Global Studies of Childhood

Volume 1 Number 4 2011

www.wwwords.co.uk/GSCH

Luring Lolita: the age of consent and the

burden of responsibility for online luring
ANDREA SLANE
Faculty of Social Science and Humanities,
University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa, Canada

ABSTRACT This article argues that sexual exploitation is the underlying harm that online luring
offences should address, but that social anxieties about youth online sexuality have obscured this
underlying harm. Through analyzing North American Internet safety materials and Canadian luring
case law, the author finds that on the one hand risks of luring are generalized and on the other limited
only to victims under the age of consent. The result is that very often older youth are made
responsible for their own victimization, while younger ones are assumed to be victimized and hence
denied avenues to sexual expression. By neglecting to analyze online interactions for the dynamics of
exploitation, we do a disservice to older youths who are exploited while denying sexual autonomy to
youth under the age of consent.

The act of facilitating a sexual offence against a minor via online communication, or luring a
child, became a criminal offence in Canada in 2002.[1] As in other jurisdictions, the Canadian
luring offence is intended as a tool to allow the justice system to intervene prior to the commission
of a secondary sexual offence.[2] As with other criminal offences in the Anglo-American tradition,
these new offences are mainly justified by the harms they cause, in this case to minors (Feinberg,
1984; Persak, 2007). However, because this is a preparatory, inchoate crime arising within a social
context rife with cultural anxieties about both online communication and youth sexuality, the
nature of the harm caused by luring itself is not always apparent. Because the underlying harm is
not always clear, the scope and features of the prohibited acts are also unclear.
In this article I will argue that the underlying harm that luring offences are intended to
address should be conceptualized as the violation of the dignity rights of minors (i.e. sexual
exploitation). I will critically analyze cultural anxieties and demonstrate how Canadian court cases
dealing with luring offences tend to rely too heavily on age of consent, while failing to foreground
exploitation. By doing so, I will argue that we risk depriving minors under the age of consent of
autonomy-based rights (such as the right to explore and assert their sexuality) while depriving older
youths of protection from sexual exploitation merely because they have attained the statutory age
of consent. I will first map out the inconsistencies in how the wrongs of luring are portrayed in
popular sources (mainly relating to North American Internet safety education) and in Canadian
luring case law.
The case law arising from the Canadian offence is a compelling subject of analysis because the
offence is broader than its United States counterpart, for instance. The American offence focuses on
more direct efforts to convince a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity [3], while the Canadian
offence targets facilitating a secondary sexual offence against a minor online. Most of these
secondary sexual offences are age-of-consent-based offences. Because of the inchoate nature of its
target, the Canadian luring offence allows for greater flexibility than its American counterpart and
affords an opportunity to consider whether a particular interaction causes a minor to become more
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Luring Lolita
vulnerable to sexual exploitation. American statutes are largely shaped by legal issues external to
the harm caused to minors (namely, American freedom of expression jurisprudence and a federal
system that allocates the power to enact criminal law to both the federal and state governments,
with a particular scope and particular restrictions for each), but the Canadian luring offence (and
the ensuing case law) is entirely focused on what online actions are prohibited and why.
Consequently, an analysis of the Canadian experience will be useful to other jurisdictions aiming to
clarify the underlying harm addressed by creating luring offences.
The inconsistencies in how harm caused by luring is characterized in both popular and legal
contexts arise in large part because of widespread cultural anxieties about the vulnerability and
recklessness of youths online. Finkelhor (2011) calls this phenomenon juvenoia exaggerated fear
that youth vulnerability and deviance is heightened in the face of social and technological change.
A prominent subject of juvenoia is youth sexuality: our socio-legal tendency is to protect youths
from sexuality generally at younger ages, and to demonize sexualized youths at older ages
especially girls and gay, bisexual, transgendered or questioning boys, who are the primary victims
of online luring (Odem, 1995; Shade, 2007; Finkelhor, 2011).
The features of networked communication that especially inspire fear or technophobia, in
so far as this fear is exaggerated include the capacity for anonymity, access by anyone anywhere
and any time, and a purported lack of control by the usual offline social norms including parental
supervision (Finkelhor, 2011). I would also include the capacity of online communication to inspire
easy intimacy, via private one-on-one text and image communication.
The combination of technophobia and juvenoia manifests in the tone and substance of many
Internet safety messages aimed at youths, which warn that all youths are potential targets for
online sexual exploitation. However, early responses to the Internet, which routinely warned
youths not to engage with unknown people online and not to reveal any information about
themselves, set unrealistic standards for safe online behaviour, so that common online social
practices among youth appeared to be careless and dangerous (McKenna et al, 2002).
