I came across this story via the blog “Unfiltered Perceptions“, which ironically is in Norwegian for the most part. International readers can use their favorite translation service (such as Google Translate) to find out more. Anyway, the story in short: A policeman logs on a chat room with the nick “Pernille12” (Pernille being a Scandinavian name more typical of the child generation than the parent generation, names being subject to fads even here).  He then waits until a middle-aged man contacts him, and leads the guy on until he gets him to masturbate in front of a web cam, presumably believing the policeman’s assurance that he is indeed a 12 year old girl and not a gay man, as the other first suspects. The masturbator is then formally accused and sentenced for the two men’s shared activity.  The judge briefly reflects on the fact that you just don’t get evidence this way, but sets this concern aside because of the severity of the crime.

Since laws vary a bit from nation to nation, even in the somewhat civilized world, it bears mention that in Norway you can’t use this kind of evidence-gathering, thus the pause of the judge. But the rules of due process only count for real humans, evidently, not for pedophiles.  These predators must be caught even when they are hunting unicorns – that is to say, something that is not really there.  As the blogger points out, it is hardly a given that a real 12 year old would lead the man on like that.  What exactly does this say about how the police, the court, and the society view 12 year old girls?  Please, if there are girls who are that desperate to see a guy masturbate, they are going to find some way, even if it means enlisting a classmate or their stepdad.  Perhaps we should have policemen passing as pedophiles so we can arrest the girls too? For their own protection, of course.  They are much safer behind bars, as are we all.

But as I said yesterday (and occasionally over the years), there is a reason why we habitually suspend law and decency when pedophilia is involved.  That reason is that pedophilia is commonplace, to the point where almost everyone has been either involved personally or had a close friend or family member involved somehow. And even for those of us who have somehow escaped this ubiquitous scourge, there is ever the risk that we may be seen as criminals or at the very least aiding and abetting the crime unless we scream “death to the infidels!” at least as loudly as the guy next to us.  Oops, wrong geographic location, but the same principle still applies.

Or in other words, pedophilia and incest have just recently been criminalized, so no one knows for sure just where they begin and end.  In real life, off the Net,  it can be hard to tell whether a girl is 12 or 16, depending on her physical development as well as clothes and makeup.  In Norway, it is legal to have sexual intercourse with a 16 year old, but it is illegal to have pictures of them that may be sexually enticing to a lonely old judge. On the net – or on mobile phones – they are children, and must be protected at all cost; but in bed they are men or women.  More fun with human sanity!

I may sound like I have something to defend here, and I do.  Once we have established that due process does not apply to pedophiles, any man who had ever been alone with a child is utterly at the mercy of said child (even after it is grown up), its mother and its therapist or basically anyone who can convince the former child that the problems in its later life must come from SOMEONE having done something terrible in the past. And when they come for me, there is no one left to speak up for me.