I edited an interesting manuscript recently, a book by a man who was falsely accused of being a pedophile, charged with the crime, imprisoned, and then finally exonerated and released. It turns out that he did some research on the internet, looking for information about a certain performance enhancement drug (viagra), which caused cookies to be saved on his computer, resulting in pop-up messages, porn, spam, whipped cream, and various other evil things to appear on his computer. We've all seen them—you click on one web site and suddenly you're plagued with 47 ad windows for porn sites, and sometimes it's a booger to get rid of the clever little virus or worm that causes them.

Yeah, so this guy got a porn worm on his computer because he suffered from erectile dysfunction and sought relief from the magical World Wide Web, where no one would know of his embarrassing condition except himself and his wife. Somehow, the porn worm led to some kind of pedophile web site, which installed something on his computer, snatched his credit card information and used it to finance another web site for the entertainment of pedophiles around the world.

The pedo-watchdogs caught this and tracked it back to his computer, and he was arrested and charged. It took some time for the police to examine his computer and determine that he was telling the truth—he didn't do it, his identity was stolen.

In the meantime, he was jailed. And as we have all heard, the hard, evil men you find in jail are especially hard and evil when it comes to pedophiles and child molesters. Death threats resulted in this man being put into solitary confinement for his own safety. In the community, he lost the faith and respect of virtually everyone who knew him. Kicked off the board, kicked out of his church, and his wife came close to leaving him. Very little support from friends or family. After all, if someone thinks he's a pedophile…well who wants to be the one standing by and giving him support if it turns out to be true, right?

I found this very interesting. Pedophiles are so vilified in our society that people are loathe to afford them any sense of decency or respect. So horrified are we by a criminal whose victims are children that we withhold decency and respect from one just upon the accusation because giving undeserved respect if he's guilty would be worse than persecuting him unfairly if he's innocent.

I remark on this not out of any sympathy for pedophiles--although I could make a case for them deserving sympathy of some kind for they, most of all, surely wish even more than we, that they did not have this thing in them, this thing that makes them do this, makes them hated and mistrusted and attacked and shut out—who would choose to be a pedophile if, indeed, he had a choice in the matter? Their behavior may be wrong and indefensible, but the root cause of their behavior, their drives and urges, is beyond their control. These people are probably not evil, they simply lack the emotional tools to either control their urges or to recognize that their behavior violates and causes harm to another person and is therefore wrong.

And no, it is not MORE wrong because the victims are children. Contrary to popular belief, the rights of children are no more important than anyone else's. It has only been in the last half a century or so (compared to many thousands of years of history) in which children have been placed upon a pedestal, as though their value and worth are superior to those of adults, as though children's needs are more important and always supersede those of grown-ups. Well that's a debate for another day.

The point I wanted to make: Rapists commit essentially the same crime as child molesters—they force themselves sexually onto another person who is weaker and unable to defend, refuse, or resist—yet suffer no such persecution in our society. First of all, they're given the benefit of the doubt—"innocent until proven guilty," unlike pedophiles and child molesters. You see, when a man is accused of raping a woman, it is thought to be likely that the woman, being vindictive, had some motivation, possibly, for making this false accusation, or that she was somehow confused about what actually happened to her and that it wasn't really rape after all, or that she provoked it somehow with her appearance or behavior. See, this baffles me. For some reason, children are not thought to be easily confused about what really happened, nor are they thought to be vindictive enough to create a false accusation against a grown-up in this manner. When a child says it, it must be true, he did it. Excuse me, but who could be more easily confused, especially when it comes to things of a sexual nature, than a child? And seriously, kids are not vindictive and mean when it comes to getting back at an adult they hate? Since when?

We know that children are immature and naïve, yet we don't suggest that they might actually have mistakenly accused someone of something criminally inappropriate. We know that children lie as much as adults do, yet we don't automatically consider the possibility that they might be lying, unlike rape victims. If a woman has any motivation to lie about being raped…wouldn't a child have the same potential motivation to lie about it as well? We know that children are sexual creatures, as all humans are, yet we would not dream of accusing a child of intentionally trying to provoke or arouse a man just to see what might happen, resulting in an unfortunate sexual incident that the child actually brought upon himself.

So why do we do this shit to WOMEN?? Why are grown women less credible than children when it comes to accusations made about the violation of our own bodies?

I dunno where I'm going with this; no further, I guess. Just thought I'd share a little bit of the disturbance that has fluttered through my mind lately as I'm drenched in editing projects and as much tennis as I can stand.

By the way, guys, I did not sell the Xfire. I couldn't part with her. I advertised Amy in the paper, but then I found myself making excuses every time someone called…"Oh, you want to come and see the car…well, you know, today's not really good for me…why don't you call back tomorrow and we'll see about showing you the car." Eventually I realized, I'm simply not getting rid of my car. Some other solution must be found. Think I'm just gonna buy a SUV.