While youths in general are regularly admonished in Internet safety campaigns for their
presumed unsafe online behaviour, research into luring dynamics has revealed that not all youths
are equally vulnerable; instead, online vulnerability to sexual exploitation is similar to offline
vulnerability, where a history of abuse, depression, and family breakdown, for instance, increases
vulnerability (Wolak et al, 2008). Empirical research has shown that sexual exploitation, online and
off, most often occurs when the offender takes advantage of such specific vulnerabilities in the
course of the grooming process. As such, common online social practices, like making online
friends and selectively sharing personal information, do not increase risk of exploitation. Yet the
more particular dynamics of sexual exploitation, regardless of how widespread the risk, are not
consistently addressed in Internet safety education or in luring case law.
In this article, I will present an analysis of how luring victims (or potential victims) both under
and over the statutory age of consent are portrayed in Canadian case law and in Internet safety
campaigns. By situating my analysis of Canadian case law within the broader social context via
non-legal texts, I draw on the notion that every theory of crime prevention is based on broader
assumptions about social control (Sutton et al, 2008), along with the assumptions that lawmakers,
law enforcement officials, and the judiciary share about the harm that a particular criminal offence
is meant to mitigate (Backhouse, 2008). As my analysis will show, instead of foregrounding sexual
exploitation, safety education often reflects a more simple analysis based on generalized
vulnerability and recklessness (Cassell & Cramer, 2008), while case law overemphasizes the
statutory age of consent, as the determining factor of whether exploitation has occurred.
Consequently, youth under the age of consent are portrayed as being duped or manipulated and
worthy of protection due to their presumed naivety and compromised innocence (Goldstein, 2009),
while older adolescents are primarily left to assume the risks associated with making online
contacts without the added protection against sexual exploitation provided by luring offences.
Following my analysis of how potential or actual luring victims are portrayed in each context,
I will map the allocation of risk and responsibility to youths for online sexual contact in three types
of luring scenarios: (a) where an adult uses the Internet to identify a victim to abduct or assault (this
category applies to all youth under 18); (b) where an adult sexually accosts or engages a youth
under the requisite age of consent in cybersex; and (c) where an adult grooms and/or seduces a
youth under the age of consent into a relationship wherein the youth willingly (to varying degrees)
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engages in sexual contact with the adult. Each scenario features tensions between the dynamics of
exploitation, the possibility of non-exploitative online sexuality, and an ongoing cultural tendency
to oversimplify youth sexuality by correlating exploitation only to the statutory age of consent.
I will conclude by suggesting that luring offences would better protect the interests of all
minors if both safety education and courts focused on protecting their dignity rights, by framing
them as autonomous agents, while simultaneously acknowledging the particular vulnerability of
young people both under and over the age of consent to exploitation, individually and collectively.
Stranger Abduction, Sexual Assault, and Sexual Exploitation
As with concerns about the offline safety of children, stranger abduction and sexual assault
resulting from online contact rank high among parental anxieties, even though such incidents are
extremely rare (Schrock & Boyd, 2008). Youths who go missing are routinely suspected of having
fallen victim to an online predator, even where there is little or no evidence of such contact (Tyler,
2008; Teotonio & Doolittle, 2009). These fears are reinforced by persistent messaging that online
predators are especially good at exploiting even mild vulnerabilities (targeting youth who have
recently argued with a parent, for instance) and that youths are generally reckless about their
online safety. These perceptions have inspired Internet safety education campaigns that
disproportionately focus on tips to reduce the risk of contact with this archetypal offender, and
which often recommend abstaining completely from meaningful online social interaction.
Another common strategy of Internet safety education is the worst-case scenario: to inspire
discussion about the dangers of the Internet, a story is told about a child who foolishly provides
identifying and locating information online, or agrees to an offline meeting with an online friend
and is then abducted and murdered. Creators of such materials sometimes acknowledge that these
scare-tactic stories do not really predict a likely outcome, but claim that they do tend to get the
attention of youths, who are then more willing to talk about the issues (Slane, 2009).
