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New York, 12:47 PM
Sat Nov 7
62 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/05/09
As it is, I've always taken what I view as an appropriately fatalistic view of the whole thing - *if* I find the right partner, *if* we both want kids, *if* I can biologically have them, then, well okay. If any of the factors don't line up and I still want kids, there's adoption (my dad was adopted, so it's not a foreign thing to my family). Even a generation ago, people just accepted that sometimes one's biology is not meant to reproduce itself, and they found other ways to have kids in their lives.
And yes, a "family" can consist of partners and their relatives - no biological kids necessary.
Personally, I'm much more comfortable with the idea that what is supposed to happen will just happen.
Of course, right now it looks like I'm not keen on having babies anyway, I'm in a relationship with a wonderful man who has one child and wants no more, and I've always prioritized a partner relationship over the idea of a parent-child one, so perhaps I don't understand the mindset of someone who wants parenthood above and beyond all else. #fertilitytest
11/04/09
And yet that is the entire point of the law - to keep people like me from punishing douchebags solely because he is a douchebag.
Man, this is why I like ethics so much more. The standard for behavior is so much higher. Even though an argument could be made that he was within his legal rights, very few would say what he did was ethical. #onlinepredators
11/04/09
11/04/09
Deery said, "You brought three condoms, one for me and one for each of the girls."
"They come in packs of three," he told her. "You can’t buy just one."
I mean, I could imagine just screaming "Fuck fuck fuck." over in your head when you realized how that would be seen by everybody. #onlinepredators
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I used to hang out in chat rooms when I was 14 or so and I got propositioned a bunch. I actually tried to cyber with a dude in his 20s, but I didn't really understand it, so I was just typing really lame sexual shit into the keyboard and waiting to see what he typed back. Yeah, I was a smart one. #onlinepredators
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11/04/09
"But what does your boyfriend think? Soon, you'll be too old to have a baby."
...I'm 22. "Uh, he agrees with me."
"Well, the clock's a-ticking!" (I like to insert a LOL here, because if they were typing, I think they would add one instead of punctuation)
My "boyfriend" never gets that. He is also reminded that my "clock" is ticking. THANKS GUYS. #fertilitytest
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11/04/09
"A gummy worm!"
No... that's not a gummy worm... #fertilitytest
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11/04/09
It's such a difficult line to draw - where does it go, and how hard is it? When do we try to preemptively remove a dangerous person from society? When is it infringing on rights? No one wants to think someone is a child molester and then have it confirmed, but you don't want to lock up anyone who hasn't actually done something.
I don't really know what to think. :/ #onlinepredators
11/04/09
The discussions here remind me so strongly of the McMartin Preschool scandal and the satanic ritual abuse hysteria. People meant well there to and were trying to protect children from being abused, but they ruined the lives of truly innocent individuals for nothing, for chasing after ghosts in the darkness. This guy is obviously a creep and an asshole and a pervert, but is he a child molester?
I don't know either. #onlinepredators
11/04/09
11/04/09
by nature i've always been a suspicious person, untrusting of strangers until i really know who they are. and until you meet somebody in the real world, and spend some significant time with them in the real world, you have no idea who they are.
11/04/09
11/04/09
I completely agree that people are equally vulnerable to be duped in person than they are online. My main was that the internet now offers another mode of access for people to interact with potential targets and that's what has law enforcement scrambling. It's new territory.
But I cannot get on board with the idea that getting to know someone online is the same as getting to know someone in real life. There is a higher degree of anonymity available to people on the internet than in the real world. #onlinepredators
11/04/09
11/04/09
Maybe you just don't have our l33t friend making skilz. #onlinepredators
11/05/09
@Dancingfrog: Some things are gained, though -- I find it's easier to know when someone is bullshitting me online because when they say something that makes me suspicious, I can go back and look at other conversations we've had, to see if they're lying or changing their story. People should take the same precautions online that they do in real life, yes, definitely. But you can know the people you meet online just as well as the people you know in real life, and you can be duped as easily in real life as you can online -- you just need to use some common sense in both situations, and hope for the best. #onlinepredators
11/05/09
Your im friends exist in the in-between spaces. The 5 minutes before you leave for work, the down time on the train if you ahve an internet phone, 2 am when you just got home from the club and you're unwinding. You see them when you're nt "on" and you're just yourself. It's like elementary school again. It's a very valuable kind of relationship and while I try to have a good IRL social life, I would never want to give up my IM friends.
#onlinepredators
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11/04/09
But I do feel there was something that wasn't entirely fair about her behavior. As a professional who talks to perverts all the time, shouldn't his repeated devolution into fantasies about just the two of them have made her think "Gee, maybe this guy isn't my biggest concern, maybe I should stop pursuing him and start pursuing someone else"? Obviously, he should never have gotten involved in the first place, and on some level it seems like he knew that, and certainly knows it now, but she has a responsibility as a public service to uphold the law, not go above and beyond to make sure that the law is just applied to someone, anyone, regardless of their guilt.
My parents were both attorneys, and they always say, "Everyone's guilty of something." But this being America, the something you're guilty of really ought to match the thing you're sent to jail for. #onlinepredators
11/04/09
11/04/09
The article is very "those poor poor pedo's" but after someone pleads guilty, they lose their ability to say they didn't do the crime. I'd probably doubt his claims of innocence even had he been tried and convicted, but he pled guilty! So I ain't buying. #onlinepredators
11/04/09
The emphasis was meant to be self-deprecating but probably didn't come off that way. #onlinepredators
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11/04/09
I DO know I'm glad that the stuff I write all day is NOT dirty talk with perverts. What a weird job. #onlinepredators
11/04/09
I could be around children there and NOT EVEN KNOW IT.
I think our society "hates kids" [as someone without and who never wants kids I find that very hard to believe] because their bad behaviors have been changed into "well he/she is just a child".
No he/she is an AMERICAN child. Screaming, crying and throwing tantrums is ok here. Even in Italy I didn't see the same sort of behavior. #children
11/03/09