ARTICLE 6 - PRETEEN AND CHILD MODELS

By Doctor Dan

We've all seen them. Hell don't lie, I know you've all been to one at least once! I'm talking about those preteen and child model websites that have sprouted in their hundreds on the web in recent years. Whether those sites constitute child porn or exploitation is open for debate, and has highlighted the lack of laws applicable for this type of thing.

Personally, I think that it does constitute exploitation of children, if only because the adults behind the sites are making money off selling images of preteens dressed as sex symbols. I shudder to think how much of that money actually gets to the children who pose, and their families. Not much, I am thinking.

Just read this account of a recent encounter by a respected american journalist covering this in the media.

"Hurry, you wretched lesbian!" I scream. "We're late!"

The Dyke and I rush up the Wendy Williamson Auditorium's lobby stairs like wild hyenas on PCP; I've been waiting to cover the 21st Annual Miss Alaska Preteen and Preteen Petite Pageant for weeks, and now that we're finally here we're fucking late. Inexcusable for a journalist of my goddamn caliber.

"Why am I here again?" the Dyke asks.

"Don't you understand?" I say. "If people see me sitting here all by myself looking at little girls in swimsuits and writing in my notebook they'll all think I'm some kind of sick pervert or something. You're my alibi if people start asking questions."

"But Marty," the Dyke replies, "you are a--"

"Silence!" I command as we near the top of the stairs; this blonde middle-aged lady usher wearing a blue dress and too much makeup greets us at the door.

"Two tickets?" she asks. "Okay, that'll be thirty dollars."

I grudgingly pay the ludicrous cover charge and proceed into the auditorium with Ms. Butch Bitch USA close behind. We find a couple seats near the back and sit down to marvel at the onstage abomination: seventeen girls between six and twelve years old, all draped in extravagant cocktail dresses and truly gruesome perms (not to mention nervous, crazed smiles), parade around the Williamson stage to the sounds of some 70s disco near-hit that goes: She got the Boogie Fever / She likes to Boogie Down / She got the Boogie Fever / She likes to Boogie Down. The synthetic girl-women shake and twirl and otherwise gyrate their undeveloped bodies as numerous proud parents look on with wide smiles and frenzied dreams of Victory Victory Victory.

Why am I subjecting myself to this godforsaken atrocity? Good question, I'm not even sure myself. It's not like I'm breaking new journalistic ground here or anything; child beauty pageants have received extensive vilification from the media and parent groups nationwide ever since the highly publicized 1996 rape and murder of six-year-old Little Miss Colorado, JonBenet Ramsey. (Patricia Ramsey, JonBenet's mother and Miss West Virginia 1977, remains a prime suspect in the killing.)

But the machine rages on: According to PBS, 500,000 girls between two and twelve years old compete in beauty pageants every year in America. Interestingly, tonight's competition is directly affiliated with the National Miss Preteen and Preteen Petite Pageant (est. 1980), the first of its kind to be represented in all fifty states.

And you know somebody's getting rich off this thing: Tonight's "competitors" (a strange word to call six-year-old children when you really think about it) have all volunteered a basic entry fee of $320 for the honor of walking the stage, and that doesn't even count the cost of gowns, grooming and so-called "personal image consultants." My, it's expensive being Mommy and Daddy's Special Little Princess.

At least the decorum is bright and cheerful. Turns out the theme of tonight's pageant is "Groovin' to the 70s," which the set reflects appropriately with cardboard cut-outs of peace signs, hippie-esque flowers and a mock Volkswagen Beetle, all painted in tie-dyed colors; a glimmering disco ball is suspended from the ceiling along with white Christmas lights in the shape of a crown; smiley face balloons and lavish trophies are remarkably bountiful and curiously celestial. No kidding, I feel a contact high coming on here.

After the opening dance number wraps up the girls come out one by one for a quick 70s-flavored introduction. "Whoa," says one lisp-stricken seven-year-old, "get out your thermometerth! It'th going to get hot in here ath we groove to the 70s!"

