[ (in regard to to catch a predator show catching pedos in sting operations) ]

Your problem is you re looking at pedophilia as a crime, but it’s not. Child molestation is.

If a pedophile crosses the line to become a child molester, that’s unforgivable, but even then I believe there are shades of gray.

No matter what Perverted Justice say, they are not acting like innocent adolescent children. I have a hard time buying that young girls would respond positively or even neutrally to some of the disgusting things these men say to them. Possibly these men do think that the girls they are talking to are truly underage and perhaps some have malicious intent. These people should go to jail, but I find it very difficult to swallow that these people are getting such harsh sentences for talking to what seem to be a willing or at the very least curious teenager.

My mom was 15 when she dated my dad who was 24. Today, my dad might as well be labelled a pedophile, but it was my mom who was the one who sought it out. It was consensual. She was not traumatized by the event in which I was conceived. Possibly because there wasn’t so much hysteria about it at the time. My grandmother didn’t prosecute my father and instead insisted they got married. There was no trauma because no one made my mother a victim!

It’s not like their completely oblivious to sex or what the consequences are at that age. I was well aware in elementary school what it was. i do not view 14 and 15yo girls the same way I view an 8yo. I think it is VERY different.

The fact that people are making it so black and white is disturbing in my opinion. When I was 18 and a senior I dated a 14 yo girl who was a freshman. We never had sex, but if I had consummated our relationship, would I have been labelled a pedophile? I am sure her parents wouldn’t have encouraged us having sex, but I don’t think they would have wanted me to go to jail either