Da Goddess

Yay! I gotta URL to list, now. OK, so it's crappy. It's a start, so I can piss ppl off with stuff like this:
I think the media has made a damned circus of parents' fears about this stuff. Come on, Joni, how old were you, the 1st time you got laid? I was 11, and I damned sure wasn't complainin', even tho she was 34. At least she got me drunk, first.

First, Jeff...I'm not Joni. Joni is the awesome woman who handled the design of this site.

Second, any adult who has sex with someone underage is committing a crime.

I don't care how old you were when you lost your virginity. The fact that you were underage and the other person was an adult means that a crime was committed. Plain and simple.

You may not care about the welfare of children but I do.

And, in the future, any comments like the one you just left - encouraging illegal behavior or intending to inflame will be removed.

I know exactly what you mean, Goddess. I spent many agnonizing minutes outside the men's room waiting for my son, who had the annoying tendency to dawdle in the restroom. I used to embarrass the hell out of him sometimes by opening the door & inquiring if he was alright if he'd been in there for a while. He thought I was ridiculously overprotective; I knew you can't be too careful.

One of my worst fears when he was growing up.

I don't think you're being overprotective. I think it's depressing that you have to worry about your kids going to a public restroom solo.

(1) "Preying on children, on the Internet or otherwise, is the lowest crime I can imagine." Agreed -- closely followed by entrapping people into the appearance of committing the worst crime one can imagine. I've heard, although I don't know one way or the other, that for a long time the largest peddler of child porn in the country was the US government, trolling for pedophiles. There's a fine line between protecting our kids and engaging in witch hunts, and I don't have any confidence that our authorities understand the difference.

(2) Yeah, I'm a man with two daughters and I don't have a good solution for the restroom conundrum either. If I've got just the four-year-old I take her into the men's room and hope she doesn't get an eyeful of something disturbing while we're there. If the seven-year-old is there as well, I send them into the women's room together and hope that at least one of them will screech if anything scary happens. (On occasion they get into an argument while they're in there and I have to shout through the door for them to cool it.) If I've only got the seven-year-old I reluctantly send her into the ladies' alone. I wish more places would put in "family" bathrooms, basically a unisex one-seater with a diaper-changing table and a lock on the door.

(3) I don't know how much of the anxiety about this stuff is due to an actual increase in pedophilia and how much is due to more reporting and media attention. I grew up running around in the woods near my house, even though they were strewn with beer bottles and occasionally underwear left by teenagers who would park there at night. Now I wouldn't let my kids go into the woods alone (shades of Little Red Riding Hood!) and might think twice even in my company if I saw debris from a lot of heavy partying. Were those woods really any safer for a ten-year-old in 1969 than they would be now? I can't think of a good reason why they would have been.

Well, I've seen some of the registered sexual preditors lists. It amazes me how many sexual preditors w/not only sleeping w/ a 16 year old, but battery, and really, really bad stuff are on parole and probation. --NOT JAIL!! Leave it to people choosing to use their tax dollars on other people's sex changes instead of correction institutions!

I also know for a fact, a true, but very sad fact...

People lie and escape the responsibility of getting registered as a sex offender. I don't have kids yet. But, I vote for more family bathrooms!! Maybe by the time I am a mother, they will exist!

Many things are done now for the safety of our children, and I can't complain because I'm childless. I know I can't complain because when I cast doubt on any of these "improvements", I'm immediately berated by those who do have children. The rallying cry is "You don't understand because you're not a parent!" Indeed I'm not. However I'm not a selfish bastard who would put children's lives in danger. I'm an Uncle, a God-Parent, a compassionate man and former child myself; Excuse me, but I think I might have a tad of an inkling concerning the subject.

Helmets? Great, although some of my fondest memories involve learning the lessons of how hard concrete can be, how much Bactine can sting when it's applied to the noggin and the feeling of the wind rushing through your hair.

Carseats in the back, facing the back? Cool, but I remember such awesome views from the beds of pickups, using the entire backseat as a playground, and sitting on the armrest between my Father and Mother as we drove to see Santa.