These safety strategies are informed by the crime prevention theory that individuals should
use situational crime prevention strategies to reduce their individual risk of falling victim to crime
that is, these strategies aim to minimize the opportunities for an offender to reach this particular
victim, rather than addressing systemic issues (in this case, what makes youth vulnerable to
exploitation) (Felson, 1995; Eck, 2003; Sutton et al, 2008). Thus, youths continue to be advised to
follow routine safety tips such as never to give out personal information online (real name, address,
telephone number, or school), never to send pictures online, and never to meet an online contact
offline.[4] The first two tips are based on the presumption that giving out identifying or locating
information can make it possible for a predator to choose and locate a youth, presumably to stalk,
attack, or abduct him/her, while the third is based on the presumption that online friends are
inherently dangerous. Youths are widely considered to ignore this draconian advice (or to modify it
so that it doesnt apply to giving out information or images to friends); more recent safety
messaging has softened the prohibitions, allowing ways for youths to continue their widespread
online social practices more safely.[5] Nonetheless, the fear that inspired the original prohibitions,
reflecting a distrust of online contacts in general, has had a lasting effect on the public perception of
youth online social practices as reckless (Zamaria & Fletcher, 2008).
Many surveys of online youth behaviour have linked the provision of personal information
with an increased risk of victimization, even though these links have not been substantiated by
empirical evidence. Assumptions about the recklessness of youths have been supported by a
feedback loop whereby researchers presuppose that certain online behaviours are risky, rather than
determining whether or not they actually are (Hasebrink et al, 2009; Loughlin & Taylor-Butts,
2009). The Pew Internet and American Life Project (2006) reported, for instance, that both youths
and parents believe that youths are not careful enough about the information they give out online
(p. 2) but there is no indication as to what the material consequences are of being not careful
enough other than a vague sense of heightened exposure to potential harm.[6]
More empirically driven research has attempted to rectify these assumptions by assessing
youth online risk from a more evidence-based perspective (Wolak et al, 2008). Recent studies have
reported that specific behaviours are linked with an increased incidence of victimization (such as
intentionally visiting adult chat rooms, and talking about sex to people known only online) and that
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other behaviours previously assumed to be risky (such as posting personal information or images,
making online friends, and meeting online friends offline), while not without risk, are not
correlated with victimization rates as was previously assumed (Wolak et al, 2008). The risk
inherent to these behaviours can be, and clearly is, mitigated by the fact that most youths engage in
them without incident or escalation of harm. Research clarifying the actual consequences of
various online (and offline) behaviours is a welcome development because it helps to refocus
Internet safety education away from general prohibitions that demonize all youths for their online
practices. However, the newly identified pool of vulnerable victims presents greater challenges for
Internet safety education, in part because the risky online sexual behaviours (which may or may
not be correlated with increased vulnerability to exploitation, as typically coupled with mental or
social distress) are generally frowned upon in a culture that has historically discouraged youth
sexuality and sexual expression (Tolman, 2002). Many Internet safety campaigns ignore the factors
that make some youths more vulnerable to exploitation than others and often instead characterize
those who follow safety tips as smart, implying that those who engage in risky activities are
stupid, encouraging adults and peers alike to continue to frown upon online sexual
experimentation and to blame victims for having foolishly fallen prey, without considering the
dynamics which may have led to a particular youth being exploited (or not).[7]
The challenges related to youth sexuality are reflected in Canadian luring case law, which
almost exclusively focuses on luring as it relates to statutory sexual offences (where the wrong is
entirely based on the age of the victim), rather than on a more nuanced analysis of the presence or
absence of sexual exploitation. The Canadian luring offence prohibits the use of online
communications to facilitate the commission of secondary sexual offences in two main categories.
The first category includes statutory sexual offences (and abduction), prohibiting adult sexual
contact with youths under 16 (including sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching, and
bestiality and indecent acts in the presence of a child).[8] Cases dealing with these statutory age-ofconsent crimes [9] are by far the most common.[10] The second category includes secondary sexual
offences, which protect even older minors (youths under 18) against overtly exploitative sexual
relationships (sexual exploitation, incest, child pornography, prostitution, and sexual assault).[11]
Generally, sexual exploitation is presumed in statutory sexual offences against youths under 16, and
in sexual relationships arising from trust and dependency. However, the sexual exploitation offence
also prohibits sexual contact of various sorts with youths aged 16 and 17 in a relationship that is
exploitative of the young person [12] as determined by the the nature and circumstances of the
relationship.[13] This aspect of the offence offers a potentially useful tool for incorporating
analyses of sexual exploitation into the elements of the offence. However, to date no luring cases
have come to trial in which the secondary offence arose out of this sort of exploitative relationship,
and so no independent analyses of the elements of exploitation have been conducted.
