming to be 40 years old, and holding up hundreds of dollars in cash. Do you believe this woman is 13? Neither did the man currently serving seven years in prison.
Myth – Law enforcement, and vigilantes, have no reason to target law abiding men.
Truth – The very sad truth is that the motivation for both of these groups is exactly the same. Vigilantes have found a niche, if repugnant, job in which they create ‘true crime’ entertainment, and it pays well in both fame and fortune. Federal, state, and private funding for law enforcement is codified to increase with arrests and prosecutions, not victims saved. Asset forfeiture is icing on the cake.
Myth – If an innocent man were entrapped in a proactive sting, the police and prosecutors would let him go.
Truth – Men with no criminal record, no corroborating evidence of intent (such as child depictions), and who did not respond to a profile containing reference to sex with a minor are the vast majority of those entrapped in proactive sex stings. Yes, about 10% of men caught in a proactive sting show interest in sex with a minor or have verifiable predisposition. Unfortunately all 100% are arrested and prosecuted.
Myth – If even one child is saved, then it’s OK!
Truth – These are all proactive stings. No children are saved in any of these cases, ever. Forfeit are the lives of the children of men entrapped in these proactive stings. Fatherless, loss of security, shamed, a different kind of child victim is created.
Myth – Police dislike running proactive operations
Truth – Similar to the shared bragging photos and high five’s between officers who beat Tyre Nichols to death, post proactive sting parties occur. After ‘chatting in some guys’ off adult sites, using adult pictures and racy conversation to lure men to prison, where no children were saved, a party seems to be in order.
So, exactly who is watching over our children online?
No one, there’s no money in it.
The Lady Justice Myth 
Excellent explanation, Kathleen.
Why have so many lawyers missed all this or said that none of this matters? If none of these facts matter in our legal system, then that’s just more proof of how bad our legal system is!
Here’s more:
Myth – This is not entrapment. The men should have stopped the conversation.
Truth – The most realistic and logical option in these situations is to NOT make the conversation about sex with a minor. That option is completely removed by the fake heroes who conduct these fake child predator sting operations, and it’s something that would not be happening in a real life situation. That’s exactly what makes this entrapment in most of these cases. Not even adults who use these adult hook up and sex forums to find other consenting adults demand that their conversations and meetings have to be about sex, much less any real 13, 14, or 15 year old, the way it’s done in these sting operations.
Myth – The men would not have said those things and showed up to meet a minor if they didn’t want to have sex with the minor.
Truth – The situations created are designed to keep the men very confused and to force them to say the things the fake heroes need them to say in order to create these fake cases. It’s very much the same kind of tactics police use to force false confessions. Nobody wanted to believe before that police could make people say things that are not true. We know now that it’s been done so many times. This is just another form of that!
And then there’s also the fact that there’s a tendency for these chat logs to get altered or have omitted parts, to make them look like what the fake heroes need this to look like.
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