One of the ghastliest news stories I've read in recent years was Through His Webcam, a Boy Joins a Sordid Online World, a story that appeared yesterday in the New York Times. A shy and lonely 13-year-old boy buys a webcam to try to meet some other teens, and no one shows up but a pervert who asks him to sit in front of his web cam for 3 minutes without his shirt on and he'll send him $50 by PayPal. This goes on for years until he's having sex with prostitutes live on his webcam for a paid audience of thousands, the prostitutes procured by his father, and is flown all over the country to visit his various molesters.

For mostly feminist reasons, I am against the casual acceptance of pornography, but its pervasiveness in our culture, especially in the past 10 years, teaches children that it is not only acceptable but normal to treat a person, even oneself, as a thing for use, a product for purchase. This story has really struck a nerve. Everyone I know that has read it was horrified, one friend sick to the point of nausea.

LINK | 12:53 PM | TB

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