Angry in the Great White North

Online pedophiles are targeting a Children's Festival in Montreal:

A disturbing web page recommending the city's upcoming festival for children as a place for pedophiles to watch "little girls" at play is being investigated by Montreal police.

"Unfortunately, this is not the first website of its kind we've heard of," said Sgt. Ian Lafreni?re, while confirming the origins of the web page will be investigated. "We'll see what can be done about it. We take this very seriously."

The web page provides a link to the City of Montreal's website devoted to the festival, scheduled for Aug. 18 and 19. The festival has grown in popularity since it began in 1999. In its first year, it attracted more than 30,000 visitors. Last year, it drew more than 200,000.

So where is this pedophilia site? The article doesn't say, but oddly enough, I think I know which one it is:

The web page -- part of a website apparently based in Amsterdam that claims most pedophiles are misunderstood -- encourages "little girl watching," but is careful not to recommend approaching children.

Amsterdam?

Stick with me here. I've noticed another disturbing story concerning pedophilia coming out of Germany. Two books published by the government encourages masturbating your children:

Booklets from a subsidiary of the German government's Ministry for Family Affairs encourage parents to sexually massage their children as young as 1 to 3 years of age. Two 40-page booklets entitled "Love, Body and Playing Doctor" by the German Federal Health Education Center (Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung - BZgA) are aimed at parents - the first addressing children from 1-3 and the other children from 4-6 years of age.

"Fathers do not devote enough attention to the clitoris and vagina of their daughters. Their caresses too seldom pertain to these regions, while this is the only way the girls can develop a sense of pride in their sex," reads the booklet regarding 1-3 year olds. The authors rationalize, "The child touches all parts of their father's body, sometimes arousing him. The father should do the same."

The books have been pulled, but I wanted to see for myself, being interested in the authors and other people behind this. So I started poking around, and all the legitimate booksellers had announced they were "no longer available". But I found a link to the PDF versions of the books on a Dutch site.

What Dutch site? I won't say (it is indexed by Google), but suffice it to say that there are some very dark corners in the Internet. I should make it clear that I did not see anything that is illegal. What pictures I did see were of young girls in sundresses and bathing suits and such.

Nor did I notice a page about Montreal, but then I didn't stick around any longer than I had to, nor did I go deeper into the forums than was required to find those two books. I got these German government-sanctioned how-to manuals and quickly left. But what I did see was definitely delivering a sympathetic view of "girl watchers", and had international traffic to the forums.

Icky.

But here's the creepy thing -- as if it could get any creepier.

Assuming I was at the right site, then the fact that the site provided links to where you could download the masturbation manual from a file server site is at odds with the claim that children are not to be approached.

This is an important point because looking, or encouraging others to look, is not illegal, and that has the police in a bind:

The web page describes itself as being "inspired" by Jack McClellan, a self-described pedophile who has set up websites about "little girl watching." Mr. McClellan was living in Washington state when his website was removed by an American service provider in May. He caused a stir in Montreal in May after it was revealed he moved the website to a controversial local host. At the time, a police officer said websites like Mr. McClellan's circle around the law, but don't actually violate the Criminal Code.

I doubt the police think for a moment that these people are just watching, but if I was at the same site (even if this wasn't the same site, it certainly delivered the same message) and was able to find these books, then you can be absolutely certain that these are dangerous people regardless of what the site says.