Advice Columns

mialoubug wrote:I think Sars is way off the mark here. He wasn't convicted and served a sentence for bank robbery; he was convicted of possessing child porn. Even if he was innocent, he's still a convicted sex offender and, depending on the state, is probably a registered level 2 or 3 sex offender. I would think that part of his parole would be that he has to stay away from children under the age 14, regardless of innocence.

Yeah, Sars in the comments said she answered the question of how to keep peace with the family, not whether to keep the kid away from the BIL. But she fucked that answer up too, because it should have been, "Tell your family to go hang if they don't respect your EXTREMELY VALID CONCERNS."

I just can't get over his claims that some porn site totally, secretly dumped ILLEGAL CHILD PORN onto his computer. Like Sars' commenters point out--why would a legal porn site want to do that? So if you proceed from the idea that he's lying and it really was his own stash--I appreciate the fact that they're trying to give this guy a second chance, but to hell with anyone trying to tell the LW she should let her child be alone anywhere near him.

One of the comments linked to a site called Ask A Manager, where someone posed a similar question (but regarding a co-worker who'd been convicted of purchasing hundreds of child porn images) and the attempts to justify and defend the man is sickening. "Maybe the porn just fell onto his computer by accident!" "Maybe he had one photo of a 17 year old girl!" Attacking parents who suggest the slightest unease at working with a convicted child sex offender as being paranoid. There's one woman who looks like the sweet all-American soccer mom who's been posting zillions of comments defending pedophiles on the basis that they didn't chose to be sexually attracted to children, that it's exactly like being gay, and claiming the man should be applauded for working to use a outlet for his sexuality that doesn't involve abusing children. Just... WTF?

Even if someone did really believe that, okay post one or two comments. Posting a hundred comments and relentlessly fighting with anyone who expresses a different opinion, that's something else.

Pop'n'Fresh wrote:claiming the man should be applauded for working to use a outlet for his sexuality that doesn't involve abusing children.

That is one of the stupidest, vilest things I've ever heard. How does that lady imagine child porn images are made, if not through the abuse of children? And every time one is purchased and/or downloaded, what does she imagine that does if not sustain a market for more pictures, the creation of which necessitates the further abuse of children?

that it's exactly like being gay

Is she posting from 1950? Uggggggggggghhhhh that argument needed to die a very long time ago. I bet that asshole thinks she's being "progressive" and "accepting," too, with her bullshit "born this way" misappropriation.

There is nothing wrong with being rude or making your whiny sister unhappy if it keeps your kid safe. Taking the chance that you might hurt an adult's feelings or be rude to them is better than taking the chance that your child might get abused.

(Hell, there's nothing wrong with being rude if it's only your own safety on the line.)

With regard to the employee convicted of child porn, I wonder if there's any law about disclosing that in the workplace (which didn't bother to do any kind of background check). I'm taking an unresearched stab in the dark that the sex offender level of a child pornography conviction is probably lower than someone convicted of any sexual act against a child and they legally may NOT have to inform. It probably varies by state. There is no reason to object to a potential predator being employed and under parole/probation supervision. The less isolated and more monitored a person is, the less likely he'll reoffend. He's not working with children. And there's no reason for kids to be in the workplace or to be left unsupervised. Unemployed and homeless sex offenders are not safer for the public. I would, however, be curious if that person's work computer is monitored, you know?

Pedophilia is actually comparable to homosexuality (and/or heterosexuality) in that it's not curable. A pedophile can't change attraction to children, but they can choose not to act and choose (or have the state force) them to undergo procedures that reduce hormones levels that impact urges, or otherwise learn to cope with impulses. There was a letter to Dan Savage a few weeks ago from someone who knew their pedophilia urges were wrong and wanted help managing it.

I am also pretty sure "the legal porn site downloaded child porn for me" is the number one excuse of child pornography viewers. When, obviously, if that was the case 99.9% of men with internet access would have child porn on their computers.

It totally is. I feel like every single news story I've ever read about someone getting arrested for kiddie porn has had that exact same excuse used. It's like telling the police that guy just fell on your knife ten times as you're getting hauled away for murder.

About eight or nine years ago I saw a small article in the local paper about a man who was given a suspended sentence about having child pornography images on his computer and the details about him reminded me of the fiancé of a very good friend of mine. But I wasn't sure about the guy's surname. However, I did remember ringing her one afternoon about something and she sounded like she was somewhere she couldn't talk freely and it was afterwards that it clicked that maybe she was at the courthouse because the timing fit. I did find out the surname and it was the same as the guy in the paper and she mentioned about how they weren't getting broadband in their new house because they didn't need it/couldn't afford it/had no time for it. But all I could think was how the article in the paper said he couldn't go near the internet for so many years.

Flash forward, they get married, time passes, she says 'oh we got a great deal with such-and-such so now we have internet and I can email you again. Yay!'
Yay indeed. They have two kids now, two beautiful kids. I was at their house to see their baby a few months ago and their son was showing me around the garden and I saw that in Daddy's shed, he has his PC set up there and I'm thinking, who puts a computer in their shed in the garden? Why? She has her own laptop in the house.

Now she's never said anything and I can't ask because...how does one start that conversation? But it's always at the back of my mind when I meet him. And like the LW, if I had kids, I don't think I'd let him near them. Not that she'd be babysitting for me or vice versa. We live too far apart, but still, when I read that letter, it struck a chord with me.
At the end of the day as far as I'm concerned, if I don't fully trust a person, I wouldn't let you near my dogs, much less my children.

