Exposed: Internet Sex Predators by R. Stephanie Good

Internet Sex Predators, R. Stephanie Good.  Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2007.  ebook, 193 pps.

I like case histories.  Case histories are kind of like snapshots into the secret lives of others, a sort of quasi-professional voyeurism.  Shrinks have always loved case histories.  Especially if the identified patient of the case history is dead.  In that case, they call them "psychological autopsies".  The dissection of the dead life is done with words and report folders and a team meeting.  Maybe it's mental masturbation.  So much of life these day is just that.  Some folks like to get their quota by watching those television talk shows-- the ones where you hope that none of your relatives insist that you come along with them to be a guest on but also the ones where you scan the list of guests to see if any of them are your neighbors.  The television docs are on the rise too these days.  Jerry Springer had to tone things down, I myself enjoy Christina on the Spanish station, Sally Jesse Raphael died, I don't know if Doctor Ruth is still around or not.  Exit most of the civilized talk shows and enter the doctor shows.  The docs tell you how to live or how not to live, send your kids away to abusive kiddy camps and "therapeutic treatment" places, make yummy snack foods, and talk about how your pee and poop should look.  With samples.  So lots of folks sit around and tune into these sorts of dirty laundry shows increasingly run by doctors and other perceived experts.  Instead of doing that, I am visiting dearly demented dad or out in the woods with the dog when those shows air.  I get my kicks from case histories of the printed kind.

Exposed: Internet Sex Predators is a series of case histories that R. Stephanie Good has aided the F.B.I. with.  She poses as an un-adult-- someone that grown men and women should not be approaching on-line for sex-- and goes into chatrooms.  She is very specific about what constitutes entrapment and what doesn't.  The pervs approach her persona.  The rule is that they are the ones who have to start with the sex talk first.  Once she ascertains that the perv private messaging her is not just into trading, she allows the perv of the moment to continue the conversation over a period of days or weeks when necessary.  The end result is usually a bunch of penises being transmitted to the e-mail box of a young teen and a request for a meeting.  

I had a gay male acquaintance who was a minister and a bit screwed up.  He did things like entertain strange men in the back of cars near bars and have sex with men with H.I.V. without condoms.  He didn't believe that H.I.V. transmitted A.I.D.S.  He was also fond of telling me some old saw about the cops in Fort Lauderdale who used to arrest gay men for peeking through glory holes in the public bathrooms and well, doing it through those same holes.  I never understood why anyone would want to jack off in a bathroom, especially a public bathroom which by definition is usually scummy.  My former acquaintance didn't really understand entrapment.  He figured that any contact with an undercover cop meant that the cop was enticing the future arrestee by mere presence.  I guess cops in Fort Lauderdale must all be tanned appealing hunks.  Who knew?  At any rate, lots of these sicko b-tards on the internet looking for teens also claim that they are being entrapped when caught.  Must be similar to the "But officer, some dude back there threw this bag of drugs into my car!" line that is heard so often on the television show Cops.

sapphoq reviews says:  While Exposed: Internet Sex Predators doesn't add much new to the discussion, it is rather enjoyable for those of us who like case histories in the printed form.  An easy read.  Not as knowledgeable as a John Douglas on how perps operate.  Even so, a good enough book.  Recommended to true crime afficianos who like Ann Rule and other case histories.