Additionally, the luring offence has not been successfully prosecuted in cases where the
online communication allegedly facilitated a sexual assault. In cases involving teens over the age of
consent, even where the defendant was convicted of sexual assault, courts have generally deemed
the online communication to be in the service of preparing for a consensual sexual encounter with
the victim, while the elements of sexual assault are deemed only to have emerged when the parties
met in person.[14] Together with the dearth of cases considering whether online relationships with
older adolescents are exploitative, this essentially means that youths over the statutory age of
consent bear the responsibility for avoiding offline encounters with people they have met online. In
one such case, in which a 16-year-old youth did not heed signs that a man she had met online was
only interested in using her for sex, the judge stated: This case is a good example of how easy it is
for young people to meet through the Internet and their parents having no clue or idea as to what
is going on. It is also a case of bad judgment.[15] While it is possible that this particular case did not
involve exploitation as the law understands it, a deeper analysis is required to elucidate the
dynamics of the online communication, considering the factors set out in the Criminal Code (the age
difference between the parties, the evolution of the relationship, and the degree of influence
exercised over the young person).[16] An analysis of how luring is related to facilitating sexual
exploitation could enable the luring offence to help bring about legal protection of older minors
from unscrupulous people using them for sexual purposes, instead of leaving teens aged 16 and
over to fend for themselves in terms of handling any manipulative skill and persistence with which
offenders may take advantage of their vulnerabilities.
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Anxieties about stranger contact online have thus produced a paradoxical situation in North
American culture and in luring case law: on the one hand, predators are feared to be everywhere;
on the other, perceptions of youth recklessness (especially with regard to sexual talk) have
neglected to consider the sexual exploitation of older youths, who are instead condemned to suffer
the consequences of their bad judgement.
Unwanted Sexual Solicitation, Cybersex, and Sexual Exploitation
Like fears regarding offline assault, public perceptions about sexual encounters that take place only
online centrally feature fears about youths being sexually accosted by online predators. Unwanted
sexual solicitation is frequently demonstrated by law enforcement officers doing Internet safety
presentations for parents or educators: a favourite device is for one of the officers to enter a public
chatroom on a screen visible to the audience and pose as a young teen in order to show adults how
quickly (usually immediately) someone will try to engage the officer in sexual conversation or
exchange of sexual images. Research has shown, however, that unwanted sexual solicitation by an
adult with nefarious intentions is not as prevalent or harmful a problem as such demonstrations
would suggest, and that the harm lies not in a youth being asked to engage in sexual talk or to send
a picture, but rather in the process by which some youths eventually do (Wolak et al, 2007).
As noted in the previous section of this article, courts have generally failed to analyze whether
the sexual conversations between participants in an online conversation are exploitative.[17]
Recently, however, the Supreme Court of Canada has opened the door to a more complex analysis
of exploitation, whereby not all online sexual conversations with adolescents under the age of
consent will qualify as luring.[18]
In R. v. Legare, the Supreme Court considered a situation where a 12-year-old girl engaged in
explicitly sexual chat with a 32-year-old man online and gave him her phone number. During their
second telephone conversation he said he would love to go down on [her] and she hung up. He
did not call again. The essence of the defence argument was that merely having a sexually explicit
conversation online (or on the telephone following an online contact) does not facilitate a
secondary sexual offence as required, while the prosecution argued that talking about wanting to
engage in sexual activity with an underage person online necessarily amounts to luring. The court
held that the interchange must be viewed in its context, so sexual talk between an adult and minor
online may (or may not) amount to luring, though it appears that explicit sexual talk with a person
under the statutory age of consent will very likely meet that threshold:
In this context, facilitating includes helping to bring about and making easier or more probable for
example, by luring or grooming young persons to commit or participate in the prohibited
conduct; by reducing their inhibitions; or by prurient discourse that exploits a young persons
curiosity, immaturity or precocious sexuality.[19]

The court thereby introduced an analysis about the dynamics of the relationship, which is a
promising development in that it avoids the facile assumption that youths under the age of consent
are always exploited by sexual talk, while youths over that age are not. The court appears to allow,
albeit indirectly, that there may be situations in which online sexual talk does not make it easier for
a youth to suffer a secondary sexual offence, or more probable that they will.[20]
Age-of-consent crimes often serve as a shorthand for protecting youths from harms that are
more common where there is an age difference between sexual partners: where victims are more
likely to be pressured, intimidated, or coerced into having sex, and where youths with little
experience of intimate relationships or romance often lack the ability to negotiate effectively with
partners about sexual activity (Wolak et al, 2008, p. 9). However, the age of consent is notoriously
variable between jurisdictions, and can be an ineffectual way to determine whether or not such
autonomy-compromising relationship dynamics have in fact deprived a youth of his/her capacity
for valid consent (Sutherland, 2003; Cocca, 2004). Interestingly, recent developments in Canadian
luring case law have meant that unlike age-of-consent crimes (in which context is largely irrelevant
sexual activity is prohibited, regardless of the dynamics between the parties), luring does not
capture all instances in which adults engage in sexually-explicit talk with an underage youth online.