"How much does a cab cost?" the Dyke asks.

"Oh hush," I say. "Can't you enjoy anything besides vagina?"

With the girls' introductions soon out of the way, the time has come for us to meet our judges. The sash-laden blonde hostess who may or may not be Miss Teen Alaska -- I arrived too late to hear -- presents our half-dozen evaluators for tonight. Most notable is one Esteemed Director of the Miss American National Teenager Something or Other USA Pageant, whose actual name I unfortunately can't make out over the audience's rapturous screaming and clapping. It's obviously a big deal to have this godsend of a judge here at tonight's event, a fact only reinforced when the hostess reveals the Director is very active in her Church and Community. Well, Praise Jesus!

It's soon explained that tonight's winners will go onto the National Miss Preteen and Preteen Petite Pageant in Orlando, Florida, where they will compete for college scholarships and cash prizes totaling $150,000. Other commendations include seven-day cruises to Europe, Hawaii and Mexico, not to mention state-of-the-art stereo equipment and, best of all, luggage. Huh. No wonder these parents push their special little girls into pageantry so early.

The first contest of the night is the Gown Competition, which the hostess explains is judged solely on "grace, ability and presentation." Basically, the routine goes like this: Each girl comes out with a tuxedo-adorned male escort ranging in age from eight to sixty; as she walks onstage the hostess tells us what the girl enjoys doing and what animal she most resembles; when she reaches center stage she unlinks arms with her escort and delivers her own little speech about the Wonders of Alaska. Here's a transcript from one girl's run (let's call her Little Shirley), which I swear by the Red Blood of Christ is completely, horrifyingly true:

HOSTESS: This is Shirley. She enjoys singing, cheerleading, girl scouts, collecting stuffed animals and helping others! The three words that best describe Shirley are pretty, cuddly and silly. The animal that best describes Shirley is a koala bear because she loves to eat, climb trees and cuddle. Like a koala bear!

LITTLE SHIRLEY: In Alaska we have beautiful mountains and lakes and streams. Alaska! Why do I love Alaska, you ask? Because of the Northern Lights; the beautiful Aurora Borealis. The bright summer nights, the wonderful people. Yes, God created the Heavens and the Earth, but nowhere is his work more magnificent than in Alaska!!"

Kill me. Kill me now. Please. Someone. Oh God.

Anyway, following the Gown Competition is the "Talent" Competition, in which each little girl displays whatever it is that makes her more special than all the other little girls. Because, really, that's what childhood is all about, right?

Some girls sing ("Wide Open Spaces"), some dance ("Who Let the Dogs Out?") and some read poetry they've written. My personal favorite is six-year-old Anna's poem about being a middle child, which orates thus:

"Look at me
Can't you thee?
I'm the middle of thwee . . .
Can't you thee
How lucky I am to be me?
Wight in the middle of thwee!"

Needless to say, it takes extreme concentration to withhold the rancid vomit from skyrocketing up my throat and drenching everyone in the next row. Good Lord. And the Essay Competition doesn't help my troubled stomach either: Twelve-year-old Lizzy's speech is entitled "Just Say No."

"There is no such thing as 'harmless' drug," Lizzy declares. "Anything that we put into our bodies that impairs our ability to fulfill a hundred percent of our potential is dangerous! The idea that kids get drugs from strangers is not true; most first-time users get drugs from (dramatic pause) THEIR FRIENDS!!! But we should not be swayed by 'peer pressure.' The more we know, the easier it is to Just Say No!!"

Dear God, I have never wanted a bong hit more in my entire life. And fellow 12-year-old Susan's speech (also entitled "Just Say No") just makes matters worse.

"I heard crying when I came around the corner," Susan foreshadows. "What I was about to witness would be another reminder of why I choose to Just Say No. This girl was being assisted by the school nurse as she was attempting to walk. She was yelling and crying; did she remember she was in her school? Probably not. The drug responsible for her condition was (dramatic pause) ALCOHOL!!! Which proves, once again, there are no safe or 'okay' drugs. An ambulance took the girl to the hospital. I heard later she was all right -- this time. Join me and Just Say No!!"

