Everybody walks right by like they're safe or something, they don't know

by anna at 09:31 AM on November 05, 2006

Like everyone this side of NAMBLA and their ACLU partners, I deplore the sexual predation depicted on NBC's Dateline series. You know the deal: NBC comes into town, sets up shop and enlists the services of an actress who flirts with 30-something married creeps in chat rooms. (Note to self: stay the hell away from chat rooms.) She pretends to be 14, or creepier still 13. Never 12. They arrange to meet at her suburban home. Conveniently no shotgun-wielding dads are ever in sight. They are probably off trolling for their own nubile teens at the public library. Telltale cookies, don't you know.

So he shows up bearing such romantic gifts as condoms and beer. Nothing to get a youngster's juices a-flowing like Bud Light. She acts all casual as if this is so totally like, normal. She says she'll be right down and that is the last we see of her. Chris Wallace comes lumbering in with a perpetual scowl etched across his mug. He does not approve of these shenanigans and he tells the perp so. They always say this was their maiden voyage into the roiling sea of man-on-teen action. The scene ends with the quarry face-down on the driveway with rude cuffs on. Sometimes guns are drawn. Justice is served. Our teens are safe until the next time NBC comes to town. And they will, as the show is wildly popular

The problem is that the actress doesn't look 13 or 14. She looks more like 17 or 18. And being an actress she is invariably hot in a vivacious, cheap makeup, cheerleader, ironed-hair, Marcia Brady sort of way. This leaves the viewer feeling ambiguous. Yeah the guy was trolling for young'uns and as such should be castrated forthwith but the actual girl appears to be a suitable candidate for consenusal boot-knocking. Or to use an even older term, defiling. And besides, data tells us it's probably too late for that. She's likely been somebody or other's fuck buddy or a friend with benefits since 8th grade. So why not just let them be? Why does Wallace feel the need to rain on their carnal parade?

I met Marcia Brady once at Michael McDonald's Santa Barbara mansion. One huge room held only a baby grand white piano and a stool. Like Nigel's prized guitar it looked as if it had never been played. The maid fussily dusted it. I was there for a wedding. All of the guests were members of the local AA chapter. At the reception they grudgingly provided watered-down local wine to the few drinkers present, myself included.

Like all men of my age I grew up obsessed with Marcia. We weren't aware that she was banging Greg in between his zestful sessions with Mom. We didn't know about the rampant substance abuse on the set. Ditto for dad being a turd burglar who'd go on to put an agonizingly familar face on the AIDS epidemic. She seemed so wholesome and girl-next-door. A perfect candidate for despoiling. We all longed for her coltish legs to be wrapped around us.

Because back then she was neither a wanton pig who inhaled all the vegetarian hors d-euvres nor an annoyingly judgmental a-hole who sneered when I smoked outdoors. She didn't claim to be suffering from jet lag after having flown in on the red eye from some phony-baloney theater engagement. I made a point of blowing smoke in her fat face.