Within North American culture, it is difficult to articulate the problem with adult-youth
sexual relationships namely, the greater risk of exploitation. Internet safety education campaigns,
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for example, rely heavily on social disgust about sex with older people.[21] These campaigns
exhibit little understanding about the dynamics of exploitation and allow no place for online sexual
curiosity (which may involve talking with older people) that avoids exploitation.
Cultural tension about youth online sexuality is rampant; the next section will elaborate on
the inconsistencies between case law and Internet safety materials that on the one hand
acknowledge the craftiness of online luring offenders and their capacity to win the confidence of
youths, and on the other rely too simply on the statutory age of consent to determine when luring
has or has not occurred. This approach again leaves youths (especially older youths) to fend for
themselves against manipulation, while also failing to empower younger youths, especially girls
and LGBT boys, to act affirmatively about their own sexuality (Tolman, 2002).
Grooming, Seduction, and Sexual Exploitation
In keeping with the fears about Internet-facilitated stranger abduction discussed above, a
prominent and longstanding strain of Internet safety messaging warns that offenders can deceive a
youth into an offline meeting. These fears are reinforced by the features of networked
communications that allow a person to control how he/she appears to others and possibly provide
false information (via text or images). Internet safety messaging consequently stresses that people
may not be who they appear to be online, and that predators lie about their age, interests and
intentions to deceive a youth into believing she/he is conversing with a peer interested in
friendship rather than an adult interested in sex.[22]
Recent research has found this popular variation on luring dynamics to be largely inaccurate,
noting that most often a luring offender does not lie to the victim about his/her age (or only shaves
a few years off) and is open about his/her interest in sex (Wolak et al, 2008). Deception is still part
of the dynamic, however, in that the offender may appear to be sincere during the course of
extended conversations about a variety of topics (from flattery to problems with parents), when
his/her aim is really to use the youth for sex: in other words, it may still involve sexual
exploitation.
The Supreme Court of Canada stressed in Legare that luring can occur even where there is no
talk of a sexual nature at all.[23] This aspect is particularly interesting in light of the courts other
finding, that merely talking about sex with a minor online does not necessarily amount to luring.
The court further noted that luring, as a preparatory offence, can be entirely about emotional
grooming for illegal physical intimacy, even if the offender does not manifest any intent to meet
with the victim.[24] It supported its ruling by citing R. v. Pengelley: computer communications may
serve to sexualize or groom or trick a child toward being receptive to a sexual encounter, to
cultivate a relationship of trust, or to undertake a process of relinquishing inhibitions, all with a
view to advancing a plan or desire to physical sexual exploitation of a young person.[25]
Grooming dynamics are now more frequently addressed by Internet safety education, most
often by providing youths with a set of behaviours not to fall for when dealing with an online
contact [26], and, albeit less frequently, addressing specific vulnerabilities, such as mental health
issues. Educational materials that raise these issues and urge youth to find other avenues of support
do a better job at helping those youths who are most susceptible to exploitation.[27] Materials that
help youth identify unhealthy relationship dynamics (online and offline) also go a long way toward
empowering youth to recognize, avoid, or seek help when online relationships become
exploitative.[28]
However, Internet safety messaging often continues to characterize behaviours that make a
youth more vulnerable to manipulation as not smart, although most Internet safety campaigns
are at least somewhat sympathetic to the idea that youth (in general) are vulnerable to
manipulation.[29] Further, such materials are even less able to provide validation for youth who
have forged a legitimate online romantic connection, as is reflected by the frequency with which
youth who post on online counselling websites seek reassurance that their emotions for an online
love interest are real.[30] Internet safety campaigns that play on parental fears about online
romantic ties have made it difficult to conceive of legitimate online romances; a 2007 public
awareness campaign by Cybertip.ca featured billboards of an instant messaging screen bearing
statements like Your child says she loves me and I talk to your child 6 times a day.[31] The
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assumption is that these statements come from a menacing individual simply because the contact
occurs via technology; another assumption is that the parents are unaware of it. Consequently, the
billboards imply that the speaker is an adult sexual predator, and completely deny the possibility of
a legitimate relationship, despite the innocuousness of the words themselves.