Making sure your kids are in eyesight? Excellent concept... for the parents. I remember the exhilaration of being outside the "safety net", making my own decisions and fighting my own fights. I learned that a stranger was a friend you haven't met yet, and that everyone older than you deserved to be called "Sir" or "Ma'am". I see my younger nephews being clingy little leg warmers, too timid to meet anyone. Much like language, confidence is best learned when young. No amount of "playdates" would be able to replace REAL discoveries. (For the record, dandelions taste awful, worms have black guts and pillbugs tickle when they crawl up your arm.

I wouldn't mind so much if every safety measure was driven by parents concerned for their own children, but in many cases parents have no say in the matter. Instead, parents are forced to comply with laws that were created by a government organization who made this decision for us, and like the good sheep some people are, we eagerly step-to because we're just simple individuals and the government must know what's better for us because they tell us they know better. While I'm not advocating Pringles Lead Chips as an after-school snack, I am saying that if I choose to sit my son on my lap, should I have a son or a lap, and have him pretend that he's driving, then I don't want, need or desire "Big Brother" lecturing me how dangerous it could possibly be should something happen. If I ever decide to bond with my son in that fashion, you can be damned sure it wouldn't be on the highway, during rush hour, or even in a crowded parking lot. I wouldn't base my decision on some arbitrary law telling me what I should or should not do, it would be based on my own informed determination. I'm reminded for Ben Franklin's observation; "Those that give up liberty for security will eventually lose both and deserve neither."

But I know... I don't understand because I don't have children... Which is good news for the P.C. groups; It means there will be fewer well-informed, self reliant people willing to rail against such practices.

I understand your fear Da Goddess. I also know that the hardest part of being a parent is letting your kid grow up, fall down, and all that. Yes, you have to let your kid make mistakes like Thomas says, but you also have to balance that with consequences your child can handle. NO child should have to handle a sexual predator. I also believe that we are simply getting more media attention than an increase in actual predators.

I also want to point out that some of those on "the lists" are gay men who were entrapped in parks and bathrooms where vice cops are trained in how to "snare fags". It is a sexual offense, and despite the fact that no children are harmed or in danger of being harmed, they are required to register.

Bottom line. There are no easy answers... There are no quick fixes, and parents need to make choices for their kids at each junction, about when to allow freedom, and when to hold them close. Neither is an easy decision. I admire the ones like Da Goddess, who can make the right one for the kid, and stand outside the bathroom worrying, but letting the kid do it anyway.

Absolutely! I agree that DaGoddess was doing right in waiting for her child outside the bathroom door. But what makes it most right is that she wasn't REQUIRED to stand there and be measured on her performance by a communo/fascio political power.

And everyone can agree on sexual predators needing to be away from our kids and have them prosecuted vigorously. I would tend to agree, except I have a unique insight. I was a very young boy (5) with a much older sister (then 12). I remember next to nothing of her inappropriateness, but what I do remember was molestation. At 11, I told my Mother, who told my sister to stop. She made us see the priest, who swore his secrecy. It didn't until she made friends at high school. I had nightmares, but after I was grown up, I dealt with the fact that she was acting out due to her own disturbed psyche. I'm not bitter, nor am I happy about it. Nor am I upset with my Mother; On one hand, her son has been abused, but in order to bring justice, she has to give up her own daughter!?!? Which child does she decide to betray, the one seeing help, or the one who needs help? She did the best she could, to try to help both of us, but in the end it was a matter of not being able to turn in her own daughter. Even today, being married and having kids both girls, of her own, she still justifies what she did because she was mentally unstable and her ultra feminists "girls can't abuse boys, girls have suffered under boys for so long it's just revenge".

But I forgive her, and I'm glad she wasn't put on parade for everyone to spit or leer at. (If my Mother had called the police and had my sister arrasted, at her age of 18 and me being 11, she would have been tried as an adult for abusing a minor. She would have gotten jail time, and my Mother would have not only had an abused son, but a daughter who would be traumatized by prison. Is there a Mother that would be able to to that and not have a nervous breakdown?

So before we carry our pitchforks and ball snippers down to lynch the molesters, remember that it could be 14 year old girl you're hunting. And if you start to defend her due to her instability, like she does, how would you feel if it were a 14 year old boy abusing a 7 year old girl? I'm sure I can hear the ball snippers now...

