I didn't hear Chris calling BLs 'creeps;' I think he was just calling creeps creeps.

There's no known reason for there to be proportionately more creeps than there ever were, in terms of population, but world population has risen drastically in absolute numbers, along with most local populations. Therefore there are higher numbers of creeps predicted per hectare, on average, than there were at any previous point in history. The creep density of the planet should have gone up. Assuming that any given creep can leer at as much square footage today as he or she could have in the past, that means that the overlap in adjacent creep leer zones should be increasing over time.

Not that this is any influence on the media and the public impression. That's based entirely on the non-statistical inflation, by publicity and drama, of extremely rare events into prevailing cultural themes.

But just between you and me and our wikisposure volunteer (hi, mom, how's Pedofright 2010 coming along?), there should be a slowly creeping increase in the creepage factor.

Now, at any point in the past, kids COULD have met a creep, or even multiple creeps, so they always needed to know how to deal with them. If you watch old movies about street urchins in New York, you'll see that they were pretty good at it. So they just need similar creep training today. They have a slightly higher chance of needing to use it, which in turn should mean that they keep in good practice.

Maybe some nice BLs should start a creep-proofing school for kids - a sort of 'tae kwon don't' - and see if the idea takes off.