Validation of online relationships is particularly elusive where there is an age difference
between the youth and the online love interest. When luring victims profess their love for the
person who lured them (as they often do), it is generally understood as a sign of the offenders
successful manipulation. There is little cultural room for legitimate romantic attachment where
there are significant age differences, even when a youth has attained the statutory age of consent,
although luring laws tend not to be applied once the youth has reached the requisite age.
A case that received significant media attention in Canada, for instance, involved a 16-year-old
boy from Ontario who had an online love affair with a 42-year-old woman from Texas (Kennedy,
2010). The case attracted popular interest for several reasons: it dealt with a romantic/sexual
relationship between an older woman and a teenage boy (in contrast to the vast majority of luring
cases); the relationship began in an online gaming context; and the legal status of the relationship
was in question because while the statutory age of consent in Canada is 16 (where the boy lived
and where the sexual contact occurred), the age of consent in Texas is 17 (where the defendant
resided and from where she engaged in online communications with the youth). A Canadian
television show, 16:9 The Bigger Picture, dedicated a half-hour episode entitled Cyber Seduction to
the case, mainly focusing on the views of the boys mother, who was disgusted by the
relationship.[32] The show also highlighted the fact that charges were laid in Texas and not in
Ontario, and endorsed the view that the defendant should suffer some consequences for so
blatantly touting social convention. However, there was no discussion of why this should be so; the
show relied almost entirely on assumptions about the inappropriateness of this relationship,
stressing for effect the fact that the woman had teenage sons similar in age to the alleged victim
(Cavanagh, 2007).
To its credit, the show also prominently featured an interview with the teenage boy, who
resolutely insisted that he was an active and willing participant in the relationship and not a victim.
That the boy was given a significant voice in the show is unusual; he appeared articulate and
presented a credible alternative to his mothers disgust. He expressed genuine affection for his lover
and was saddened that the events had caused her pain.[33] This case illustrates the two-pronged
problem with the luring offence, which is based on the assumption that contact under the statutory
age of consent is exploitative and that contact over that age is not, while simultaneously assuming
that no genuine non-exploitative relationships can develop between older teens and adults online.
A careful analysis of the dynamics of exploitation would be helpful in making more principled
distinctions between these cases: exploitation and evidence of grooming dynamics will likely
almost always be present with underage victims, but it would be helpful to provide a clearer
differentiation between exploitation, true love, and bad judgement, especially in cases involving
older youths.
Conclusions
This analysis of conceptions of luring victims has revealed that the cultural distrust of online
intimacy, the social disapproval of sexual or romantic relationships with age differences, and the
tendency to blame youths for their misfortunes once they have reached the age of consent make it
difficult to articulate clearly the harm that luring offences are meant to guard against namely, the
use of online communication to facilitate the sexual exploitation of youth. Instead of relying on
cultural taboos and anxieties and the imprecise tool of the statutory age of consent, courts and
Internet safety messages should instead focus on a contextual analysis of the nature and
circumstances of online relationships to determine whether online communications are
exploitative in a given instance. This approach would better protect the dignity interests of minors
(by shielding them from exposure to sexual exploitation) and also better protect the autonomy
interests of minors who are not being exploited.

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Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Ummni Khan, the anonymous peer reviewers, and Linn Clark for
their help improving this article.
Notes
[1] Criminal Code, RSC, 1985, c. C-46, s. 172.1 (Canada).
[2] R. v. Legare, 2009 SCC 56 (Supreme Court of Canada) at para. 25: [The luring offence] criminalizes
conduct that precedes the commission of the sexual offences to which it refers, and even an attempt to
commit them. Nor, indeed, must the offender meet or intend to meet the victim with a view to
committing any of the specified secondary offences.
[3] American federal law, for instance, prohibits a person using the Internet or other interstate
communications to knowingly persuade, induce, entice, or coerce a minor to travel interstate to
engage in prohibited sexual activity, or to attempt to do so (18 USC 2422).
