The Seedier Side of "Older Gringo" Men

You are presupposing, or simply stating as fact, that the Central American media gets a more disgusted response from same-sex cases. Not sure why you assume that. I have been down here decades, and do not believe they get that. One possibility is that the reason they report cases in which foreign men are the perpetrators, is not because foreign female perpetrators are less disgusting or would sell fewer papers (were there such cases, they would almost definitely sell far more papers because of it), but because the perpetrators are almost always men. The reason they report foreign same-sex perpetrators, is because the vast majority of the cases down here which involve "gringos" are same sex. It should be noted that the gringo population in the Latin world is not representative of the gringo population as a whole, but it is what it is. This is what goes on down here, and it has nothing to do with what percentage of people might be gay, or pedophiles, or whatever. Since this post started way back when, I have been watching the Honduran papers and know many police officers here. The last 13 "gringo investigations", some reported some not, are same-sex. It is only with the latest case, the 14th, with this "Burell Lewis Young" character, which involves girls. Young, as many other gringo perpetrators down here, presents an extra problem for some Latin judicial systems in that they almost never incarcerate elderly people. Many cases involve gringos in their 70's, but in Honduras, house-arrest is about the worst that happens, and even that is a joke, but is all there is for non-homicide offenses committed by people over 60. It might be the case, but I doubt a lack of respect explains much of anything that goes on in the media-investigation phases.

On the radio in Honduras, there was someone in Nicaragua describing the law they hope to pass there in 2006. It was pathetic to hear the guy using CAFTa as an excuse for why it once again might not get passed ("Might not succeed because CAFTA implementation will dominate the session...."). That poor woman in charge of Nicaragua's child protection services or whatever they call it now. She has been trying to pass such a thing, year after year after year. Or, maybe this is the daughter of the woman who spent all those years trying to do that? Anyway, if it does not pass, I wonder if they have some nonsense prepared for why it didnt pass each of the other 50 times she tried to do it. Passing the law doesnt really protect any children, it just makes it easier to prosecute. But, if this is how they go about passing a law, I cant imagine they would ever be able to enforce it anyway.

The thing is ... that is not how theys normally deal with that, or anything in Vietnam. They are investigating because the man is a former rock music star (read -- damn big bribe opportunity; he left Cambodia but wasnt ever actually arrested? Hmm, how did he manage that...?). In many asian countries, prostitution is illegal, per se, but it is also the one thing which more than any other explains tourism there. If the Vietnamese government proper arrested every foreign guys who went there and had sex with a girl under 18, they would need to arrest a staggering % of the men who go there -- which of course they do not do, and never would do. Anyone could go to any bussy street in a big Vietnamese city and find 100's of girls under 18, working as prostitutes every single night, and no Vietnamese police officer even thinks of interviewing them for the alleged crimes committed against them. If you asked a policeman there, or in many countries, why he does not do this he would stare at you or laugh at you as if you were from another planet.

It is hard, maybe impossible, to justify some such divisions / distinctions, especially so when the "cutoff" number is involved - and it is often in some sense arbitrary. It is not just sex where this applies. Take a, hopefully, non-sexual example: If the speed limit is 70 and one guy goes 69 and the other 72, the one is penalized and the former not, even though is most all cases, there is no substantial difference between handling a car at 69 and 72 mph, and there might not be a shred of evidence that people going 72 are more dangerous than those going 69. Many important things in life have a cutoff point or a deviding line, and often one looks foolish trying to defend cases in which people are right at the edge of the line.

I do not know a thing about Florida law. That said, upfront, in some States the deciding factor is numerical, namely age, but that is not the reason/basis in the law for the distinction, nor the law. Because one of the parties is less than a certain age, they are legally defined as not being an adult, and the extension of this definition is that they cannot legally consent to some things. The exact number or age is arbitrary, but reason for having some number, whatever that number is, is not arbitrary (people want some marker for adulthood, and their reasons for this are not arbitrary, though the date/year on which they "agree" in legislative assembly probably will be). The case you make is on the edge of the line. I could not defend the/a punishment in such cases, and wouldnt even try. The reason for having such laws is that many people do not believe that, say a 31 year old should be having sex with a 13 year old, even if the 13 year old claims it is concensual (the point being that some people are not yet ready for fully informed consent, so they cannot consent, so the relationship cannot be consentual). Again, no FL lawyer, but in some states, cases of statutory rape are not automatically cases of sexual offender-sexual predator designation.

