MyCrimeSpace

20 opinions for Michael Fettkether, Arizona creeper

• David
  Jan 7, 2007 at 1:48 pm

  Defending this man does not make one a closet pedophile supporter at all. This man is not a pedophile. a pedophile is defined as “being sexually attracted primarily or exclusively to prepubescent or peripubescent children”. A 16 year old girl is post-pubescent.

  What he did may have violated state law, but it does not mean one should slander him with a medical diagnosis that they are not, apparently, qualified to render.

  Calling people in Mr. Fettkether’s situation a “pedophile” negates the seriousness of actions taken by those who truly are attracted to pre-pubescents.

  It is important to remember that while breaking ANY law is a serious offense, according to everything I’ve read in this case, it was consentual. Even though the law may not allow that consent, it is important in terms of how we judge this man. Surely, we must render harsher judgement against someone who violently assaults a pre-pubescent youth than someone who has consentual sex with what most US states consider to be an adult.

  So, please, think carefully when you choose your words. They do matter a great deal.

• Trench
  Jan 7, 2007 at 3:05 pm

  Yes, the correct term is actually ephebophilia. But in my eyes in and in the eyes of most there is no difference between someone who has sexual relations with someone under age of consent regardless of the age.

  From the Wikipedia entry on it.

  * Some adolescents are unable to understand the physical, emotional, and social consequences of sexual activity. According to the August 2006 issue of Scientific American, the neurological development of late adolescents is not yet complete, leading to deficits in their higher cognitive functions including judgement, attention, and response to crisis situations. However, late adolescence also includes people over 18, since neurological development is still not complete at this age.
  * Adult sexual relations with adolescents can be an abuse of power, using psychological coercion.
  * Sexual relations with adolescent girls can lead to pregnancy and parenthood, for which adolescents may not be prepared emotionally and/or financially.

  I don’t see much difference between the two.

• David
  Jan 7, 2007 at 6:07 pm

  There is a huge difference.

  First, I wouldn’t even necessarily classify Mr. Fettkether as a case of ephebophilia as we have no proof that he is exclusively attracted to underage girls.

  I agree completely that most 16 years olds are not ready for sex. Hell, I wasn’t ready for it at 18! The point is that age of consent is an arbitrary line, at best.

  The biggest difference between a prepubescent person and post-pubescent one is that a post pubescent person will normally have sexual desires. It is normal. Too many parents pretend that their 15 and 16 year old kids don’t want anything to do with sex. Calling people like Fettkether a “pedophile” essentially suggests that it entirely the fault of the older actor that the sexual activity occured. It is first and foremost the responsibility of the parents to make sure they understand that sometimes their kids really ARE looking for sex out on the internet, and second - the people arrested in cases like this are not sick, demented perverts, but rather very normal in terms of their sexual desires. I don’t think there’s a man here who hasn’t checked out a girl at the mall and wondered afterwards if she was actually 18. Unfortunately, the reality of the Internet puts many of these men who would, under normal social constaints, never talk to underage girls in direct contact with them.

  Is it something we should be happy about? No…of course not. It’s a damn dangerous thing for our kids to be doing. I don’t want to understate the fact that I am opposed to any significantly older person engaging sexually with a younger person from myspace - But to confuse the issues of teen promiscuity/young adult indescretion with child sexual abuse, child sex predators, and pedophilia does little to actually solve either problem.

  19 Year old kids do stupid things all the time. The kid in Manchester met up with a girl he thought to be 15 - Still underage in NH, but only 4 years younger than him. Kids dating in high school have larger age gaps than that. He met her through myspace. The next day, when he was arrested, he found out she was, in fact, 12 years old. He’s being held on $100,000 bail and 6 or 7 felony charges. Was it stupid for him to engage sexually with someone he only met online? Was it morally reprehensible because he already had a girlfriend? Yes to both! of course - but should he have to pay such a steep price in terms of jail time and lifetime sex offender registry for that mistake? With girls going through puberty and younger and younger ages, I don’t think its too difficult to imagine that this girl may have looked 15 to him. Yet, because of this deception, he may spend a good portion of his college years in prison, possibly destroying the rest of his life.