[4] Safety tips may simply act as a device that comforts parents, making them feel that they can take
concrete steps to protect themselves and their children, even though the tips may be ineffectual. See,
for example, Toronto Police Service, Internet Safety,
http://www.torontopolice.on.ca/crimeprevention/internet.php; and National Center for Missing
and Exploited Children, Keeping Kids Safer on the Internet: tips for parents and guardians
(2006/2009),
http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/ResourceServlet?LanguageCountry=en_US&Pa
geId=2954
[5] Some lists of tips now allow for the exchange of personal information and photos, and even for offline
meetings with online friends provided that they occur in public places, someone else comes along,
and parents or guardians are notified and agree. See, for example,
http://www.safekids.com/kids-rules-for-online-safety/
[6] In 2006, the Pew survey asked whether the respondent agreed or disagreed with the statement Most
teens are not careful enough about the information they give out about themselves online; 78% of
respondents aged 12-17 and 82% of parents of teenagers of that age agreed with the statement.
http://www.pewinternet.org/Static-Pages/Data-Tools/Explore-Survey-Questions/RoperCenter.aspx?t=289).
[7] The US Center for Missing and Exploited Children has a site for girls entitled 2Smart4U which offers
tips such as not to post personal information or to communicate with unknown people online:
http://www.2smrt4u.com/Tips. A similar Canadian site is weron2u which claims to provide
youths with tools to ward off the perverts who are lurking everywhere:
http://www.weron2u.ca/home/index.html. The site is sponsored by the Province of Alberta and is
written by teens.
[8] Criminal Code, supra note 1 at s. 172.1(1)(b).
[9] Since May 2008, the age of consent in Canada has been 16. Prior to that, it was 14.
[10] Canadian cases of this sort include those involving actual children, such as R. v. Armstrong 2009 ABPC
45 (Alberta Provincial Court); R. v. Innes 2007 ABPC 237 (Alberta Provincial Court); R. v. Smith 2007
BCSC 1955 (British Columbia Supreme Court); R. v. Deck 2006 ABCA 92; R. v. Horeczy [2006] M.J. No.
444 (Manitoba Provincial Court); R. v. Carratt [2005] A.J. No. 743 (Alberta Provincial Court). They
also include all of luring cases involving police officers pretending to be younger adolescents online,
such as R. v. Alicandro 2009 ONCA 133 (Ontario Court of Appeal); R. v. Bergeron 2009 ONCJ 104
(Ontario Court of Justice); R. v. Pengelley [2009] O.J. No. 1682 (Ontario Superior Court of Justice); R. v.
Nichol 2009 BCPC 124 (British Columbia Provincial Court); R. v. Arrojado 2008 ONCJ 499 (Ontario
Court of Justice); R. v. Dhandhukia [2007] O.J. No. 592 (Ontario Superior Court of Justice); R. v.
M.(J.A.) 2007 SKPC 44; R. v. Ross 2007 ONCJ 286; R. v. Starratt 2007 NSCA 21 (Nova Scotia Court of
Appeal); R. v. Jarvis [2006] O.J. No. 3241 (Ontario Court of Appeal); R. v. Randall 2006 NSPC 19 (Nova
Scotia Provincial Court); R. v. Folino 77 O.R. (3d) 641 (Ontario Court of Appeal); R. v. Harvey [2004]
O.J. No. 1389 (Ontario Court of Justice); R. v. Jepson [2004] O.J. No. 5521 (Ontario Superior Court of
Justice); R. v. Blanchard [2003] O.J. No. 5510 (Ontario Superior Court of Justice).
[11] Criminal Code, supra note 1 at s. 172.1(1)(a).

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[12] Ibid., at s. 153(1).
[13] Ibid., at s. 153(1.2).
[14] R. v. Haddon, 2007 CarswellOnt 7015. In this case, the 43-year-old defendant was convicted of sexually
assaulting two girls, one age 13 and the other 15. At the time, Canadas age of consent was 14. The
defendant was additionally convicted of luring the 13-year-old, but not the 15-year-old. With regard
to the 13-year-old victim, the court states: In my view, Exhibit 2 can admit of no other interpretation
than as being an attempt, by Mr. Haddon, to communicate with S.H. through a computer system for
the purpose of luring her into a sexual encounter. Whether or not she consented to any such contact,
she was under the age of fourteen to Mr. Haddons knowledge, and any such encounter would be
unlawful (at para. 105). With regard to the second victim, the court states: At its highest, she said
that Mr. Haddon (Brett) would say dumb things, like you make me hard and you have sweet
cheeks. Without some better understanding of the context of these sorts of remarks, I am not
persuaded that I can conclude, at least beyond a reasonable doubt, that this sort of communication
was for the purpose of facilitating the commission of an offence under section 271 of the Code.
[15] R. v. Fong, 2007 CarswellOnt 6018 at para. 2. The defendant in that case was convicted of parole
violations related to a previous child pornography conviction that prohibited him from being alone
with youths under 18, but he was acquitted of sexual assault, largely as a result of the judge
questioning the credibility of the complainant.
