Still not free in the U.S. - Your sexual fantasies
You are NOT free to fantasize about sex that is illegal. If you do, and you're caught, you will have to prove you do not actually want to do those things. This is almost impossible. In fact, in my experience as an expert witness in courtrooms across America, I've rarely seen anyone do it successfully. [...]
Say you like to talk with another adult and pretend you're an adult teaching a child about sex. Or preparing them for sex. Or arranging to meet them for sex. This age-oriented role-playing is extremely common, from the light "Oh daddy!" between spouses to medium games like "what if" ("what if I had met you when you were 12, and I taught you how to kiss, and you wanted to please me so much..."), to the more involved scene in which someone dons adult-size children's clothes and is easily seduced, or must "submit" to forced sex. As long as nobody knows, two adults can do what they like. But if two people email or text about this, and the digital trail falls into the hands of the police, the person playing the adult role in the fantasy could be in big trouble. And with a huge open spigot of Law Enforcement money chasing these fantasies, that happens every week in this country. [...]
There are police departments in every state with units devoted to finding people who fantasize online about adult-child sex. And so police departments are going undercover to ADULT chatrooms, advertising "I'm a kid who wants sex with an adult" or "I'm an adult with a kid whom I'd like to watch having sex with an adult." When an adult hobbyist in this ADULT chatroom reads such an ad, they (accurately) assume "it's an adult pretending to be a kid, or an adult pretending to have a kid," and they think "this is a game I like," so they answer. And they think the adult-adult fantasy game is on. [...]
When this person goes on trial, the jury is instructed that, per the American way of life, this defendant is innocent until proven guilty. That's what everyone learns about our country, it's one of our most historically dramatic and fundamental rules, it's what, perhaps more than anything else, makes this country a miraculous experiment in human rights - we're each innocent until proven guilty. However, juries in these cases don't tend to see it this way. Because prosecutors demand that these defendants prove they were fantasizing - which they can't. No one can. Prosecutors reduce these cases to four very simple things:
1. It's his word against ours
2. What kind of pervert enjoys fantasizing about sex with kids?
3. If he fantasized it, it's because he actually wants it
4. Jurors, do you really want to take a chance that this might be a pedophile, and put him back on the street?
And so almost every one of these guys is convicted and goes to jail for an excruciatingly long time. Followed by probation for many years. And registration as a sex offender, often for life. That means no job, no home, no military service, no contact with their own children. These are the guys you see living in tents under freeway overpasses.
source: Article 'Still Not Free in the U.S. - Your Sexual Fantasies' by Dr. Marty Klein; www.martyklein.com/sex-fantasy-adult-child-pretend-illegal/; www.martyklein.com; 5 July 2020