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Wow.
I am so anal about my kid online, because I know what is out there. He is only online on my computer in my bedroom, while I sit on my bed two feet away watching tv and periodically peering over his shoulder. He hates it, and I don't care.
Yes, it is wrong, and yes, these people should be punished, but a 16 yo is old enough to know better. Problem is they are still too young to care. I was a mother 8 days before I turned 17, so you can't tell me that a kid at the same age I was breastfeeding and changing diapers doesn't know that was he was doing was wrong, and what they were doing to him was wrong. But it didn't matter enough for him to stop because of all the reasons Maura mentioned.
That said, a few days ago my mom and I were talking about my brother, and he was molested by a family friend when he was 15 or 16. My mom said she kind of thought that Mark went with it because the guy bought him stuff, and I said it doesn't matter. It's no more right than the 26yo who fucked me while I was passed out drunk at 16, which of course she was absolutely enraged at. Abusers often ply their victims with gifts, to keep them quiet and keep them coming back. It's common even with young children, imagine how much greater the need to control with something other than violence becomes when the victim is an adolescent.
As someone in the adult industry, I just hate when the spotlight on these fuckers spills over onto the legitimate adult industry. It's like bad news on ticket scalpers spilling onto Ticketmaster.
As a parent, I am just appalled by his father's actions, by the manipulation by the abusers, by the exposure of the victim to things he shouldn't have seen, etc. And it just supports my own decision to be annoyingly tight on the reigns with my own children; from my internet rules, to the fact that I can count on one hand the number of people who have babysat my kids.
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