Online Dating: A Sex Offender’s Dream Meet and Greet, Till Now
April 3rd, 2012. By AbiK
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Dating in the real world is hard—you know, you have to try to look half-decent and then there’s the conversation bit—trying to sound both interesting and intelligent with a dose of humor thrown in. Not easy. Particularly if the chemistry just ain’t there. Enter online dating. It’s just easier, right? Stick a profile out there—write it up when you’re at your wittiest, have some friends edit it, find some pics and photoshop them, and you’re good to go. Be the best date prospect you can be because it’s all, well, massaged—the way an ad campaign is.
But here’s the thing. If you can do it—in essence, perpetrate a bit of ‘online fraud’—guess who else can put their best self forward on online dating sites? Sex offenders. And you thought canceled or inactive subscribers was bad!
That’s hopefully about to change. Thanks to attorney Mark Webb and California state attorney general, Kamala Harris, three of the larger online dating sites have agreed to provide online safety tools for daters including: checking subscribers against the national sex offender registries; providing an abuse reporting system for site members; providing proactive education about safe online dating practices; and providing tips on how to safely meet someone offline–as, after all, that’s the goal of an online meetup.
According to a release from the attorney general’s office, “In 2011, 40 million Americans used an online dating service and spent more than $1 billion on online dating website memberships. Of couples married in the last three years, one in six met through an online dating service and one in five people have dated someone they met through an online dating site.”
Given those numbers, it’s no surprise that online dating sites are a natural lure for those seeking a mate. Apparently, that’s what the woman at the root of these changes thought when she became a rape victim while on a date that began as a Match.com meetup.
The victim, known only as Jane Doe from Los Angeles, was on the Match.com-arranged date when she was raped. She found out later that her date was a convicted serial sex offender. Amazingly, in her subsequent Match.com lawsuit (Jane Doe vs. Match.com, Los Angeles Superior Court Case #BC458927) she only sought for Match.com to screen out sex offenders and she waived her right to compensatory damages. She just wanted to spare others from what she’d been through.
Of note as well, her attorney, Mark Webb took on her case pro bono.
In addition to Match.com, the online dating sites who agreed to the above terms include eHarmony.com and Spark Networks (which operates online dating sites including JDate and ChristianMingle).
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It is a good thing that the state of California is doing something sex offenders that gather in online dating sites. Also I think other states should do something about it as well.
Hi Anne. As a convicted sex offender, I'd like to weigh in here.
My crime was continuing a sexually charged conversation online with a minor even after I learned that the person was a minor. I spoke to this girl for 30 minutes one time because I was bored at 2am. It did not matter that I did not initiate the conversation, and it did not matter that we both contributed to the nature of the conversation. I took a plea deal at the recommendation of my attorney and was sentenced to 2 years of probation and have never seen the inside of a jail cell in my life. I was not "arrested", I had traveled to the state where the minor resides only in order to answer to the charges that were brought against me. I had never before had legal problems yet I am now seen as a dangerous criminal even though my crime did not involve rape, touching, or even solicitation.
If that was the end of it, felony + registration, I might be able to pick my head up and carry on and try to put it behind me. But it seems that every day I learn of a new law, bill, or policy that bans and restricts sex offenders from… everything.
I was on Jdate looking for someone who could see past my situation and who shares my beliefs.
It has been difficult enough to tell girls I start to date that I am a registered sex offender before feelings become developed, especially my own. I have already been hurt twice. But with all these restrictions and limitations being placed on functioning normally in society, what is my motivation in telling the truth? Typically I have always treated people with respect, trust, and been completely honest. I am that way because that is the kind of person I want to be and always have been. But if I am met with anger, distrust, and belittlement, then there is no point and it fills my mind and body with hopelessness and despair.
With every new law that gets passed against sex offenders, I am reminded about the stories my grandfather had shared with me while he was in Germany prior to him being sent to a concentration camp. Fortunately, he was able to escape with fraudulent government papers.
I understand completely that there are dangerous people out there. I lock my doors at night, I lock my car when I leave it in public, and I avoid bad areas in the city just like everyone else. That's common sense. But to isolate a group and say they are ALL like that is called stereotyping and to limit that group's liberty is persecution. First it was slavery, then segregation, it happened in Germany with the Jews, and even recent frequent genocides in other countries that most people don't hear about.
I come from a great family, I am educated, and I am successful. But I spoke to a minor online about sex (who was actually more experienced than myself) and so who I am doesn't matter anymore.
The term sex-offender and to the degree(1-4) is used as an UMBELLA Term under which all convicted are placed. No individual cases are taken into consideration so all are in the same pot that is forever simmering.
Hello stunned,
I want to add to your conversation here, because I’m a convicted sex offender too. I was online chatting to what I thought was a minor but come to find out it was the police instead. There was no minor involved at any point in my case. I was sentenced to 4 to 8 years in prison and life time registration in which the paperwork they said there was a minor but if you read my case there was none. The United States is treating us like Nazi’s did to the Jews in Germany. This also drives the sex offenders to reoffend if not other stupid stuff. I was in church today and the pastor said the one who signs the check is GOD not the people that lives for the world. 99% of people live for the world and we have critics like anne. But what people need to realize regardless if it’s sex offenders or not we are human and within every human is a sex offender because regardless of man or woman or whatever you might be you have the urge for sex. Thank you GOD BLESS
This ban empowers predators who have never been caught by giving users a false sense of security.
It also creates a more restrictive environment for former offenders, and in doing so, heightens the risk of re-offense.
Sex offenders already have the lowest rates of re-offense other than murderers (www.endsexcrime.org/theproof.html#recidivism). This ban is simply a feel-good measure that no one can really enforce. Just another notch in Harris' belt is all.
I am also a registered citizen and maintain my innocence to this day. Every day I wake up, I feel trapped by a set of laws that I just have given up on trying to manage. I’m tired of making heads or tails of it day in and day out. I lost my GF of two years due to her parents believing everything they read AFTER they met the real me and believed I was the best guy she’s ever found. Not to mention she has two children and they felt they finally had a family.
So yeah, thank you to the SO Registry and the ridiculous laws for taking happiness from me, my GF (ex now) and her children … all in the name of a false sense of security.
She dated a truly convicted sex-offender long before me, and he gave everyone the creeps. Needless to say, it didn’t last long.
I am all for stripping this nation of these horrible, Draconian laws and the people that conjure such evil.