Apparently, the police have recorded more cases of online grooming this year than ever before. It has kind of shocked me tbh. Not the fact that men have a sexual interest in young girls (I have known that since I was 12). It's the nerve of these f*ing men that shocks me. Youtube is full of videos showing hunter groups catching online groomers. There was even a case near me. A 30-year-old man drove 200 miles to meet what he thought was a 13-year-old girl. Vigilantes caught him instead, filmed it, and then handed him over to the police. The video is still on Youtube, and will no doubt be out there forever. It happened ten years ago, but even today I only have to type his name into google and that video pops up.
My point is these men must know the risk. They must have seen these hunter videos, and they must know the police are out there tracking them. Yet they still do it. Obviously nothing is going to stop the hardcore abusers, but the vast majority of these men seem to be very ordinary – men with partners, kids, family, etc. Is the desire really so strong that they're willing to risk it all? Is the interest in underage girls far more widespread and far more powerful than anyone realises? I don't know if anyone remembers Operation Ore? It was a massive police operation to catch men who'd viewed child pornography/abuse. One of the officers said he was shocked by how ordinary these men were. Time and again they'd knock at some nice little suburban house, to find a happily married man with a job and kids (or grandkids), who'd never been arrested in his life.