Profile of a Pervert

Spends a lot of time on the Internet. Believes it is a good place to hide. Thrives on secrecy.

Looks for vulnerable teens to control and exploit.

‘Grooms’ a number of teens at the same time.

Makes money by selling photos and videos of kids that are distributed through vast global Internet kiddie porn networks. Frightening to think of how many perverts are out there.

Patient. Sometimes cyber predators will take weeks or even months to “groom” a victim.

Assumes false identities. These predators are habitual liars. They lie about their age, gender, appearance, address, job, school, friends. sports – anything to get their prey.

Modus Operandi (MO) of a Pervert

Looking for teens to control and sexually exploit. Internet chat rooms and IM are the perfect place because it’s mostly teens who go there to talk and meet each other.

Understands Internet lingo used in chat rooms and IM. We’ve included a full glossary of chat room and IM language. You might be able to pick up a few terms you don’t know. Be forewarned: we’ve also posted the glossary on our site for parents.

Finds teens they like. (See Profile of a Victim) Generally the pervert keeps several teens in line for potential abuse. That increases their odds of success.

Needs secrecy to be successful at preying on kids. Perverts find out where the computer is in the house to see if an adult is monitoring the teen’s Internet use.

Predators make sure their victims erase all records of their conversations. That way if there’s trouble, adults or police won’t have any evidence of what they’ve been up to.

Predators tell their victims that their parents will be mad if they find out about their relationship. That way the kids won’t say anything to their folks because they’re afraid of their reaction. Naturally, a parent would be concerned and try to stop the pervert from hurting their child. Exactly what the pervert doesn’t want.

Once they’ve established secrecy, predators spend a lot of time grooming kids, often months. They pretend to have the same interests as their victims, like the same sports, clothes, music etc.

Continues the grooming by gradually gaining the victim’s confidence and takes them off the public chat room to private conversations and intensifies the grooming.

Encourages the kids to reveal their private fears and secrets, like their problems and their sexuality.

It’s easier to talk about private and embarrassing things because it’s not face-to-face; and it’s not a family member or someone at school that the kid will have to see every day.

Probes the victim to find out private information about family, friends, school, what they like to do and where they hang out.

Becomes increasingly sexual. Perverts will even ask kids to perform sex acts and describe them. They might send pornography over the Internet. And they might ask their victims for photos of themselves – maybe even pornographic ones.

Web cameras are one of the newest tools that a pervert may use to take advantage of you and your friends.

Perverts sit in the chat rooms and games areas and may contact you if they see an icon indicating a web camera is attached to your computer.

Over time, the pervert may encourage you to undress and do sexual acts on the camera.

Many of these perverts have hardware attached to their computer that enables them to record your actions.

The pervert can view your actions again and again. He can trade it with others or sell it for money. You lose total control of what happens to your picture.

It is a bad idea to have a web camera conversation with someone you only met online.

Sometimes the perverts aren’t even interested in kids. They just want the photos to make money off of them. Child pornography “Kiddie porn” is a big business on the Internet. You might have run across some pornography sites while you’re surfing. It can get ugly.

Profile of a Victim

Generally the victims like to meet people and make friends on the Internet, like a lot of kids do.

Sometimes the kids might be really quiet or shy. They might not have a lot of friends at school. They could be lonely.

Like a lot of teenagers, many of the victims are exploring their sexuality. Or they might feel confused about sex. And they probably aren’t comfortable talking to friends or family about it.

The perverts’ victims might also be:
curious,
trusting,
rebellious, or
have low self esteem

Our profile of a victim probably describes a lot of the people you know. Cyber perverts aren’t picky about who they choose. They’re just looking for someone vulnerable. So you have to build your defenses. Here’s how.