Trolling for Victims

There was an incident at the Neenah Wisconsin High School regarding sexual intercourse between a twenty-two year-old tutor and a seventeen year-old student. The sex was consensual and occurred on school grounds. The matter apparently came to light when someone eavesdropped on a conversion in which the young woman worried she might be pregnant.

The initial handling was quite calm considering the usual feeding frenzy of the public, police, and prosecutors over anything sex. The school held a conference with some of the details, including the consensual nature. Since the tutor was hired by an outside firm, the school principal vowed to conduct independent background investigations henceforth without explaining how that would prevent future incidents.

What is clear at this point is the tutor engaged in illegal sex and both tutor and student had difficulty in waiting for a more appropriate location for their tryst. Other police jurisdictions became involved however.

An alleged victim came forth who claimed that the tutor had raped her. Police found the names of 57 young women in his computer. Then the newspapers printed articles that women who had sex with the mentor should get a test for STD. There was no claim that the mentor had tested positive for anything. One small publication claimed that one of the women whose name appeared on the mentor’s computer had tested positive for an STD.

I hope this wasn’t an attempt to troll for victims. This seems to be a technique loved by at least two local jurisdictions.

In 2002 Calumet County officials announced the discovery of the great Hilbert sex ring. A fifteen-year-old girl had allegedly made some sex videos with her seventeen year-old boyfriend. The sound of drool dripping from the mouths Calumet county law enforcement and prosecutors was audible through the printed newspaper accounts. They were sure that this was much bigger than what they could see, and they were sure there were more victims were out there. Unhappily for Prosecutor Kratz and the investigators, no one else stepped forward.

In 2004, Fond du Lac police claimed they had a nine-year-old rapist in custody. They also advertised for victims. Since young children were allegedly involved, parents came out in droves. The police abruptly cut off the number of alleged victims at twelve. This was rather bizarre behavior for police and prosecutors. After all, if more is better why stop at twelve? The Fond du Lac police also attempted to victimize the alleged perpetrator themselves and falsely accused the boys father of sex abuse.

So, while the trolling failed for Calumet County, it worked very well in Fond du Lac.

I have to wonder if any minor tests positive for an STD, does this become reportable to the police? If so, given that the mentor was not advertised as testing positive, what’s the point? Indeed since the STD is a very real health hazard, why not make public the occurrences and general geographic locations? The names of the diseased would not, of course, be published.

Why not widely advertise the risk of STD’s and tell people how to avoid them? And where to go to find if they believe they have one. Why not be honest and forthright with minors about the consequences of unhealthy sex including asphyxiation sex? And furthermore get off the business that somehow teenagers are terribly contaminated if they have some kind of sex that most natural of human activities.

I also wonder if the tutor were made aware of the consequences of sexual contact with a student he was tutoring, a felony in this state. Or perhaps to extend the awareness of the ease that prosecutors can place innocent people in jail and prison based on mere allegation.

I’ll give the Neenah High School authorities and the Neenah police a kudo for avoiding the slathering approach in other communities. I distrust the Menasha police with their hope for more victims. And, I condemn the health departments that use this as a way to find more victims. After all, if we can’t trust our health departments, who can we trust?

Finally, why don’t the health departments take an active role in giving out information on the nature and prevention of STD’s. While they are at it, the health departments can remind all of us of the fact that the bursting strength of abstinence programs is far lower than that of condoms.