Playing Doctor Gets You Sex Offender Charge

A few days ago I read about an 11 year old, caught playing doctor, is (or has been) being charged and will upon reaching 18 be life-long registered as a sex offender. At first I thought it an odd and possibly misrepresented presentation of the facts. But intrigued, I did some searches and it seems that charges being leveled at clearly underage children who are caught out playing doctor, is not all that rare an occurrence in the US. Moreover, the true tragedy appears to come at 18, when the youthful 'offender' is forced to register as a sex offender, with all the accompanying humiliations, restrictions and prohibitions.

And that for something that many members on the forum have themselves participated in when young, in more charitable times.

When reading of these cases and charges, even of a 10 year old, I can't come up with any words to describe my utter amazement and contempt. This kind of thing seems to go beyond even the wildest definition of exemplary or preventive 'justice'. What are justice officials thinking when they bring such charges?

I was wondering what other members think, or if I have a completely wrong take on what I've read.

I totally agree with your comments agracier. I always thought playing doctor was quite a common occurrence in childhood, it may be frowned upon by some parents but to take it outside the respective family units seems a step too far.

How did the authorities become involved? Did the parents report the 11 year old "play doctor" to the police as someone who had sexually assaulted another child? Very strange indeed in my opinion.

Political correctness gone mad in my book!

Entirely agree with you agracier. When I was growing up, playing doctor was (up to a certain age) accepted by and among my peers as a normal recreational activity, even though we suspected that our "elders and betters" (nice old-fashioned phrase) might not approve. And looking back on it now, I think that it was an important part of the complex learning process that different aspects of childhood should be. So long as such activity is consensual, wherein lies the harm?

How did the authorities become involved? Did the parents report the 11 year old "play doctor" to the police as someone who had sexually assaulted another child? Very strange indeed in my opinion. Political correctness gone mad in my book!

I first started by chancing upon an article during Halloween about sex offenders and what restrictions are placed on them ... but it seems that becoming life-long registered is not all that difficult when considering the offenses charged: public urination (if that were taken seriously here, I swear our house - in a narrow street - must have been splashed thousands of times since we moved) sex games amongst minors ... and that can apparently include playing doctor ...

It's not political correctness that I see however ... but extreme prudishness and a throwback to an emotional conservatism that rejects anything to do with how modern life has changed over the past decades. And it seems to be getting nasty too ... 11 and 12 year old's arrested and charged with a sex offense. C'mon ... what kind of imaginary land of the perverse imagination does that come from?

I read a good phrase in a book on street art, but it's applicable to many things nowadays: what's the difference between zero-tolerance and intolerance?

These laws are ridiculous beyond comprehension. This is one of the ways children explore their budding sexuality. To prohibit this is against the laws of nature.

This country is going crazy and so Puritan . It was on the news about a 2 weeks ago about a 4 year old getting charged with sexual harassment for kissing a girls hand. Can't f.....believe that the school officials put this little guy thru this. Later they lowered the charge to misconduct in school grounds. Then the authorities ask themselves "who is creating these monsters who are killing their family members and fellow classmates " we'll I think they themselves are . God help us all

If this is the case I'm thinking of there are facts that support these charges. The kid charged was 10, the kid she was playing with was 4. Generally normal sex play is ages within 4 years.

Too bad because I have the best memories while growing up. I remember most of the kids in the neighborhood would get involved in these games of Doctor/patient exams and would play with girls who I did not even know from school or church.

The US should be renamed ZT - Zero Tolerance.

We're living in an age of insanity. Rather than letting kids be kids and learn life lessons from their errors, we demonize and criminalize every possible misdeed. Here in The People's Republic of New Jersey, they charged a kindergartner with terroristic threats for playing cops and robbers or cowboy and Indian in the school yard with a twig. The other kid was not threatened, the school administration pressed the charges. Then there was the kid suspended from school for eating his Pop Tart into the shape of a gun, or Idaho, depending on which direction you held it. Or the other kid who was suspended for having a miniscule, plastic toy gun charm hanging from his backpack zipper.

By coincidence, I'm watching Demolition Man as I type. We're headed for that sanitized, impersonal world depicted.

I hope I die before I get old - and have to see that.

This country is going crazy and so Puritan ...

The US should be renamed ZT - Zero Tolerance. Here in The People's Republic of New Jersey ...

It's interesting to note that both extremes get blamed for the off-the-charts way people, groups and authorities are reacting and coming down on what they perceive as deviant and harmful behavior by the very young.

