More "BAD PRESS" FOR NBC

The New McCarthyism

Issue date: 2/18/08 Section: Opinions

There's something that bothers me about NBC Dateline's "To Catch a Predator," a journalistic sting operation where volunteers pose as 12- or 13-year-olds in online chat rooms, baiting sexual predators into graphic sexual conversations and eventually getting the men (they are always men) arrested on national TV when they come to the decoy's house looking for sex.Certainly, as host Chris Hansen frequently notes, the program does a major social good by identifying potential sexual predators and getting them off the street. And it is difficult to summon sympathy for a man (and they are always men) looking to have sex with a 12-year-old. But it seems to me that there are major questions of ethics that cannot simply be waved off with "the ends justify the means."For starters, the decoys themselves are usually the leaders in the conversation: the first to bring up the subject of sex and later the ones who invite the men over to their house to have sex.

The nature of statutory rape, of course, is a unique one insofar as it is illegal even when all parties involved "consent," but the law was originally designed with the understanding that adults have the ability to sway a child's mind in an unfair way, to take advantage of their intellectual naivete and pressure them into sex.

Or alternatively, that the child understands so little of what is going on that it is literally impossible for them to actually consent to sex and all its implications.Neither of those situations seems to apply here. Let's not confuse the predators with child rapist. From the predator's point-of-view, he isn't chatting with an innocent child who doesn't understand what is going on, he's chatting with a child who seems to have astoundingly graphic sexual knowledge, willingly and eagerly engaging in lewd chats to the point of coyly inviting and begging the adults over to have sex.

There is a serious difference between raping a child, manipulating him or her into having sex and giving into to your pedophilic sexual desires when confronted with a child almost demanding you fulfill your deepest sexual fantasy.

All three of those situations are still illegal, of course, and it very well should be. The adult always bears the responsibility to recognize the horrifying situation and take a step back. But sometimes the sting operations involve men who, as Chris Hansen admits, arrive at the house having engaged in chats that are inappropriate but perhaps not necessarily illegal. Hansen insists that such men are "usually" not shown on TV - usually?

Dateline's power of public humiliation is a punishment greater than anything the criminal justice system would have ever meted out. And besides, should the decision to do so rest with a television program, one whose primary purpose is ratings and advertising revenue?What I find most distasteful is that Dateline is exploiting these people's very deepest, most primal sexual urges in enticing them to commit this crime. Imagine a spin-off show, "To Catch an Adulterer," that featured women baiting, pleading, begging husbands to cheat on their wives with them, and then arresting them, humiliating them on national TV. Adultery is a serious crime, but surely not even the most upstanding of men - not even Chris Hansen - could withstand such temptation. In this case, the producers of the show deliberately set up false criminal situations to take advantage of men whose inborn pedophilic sexual desires have been suppressed their entire life.

Our sexual urges are already the most uniquely difficult of our desires to cope with, and undoubtedly exponentially more so when one knows they are illegal and morally wrong. The temptation that these predators succumb to is a temptation you and I could never encounter and probably could never resist either. Many of them watch "To Catch a Predator," and when Hansen confronts them, they break down, saying they knew it was going to happen all along - but they just couldn't help themselves.Don't think I am excusing them for their actions. Sexual abuse can destroy a child's life, and I'm perfectly fine with the laws in place that publicly expose child molesters, branding them with scarlet letters, if only for their deterrent effects.

But some of the episodes show men who arrive at the door and are stricken by one last nagging of conscience, as they finally muster up the willpower to suppress their sexual desire for the good of the child. They try to leave, but lo and behold, the child pleads and convinces them to come into the house, where they are immediately arrested.

{Finally a reporter with the sack to report. NBC and PJ have been getting slammed alot in the press the last 90 days. Both have pending lawsuits and both have been ducking questions involving the Murphy Texas suicide incident.

This is the first article that really nails down what NBC is doing to these people. National public humiliation for ad revenue ratings and profit? Huge bribes being paid to the members of PJ as consultants? Like any good detective would say "follow the money"

This writer goes on to say that he is perfectly fine with the fact that RSO'S wear the modern scarlet letter for its deterrent effect?

I think I will send him the actual statistics then let him think that position over but either way it sure is refreshing to see that more and more people are actually starting to get it.}

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