Further morbid displays abound; a costume contest in which the girls dress up like cowboys, the Statue of Liberty and Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz (complete with stuffed Toto in a wicker basket); the obligatory Sportswear Competition showcases at least one prepubescent girl sauntering around in a skin-tight leotard and doing the splits over and over. Yeah, that's something normal grown men pay to watch.

An Optional Competition follows, critiqued by a completely different set of judges for some undecipherable reason, all of whom are ex-child beauty queens or parents of child beauty queens or presidents of child beauty queen advocacy groups or something along those lines.

And then it hits me: Competing in pageantry isn't just a childhood hobby for these manufactured girl-women; competing in pageantry is the defining characteristic of their entire lives. These children grow up thinking plastic smiles and feigned alacrity are the secret to garnering acceptance in the eyes of society (the ultimate pageant judge). When this crooked mentality is passed onto the contestants' very own daughters in years to come the sinister cycle is completed and limitless profit is assured for organizations like the National Miss Preteen and Preteen Petite Pageant. Oh Sweet Truth, thou hast blinded me yet again!!

A couple hours later tonight's competition comes to a merciful and unbelievably welcome end. The Dyke and I stagger out of the Wendy Williamson Auditorium, our minds adequately numbed by the most idiotic thing either of us have ever witnessed in our entire lives. I don't care about interviewing the parents, I don't care about interviewing the pageant executives, I don't even care about interviewing the little girls themselves -- all I really care about is getting the fuck out of this building and getting the fuck out of this building NOW.

As fate would have it, outside in the parking lot the Dyke and I pass by none other than the Esteemed Director of the Miss American National Teenager Something or Other USA Pageant; it comes as something of a shock to see this beloved judge of childhood purity is hurriedly (gasp!) smoking a cigarette!!

"You know," I say to the Director, "nicotine is a drug."

"I know," she hisses.

"But we're supposed to Just Say No to Drugs," I explain. "Don't you remember what the little girls said? Just Say No! No! No No No!!"

The Director glares at me through vindictive eyes, her spiteful expression not changing one bit as the Dyke and I climb into my Awesome 1984 Dodge MiniVan and commence speeding off into the Holy Alaskan Night.

Molly plays ball. Jessi practices yoga. Little Amber grooms her horse. Three girls in South Florida, hundreds more around the world, all modeling for money on the Internet.

Girls, ages seven to 13, selling photos and videos. All apparently with their parents' consent. The Web sites claim the money is for college. But if they look innocent, take another look.

"We're putting these kids on a platter, we're saying come and get me," said Nancy McBride, director of Florida's National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Our investigation will reveal how these sites are selling the sexuality of innocent children to the very last people you'd want near a child. We showed the child modeling web sites to McBride.

"I truly believe these children are being exploited," she said. "This is unsavory, it's disgusting, it makes my stomach turn." Investigative reporter Deborah Sherman asked, "Are these innocent images?"

"No, they're not," McBride said. "These are not kids who are standing up and having their picture taken in an innocent, blameless manner to be put up on a web site. These are very definitely provocative."

Skimpy clothes, camera close-ups, and grown-up poses. Barely legal, experts say, but a growing industry on the Internet called child erotica. And a major player is right here in South Florida, where many of the pictures are taken. Our investigation found a Fort Lauderdale company called Webe Web runs eight child modeling Web sites. The same company also sells sex online, having operated at least 14 sites that market adult pornography.

Webe Web is run by Marc Greenberg and Jeff Libman. Libman photographs the girls and even appears in one of the videos.

We went undercover to meet Libman and learn more about his web sites. His most popular child site features a 12-year-old nicknamed "Little Amber." Libman told us her site is purely professional.