When I was 17 I had a 20 year old girlfriend. Legally, she was a criminal. At that time in California, 18 was a magic dividing line. If one person was 18 plus one day and the other 18 minus one day, that was illegal.

While I don't have a solution that works, legislating issues such as this doesn't fix the problem. What if the under 18 person, lies about their age? Who is guilty? I could go on and on with possible conditions and I expect they have all made it to a court somewhere.

To me, "community values" are about the only thing that makes sense. That is, the local people who know who is involved are the best guide. They may not agree with what the couple is doing but they are the most likely to see if there seems to be a victim in the relationship.

Ana and I are an interesting test of this situation. While what we are doing is "legal", what the community thinks is interesting to me and, well, to us.

There has been no "he's too old/she's too young" judgment. Knowing the community, if there were such discussions going on, someone would have told us. People here are very aware we are "a couple". The general opinion is that she just wants me "for my money". While this could be true it is so unlikely it isn't even funny.

But, both having strange senses of humor, we play this one. We regularly tell people I just want Ana for her boobs and she just wants me for my money. It seems to totally de-fuse the situation and lets us all get on to more important things.

If this same sort of open communication and community involvement could happen everywhere (with the right amount of humor tossed in), I feel there could be a lot less rules and things would just work out better for all.

The over 90% is the percentage of perpetrators who are men (as opposed to women), not the percentage of heterosexual (as opposed to homosexual) male perpetrators. Also, knowing what percentage of perpetrators are homosexual vs. heterosexual does not predict the number of victims, because the two groups do not victimize at the same rate. 90% is sometimes used as the percentage number of female victims (some studies say close to 9 out of 10 victims are girls), but that does not mean that 90% of the attackers are adult heterosexual men (many sex crimes against children are the acts of other children). You cannot get the 90% number offered above for heterosexual child molestors by using these other numbers; they do not point to your conclusion. A more interesting number, and quite the opposite of what you suggest as reality, can be found in the data on coaches, teachers, and priests (people often the closest to children), where approximately 80% of cases of sexual molestation of children involve homosexual males molesting boys (the famous teacher study was done by Dresser for the Rutger's, and the famous priest study by ex-Catholic Phil Jenkins, and published by Oxford University Press). But, the concern here is really, what happnes in Central America. It is possible that just as some professions draw homosexual men interested in boys, so to do some countries or regions of the world seem to draw them as tourists, and as expats. I do not see any other explanation for the proportions one finds in Central America regarding gringos, though it is possible that cases involving children closest to the age of consent do not regularly get reported for hetersexual contact, but do not homosexual contact - but that is only a guess. I do not endorse this website nor its uses, but there is data there some might find useful; it is interesting to note that Nicaragua does not have confirmed dates; also, note that in some countries the age of consent differs for heterosexual and homosexual sex:

http://www.ageofconsent.com/ageofconsent.htm

It is possible that the word "boys" is used not because it is a master-inflame or -propaganda plan, but because the victims in the crimes she is familiar with, are in fact pre-adult males, as are a huge number of the victims in Central America, and there is no evidence applying to Central American victims which bears out the statistics you have just tossed out as fact.

There is every reason to single out "gringos", and no reason not to single them out. One, most cases of gringo-committed child molestation in Central America, if they proceed through the court, also usually involve obstruction of justice and bribery "crimes", or investigations of them. Because many wealthier countries donate resources and educational programs in an attempt to reduce corruption in the Latin courts, and also separately to protect minor children, it is embarrassing when one of the citizens of those countries is found to be not only destroying the lives of children, but with or without the assistance of their Embassy, circumventing the in-country legal process. Every country (hence every citizen within that country) which donates any child-protection related monies has every reason to single out their own citizens for sex-crimes against children.

Two, it is the gringos who introduced child pornography to the country; it was almost unheard of before the "sex tourism" of the last 14 years. These materials almost immediately create a large market need for more such materials, which creates a market need for the children beyond the sex they are already used for (most child pornography discovered in Central America is either of younger teen-age girls, or well than pre-teen boys).

Three, the closing comment elsewhere here on treating perpetrators equally is dead-on, I think, if people were actually punished, and punished severely. This is not what happens. So, if you assume the status quo, then it is akin to saying that since Nicaraguans are not usually punished for crimes against children, gringos should not usually be punished for crimes against children - because all perpetrators should be treated equally. Now, I know that is exactly what he does NOT mean or want, but that is what follows from an obsession with equality in such matters. If you care about the children, equality comes in second on this one.