I think it's no coincidence that in Western countries, it's the US and the UK where this tendency is at its most pronounced. And both are countries that historically have experienced far more influence by various kinds of Puritan and other strong reformist religious tendencies. Therefore the element of sexual disapproval, if not outright hysteria often comes from these two. Not to say that other countries don't also experience this - think the Netherlands 'Bible Belt' for instance ...

But then the probably inappropriately named 'People's Republics ...' (good joke but pretty far off when it comes to the historical realities of the true People's Republics) ... there the examples mentioned don't have to do with sexual/doctor's play, but with play involving violence and weapons. Something way different in essence, though the games themselves are no big deal and just a traditional type of children's game, age old and intrinsically harmless.

But if it's any consolation, little Belgium, probably one of the most law-abiding and safest countries to live in, is also going through its own particular brand of hysteria about youth behavior. A new category of punishments has been created called GAS - Gemeentelijk Administratieve Sancties - Municipal Administrative Sanctions - which are in essence fines aimed at mainly youngsters from 14 to as old as you want, which are levied not only by police by also by municipal civil servants. They are meant to fine 'annoying behavior' in public, which can come to mean just about anything youngsters do, like sitting inappropriately on public benches, calling to someone on the street, playing a radio in a car that can be heard on the street and so on ad infinitum. And to put this into perspective, opponents of these fines call them American influenced ideas on law enforcement.

It just seems that so many countries have decided that the 'gloves are coming off', it's 'no more Mr. Nice Guy' and society is beginning to throw it's weight around again ... too many people have intrinsically uncharitable modes of thought and ways of viewing other people's behavior ...

Well said agracier, and it may be that the growing influence (or growing fear) of conservative Islam in the West is reinforcing these Puritan values. Liberal thinking is under attack from several directions and I fear that it is in full retreat. I don't expect to see any improvement in the situation in what is left of my own life, but taking a longer view, as an eternal optimist, I believe that the pendulum will eventually swing back.

... and it may be that the growing influence (or growing fear) of conservative Islam in the West is reinforcing these Puritan values.

That is oh so right ... in fact I forgot to say that these Municipal Sanctions in Belgium I mentioned, were created purposely to make especially immigrant youths conform to what is considered to be appropriate behavior ... 2nd and 3rd generation (North African) immigrants were the main target population ...

But it's turned out to be such a handy law enforcement tool, since it can used by civil servants as well as by police, that now anyone's libel to get fined ... mainly because society is becoming afraid of its own shadow.

And the irony is also that conservative Islam is, in fact, every bit as (sexually repressed) Puritan, if not even more so as our own, home grown Western, historical 'Puritans' and like minded. I'd love to read what sociologists and historians are going to write about all this in the coming centuries ... I doubt if it will be edifying.

While the examples I used weren't doctor play, they weren't violent either. I used them as examples of the intolerance of a puritanical society that doesn't let kids be kids.

Also, while I'm familiar with many of the world's People's Republics, ours pales in comparison, but we're headed towards a totalitarian police state. As Ben Franklin said, if you give up liberty for safety, you'll have neither.

I'll get off my political soap box now.

As far as children's behavior and discipline are concerned, governments have been taking more and more control and interfering in people's personal lives. Nowadays in most first-world countries parents are no longer allowed to discipline their kids in any physical way. Anything remotely resembling a good ol' smack on the bottom when appropriate is deemed assault and parents can be criminally prosecuted.

Parents themselves have also been brainwashed by modern-day psychology that the poor little blighters will suffer irreparable harm should they ever be spanked for unacceptable behavior. So the little runts run amok and now Big Brother has to fulfill the role of disciplinarian - with ridiculous laws for even more ridiculous "offences".

The world we live in has become truly fucked-up (apologies, agracier, you reprimanded me in an earlier post in another thread for bad language, but there is no better description for the current situation that jumps to mind.... 😁 )

It's unfortunate.

There is tragedy in everyday life.

Animals die. People die. People are tortured. Things go wrong.

IT'S JUST TOO FUCKING BAD. That's just the way the cookie crumbles.

The government should stay out of people's lives when what they do inside their own homes is concerned. Those are domestic affairs. That means inside your house. The government should stay out of my house.

We cannot save the world and tighter controls and ridiculous laws are not going to help. They will only make it worse.

The government also needs to stay away from personal behavior that doesn't harm others.

Kids playing consensually don't harm others, let them play without fear of 'the man.'

I sometimes wonder when the best years were that struck a balance between allowing sexual and personal freedom, without it all sliding into (it must be admitted a mostly imaginary) anarchy. We used to consider much of repressive law enforcement as being American imports, just as excessive greed and sexual excess was thought to be of the same provenance.