"I don't want them to be eye candy for perverts," he said. But in another breath, Libman admits men are looking at the girls: "It gives these guys that do like young girls like that would be normally gawking at these teenagers in the mall, you know, an outlet to relieve themselves of their frustrations I guess." The men join the girls' fan clubs and even send them presents and clothes to model. Libman takes most of Little Amber's pictures at her home, a farm we tracked down in Palm Beach County.

"She's a model and she gets money from that for college," her brother told us. "Little Amber's" mother and stepfather did not want to talk to us about the modeling site and asked us to leave.

But we've learned her mother may know something about modeling herself. She appeared nude last year on a pornographic web site called "Kandiland." The owners of Webe Web didn't want to talk to us on camera either. Off camera, they tell us their web sites each make at least $1,000 a month for the girls. Webe Web's Marc Greenberg also said, "There's nothing wrong with what we do. We don't exploit children."

But Lt. Paul O'Connell, strongly disagrees: "For the parents that have their own children pose in these suggestive positions, it tells me rather than parents, they're pimps, and they're exploiting their own children for monetary gain."

O'Connell leads a South Florida task force that targets online crimes against children. His agents have investigated complaints about pedophiles looking at Webe Web's child modeling sites. But he says the sites are legal.

"It's about what's within the law, and how much money they can make, and how quickly they can make it. That's what this is all about."

And if there's any doubt about who is looking at these girls, then just talk to one of "Little Amber's" admirers.

Police caught Michael Kivett at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, on a library computer downloading child porn. And when police examined the computer, they found picture after picture of Little Amber.

Sherman asked Lt. Paul Lester of the UNCG Police Department why Kivett had Little Amber's site up.

"I think it was for the same reasons that he had the more graphic sites is that he receives gratification from children, from the images of children," Lester said.

Kivett is now a registered sex offender, who goes to counseling.

Sherman asked Kivett: "Who's looking at these pictures of this child?"

"Most likely, it would be sex offenders or pedophiles or something like that," Kivett replied.

"Most people browse these sites just mainly because they find sexual attraction to children. A lot of them, if they can't find regular porn sites, they use stuff like that as a substitute."

"As a substitute for what?" Sherman asked. "Regular child porn," Kivett said.

As part of his probation, Kivett is not allowed to be around children or go on the Internet.

He does not have children, but Sherman asked him that if he did, would he put his child's pictures on the Internet?

"No," he answered. "Why not?" Sherman asked.

"Because it's too dangerous. I don't want, I don't want somebody like me doing the same thing I did to my kid."

Pretend sleepovers. Pillow fights. Girls posing on the internet for big money.

"I made $1,000 in the first week that my site was open," Adrianne, a 14-year-old model from Georgia, said.

Their Web sites are part of a booming on line industry of child erotica.

Our investigation exposes the person running these sites, and these two men in South Florida operating child modeling Web sites for girls as young as seven.

The Web site operators say they're doing nothing wrong, but critics say they're exploiting children, peddling their pictures for profit playing to pedophiles.

"For the people that look at these, to pay to look at these types of photographs, it fuels their sexual deviance, their sexual desire," said Lt. Paul O'Connell, who heads the South Florida Law Enforcement Task Force Against Child Harm.

Now, our investigation is uncovering a new link to more girls in Florida.

Thirty-five-year-old Gary Smith photographs girls from Florida and all over the country --from a hotel room in Washington, to a boat off Fort Myers and his home in Chicago. Two of the models -- Tiffanie and Katie -- both 17 from Pensacola.

Our investigation has discovered that Gary Smith is also on a website -- the Illinois list of registered sex offenders.

"He had her pinned against the side of the car trying to take her clothes off, kissing, fondling," Bill Lincks said.

Smith was convicted in 1998 of sexually abusing Bill Lincks' 15-year-old daughter. Even though Smith received a suspended sentence, he's still allowed to be around young girls.

And that's where we found him -- in Chicago throwing a Halloween party for fans to meet the models like Tiffanie from Pensacola.

Some of his models don't seem to care about his criminal record.

"I have never had anyone had a bad complaint about him, and what he does," Iris, another model, said.