I somewhat admire how Abby avoided calling this woman a nutball.

Binky wrote:Pedophilia is actually comparable to homosexuality (and/or heterosexuality) in that it's not curable.

Except with both of those, it's possible to be attracted to people who can actually consent. I mean, I could follow that logic and say "Norway is actually comparable to North Korea, in that they're both countries whose names start with N."

And then there's the pesky detail that being gay became legal only fairly recently, and it took a lot of effort to change that, and that that particular fight is still going on. Or that the harmful myth that gay men are pedophiles did (and sadly still does to some extent) exist.

If the letter to Sars was about how the writer didn't want the brother-in-law around her kid because he had gay porn on his harddrive and that made her worried for her child's safety, Sars and her commenters would be rightfully appalled. (A legal defense and jail time wouldn't even be issues. I guess there might be questions about her sister's marriage, but nobody reasonable would be saying "it is totally right to keep him away from your kid.") And I doubt Dan Savage would ever agree with a letter-writer who told him gay urges were wrong. (He might point out that there's a bit more to it than "urges.")

Dear Prudie, third letter

Now I'm an extremely half-assed gardener, but isn't fertilizing your organic garden with your own, uh, fertilizer a good way to give somene e.coli? Also, EW EW EW. If I were this lady's husband, I would STRENUOUSLY OBJECT.

That woman is a moron. Prudie is right that you can't just dump crap (horse or otherwise) on plants, it has to compost for awhile so it's not toxic to the plants. GROSS>

She could KILL someone that's older or immune compromised that eats her vegetables. It's not just gross, it's really dangerous.

I really really thought at the time (and still think) that that was a fake question. Seriously, anyone who has done gardening for a while knows what kinds of poop are good fertilizer and what kinds aren't, and if this guy's wife has been gardening for a long time, there is no way that she would think that this was a good idea.

The fifth letter is pretty mind-boggling as well. The uncle of a five-year-old girl is pressuring her parents to look into gender reassignment surgery because she likes dressing in boyish clothes.

Prudie's column draws so much wtf-ery, it boggles the mind.

The funny thing about the gender-reassignment guy is that I could totally see that uncle thinking, "I'm so progressive! I don't judge! I'll be supportive of this 5-year-old girl choosing to live as a man!" The guy is clueless. I refused to wear dresses until I was in my teens, but I've never been confused about my gender.

In today's chat, Prudie is getting all judgy about a woman who hired a surrogate for her pregnancy, supposedly because of career considerations. She's basically saying that if you don't want to go through pregnancy and childbirth, you might not really want to be a mother at all. And this may be a controversial opinion, but to that I say, eff off, Prudie. My pregnancy was sheer misery from start to finish, and childbirth was scary, and I would hire a surrogate in a heartbeat if I had the money for it. (I'd hire someone like my sister's partner, who loves being pregnant. Win-win, people.) It does not mean that I don't love my baby. Oh my god.

And career considerations for women are also important. I personally had horrible nausea through my entire pregnancy, and it definitely interfered with my ability to work. (I was teaching. My lesson plans were half-assed because I got sick from too much reading, and I threw up immediately before and after lectures. It was not my best semester.) I don't think that's a shockingly terrible reason to hire a surrogate. Or to adopt, for that matter.

I thought Prudie was saying if the woman hired a surrogate solely to avoid having to take time off from work to have a baby, that didn't bode well for the time commitment actual motherhood requires -- it wasn't necessarily about the pregnancy suckiness. We just have the letterwriter's assertion to go on for that, though.

I thought between that, and her failure to reprimand the other woman who wrote, "my career-minded sister missed the boat to get married and have babies" OF A WOMAN IN HER 30S, Prudie was kind of off-based in matters of the uterus this week.

I was speechless at the letter from Modern Bathsheba. Her husband's ex wife is a monster. I can't imagine what kind of twisted person would torment a woman whose baby had just died. Prudie was right: there are obvious reasons her husband must've wanted to get away from her.

Holy crap to the "Family?" question (third). I just have to believe letters like that are made up, for my own sanity. How sad that someone in that situation feels the need to write an advice columnist for advice. Does she not have friends? Is the rest of her family really that insane? (Yes.)

I know, I feel so sorry for that poor woman. What a situation to be in.

The first one, about the underage sex tape...I think Prudie's advice is a little creaky. She seems horrified that a 16-year-old girl is having sex, and yeah, that's a little young, I guess, but not really the issue. "No, she can't get her virginity back, but..." And then my favorite thing: she advises that the sister get all the tapes back and destroy them. PRUDIE, IT'S NOT ON A TAPE. Just because it's called a sex tape doesn't mean it's actually on a videocassette. She's not going to be able to "destroy" all the copies unless she erases them from people's iPhones. Prudie, come ON.

ETA: And at least the tape thing was addressed later on in the column. Sheesh.

Jamie wrote:Holy crap to the "Family?" question (third). I just have to believe letters like that are made up, for my own sanity. How sad that someone in that situation feels the need to write an advice columnist for advice. Does she not have friends? Is the rest of her family really that insane? (Yes.)

I really hope it's fake too, because it is too appalling a story. Poor woman placed in an impossible situation. In the comments, someone posted a link to another story of a couple turning down the children the surrogate were carrying they wanted one child, not two. People like that really shouldn't be having children!