An Ugly Lesson About Kiddie Pornography.

I made a mistake on the Internet. I am a webmaster for a local church. Many of our people are brand-new computer users. Both the children and adults have flocked to some "coloring book" pages I posted on the site. You don't have to download anything. The picture and colors are all on the website. Since I had such a positive response to this particular type of activity, I began to search for more of the same.

I did a Google Search for "on-line coloring books". I clicked on the first listed entry. I was directed to a child friendly page consisting of exactly the kind of content I'm interested in. In order to enter the site I had to give a screen name and a real email address. Well, I figured I'd get spam, but I wanted to see more of this site. I was impressed enough to contact the email address provided in the "about us" section.

I never received a reply, from my inquiry. But I now have some of the nastiest spam I've ever encountered in my adult life. I am not opposed to the occasional off-color joke, or pun, but true pornography disgusts me. What I've been seeing in my spam file makes my skin crawl. Not only am I offered sex, but sex with under-aged partners (yes, both boys and girls)! This stuff is not subtle and is coming in to the tune of 40 emails a day! About the only thing I haven't been offered is a romp with a farm animal. But I'm sure I'll be getting those next week.

I am deeply troubled by this incident. First of all. The site looks totally harmless. I could have unknowingly linked this site right into my church's site, where this filth would have hit an inexperienced computer population of users. I could have let my child go on this site. Parents, maybe it isn't a good idea to give your child their own email, just to protect them from this kind of thing.

I intend to research to see if I can take legal action against this type of site. This is clearly a site set up looking for pedophiles. I can't sit by and not try to stop what these people are doing.