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File:Lawndogs-plan.jpg

Don't listen to her, Trent!

Under US law (and possibly other countries as well), there is a crime known as Corruption of a Minor, in which adults coerce children into committing crimes, or helping them to commit crimes.

This is the inverse.

Sometimes children can convince adults to break the law. Like-OMG!! How on earth is that possible? They could turn on the charm, particularly on a gullible adult or one with low self-esteem, or one who just likes kids and wants to be nice, or maybe one who sees the kid as an equal or a friend. Other times, the kid simply bribes the adult. This is pretty much the favourite technique of the Enfant Terrible.

See also Troubling Unchildlike Behavior, Kids Are Cruel, Deliberately Cute Child, From the Mouths of Babes, Corruption of a Minor, and Enfant Terrible.

Examples of Corruption by a Minor include:


Anime & Manga[]

  • Not suprisingly, many Loli and Shota hentai have a plot along these lines.
  • Goth-loli Ekaterina in Seikon no Qwaser immediately identifies Hana's repressed predilections, and brazenly tells her she will be Ekaterina's sex slave. It's been a downward spiral into decadence for Hana since, as Katja teases and manipulates her through her vulnerability. In the second season, Katja dicthes Hana for new character Ayame.
  • Negi Springfield of Negima has, unintentionally, turned about a third of his class into Shotacons.
    • In a strange reverse, Kotaro has slowly been turning Ayaka towards hating kids.
  • Johann in Monster.
  • Rokudo Mukuro in Katekyo Hitman Reborn, to Lancia.


Film[]

  • In Lawn Dogs, 10 year old Devon and 21 year old Trent become friends... at Devon's insistence. Devon later convinces Trent to accompany her while they steal chickens from a barn, and even convinces him to moon her father and a police officer.
  • The movie Matchstick Men does this, though the girl isn't actually a minor.
  • The not-too-notable Disney film No Deposit, No Return features a pair of kids who talk a couple of honest, inept crooks into kidnapping them to pay off some not-so-honest crooks.


Literature[]

  • In the original Lolita book, the pedophile protagonist Humbert Humbert claimed he was seduced by the titular girl, who had known about sex well before she met him. A not uncommon reading of the story has the reader believe Humbert's claim, even though he's an Unreliable Narrator who was just trying to justify his child molestation.


Live Action TV[]

  • Dewey from Malcolm in the Middle does this every so often.
  • There was a bit in The Man Show where the Man Show Boy stood outside a liquor store asking the patrons to buy him beer, telling one guy he had a hottie back at his treehouse. In the end, one guy did get him a six-pack. There was also another segment where the boy was actually selling the beer like a lemonade stand.


Video Games[]

  • Complete Monster Dahlia Hawthorne got her start at an early age in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney by convincing/seducing Terry Fawles into conspiring with her to fake a kidnapping.
  • Somewhere in the Kingdom Hearts continuity, scientist Ansem the Wise's youngest apprentice (eight-year-old Ienzo) was the one who convinced him to build a laboratory designed specifically for studies of Darkness and the heart, with varying levels of cruelty. For the record, the result was Ienzo and the other Apprentices condemning Ansem to a world of nothingness after their experiments got too inhumane and he started to take a stand against it.


Webcomics[]

  • It could be argued that this is what happened to Artie of Concession, as Chelsie was revealed to be hypersexual, and Artie wasn't capable of understanding what he was doing when he slept with her. However, Artie was at the time under the psychic influence of Joel, which probably had a bigger impact on his behaviour.


Western Animation[]

  • Happens in a cartoon by Swedish morbid cartoonist "Gurr"; a little girl comes up to a man and politely says that if he will "follow her into the woods", she'll give him a beer!


Real Life[]

  • Underaged children sometimes ask adults to illegally buy liquor and/or cigarettes for them at stores ("Shoulder Tapping"). The police have responded by setting up sting operations with an underaged kid asking an adult to do this: if the adult does it, they're arrested.
    • Likewise, underaged kids sometimes try to persuade store clerks to sell them the liquor/cigarettes illegally.
    • The same principle applies to Murder Simulators as well. Children get either get clueless parents to buy games for them or try to buy them directly. Games industry trade associations even organize stings to catch shopkeepers that sell adults-only games with no questions asked.
  • In 1950s England, there was the notorious Bentley case (portrayed in the movie Let Him Have It), where 19-year-old Derek Bentley (who however had a mental age of about 11) and his 16-year-old accomplice Chris Craig were interrupted by police in attempting to burgle a warehouse. Craig shot and killed a policeman (it has also been claimed that PC Miles was actually killed by a stray bullet from a police gun), and both Bentley and Craig were found guilty of this; Bentley was hanged because Craig was too young. This case is said to have led to the abolition of capital punishment in Britain.
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