So
BoingBoing has picked up on the Star Trek/Pedophile thing (I finally beat them to something!), and after an indignant response from a Trekkie, they looked into it a bit:
I have now spoken to Detective Ian Lamond of the Child Exploitation Section of the Toronto Sex Crimes Unit and he claims they were misquoted, or if that figure was given it was done so jokingly. Nevertheless, he does claim that a majority of those arrested show "at least a passing interest in Star Trek, if not a strong interest."
They've arrested well over one hundred people over the past four years. Det. Lamond claims they can gauge this interest in Star Trek by the arrestees' "paraphenalia, books, videotapes and DVDs." I asked if this wasn't simply a general interest in science fiction and fantasy, such as Star Wars or Harry Potter or similar. He said, while there was sometimes other science fiction and fantasy paraphenalia, Star Trek was the most consistent and when he referred to a majority of the arrestees being Star Trek fans, it was Star Trek specific.
I think the
SheCreature's comments on my earlier post are astute:
Child molestors are generally not born... they're created, usually out of a history of having been abused as children themselves.
The men whom they're likely capturing these days would largely be made up of those who grew up in the 60s and 70s, when television had become more popular than movies as an easy form of escapism.
When these men were just boys, Star Trek may have had a HUGE appeal to them as the ultimate form of escape... to go where "no man has gone before" and to get the hell out of their nightmare lives. In an attempt to mentally run away from their lives, they could have chosen to over-focus on these fantasy worlds that came into their living rooms every week.
You can read her full comments
here.
