They can be the most educated, the most good-looking, the rich, the do-gooders. Women and children too.

Perhaps naturally, or even through media outlets (tv, movies etc), we come to think of sexual predators as these sneaky, sleazy characters. If that were the case, kids wouldn’t be at as great of a risk. We could more easily spot a potential abuser and avoid them. In fact, they need to be charming, funny, nice, and talkative to gain the trust of parents and children.

Often they don’t need to gain trust because they are a family friend, youth leader, or relative of the victims. Although the media doesn’t want to address it and victims don’t want to talk about it, incest is a real threat to society.

The truth is – we need to accept that the potential exists for anyone we know to be a sexual abuser.
This doesn’t mean that we go around looking crooked at everyone, but we are conscious that it can come from anywhere. A mentality of awareness helps us to be better prepared if we are ever faced with suspecting someone we trust.

Sections from this area have been adapted from: TheMamaBearEffect.