Now, a new Reality TV trend has been born: exposing potential offenders. The program starts by making them believe they're setting up a rendezvous with an underaged teenager, luring them to a residence where they believe the teenager is, and then confronting them on arrival.
Clever! Some would argue that this is a great way to deter men from seeking to meet up with underaged girls (or boys) because of the risk of being widely exposed. They don't want to be humiliated as those men have, which surely may ruin their lives. They could lose their wife and/or family, their friends, their jobs. No one would want to risk that...unless they doubt that it would happen to them.
Others may argue just that: this is something that could (and most likely would) ruin the lives of these men who are exposed for making a big mistake and that it may not, in fact, deter other potential offenders.
Of course, most people think that men who seek to have sex with underaged girls, especially those that are pre-teen and younger, must be caught and punished. But are we going to allow ourselves to be entertained by this? None of these TV programs that expose these few men are actually trying to be vigilanties making a difference in society; they're exploiting the desire of many Americans to see perverted men being caught and humiliated between commercial breaks.
Most of us feel the same about sexual offenders. But try not to allow your viewing time to be sold to advertisers trying to get you to buy something else. Get up off your ass, turn off the TV, get out into the world, and try to make a difference yourself.
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