In fact, law enforcement sources say the FBI has information that Smith allegedly forced a 12-year-old girl to pose nude in a Missouri hotel room earlier this year.

"Supposedly, I have a huge nude collection of all the girls, and truth be told, that's not the case," Smith said.

Smith was supposed to go to sex offense counseling.

"It was quite a few sessions over a period of months. I don't know, it was years ago," Smith said.

After hearing that, the Arkansas prosecutor in the case disagreed.

"Well, he was ordered to provide progress reports. Our office has received none, zero," said Dan Stewart, deputy prosecuting attorney in Sebastian County, Ark.

"You know, I've got nothing to hide. Like I said, I welcome them to come in and raid the place, and take the servers out," Smith said.

Raid they did. Five days later, at smith's home in Chicago, authorities seized $200,000 in computer discs and videos. And police arrested Smith for violating the terms of his sentence by not going to sex offense counseling.

"I don't have to answer to you," Smith said.
Modeling Site Accused Of Child Porn
Owner Denies Pornographic Intentions, Says It's Nothing New

POSTED: 12:04 p.m. EST March 8, 2002

A teenage modeling Web site based in Miami-Dade County is under investigation by the FBI for displaying young girls in provocative images.

The site, childsupermodels.com, features children between the ages of 7 and 16 with headlines such as "Mollirama, a sporty little 10-year-old girl model."

The site links to a variety of girls' pages, where paid memberships can yield extensive collections of photos.

"It makes me kind of sick to see things like this with young people," said Anita Siegel of Boca Talent and Models.

Siegel, with Rep. Mark Foley, encouraged the FBI's investigation.

"It starts out innocently -- girls next to a horse, stuff like that," Foley said. "But the next thing you see is, 'What would you like to see me do?' I mean, it's just degrading, it's sad, it's immoral."

Foley and Siegel blamed parents for allowing their children to become elements of the site and fodder for pedophiles.

"More than anything, it's the parents," Siegal said. "They need to know where they bring their children. They just want their children to be stars and don't care how they do it.

"I think this is close to pornography."

The owner of the Web site, Marc Greenburg, disagreed.

"I've seen child porn, and we're many, many degrees away from it," he said. "We're not catering to pedophiles; we're catering to people who will pay money to see pictures of child models. It's nothing new, it's just that it's on the Internet."

Greenburg also denied that his site linked to pornography sites, but Eyewitness News 25 found advertisements for it within a few clicks.

WHEN KIDDY PORN ISN'T KIDDY PORN

The photograph captures two boys, about 6 or 7 years old, cavorting naked on a beach. One of the boys looks coyly over his shoulder. The other has an erection.

Child pornography or art?

"Only the youngest and sweetest virgin boys!" reads the introduction to Nude Boys World, which contains photos and movies of boys in the buff posing in shower stalls and unmade beds.

Likewise, Sunny Lolitas, which shows naked pre-pubescent girls playing with stuffed animals or stretched out pin-up style against hot red backgrounds, advertises its models as "only cutest and (sic) the youngest!"

Experts say the sites -- which are easily found using Internet search engines -- fall into a murky category known as "child erotica," which includes images of naked children that don't meet the strict legal definitions of child pornography. U.S. law defines kiddie porn as depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, such as intercourse and masturbation, or that show "lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area."

"These sites thinly skirt the line between legal and illegal," said Ruben Rodriguez, the director of the Exploited Child Unit of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which works with the FBI to investigate Internet child porn. "It's very frustrating for us. They're making money exploiting children and there's nothing we can do to shut them down."

Most of the child erotica sites link to the same legal boilerplate, which characterizes the sites' content as art and manifests a "vehement" opposition to child pornography.

