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Originally posted by: jasonditz
How long's it been since you were 14? Its been awhile for me, but I'm still 99.9% sure that no one could've tricked me into having sex with them at the time.
And do we know for sure where this kid was located? As I pointed out earlier... if this was Idaho or Hawaii this 14 year old was actually above the age of consent for his state. That adult may well have been obeying age of consent laws in his jurisdiction.
And then again... does that change anything? That's why I don't like the argument "it's illegal" as proof of anything. When crossing state lines into Idaho from, say, Montana... does the 14 year old become magically better able to consent? If he consented to have sex and they're in a car and it rolls back across the state line, does it suddenly stop being consensual?
I'm the first to say that having sex with a 14 year old is a really sleazy thing to do. I'd think very poorly of the person that did it. I don't know that I could declare it blanketly immoral without knowing more details than we know in this situation.
But perhaps more importantly to the topic at hand of Live-type accounts: rape is not a problem limited to children. Suppose someone met ThePerm, who's 22 years old (and who I'm just using because he gave his age), on a Nintendo Live-type service and tricked him into meeting them (with promises of candy and stickers) and then proceeded to rape him. Do we start calling for Nintendo to keep 22 year olds off the Live-type service just in case?
How old is old enough for Nintendo to be able to safely say "this guy won't be fooled into a position where he might get raped"? Do we set the age at 25? 30? Is there any such age?
Even if we knew for sure than 100% of the Wii owners were over the age of 25... could we say definitively that the service would be free of sexual predators, or people naive enough to be taken in by them?
Lesson for life and growing up; You cant judge your own experiences and intelligence and apply them to everyone else. Just because you would/wouldnt do something doesnt mean everyone would/wouldnt.
Yes we know for sure where the kid, and the dude were located. Had you actually read the story, you would know this happened in California. Although I do admire your willingness to play Devil's Advocate and defend a child molester. That takes some serious cahones(sp?).
Does that change anything? Gee, I dunno...what do you think? I am not a lawyer and I am not trying to validate what happened one way or the other. I am trying to prove a point. With XboxLive it is VERY EASY to meet strangers. This is why gamers like us like it. We are American and dammit, we are LAZY! We dont like to be inconvenienced at all. What?! I... I have to push buttons /before/ I push buttons?? Screw you Nintendo! C'mon everybody! Lets go suck down another Big Mac! Super size?? What?! Dont you have anything bigger?
You are absolutely right. Rape is /not/ a problem relegated to just children. (Dont worry Perm, I got your back. No one is violating you on my watch.
)But there is nothing wrong with setting up a few extra safety features to try to protect the kiddos. In a way, you could say Nintendo is covering it's own ass. If this kinda crap /does/ happen, they can make the point that they had all safety features they could put in place.
As I said on a previous post: One friend code. If I say its ok for my kid to play with Perm (hey, he seems to be the guy to use for examples here!
) in Mario Kart, why would I suddenly change my mind and not want him to play with Perm in Animal Crossing? That doesnt make any sense. I know Nintendo said something to the effect of, well this lets you pick and choose which friends you play with a particular game, but with the Wii, I am going to say that there HAS to be an easier way to do that.
But ultimately you guys have hijacked this thread, IMO. It was about friend codes. I made a point that having them makes it harder for your kid to meet strangers than it would be on a service like Xbox Live. The kid thing was proof that things /can/ in fact, go bad. The link was provided for anyone who thought I was lying or making that up. The fact that this has suddenly veered into a discussion of morale makes it seem I was right. Perm and I had agreed to leave this one be, as there is no way anyone is going to be "right" in this situation and it is just going to go on forever. Can we try to focus on just the friend codes and there relevance here? If I would have known that using this example would have created this problem, I never would have. It is blinding you all to what my original point was; having friend codes makes it more difficult for kids to meet strangers.
Perm: I know we agreed to drop this, which is why I tried not to get on the morale trip here. You may slap me if you want to, as far as I am concerned you have the right.