Note: The article cited above focuses on children at risk of being selected for abuse. An incarcerated perpetrator described the signs indicating that a child is exploitable - and therefore likely to be targeted:
Quote
“(I look for) a quiet, hunted, hurt look. Have you ever seen somebody, and you’re shooting at them or something, they get kind of a hunted, wild-eyed look.
"Well, kids look like that, only it’s inside, it’s kind of like stuck hurt.
"Those kinds of kids, generally, also, are really dependent on other people and that makes them prime target for an adult that’s going to be friends with them, take them places, and do things with them.”
Friends, we may emit that same 'stuck hurt' vibe even after we have reached adulthood. Years back, a policeman who was interviewed said that muggers usually go after people whose posture lacks confidence and who seem unaware of their surroundings. We may look this way due to past trauma, or if passing through a time in life when suffering confusing and hardship due to a life change.
One may be an adult in calendar years yet be personally vulnerable to abuse unless you gain awareness of your situation.
Am sorry to report that some abusers with pedo tendencies are clever. They take care to avoid preying on minors. Instead they satisfy themselves by targeting those who are wounded children in adult bodies.
Many who are adult in calendar years carry unhealed childhood trauma and or have fragile boundaries due to being trained to be a surrogate partner to distraught parents.
One can become socially sophisticated, intellectually brilliant and economically successful as an adult, yet remain a scared child inside -- and completely unaware of this.
Predators who specialize in targeting "adult children" are the ones who can keep them trapped for years, even decades, whether in a poisonous marriage or as long term disciples in high control guru/master teacher groups.
Preying on adult children has two advantages to an astute predator:
* Being a guru, master teacher, Sufi sheikh to adult children brings social prestige
* Abuse of adults is less dangerous from a legal standpoint than preying on children
* Adult children, unlike minors, can provide large sums of money and rapidly enrich the predator.