mmm sex

And you are concerned that predators will be drawn to this forum if we post about sex?

(I'm sorry if I'm dense but I am genuinely trying to understand)

Jess I hope you're still reading. I just wanted to assure you that you're welcome to read and post here. I wholeheartedly agree with Alexandra K that since you're sexually active, I'm glad that you're posting your questions here to people who've "been there". You are absolutely welcome to post here, did I say that already? Please don't feel bad about being young....your opinions and experiences are just as important as the rest of us.

Ok, back on topic again.

~Rayna

alex I am concerned in the fact that we don't know who really post here. remember we just had an admitted child predator here in the last month. that is what concerns me. teens can be easliy influenced and taken advantage of. I agree if they are sexually active already then yes they should be here to learn and ask questions.

hear hear

jinny xoxoxoxoxox

> alex I am concerned in the fact that we don't know who really post here.

yeah. we don't really know who posts anywhere. i mean i really really could be a 60 year old male pretending to be a 28 year old female for kicks. how do you know i'm not? you are taking me at my word. But that is true of the general forum and the psychotherapy forum and all of the forums. i guess i don't understand what it is about this forum in particular that is resulting in people feeling uncomfortable.

> remember we just had an admitted child predator here in the last month.

i'm sorry but we did not have an admitted child predator. he admitted that he had thoughts / images / urges around that but he also stated that he had never acted on those (and it is action of preying that makes someone a predator i think).

have you ever had thoughts that you are really embarrassed and ashamed about? imagine if you you shared them with others and other people assumed that you would act on them and treated you like a sicko. would that help you or harm you?

that is what i think happened to this man.

but what it did for people is that they got to thinking that the internet might well not be the safest place after all. this guy posted and seemed to be being honest and facing up to some of his problematic internal states. there could well be other guys out there who don't want to change theirs, however, and they could be pretending to be 28 year old girls or even 10 year old girls in order to attempt to lure vulnerable individuals into their clutches...

doc john makes much of how safe and protected this community is. i appreciate that he does his best to make the members of this community feel safe and protected but i do worry a little that he says things that are misleading if not false in order to lull people into feeling safe and secure here.

for example: he can't prevent predators being here if he doesn't know about them. as such it is wise to be extremely careful about meeting people irl (meet in a public place etc etc).

what he can do is provide the illusion of safety by scapegoating certain individuals, however. seems to be something of a repeated pattern here...

> teens can be easliy influenced and taken advantage of.

so can some adults. i'm still not sure what sorts of things you mean... are you worried about adults meeting with them and taking advantage? it would be nice if there were some caveats / guidelines posted on how careful one might want to be about ones IRL identity and also guidelines on safe meetings. not just for teens methinks...

> I agree if they are sexually active already then yes they should be here to learn and ask questions.

How about those who aren't sexually active yet but are considering becoming sexually active? Is it better to know about possible risks and things like that before sexual activity or after it? Is it better to think about what might be right for oneself before sexual activity or after it?

I know some people think that sex ed is about instilling the parents values (or gods values or whatever). kids get to spend a great number of years under their parents control, however, and by the time they get to be teenagers it is fairly remarkable what they have assimilated already. teenage years are years of moving from parents towards peers in order to grow up to be a healthy member of society. its a time for them to figure out for themselves where they stand on certain issues and figure out the way they want to live their life (with lots of mistakes and learning curves and the like along the way to be sure). i really do think that people are best armed with information and support, however. just like adults...

you know what alex? you are going to disagree with anything I have said so I think it best we just drop this altogether. I have my beliefs and you have yours. that is ok too but I will not argue my values or concerns any longer. there is a time and place for kids.

i was trying to understand where you are coming from. i still don't really.

if you want to be sure that kids are safe from online predators then don't let them go online it is as simple as that.

if they don't post identifying information and don't meet with anybody off the internet unless it is in a very public place (a cafe or something like that) then they should be safe from online predators.

but instead of telling kids this and ensuring that they actually ARE safe from online predators we take steps that help us FEEL LIKE they are safe from online predators. so we feel squeemish at the thought that kids and predators might be reading our dialogue about sex and we want them not to so we don't feel squeemish anymore. we feel squeemish at the thought of someone having certain thoughts and feelings and we don't feel so squeemish when we see that person evicted from the community.

these actions seem to help us feel less squeemish (which isn't at all to be sneezed at). neither of those actions actually make kids any safer from online predators, however, can you see that?

> I will not argue my values or concerns any longer.

you don't have to argue your values and concerns. i'm really not trying to do that. i would say that we have the same goal of not wanting to find out about children being preyed upon by online predators. i guess our differences in opinion are around the most effective way of doing that...

> there is a time and place for kids.

and not on the internet...

or...

not where people are talking about certain topics.

i guess i'm fairly much a fan of provide as much information as the kid seems to want.

adolescence is a very recent invention... in many past cultures females would have been married off at 11 or 12 or 13 regardless of their thoughts and feelings on the issue. we might have notions around what is 'too young' and the like. what that does, however, is result in a society where sex is a taboo subject and kids are less likely to report 'bad touching' because they get the message loud and clear that they are NOT supposed to know about such things.

they will only read if they are interested. same as adults...

The person who has the best ability keep you safe on the Internet is you.