A few months ago I wrote a blog entry about a website I came across. It was about a mathematician, but I came across a "hidden" link and discovered that the site had dozens and dozens of pictures of girls, around the age of 7 or 8 or so, with no clothes on. Posed pictures where they were wearing makeup, standing in front of a backdrop.
Obviously I am aware that there are bad things on the internet, but I never expected to see that kind of creepiness suddenly jumping out at me from what I thought was a safe, tame site. Knowing something like that exists isn't the same as seeing it. It was upsetting.
Then I looked around for a place to report this site to, and had trouble finding anything. Every place I found online wanted to know specifics: names, addresses, etc., and I didn't have any of that. Who knows who these girls were, or when the pictures were even taken?
I did finally report it on the website for the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, but though I entered my email address and phone number I never heard anything back.
Then I looked at my hits for this blog, which went WAY UP after that post, and realized I was getting lots of hits from Google searches. BAD searches. I will not post the things these people were searching for, because I don't want my blog to show up any more. I had originally titled my blog entry after what these pics were called on the math site; let's just say it's a word that rhymes with "lymphet". After I saw what these creepy people were searching for (and ending up on MY blog) I edited my post to remove that word and re-titled my blog entry "The N-Word".
That's what our society needs, another "n" word.
Then I did a little research, and found out that these pictures were probably not even illegal, since the girls were not actually doing anything sexual. I can't imagine the person who could look at these pictures of children, posed under photographic lighting and in front of a backdrop, wearing makeup and no clothes, and NOT think it should be illegal. There was bad intent, clearly. Sexual intent, involving a CHILD.
A couple of weeks ago I checked the site again, and it's completely gone. I have no idea what happened, or if it had anything to do with my report. But since it's gone, I am going to consider it a happy ending. :)