[16] Criminal Code, supra note 1 at s. 153(1.2).
[17] At face value, cases involving exchange of sexual images between an adult and a minor are likely
exploitative, although even here some discussion of exploitation would help clarify the nature of the
wrong.
[18] R. v. Legare, supra note 2.
[19] Ibid. at para. 28.
[20] In R. v. Pengelley, an Ontario court more explicitly states that luring does not purport to prohibit all
forms of sexual communication (R. v. Pengelley, supra note 10 at para. 84).
[21] The weron2u site warns, for instance, that among the things that perverts do is [s]tart acting gross.
They might talk dirty to you and ask you to perform sex acts or send them sexual photos of yourself.
There is no room in this approach for sexual curiosity
(http://www.weron2u.ca/profile_of_a_pervert/index.html).
[22] See, for instance, the Internet Safety Guidelines for Grade 7 students produced by Kids in the Know,
the education arm of Canadas national tipline for online child exploitation, Cybertip.ca:
http://www.kidsintheknow.ca/app/en/safety_sheet_internet.
[23] R v. Legare, supra note 2 at para. 29: Sexually explicit comments may suffice to establish the criminal
purpose of the accused. But those who use their computers to lure children for sexual purposes often
groom them online by first gaining their trust through conversations about their home life, their
personal interests or other innocuous topics.
[24] Ibid., at para. 25.
[25] R. v. Pengelley, supra note 10 at para. 96, cited in R. v. Legare supra note 2 at para. 30.
[26] Kids in the Know provides a list of common lures that apply both offline and online, including the
use of affection and attention as a way to gain a childs trust: This type of abuse is often manipulative
and confusing for the child. Often because the attention and affection feels good to the child, he/she
doesnt realize he/she is being sexually exploited
(http://www.kidsintheknow.ca/app/en/safety_sheet_common_lures).
[27] The Center for Missing and Exploited Childrens Internet safety website NetSmartz has several true
stories videos that are first-person narratives of victims who were lured and ran off with someone
they met online, including descriptions of the context that made the youth vulnerable (depression,
parental divorce, frequent arguing with parents, etc.). See Amys Choice, Julies Journey and
Survivor Diaries at http://www.netsmartz.org/RealLifeStories
[28] The Kids in the Know curriculum contents are also reflected in publicly available materials for parents
and teachers, such as The Door thats Not Locked: unhealthy relationships and Internet safety (for
13-15-year-olds):
http://www.thedoorthatsnotlocked.ca/app/en/parent/13-15/unhealthy_relationships

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[29] Kid Smart, the website of UK-based Childnet International, lists Smart Rules that reflect the
modified prohibitions that allow that there are safe and unsafe ways to engage in online social
contact (http://old.kidsmart.org.uk/yp/smart/default.aspx).
[30] For instance, in a recent message posted to Kids Help Phone, an anonymous online counseling
service, serenexo started her post with subject line online boyfriend by saying Yes I know what
youre thinking. An online boyfriend? it could be a pedo phile or something like that but trust me, my
ex wasnt (http://www.kidshelpphone.ca/forums/ViewMessage.aspx?MSGID=172161).
[31] Cybertip.ca, Not in the Loop? campaign, spring 2007, http://www.cybertip.ca/app/en/loop.
[32] Cyber Seduction, 16:9 The Bigger Picture, Global News, 1 May 2010
(http://www.globaltv.com/video/cyber+seduction/video.html?v=1483722773#video).
[33] Charges in Texas were ultimately withdrawn because the prosecution could not prove that the
defendant, Lauri Price, knew she was communicating with a minor, because the boy had lied about
his age (he claimed to be 20). Again, this resolution did not involve a concrete analysis of whether the
relationship was exploitative (Associated Press, 2 July, Charges dropped against Houston mom
accused of soliciting Canadian teen she met online;
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/07/02/charges-dropped-houston-mom-accused-solicitingcanadian-teen-online/).

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ANDREA SLANE is an Associate Professor in Legal Studies at the University of Ontario Institute
of Technology, Canada, where she is also on the graduate faculty for the Criminology Program.
Her research areas include privacy and information law, intellectual property, communication law,
law and technology (especially law and the Internet, including cybercrime), cultural studies of law,
and law and sexuality. Correspondence: Dr Andrea Slane, Associate Professor, Legal Studies
Program, Faculty of Social Science and Humanities, University of Ontario Institute of Technology,
2000 Simcoe Street North, Oshawa, Ontario L1H 7K4, Canada (andrea.slane@uoit.ca).

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