Four, in a world of limited resources, singling out the gringos has greater impact and greater chance of long-term success, because since they ones with other citizenship, and due to that it is easier to get funding for investigations by agencies with more money than the local Nicaraguan police (like say the FBI, or Interpol, etc.). Also, coming down hard on gringos, publicly, is the single best way to discourage additional sex tourism by other child molestors. One public case against a gringo is worth more than 500 against Nicaraguans, in a battle against child molestation, when that molestation is fueled partly or mostly by the presence of non-citizen criminals.

Lastly, it depends what one means when one says pedophilia/sex-crimes are more common in the U.S., than in Central America. In the sense that more acts occur in the States? Yes, but that is because the population there is monumentally larger. Regardless of locale/custom, a certain percentage of men in any heavily researched society, engage in such behavior. It doesn't matter what the actual percentage is, for the purposes of looking at the problem, and why "sex tourism" is fundamentally important. Given the most basic of assumptions (which most people consider a fact), a tiny percentage of Nicaraguans (a small country, by comparison), and a tiny percentage of a huge number of North Americans (large countries, by comparison -or other large, wealthier, travel-ready population). If the foreigners travel abroad for such activities, and there is an abundance of evidence that they do, they can easily dwarf the numbers of local people engaged in the same activity. You single them out because they add to the criminal element in a locale which could not adequately protect itself even before they arrived - and they bring with them the resources to evade detection and prosecution, and a bribery network which often allows them to operate with near-impunity, which only lowers the opinion people have of their police protection, even when it comes to those who most need it, namely children.

support what miskito alan has said about him and his wife feed alot of kids in the neighborhood.

my opinion on all this pedophile stuff is that the US a large source of sex tours and just maybe before slamming nicaragua the citizens of the US ought to clean up their own imorality and at least a large part of the perversion going on in nicaragua would go away.

i have no statistics or web links or some authority page written that i can point to but reading newspapers and tv tells me that there is one hell of alot of perverts in the US. how can a US citizen slam how these kind of actions are handled or not handled in nicaragua when the US cant even keep track of where sex offenders are living after they are released?

i also feel like i must clean up my own yard before i can complain about my neighbors yard.

If you read the post, what it condemns is older gringo men with young nica boys.

What she says about mixed gringo/younger heterosexual relationships is that she sees that both are happy and what happens between consenting adults is none of her business.

I believe she meant that she wouldn't want it for herself, but she isn't other people. If they're happy, great.

First, I appreciate your concern. I don't want to say there is no child prostitution problem in Nicaragua. I can say, however, that everyone is sure it is very small compared to Costa Rica.

Now, what you don't see/know is that much like political corruption, this information is just a lot more open than it is in other places--particularly the U.S. I wish political corruption and child prostitution (and a lot more stuff) didn't exist but it does. And it likely all exists to a much greater extent in the U.S.

That's the good news. Problems are easier to find and, should you elect to, easier to address. The bad news is that economic hardship helps exacerbate the problem.

Now, as to site content, while I am very far from agreeing with even half of what is posted here, the fact that there is such a variety of opinion, publically posted, is what I am proud of. Nicaragua is far from a social and political monolith and this site gives you a fair sample of varied thoughts and opinions of at least English-speaking people in Nicaragua or with some Nicaragua experience.

What tends to happen here is that people quickly get called on mis-information. There will be differing opinions and you will likely find one you agree with. Or maybe you will see the different sides to the issue.

The people that tend to unplug from this site or any other site that doesn't offer diverse opinion are those that "know their position is right" and want to only talk to people that agree with them. The recent post to heritage.org is one of many examples.

Now, as for unsubscribing, this isn't a subscription-based site. If you don't want to come here and read stuff, don't. If you have signed up for any type of notification you can just turn it off for those articles you don't want to hear about.

A short time ago, one of the Congressmen from the National Assembly invited me to a party, old guy, but powerful. Enlisted for entertainment, about 12 young Nic girls. Understood that this goes on every Friday night at his lakeside ranch! He personally had two entertain him. The girls were all from poor homes and did it to support their families. PS My Nic wife is only 9 years younger.

I haven't even been here one year. I plan to stay, but I suppose that makes my posts useless and not needed. And what about those that haven't ever even BEEN to Nicaragua? I'm not saying she's automatically right, but I am saying it's wrong to ignore what someone says entirely and jump down her throat because she doesn't want to come back. Does that make my opinions on the US not valid? I don't want to go back there...