I have this impression of the 1980's fitting the bill pretty well. The 60's and 70's were often rather immature times in retrospect, fun maybe in certain ways, but not really all that well balanced. And by the mid 1990's (here in Belgium in any case), the sexual hysteria started because of several media-attention grabbing criminal cases that were rightfully awful, but still blown out of proportion ... that's mainly why I end up with the 80's ...

As someone with a background in psychology, I agree that "playing doctor" or "playing house" by children is common, normal, and maybe even healthy, so long as there is no force involved, the kids are about the same age, and potentially harmful activities are avoided (e.g., a 6-year-old trying to force an unlubricated thermometer into the rectum of a 3-year old might cause physical damage.) American society has lost any common sense, proportionality, and degree. Two kids playing a game of "you show me yours and I'll show you mine" becomes taken as seriously as an adult sexually abusing a young child. A young child forming a "gun" with his hand and pointing at another child is taken as seriously as a classroom shootings. A 6-year kissing a girl's hand becomes "sexual harassment." Of course, going after such non-criminals is always safer and easier than tackling real drug lords, gang members terrorizing a neighborhood, organized crime, terrorists, and the like.

Continued Political Correctness will be The Downfall of the United States.

Continued Political Correctness will be The Downfall of the United States.

I'll put my money on the main cause in the US being religious fanaticism and fundamentalism whose adherents just cannot bring themselves to accept (social) change and modernity. And all of this seems so foreign to the US I grew up in as a child.

I was reading in a book (by Philip Kerr - Prayer - a crime novel btw) and he had the main character ponder the following: 40-50 years ago when Americans looked up into the night night skies, they saw the moon, planets and the stars and wondered how science and technology would ever get them there. Now, in this present time, when they look up into the skies they wonder how to fulfill the will of (their) God.

What a difference. Almost like a 180 degree turn in direction. You'd almost think they were disappointed that the world didn't end at the turning of the Millennium.

Continued Political Correctness will be The Downfall of the United States.

For "the United States"., substitute "civilized society everywhere".

The pendulum continues to swing. The difference now is that there seems to be a discordant nature to the swing. Sexually, we've become more puritanical yet in many other social issues, like msrijuana, we're getting much more liberal.

I think, here in the US, we've got a label fetish. You're either conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican. You're obligated to drink the kool-aid of your party. This attitude leaves nothing for personal choice. How can you be FOR social programs but AGAINST abortion. You can't be pro 2nd Ammendment but anti mandatory sentencing. We want self determination but we rely on the government to raise our kids.

OK, I'll get off my soap box and return you to your regular program.

"Continued Political Correctness will be The Downfall of the United States."

For "the United States"., substitute "civilized society everywhere".

Gloomy, gloomy ... so many people predict the direst of things ... I don't know if this is just Hollywood talking or not, but the mob saying: 'Things Change' is probably a good way to go about life. Embrace change, or at the least, adapt to it or get left behind ... every age has its prophets of doom claiming the End is Nigh. Now, rejecting that doesn't mean that things invariably get better and better, far from it. They do get worse periodically ... but downfalls of civilization?

You are right agracier, "downfall" is too strong a word, perhaps "curse" would have been a better choice. This is certainly a topic about which I would be happy to engage in further debate, but the present thread may not be the right place for it.

Really? You are going to label an 11 year old as a sex offender? Then at age 18 they are going to make him register as a sex offender for life? What insane son of a b**** prosecutor and judge what do this? If this is a true story I really would love to talk to the prosecutor and the judge. These people are truly f***** in the head. If anything you send the child counseling you don't make him into a sex offender. This will is essentially destroy his life these people are truly f***** up and need to be voted out of office and disbarred and kicked off the bench.

Reminds me of the McMartin preschool trials where the state used a woman named Kee MacFarlane to video tape children statements. The children in the case who were named as the victims grew up and said it was all made up none of it was true even years later Kee MacFarlane still claims the now grown kids just can't remember the abuse. The McMartin's were ruined after the trials everyone just figured they were guilty who was ever going to leave their kids with them again.

I actually grew up in that area, where the McMartians were. I think one of my friends went to their preschool, but I don’t think anything happened to her. They, Peggy McMartian, her mom and son (I can’t remember which was the mom or grandmother) would come into the pharmacy I worked in. I have to say, I believe the women. I don’t think they did anything. The guy (I can’t remember his name) gave me the creeps. It wasn’t so much as for WHO he was, but his looks. He was gross and had these giant (humongous) zit looking things all on his neck. And no, that’s not why I am saying he gave me the creeps. There was a look about him that gave off an a$$hole vibe, or a creep vibe. If they were ALL in fact innocent, I hope they were able to move past all of that and go on to live happy lives.