  Meanwhile, the girl, who arguably made a far MORE dangerous decision will most likely not face any long term trauma from the encounter. Any 12 year old girl that would make a decsion to meet a stranger who is 7 years older than her in the dead of night for sex already has more pressing problems at home than a one night grope fest with a dumb boy.

  These are complex issues, and when discussing them, we should do our best to put them in a well informed light rather than distilling them down to sexy catch phrases seen on fox news.

• Trench
  Jan 7, 2007 at 6:43 pm

  No they’re not complex at all. Both Michael Fettkether and Matthew Bergeron broke their state laws. They chose to do so. Now they’re being held responsible for their actions. If they didn’t want to be registered sex offenders for the rest of their lives then they should have thought if that first.

• David
  Jan 7, 2007 at 9:31 pm

  I think if you’ll examine my above post you will fail to find any argument for them to not be held accountable for their actions.

  You will find a critique of your less-than-thoughtful judgement of these individuals.

  That’s fine too. It is your blog after all. I’m just saying, when you choose NOT to discriminate between true pedophile child mollesters and stupid kids that get caught up in age of consent laws, you’re doing a dis-service to your readers.

  People who are afraid of their kids being mollested shouldn’t be worried about the Internet. They should be worried about their babysitter, their soccer coach, their own family. Those are where 90% of child sex abuse cases come from. Not Myspace. Those are the true pedophiles.

  The only parents who have to worry about the Matthew Bergerons and Michael Fettkethers of the world are the parents of kids who are already slutting it up on the Internet. These kids are just as, if not more so, stupid as their counterparts sitting in jail. This problem isn’t solved by classifying everyone as a pedophile. It is solved by increased parental attention to their kids, and a better understanding of the real sources of child sex abuse.

  Its easy to play judge and say that its a black and white issue, but we both know that there is a far more complicated situation for Mr. Bergeron and his family than for the girl he met with. Just imagine for a minute that it was your son being held on $100,000 bail. Would you still be so completely righteous in your judgement?

• Trench
  Jan 8, 2007 at 9:50 am

  Yes I would because I’ve instructed my son to know better.

• Outrage
  Jan 8, 2007 at 2:17 pm

  This case was a TOTAL waste of taxpayer dollars.

• Trench
  Jan 8, 2007 at 2:40 pm

  Let the taxpayers decide that.

• The Offender
  Feb 5, 2007 at 1:50 am

  I believe that a bit of a monkey wrench can be introduced into things like this when one examines the history of cases with two consenting parties that happen to be violating Age of Consent laws and contrasts that to the huge number of cases where a minor commits a felony-level crime and the prosecution “tries them as an adult.”
  I must wonder why the law allows trial of a person as early as 12 years of age as an adult, yet when we examine the laws for the age at which a person is “capable” of consenting to engage in sexual activity, we see cutoffs from 16 to 18, and perhaps some “two-year tolerances” in there for teens as young as 13–which still prohibits a 13-year-old high school freshman and a 16-year-old high school junior from LEGALLY engaging in sex acts, regardless of consent.
  It begs the question: if a teen is charged with murder, they’re considered an adult for punishment purposes, yet if an adult and the same teen engage in sex with both parties consenting, the adult’s life is destroyed and the teen is treated as some kind of victim…why is that? Either make the teen a felonious sex offender or make both of them felony-free, I say. It’s one hell of a double standard, much like the double standard we see when a female is charged with the same sex crime as many males before her, yet gets one hell of a sweet break. I can’t find any excuse for these things. The woman gets off scot free just because she has a vagina? What justice is that?

• The Offender
  Feb 5, 2007 at 1:52 am

  One more thing. I ran across a PDF file from Colorado that states that a child as young as TEN YEARS OLD can be tried as an adult under certain conditions, one of which is any type of felony charges at all.
  Is a ten-year-old an adult? I think we can all agree on the answer to that question.

• Trench
  Feb 5, 2007 at 11:15 am

  Apples and oranges my friend. There is a big difference between sex and murder. Children as young as 1o do know the consequences of murder. Hell, I knew it even younger than that. But sex, consensual or otherwise is more complicated as far as the repercussions are concerned.

  But hey, keep making that argument if you want to. It makes you look like a NAMBLA member.

