Predator, Sexual

A sexual predator receives sexual satisfaction by engaging in exploitative and/or nonconsensual acts with less powerful individuals. The majority of sexual predators are men who target women and children, but women commit 1 to 4 percent of reported sexual offenses. Predatory acts include rape, sexual assault, lust homicide, incest, and domestic violence. Other nonviolent predatory acts occur in exaggerated cases of sexual paraphilias (disorders) with nonconsenting partners, including exhibitionism, voyeurism, and frotteurism (touching or rubbing against a person in public without consent). Certain types of pornography and prostitution are connected with sexual predators who enjoy the unequal power dynamic implicit in those practices.

TYPES AND MOTIVATIONS

Sexual predators are motivated by emotions such as anger, aggression, loathing, fear, and insecurity, and their actions typically are aimed at controlling or dominating others. Although not all people who practice deviant sexual practices such as voyeurism become aggressive sexual predators, most predators who commit illegal sexual acts displayed deviant sexual tendencies in their youth. Those people possibly become predators because their desires are not fulfilled by culturally sanctioned sexual acts. They experience increasingly intense sexual arousal focused on a paraphilia such as pedophilia that demands greater and greater stimulation, ultimately resulting in predatory acts that endanger others.

The appearance and popularity of the Internet have created a new venue for sexual predation. The Internet sex industry uses the most innovative technology on the Internet and in the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century accounted for $12 billion in annual revenue. Predatory acts on the Internet include organized prostitution tours, mail-order brides, online prostitution, child pornography, and sexually abusive text conversations with children.

Because it is impossible to regulate all Internet activity, many concerns have been raised about children's ability to access pornographic material that is readily available online. However, online interaction between children and adults is particularly problematic because it allows for several types of sexual predation. Many predators use online chat rooms to seduce underage children into sexually explicit conversations, often following up with attempts to arrange physical meetings. Those predators may take on an identity other than their own, often claiming to be children when they are much older. If they arrange a meeting, they usually abuse the children sexually and may kidnap them.

Pornography and prostitution can be considered forms of sexual predation, especially because prostitutes or models are often financially desperate and unwilling participants in at least some of those acts. In addition, most of those individuals are subject to physical and emotional violence from their clients or pimps. Studies have shown that at least 70 percent of prostitutes have been raped, and those rapes are not always committed by a client or pimp. Both the Internet and globalization have produced an international sex industry that allows sexual predators from wealthy first-world countries to gain access to victims in impoverished, underdeveloped, or war-torn countries. As sex tourists, predators may visit a country such as the Philippines and then post their experiences with prostitutes, many of whom may be underage. Other people can then access this often pornographic, misogynist, and/or sadistic information and learn how to procure and treat prostitutes when they visit.

AMERICAN LAWS AGAINST SEXUAL PREDATION

There are both federal and state laws that punish sexual predators, attempt to limit opportunities for predation, and inform communities about known predators. Several laws outlaw forcible rape, and starting in 1976, marital rape no longer was excluded from punishment. Laws designed to protect children prohibit incest, sex with minors, and kidnapping. The federal Child Abuse and Prevention Treatment Act of 1974 defines child abuse and neglect and mandates public support and information for communities. Aimed at stopping child pornography, the Sexual Exploitation Act of 1978 prohibits the transportation of children across state lines for purposes of sexual exploitation. Other federal laws prohibit child prostitution and pornography, punishing pimps, pornographers, and parents who allow their children to be misused in that way. Several laws from the 1990s are aimed at preventing child pornography on the Internet and limiting underage access to pornographic material. Child prostitution is illegal in all fifty states, and prostitution is illegal in every state except Nevada. To reduce trafficking in women and children, the Mann Act, originally passed in 1910, prohibits the interstate transportation of women or girls for commercial sexual purposes. A 1986 revision expanded its terms to include all genders and noncommercial activities. To protect communities and keep known predators under surveillance, all the states have laws requiring sex offenders to register with a local agency, and that information is made available to the public.

see also Rape.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dobbert, Duane L. 2004. Halting the Sexual Predators among Us: Preventing Attack, Rape, and Lust Homicide. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Flowers, R. Barri. 2001. Sex Crimes, Predators, Perpetrators, Prostitutes, and Victims: An Examination of Sexual Criminality and Victimization. Springfield, IL: C.C. Thomas.

Holmes, Ronald M., and Stephen T. Holmes, eds. 2002. Current Perspectives on Sex Crimes. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Hughes, Donna M. 1999. Pimps and Predators on the Internet: Globalizing the Sexual Exploitation of Women and Children. Kingston, RI: Coalition against Trafficking in Women. Available from http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes.

                                        Michelle Veenstra