Hey Joanie, I can so relate. With a 7yo daughter, I have the extra complication of her being "shy" or actually, her using the excuse of being "shy". So I go with her to the loo most times. Sensibly though. I would never send her alone if I didn't think it was completely safe. When at the football, I know the toilets are situated just outside each aisle to the seats, but I'd never let her go alone.

The sad part is, we want our children to grow, to learn, to experience as we did - sometimes with friends and sometimes alone, but in this day and age, you just cannot be lax in watching them just that little bit more than our parents watched us.

I love it when Phoebe is independant and actually wants to do "it" (what ever "it" may be) on her own. I know though, that it will never be as it was when I was growing up. Just as it never was the same when I was growing up in comparison to when my Mum was.

Times change. We, as responsible and loving parents, change with it. You so did the right thing.

Sorry about the name mixup. And I think your response was pretty kneejerk. "I don't care about the welfare of chlidren"?
I'm merely pointing out that life is not black and white, and following the law to the letter is not always the 'moral' thing to do. After all, 20 million Russians were purged, and starved to death under the umbrella of the law, and everyone knows the story of the National Socialists. All done according to the letter of the law...
And BTW, in MOST Western countries, 16 is still the legal age, for sex, no matter the age of the partner. In Most Western countries, that age goes down somewhat, if the partner is also underage...thus, no 13-yr-old 'sex offenders', if both parties were willing. Gawd, 'playin' Dr.' is a damned federal crime, now...
You say, 'We have to protect the children!'
Myself, I worry about how yer kids are gonna turn out, getting the constant message that everything in the world is dirty, nasty, wrong, and out to get them...
Not that life is safe, breathin' leads to dyin', in my experience, every damned time. But kids don't need to be thinkin that way.
my 2% of a buck

Jeff, you fail to grasp the very basic concept here. You're NOT welcome to advocate, on my site, something that is illegal.

I do not believe sex is dirty, evil, nasty or wrong. But, there is a time and place for children to learn about it - and that is NOT at the hands of an adult who means to use them for sexual pleasure. Parents should explain sex to their children. Not strangers picking them up online, at school, at the local mall, or the park or anywhere else.

This is your last warning. I don't mind discussion but I will not tolerate the promotion of ilicit activities - especially those against children.

Jeff, I think, simply hasn't phrased what he wants to say correctly.

If we were to take it as he has written, he's suggesting that 16 year olds are "fair game" to pedophiles in the "Western World" and that if you wanted them younger you could go to another country.

That would be sick and wrong.

I suspect Jeff was talking about "experimentation" between two people of similar ages; If a 13 year old girl is mixed up enough to have her 15 year old boyfriend try anything with her, does that make him a rapist? If they continue their relationship for another 3 years, does he magically become a rapist on his birthday? Personally, I think BOTH kids need therapy; 15 is too young to be messing around anyway regardless if he's "legal" where he lives.

The adult film industry, tobacco manufacturers and the Government all stand by the age 18 rule. (Which used to be the drinking age in many states, so now we tell our soldiers they can fuck and get cancer as much as they want when serving our country, but they can't enjoy an ice cold beer once they finally survive their combat ordeal.) That seems to be the "magic age", when teenagers begin to grasp the concepts of what they're doing. Again, personally, I think that an 18 year old doesn't know jack shit and the legal age of consent should be 25.

I will however stand behind DaGoddess' right to keep on her site what she wants when she wants it. She's over the legal age of blogging consent, and if it feels good, she can do it.

I've got a 12 year old daughter I won't let go to the ladies room unescorted. I taught her how to scream "Daddy!" I stand in front of the ladies room door with my arms folded. I'm 6'4" 275lbs. and the ladies give me strange looks as they enter. I just say "my little girl is in there" and the expression on their face changes. No, you are not allowed to go inside. You know what? With a little boy? Screw that. Go for forgiveness. Ladies in the ladies room might give ME shit. You in the Men's room? You would be more likely be asked for your phone number.

Besides, women dis the men's room ban all the time. We're used to it. There aren't any lines leading into the men's room at a Who concert because six of us can pee in a dixie cup at the same time, and y'all talk to each other while you're going. Most inefficient darn thing I ever heard of.

Far out