Wednesday, March 2, 2011

The Internet Lies

I really don't understand a lot of stuff. That's kind of why I'm here. To figure stuff out. But I am convinced that there are some things that I will just never understand. Crimes where the victim needs to play an extremely crucial role in the wrongdoings are some of the things that I don't understand. And I'm not talking about scams where people are bilked out of their life savings. While I don't profess to say that I totally understand how those can happen (and I tend to subscribe to the "A fool and his money are soon parted" explanation for most of them), they sometimes (rarely) have a (microscopic) shred of plausibility to them. (I don't really think that. I'm just trying to be nice. Really, I don't get how they ever happen, but that's probably just me.) But when the crime involves having to coerce the mother to engage in sexual acts with her child, it really boggles the mind. Wait. When they...what now?

Yeah, I'm still trying to noodle this one through. According to an AP story which appeared over yonder at the Huffington Post, the individual that we're describing here is a one Steven DeMink. The article starts off confusing me, as it reads "Online...he presented himself as Dalton St. Clair, an attractive single father and psychologist". Now, I don't know if he included a picture of himself online, but this is the perv we're talking about. Behold!


Yeah, not so much in the attractive category if you're asking me. It also doesn't seem like he would have much going on in the smarts category either, but his little ruse seemed to work. I'm going to tell you what he did and then you tell me if these mothers, who were unthinkably somehow unknowingly complicit in his little scheme, should really be parenting at all, OK? My answer is a massive NO. Maybe they could be good parents one day, but clearly right now is not that day. Perhaps give them something to practice taking care of first before moving up to actual humans. I'm thinking of a perhaps a houseplant. Not much can go wrong there...unless you're the plant.

This guy would go into chat rooms on the Internet and somehow convince "...single mothers...to sexually assault their children as a form of therapy." And he did this for (wait for it) more than a year! That he was able to do it even once is astonishing to me. What kind of mother would go along with this sort of advice? Well, in some cases, this perv "...promised the women a date if they followed through with his directions." A date? In exchange for sexually assaulting your own child? THAT was a relevant factor for some of these idiots? Are you dry shaving me?! How is that possible? Who ARE these people?! I guess they're people like this woman: Apparently, "In one case, Demink started online chats with an Oregon woman about the sexual development of her 8-year-old autistic son...He told her to engage in sexually explicit conduct with her son as a way to teach him about sex...and she did so while Demink watched on a web camera." Excuse me for a moment while I find a wall to bang my head against.

They were on the freaking Internet! Don't they know that the Internet lies?! He said he was a psychologist, so that was good enough for them?! Have they also recently lost a lot of money to a Nigerian prince? Are these women being allowed to continue caring for their children? I don't think that it's an overreaction to ask that question, nor do I think it's an overreaction for someone else to be in charge of these particular children. What kind of person are you who has some guy on the Internet tell you to engage in some form of sex with your autistic son and you think it's a good idea and you do it?! WITH a webcam running?!

Well, the answer to that is right there in the police report. See, "Demink intimated to these women that the result of the therapy would be healthier children." Oh. OK, then. I didn't know that he told them that it would help their children. That makes all of the difference. Totally understandable now. Of course. I should have known that there was a reasonable explanation for all of this insane lunacy. Sweet fancy Moses, what is going on here?!

Oh, look! Here's some information about one of the women! This might help us. OK, it says that this particular individual met this guy on "....an online dating site called singleparentmeet.com." All right. Nothing wrong with making friends online. But then, "She told police she performed sex acts on her young son as directed by her online male friend." All right. There's absolutely something wrong with that! As directed by?! The direction I can fully comprehend. It's the following through with it that still boggles me! Maybe her mother (who was inexplicably interviewed for this story) can help shed some insight on what her daughter was thinking. She said that "...her daughter was "depressed and lonesome" after her divorce." Uh-huh. I'm going to need more than that. "I don't know how he wrangled her in...She could have turned off the computer and gone the other way. He must have had a power over her." Oh, for cryin' out loud!

A power over her?! How about just admitting that your daughter is a complete dumbass?! Power? What kind of power? I've read this story several times (in hopes that I read it wrong at least once) and it makes no mention of him being overly tricky or magic or anything like that. He's just a big, perverted dope who managed to convince not one, not two, but at least seven women from all over the country to sexually assault their children because it would "help" them.

Seven. I have just lost all faith in humanity. I have nothing left. Seven. Indiana, Georgia, Illinois, Oregon New Hampshire, Idaho and Florida (of course). Those folks are spread all across the country. If it was contained to a particular region (like Florida, as I had expected), maybe I would have some faith left. But it's not. It's from one coast to another and everywhere in between. I don't really know what else to do with that other than to completely abandon any shred of hope that I may have ever had. For cryin' out loud, "Because the Internet told me to" is about the worst excuse I have ever heard in my life and it happened in this instance at least seven times. Yeah, I give up. Good Lord...

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