By Julie Posey
Nearly every day we are reading about a young child somewhere in the United States who has been sexually abused after first meeting a sexual predator online. The crimes committed range from fondling to forcible rape and often involve kidnapping.
Still, an amazing number of people falsely believe that most men found in online chat rooms are there simply to act out a harmless fantasy and outside of this land of make believe, they would never really harm a child.
At some point in time, many people are curious about what happens in some chat rooms based on their names. Those with a curiosity or a fantasy are more likely to enter the room and see the topics of conversations and move on.
For pedophiles, it is much different. They are likely to be in chat rooms that fuel his interests and behaviors night after night for months or even years.
To discern the difference between a man acting out a fantasy and a man with pedophile tendencies, you have to take a good look at the behaviors he is exhibiting and in what context he is modeling his behavior.
Chat Room Descriptions
Most of the free advertiser supported chat rooms allow users to create a chat room based on any theme conceivable and do very little to monitor the activity found in these areas. Hundreds of self proclaimed pedophiles meet in rooms with names like “OlderMen4Teens”, “Dad&DaughterSex”, or “SchoolGirlSex.”
Many activities are observed in these chat rooms ranging from trading explicit and violent child pornography to openly sharing erotic stories about having sexual contact with children as young as infants with other like minded chat room participants.
The pedophiles are well aware of the increased law enforcement presence online and when a curious teenager enters the room, he or she is often requested to appear on Web cam or the pedophile requests a phone call.
Once the pedophile verifies or believes that he is talking to someone under 18, the grooming process begins. Pedophiles are very skilled at finding the void in a young person’s life and filling that need as soon as possible. This void may be something that a child needs such as love, acceptance or companionship or may even be more basic and include food and housing. The emptiness in the child’s life may not be a need but be something that the child wants including games, music, clothes or other desires.
Online Identity
Pedophiles typically conceal their identities at least at first and they frequently use online monikers like, “Dad4Daughter,” “Man4Teen,” or “37Man4PreTeen.”
A pedophiles primary goal is to meet the young person he found in a chat room face-to-face so he will eventually reveal his true identity and give up his phone number, cell phone number, pictures and in many cases he will tell the teen his correct address.
Pornography Collection
It is erroneously believed by many people that men who visit chat rooms are there because their primary interest is having sexual fantasies with adults who are pretending to be underage kids.
The best way to differentiate between people involved in an online fantasy and one who has pedophile behaviors, look at the ages of the victims depicted in his pornography collection and how much child pornography he collects.
One trapped in a sexual fantasy may have images of 18-19 year olds claiming to be much younger but in the case of true pedophiles, there is seldom any doubt that the majority of his child pornography collection features very young children who are obviously underage.
According to one study, 83% of the images contained on the hard drives of the child pornographers depicted children between the ages of 6-12, 39% were children aged 3-5 and 19% of the children in the images were infants and toddlers[1].
Pedophiles frequently are found to be in possession of hundred or even thousands of images of pornography depicting underage boys and girls involved in a variety of sexually explicit positions.
Recent studies show a direct connection to child pornography and molesting children. One study revealed that 55% of those who were arrested for the possession of child pornography were also arrested for sexually victimizing a child or attempting to sexually assault a child.
While a person cannot be arrested, charged, or convicted for his personal thoughts or fantasies, role-playing in pedophile or child pornography chat rooms is a very dangerous game to play. Most experts agree that a person is a direct product of what they think about current statistics back up this philosophy. Those thinking about having sexual contact with children are likely to be molesting children.
55% of the child pornography cases were discovered through reported cases of child sexual abuse. 39% of the sex offenders who met their child victims online also possessed child pornography.
[1] Wolak Janis, Finkelhor David and Mitchell Kimberly J. National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. (2005) Child-Pornography Possessors Arrested in Internet-Related Crimes: Findings From the National Juvenile Online Victimization Study.
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