The Sex Offender Stigma – how it sells a story
An interesting example of the sex offender label being used to “sell stories”
We regularly scan news headlines across the state (and in other states) to find news stories that might be interesting to our members.
So when we saw this news story come out of Polk County with the title “Polk Sex Offender Arrested for the 14th Time on Fake Cop Charges”, we assumed it was a recidivist sex offender striking again.
As it turns out, this guy is a clearly mentally ill individual who showed up at a police scene pretending to be an officer. His SOLE sex offense was from 1992.
So if this guy hasn’t committed another sex offense and has 13 other convictions; why does the title lead with “Sex Offender Arrested for the 14th Time”?
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One of the biggest stigmas, in my opinion, about sex offenders is what they want. To society, if they hear the word “sex offender” they automatically assume some guy who wants to molest anything with a pulse, regardless of age or sex. This is so far from the truth that it is ridiculous to it’s core. Even those who are convicted of sex with a minor get labeled the same. Just because a person has a sexual interest in a person under the age of 18 doesn’t mean they want to have sex with EVERY person under 18. I use this basic explanation to try and get people to understand. To the ladies, if you are in a bar and see a guy that you find attractive, do you automatically want to have sex with every man and woman in the bar? I doubt it for the majority of the populous. Same goes for a sex offender. It doesn’t mean that they want to have sex with every child from birth to 18 years, regardless of their sex. People just don’t understand. And the reason they don’t is that they don’t want to. They just want to believe what the news and movies tell them. People constantly ask others to research a subject before blindly believing what it says. Yet when it comes to sex offenders, people just WANT to be blind.
@F_A_Committee We already know about the gutter press. Do you do anything besides scan for news articles? Do you have a counterattack plan?