There is a website where people pretend to be young children in order to lure paedophiles, and then hand them over to the police.
Warning - it is a very graphic and nasty website, you will find it if you google for
"perverted justice"
They have chat logs from their entrapments. Essentially the paedophile will run the victim's self esteem down and then promise attention in exchange for sexual favours, ie they warp what is "being a good girl" and what is praise and positive attention.
If you train your child that your love is never conditional on her being good, you will love her even when she's been very very bad or naughty, and that it is not appropriate for adults to ask sexual favours from children, that should help.
The stuff about sex ed is very helpful too. My parents from the very beginning taught me all the correct anatomical names for all my bits. Hence I embarrassed myself in the school sex ed classes by being the only kid who knew the names of my private parts - and my brother's ie a boy's. I also learnt/knew about how you got pregnant, and what giving birth is like - a video of a woman giving birth should put your child off sex for YEARS. As would some hands on practice changing nappies.
I also got taught "bases", what first base, second base, home run / all the way meant, and when you might expect to try each phase. Ie all the way is only for a boy you'd be prepared to have as the father of your children.
And I got taught about diseases when I was in the late teens was when the hysteria about AIDS was every day headlines. And I was sufficiently well educated about Africa and Asia to know it was something women got just as much as (gay) men. And there are some older just as nasty diseases, and you can't tell who has these diseases just by looking at them. Ie it is wise to know a person well for at least three months, maybe longer, and have blood tests, before you let them have (unprotected) sex with you. And you're not protected from diseases unless he wears a condom, and even then it's not 100% guaranteed to work. And at the time, I was very fond of 100% guarantees when it came to avoiding fatal long lingering diseases.
If you can be very understanding of your daughter's needs, and do what you can to build her self esteem up, it isn't likely that she would fall victim to a paedophile. And if she has a good basic education about sex, then that will help her fend off teenage boys too.
One line I've never had to use, but seems handy, was if a boy says he will tell everyone at school you had sex with him even if you don't, so you might as well have sex with him, is to answer NO, and if he brags about the imaginary sex, you will tell everyone how crap he is at sex (a dud root). Another thing my dad taught me, is that it is usually up to the girls to stop the guys from going too far. Ie the guys will always try to get a home run, and it is the girls' job to say no. It isn't bad to say no, it's expected. This might not be right in the age of equality of the sexes, but when it comes to things like this, nothing much has changed.
And a bit of advice from me - if you're with a guy and you're kissing, and he says he doesn't want to have sex with you, he's telling a lie. Some guys do this because some stupid web site said that it makes girls more willing to have sex, but the website is wrong. All it does is insult the woman.
22 Jul 2006, 7:32 am