The disclaimers published by Little-Boyz -- which boasts of being "the biggest nude boys site" with 20,000 photos and hundreds of movies -- is typical of other child erotica pages:

"Every photo honors the purity and innocence of youth and contains no sexually explicit conduct in accordance with United States Law!" asserts the site. "In the time honored tradition and within the laws of the United States of America and most states and municipalities, the visual depiction and appreciation of the male form, including the pubescent male form, has been and is legal. Little Boyz supports the laws of the United States of America and gladly and willingly conforms to these laws ... Little Boyz, in accordance with the Constitution, believes that the right to view and appreciate nude images of minors in an artistic and aesthetic manner is guaranteed."

For good measure, many of the sites provide a direct link to the U.S. code defining child pornography.

But even if the sites don't show minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, they could be charged for lascivious intent, said Ken Lanning, a retired FBI agent who spent 30 years researching crimes against children and now serves as an expert witness in court cases.

However, proving lascivious intent in court is extremely difficult. The prosecutor would have to demonstrate that the producer of the material intended to elicit a sexual response with the images or that the subscriber viewed the images for sexual arousal.

Unless the images are in a folder called something like, "hot little kids I'd like to have sex with," it would be hard for prosecutors to argue that the subscriber had lewd interest in the material.

The material could also prove damaging in cases where a defendant has previous convictions for child pornography or molestation, he added. In the 1995 landmark case, U.S. v. Stephen Knox, a known pedophile was sentenced to jail for possessing tapes of young girls in leotards whose dancing the court qualified as "lascivious."

But such convictions are few and far between, said Lanning, who predicted that child erotica sites will proliferate as the government continues to break up hard-core child pornography rings.

"The reality is, there's so much hard-core stuff out there that prosecutors don't want to get bogged down with these kinds of sites," he said. "It's a fuzzy area of the law."
The line between art and illegal porn has perplexed law enforcement authorities for decades. Take the controversial work of Jock Sturges, whose photographs depict naked adolescent girls. Despite an FBI raid, protests by angry mobs and a grand jury investigation, his coffee table art books continue to sell.

But a closer look at the child erotica sites suggest that their content isn't aimed at art connoisseurs. First, there are the site names: Lolitas For Sale, Boy Erection, and Pedo Art (pedophile art), among others.

Second, there's the content: Some of the images available on the preview tour seem blatantly suggestive, such as a photograph of a pair of young boys in a shower, with one boy directing the water nozzle at the other's buttocks.

Then there are the rules. One site prohibited U.S. law enforcement agents from joining and forbade members from holding the site owners responsible for breaking laws.

Most of the sites are registered in foreign countries. But they are written in English and billed through American bill processors. Two of the billing companies that process charges for the child erotica sites, iHasp and BillCards, offer anonymous debit card services to webmasters, allowing them to receive payments without being directly linked to such seamy-sounding sites as Lusty-Lolitas.com.

Perhaps the most damning evidence can be found in the introduction of a website called Boys Mania, where the Russian photographer explains how he recruits his models:

"I always have a possibility to find secluded places where kids are trying to hide from their parents and teachers.... Sometimes I manage to talk to them and invite them to my house, show them pictures, videos and other stuff with lots of naked boys and girls. When being with them I try to undress myself first and then offer them to do the same. I like their smooth skin, their fascinated looks, the way they play together and with themselves. I feel excited when they are turning on."

E-mails to the webmasters of this and several other sites went unanswered.

The child erotica sites are often a gateway to illegal material, said Cate Donoghue, the director of Online Guardians, a group that monitors the Internet for pedophiles and indecent images of children.

Subscribers may find that the site contains hard-core child pornography or that their e-mail address has been sold to mailing lists that bombard them with offers to join illegal sites, she said.

One spam her organization detected at the end of April, for example, directed recipients to a page containing graphic images of sexual activity involving toddlers. The site, which authorities have tried to close for more than a year, keeps hopping from one IP address to another. Another site featuring hard-core photos of "tiny little girls" brags: "Our server was closed 21 times, but we have risen from the ashes again."

For Donoghue and other cyber-vigilantes, keeping up tabs on cyber smut is a full-time job.

"Sites that exploit children persist because there are enough perverts out there willing to pay big bucks to see them," said Donoghue. "We have yet to find a way to keep them offline."