"You often pass along messages with odd points of view," wrote a teenager who identified herself as Kathy and said she would very soon be at the "age of consent," by which I presume she meant 18. This is what she wrote to Katz: 

"I want you to know that for several years, I have had a real-life relationship with an older man, a person in his late 30s that I met online in a chat room. I guess under the law he is a rapist and sex offender. My parents would call him that, I'm sure. So, I guess, would the police. He could go to jail for life for meeting me, having had sex with me. But he is somebody I have loved very much. 

He's been great to me, gentle and sweet, and has never forced me to do anything. He's taught me things, given me books. He has always been the one to say that maybe this isn't a good idea, maybe we should stop, maybe we should wait. But I don't think so. 

I think this relationship has helped me, maybe even saved my life. I know it probably won't last, but I decided to write you because in my world, this isn't all so black-and-white....