I can forgive those who fall for the “Your Dirty Mind” memes like this:
To be fair, that armpit does, at first glance, look strikingly like my hairdresser did after cutting my Greek boyfriend’s hair off. It was very dirty. And hairy. Like him. And so were her upper limbs by the end. So an armpit’s forgivably mistake-able. But what about the long arm of the law? Or more like – the bent arm of the law. Specifically one cop who was Chris-Hansening pedobears on the interwebs and pretending his arm joint’s a hoo hoo? Nope. Not forgiveable. I mean, if being a Chester isn’t bad enough, being that bad at discerning body parts sure makes it worse. And apparently “Boneman”, a child troller scrolling through the message boards (of some horrible website I’m not even gonna give a cameo in my blog) made exactly that mistake. The officer posing as a barely pubescent teen agreed to a pic-for-pic with Boneman. And when the fuzz sent his fuzzless elbow bend, Boneman sent his bone. And, boom. Arrested. Do not pass go. Do not “take a seeeeat”. Straight to jail witchya ass.
And speaking of seeing uncomfortable things through skewed perception filters, let’s talk about pedo “entrapment”
I use those quotes ’cause i’m not sure how that whole “entrapment” thing works, TBH.
But I’m always half and half when it comes to people who’ve got mental illness induced compulsions. On the catch ‘em, end? Yeah. Absolutely. I’m all about it. Because most kiddie diddlers aren’t gonna just stop at that message board when the fish don’t bite. They’ll move right over to the next interactively digital sleazy pond. And, unfortunately, on one of those there may be some actual confused and neglected (or just bored – who knows) preteen. Not just the law pretending to be. So, no, I don’t feel it’s invasive to set up a cage in the garden of innocence and then trap the wildlife when they try to sneak in during the night. Especially when there’s a great big sign outside’a it that says “Do NOT enter until 18”.
But it’s what happens after that always gets me.
I think it’s safe to say most people born with normally functioning brains (that remain unsullied by abuse of some sort along the way) don’t just wake up one day and say, “I’m bored with dating adults. Think I’ll jettison my life of normalcy, put on my Friday-night, and head to the playground. Nab me a lover!” That takes a special kinda sick. And while I’m not sure how well rehab works for this brand of illness, it’s gotta be better than prison alone. Like, sure, sequester them. Duh. They’re a danger. But also have enough compassion to know there’s an obviously damaged human under that seedy façade and to try and save them with extensive, relentless re-training of their brains.
Not a bad idea for all non-psychopathic criminals.
Afterthought: I wonder if he tried the same excuse 5-0 did on him when they showed up with cuffs out.
“Isn’t that funny? We both sent fake pictures!”