• The Offender
  Feb 5, 2007 at 11:31 am

  I could understand your point until you decided to engage in name-calling. That kind of thing undermines what you’re trying to say.
  Let me put things another way: some adolescents are capable of understanding the repercussions. Hell, when I was in school I got a sex ed class in the fifth grade (at ten years of age!) so I knew exactly what sex would do. If we’re teaching sex ed to children that early, we can’t make blanket statements about them not knowing the repercussions at all. Rather, some will comprehend and some won’t comprehend, but just like murder, if they are told exactly what the consequences are, they are able to make a decision as to whether or not they will brave those waters.
  I would definitely make it illegal for prepubescent children to engage in sexual activity, excluding “playing doctor” et al of course, but a teen who is postpubescent, has been told the consequences and complications, and consentually engages in the activity, should not be treated as some form of ignorant protected entity.

• Trench
  Feb 5, 2007 at 6:58 pm

  Do you have any kids?

• The Offender
  Feb 5, 2007 at 7:07 pm

  Whether or not I have children is irrelevant. If I do, I’ll easily find myself accused of being a bad parent for my pro-responsibility views, and if I don’t, I’ll be barraged with claims that I can’t possibly understand child protection issues because I don’t have any, much like how some black people will claim that no one but other black people can understand any anti-black discrimination they may go through. I operate on principles of logic rather than trying to attack the person making the argument. To answer your question would facilitate what I suspect would become an attempt to assert an argumentum ad hominem, rather than discuss the issue at hand in a dry, scientific, emotionally neutral manner.

• Trench
  Feb 5, 2007 at 10:36 pm

  Pro-responsibility? That may just be the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time. Principles of logic? Sorry, I deal in the principles of reality which tell me to “consider the source”. The opinion of a sex offender means less than nothing to me. Maybe if you were actually logical you wouldn’t be a sex offender today.

• The Offender
  Feb 6, 2007 at 1:00 am

  “Principles of logic? Sorry, I deal in the principles of reality.”
  No, sir, you deal in the principles of logic avoidance. You can’t argue with me so you attempt to attack me personally. It’s a cheap trick that’s used by politicians all the time. The source is irrelevant when the logic displayed is correct. Perhaps you should read the link provided rather than “beating the table.” I have yet to see you present a real argument that can be proven. As far as “pro-responsibility” goes, I fail to see the humor in demanding that young persons learn to be responsible for their actions, including actions of a sexual nature.
  “The opinion of a sex offender means less than nothing to me.”
  What I have previously presented is a logical argument, not an opinion. Your attempts to use pre-stigmatizing labels and appeals to emotion are easily likened to a child throwing a tantrum. However, ultimately you likely will have the last say because you control this source of information and what is allowed herein.
  I hold no personal ill will towards you, however, and I do compliment you on your work here. Regardless of where we may disagree, I don’t want sexually violent predators on the streets without proper treatment and supervision either. I have a family and I would like to keep them out of harm’s way as much as possible, but there is no simple solution to a problem as complex as sex laws and offenders, or even ex-cons as a whole for that matter. Just throw all criminals in jail and throw away the key? There’s not enough jails to do it, and if there were, the costs of such are too prohibitive in any respect. GPS tracking for criminals? The State of North Carolina was considering that for all sex offenders near the end of last year, regardless of risk level, but it was changed to only apply to Level III offenders that were specifically hand-picked from the pool because of the humongous costs involved. Release them all into society unsupervised? Hell no! What the hell would we be thinking to just let a felon loose without ever keeping any tabs on them again? But this whole hysteria over ex-cons is getting out of control, and with anyone labelled “sex offender” it’s starting to reach a point of implosion. The current system does not succeed in its goals, and the rising rate of sex crime in general and FIRST-TIME OFFENSE sex crimes in particular easily proves that. You and I can exchange verbal blows all day long, but ultimately the problem is far too complex in nature for us to come up with a simple solution that will actually work. With that in mind, I’d rather not continue with these arguments here. You do what you do to work on solutions, and I’ll do what I do to work on solutions, and I suppose that’s about all that can be expected from either of us. I propose we agree to disagree.

• Keeli
  Jun 26, 2007 at 11:48 pm

  sooooooooooooooooooooooo… howz come none of us unressponseble teens are sayen anything? We got opinions. Im 15 … yeah … I got opinions lol.

  Ooooooops…. gotta get backk to my IM.

