Evil in the world

This weekend I went through one of those unpleasant parental firsts.  Pinkie Pie got her first experience with sexual harassment at the hands of an older man, and I had to figure out what to do about it.

He met her on the street, managed to convince her to give him her phone number, and then proceeded to text her over the course of the next hour or so.  He told her he was in love with her, that he desperately needed her, and asked for pictures.  He ignored the fact that she isn't attracted to men in any way, smashed right through her 'but I have a girlfriend' objections, and wasn't fazed at all when she told him she is only 14.

He continued to message her with desperate and bizarre statements, making it clear that he required her in his life and could not cope without her.  He even claimed to run some sort of 'love and connection' business, for which he even had business cards.

Thankfully Pinkie Pie trusts us, and brought his messages to us to ask for help.  I talked with her about all the obvious manipulation and gaslighting, and explained what he was trying to do.  She had been feeling worried and bad about the whole thing, and was happy to block him.  As far as lessons go, I am glad she got past this one without much damage.  I think she is over it, and is moving on.  

I, on the other hand, keep having thoughts of tracking this bastard down and smashing him into hard objects until he breaks into little pieces.  I doubt that the police can or will do anything, since while it is obvious to anyone who glances at the messages what is going on, he hasn't actually done anything illegal, as far as I can tell.  In this, we are on our own.  I don't know if there is any point in messaging him myself, threatening outrageous bodily harm should he ever be near her again - it certainly isn't an idle threat, but I have no idea if that would make things safer for Pinkie Pie or not.

Making it safer for her is my only concern.  Making things safer for all the other 14 year old girls out there is important, but I can't do a lot about that.

I am not one to overreact in terms of what I will let Pinkie Pie do.  She is going to continue to have the same freedom to wander about as before.  The world isn't perfectly safe, but I won't build a cage for her.  The best I can do is teach her how to handle this sort of thing and hope that I never actually need to beat the hell out of some asshole who tries to hurt her.

Her friends, to their credit, were entirely supportive and were talking about going out to beat this dude up or try to scare him.  I made it clear that they were not to do such a thing under any circumstances.  They noted that it would be a pretty bad look for a bunch of white kids to be out beating the hell out of a black guy in a bout of vigilante justice - not an observation I would have expected from my friend group when I was a teenager.  They are way more woke than I ever was.

I don't want this to escalate to violence or intimidation of any sort, and I particularly don't want kids involved in any way.  If that sort of thing was ever called for though, it is definitely not on them - it is on me.  Here's hoping it never comes to that.