• Keeli
  Jun 26, 2007 at 11:53 pm

  Oh an yeah … I live in AZ an I heard about this stuff when I was in Prescott an my email is KeeliArizona@Yahoo.com. Gimme a shout out.

• outragedmother
  Dec 10, 2007 at 7:25 pm

  My son currently stands convicted of some of these nonsensical laws, and the longer I am involved with the legal system the more insanity I see. My son resided with the “victims” family for over a year. He was 23 and emmotionaly imature. The girl in the situation was 14. During this time the parents openly referred to their daughter as my son’s “little wife” (even in front of me) and thought that it was “cute” how every night she kissed him goodnight and tucked him in. Repeatedly they put the two of them in unsupervised situations, having my son take her and pick her up after school, take her to school functions, and leaving them at home alone for hours at a time. The girl in the case even came home from school with a pink condom proudly informing my son that she had “taken care of things” and now they “could do it.” It wasnt until weeks later that my son gave in to the constant flirtation by the girl. My son was paying most of their bills during this time, and when he needed to stop or get his own vehicle repoed the parents suddenly found a problem. The girl denied it until she was pressured into saying that something happened. She did and after that did not speak to her parents again. Afterwhich she testified to her consent in court, and later went to live with her father. The Mother told me that her daughter knew right from wrong and that she was just as guilty. My son was first beaten severely and lost permanent hearing in one ear. The police did not allow him to press charges for this. When the police showed up he was repeatedly badgered to confess and when he refused was told by the officer that he would make his life hell. True to his word my son’s picture made the front page of the paper, calling him a “dangerous opportunist who would have preyed on any child that he could.” He was placed under 150,000 bond. Served a year in jail and was given 10 yrs of probation. He served 3 years passing all lie detectors, drug tests and curfew checks. My son went to his probation officer and told her that he wasn’t getting anything out of his court ordered therapy and asked for a different therapist. He was told it would take a court order and that he needed a private attorney to do it, which he couldn’t afford, after being fired from his job for falsehoods perpertrated by fellow employes who had stated publically that the “would get rid of that little pervert if it was the last thing they did.” His girlfriend (30yrs old) became very ill with MS and my son began to care for her, giving her shots and taking her to Dr appointment because she couldnt drive. He missed several therapy sessions and because of being fired he got behind on his probation fees. He was violated on his probation first on the fines but only after his probation offer forced him to sign a paper saying that he would pay the fees within 3 days, and that if he wouldnt sign he would be violated right then and there. Knowing that he had car insurance to pay, inorder to keep his license and not be violated for that he payed his insurance. Well you guess it…she violated him. When my husband and I found out we payed the arears. When they couldn’t proceed with those charges, they then decided that he had been violated because of not going to therapy. For that technical VOP he was just sentenced to 10 years in prison and the completion of another 7 yrs of probation when he gets out. Tell me, what kind of justice is this? He could have been found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon, 2nd degree murder or numerous other charges and gotten less than the 20 years he got, and in the end his reputation would have been intact. This all happened in the same county as allowed Ms. Debra Lafaye to walk. Have we all lost our minds? This is a kid that has worked tirelessly to dig neighbors out of hurricane damage. Has jumped into the back of burning car to rescue a passenger and would give anyone the shirt off of his back….and has. He is a good kid who has made a serious mistake. A mistake that most other young men (if they are honest) will admit that they have flirted with if not acted upon. What will be accomplished in locking him up for that time except to turn him into a career criminal. And to top it off they don’t even have to release him then, they can send him for more time in a mental institution on any whim they want before actually releasing him to serve his probation. Should he violate that probation for as much as a traffic infraction he can go to prison for life.

  The real criminals should have been locked up. Shouldn’t the parents who not only condoned the actions, but encouraged them be guilty of something?

• outragedmother
  Dec 10, 2007 at 7:29 pm

  And if my son’s story isnt enough let me tell you another one in brief.
  A neighbor of mine had a 15yr old girl. She was almost 8mnths pregnant. Mom came home from work and found her with the video camera between her legs. She told her mother she was going to post it to the internet. The Mother was shocked took the camera and sent her to her room. That night the girl snuck out of the house, heaved her 8mnth pregnant body through the 19yr old neighbors window and had sex. Guess who life is now ruined forever all in the name of justice.

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