Question from David Canham - "You have met a number of predators. How might readers identify such individuals?"
The reality is that predators often identify you before you can identify them. However I have found it a fascinating exercise to determine a number of tricks that help to identify them.
For one thing, they will generally not contact you first. At the time they are wanting to lure you in, they will often put something in their profile text that will appeal to you, such as the word ‘honesty’ or ‘respect’, based on what they know you expect. This they know from other predators. The reason they will generally not contact you first is that following any assault, or IBSA, they need the evidence to show that it was you who contacted them, so therefore they cannot have predated upon you. This is a nice trick if the victim is unaware. As I was aware, I initiated contact with various people whom I suspected of being predators, visited some, and gathered as much information as I could. When you do meet them, there are quite a number of tells, not all of which I will divulge at this point.
A second key tell is a disconnect between conscious and unconscious behaviour.
To be a successful sex predator you need to be capable of connected play. Anyone capable of any genuine connection with others cannot be predatory. The two are incompatible. I have observed time and time again that any conflict between feigned intent and actual intent manifests in myriad ways.
This might be furtive eye-rolling followed by the showering of attention, or pointed questions about your personal life, with no mutual sharing or further expansion of the discussion. These conscious efforts they make to feign connection are transparent because during those greater periods of unconscious behaviour, who you are and the premise upon which you were invited are ignored.
Weak predators, to their credit, do make attempts to feign connection with the victim, but a lack of authenticity is always readily apparent in sudden flurries of attentiveness or unnecessary, even outlandish, and overly-zealous compliments. They poorly camouflage their disinterest in all the things that are conventional to a normal date. This is evident even in their interchanges with other predators at the venue.
The weakest predators do not attempt to feign a connection and provide any camouflage. They are so smitten with the pride they feel in their own imagined skills, that they fail to recognise they are being observed or recorded by the victim.
The weakest predator I have ever met, in Co Down, sat for a solid 6 hours gaping at Grindr, and never left the table save to film and spike drinks. An invitation to play followed by no play represents a major disconnect between conscious actions and unconscious behaviour, and no such predator is worthy of any success. Here there was an enormous disconnect between conscious behaviour and unconscious behaviour.
A third tell is confusion. Predators are in many ways confused individuals.
Whether they focus on IBSA or sexual assault or both, their confusion manifests in hypocrisy and cowardice. They like to spread gossip, images and videos of their victim with dozens of other equally hypocritical, cowardly cronies, yet would fly into a blind rage if a victim dare mention them or their actions, or dare distribute images of them.
Predators foolishly confuse insider knowledge of pre-planning an abusive event with having the intelligence necessary to pull it off. Knowledge and intelligence are not the same thing. As intelligence will generally trump knowledge, it is important for a victim to apply his intelligence to any abusive situation. To do so requires that the victim remain calm and collected, and employ his own forms of subterfuge. Given the soaring levels of sex crime in gay society, fuelled by the ready availability and draw of chems, I feel all gay men should go to meets with much greater mental preparation, with clear strategies in their heads.
Predators often appear to confuse calculation with evil, purely because they apply their own calculation to evil. They greatly enjoy strategic planning sessions with accomplices and I have watched them spend countless hours texting other dysfunctional types on encrypted apps like Wickr, Telegram, WhatsApp, methodically deleting chat histories every half hour, just to be on the safe side. When they then behold a victim who is not evil, it does not occur to them that the victim may be calculating, perhaps more so than they. It does not occur to them that a victim is equally capable of deploying tricks, either in advance, on the spot, or later, and all for good, rather than evil purposes.
Here there was an enormous disconnect between conscious behaviour and unconscious behaviour.
A fourth tell is arrogance.
After so much detailed observation of predatory activity, I have begun to believe that predatory behaviours may emanate from deep-seated arrogance. As David has noted in his blog, he was singled out by someone who took it upon himself to act as judge and jury. Predators imagine they are better in some way than those they target; they claim entitlements that they do not have; they assume they have some moral high ground to exact revenge - but clearly also recognise the illegality of their conduct, since they attempt to obscure all tracks with the greatest zeal. In emails I captured in Newry, I saw someone 40 miles away whom I had never met try to convince the host that I needed to be injured to be ‘taught a lesson’.
Through their extraordinary belief that the victim can have no idea of any pre-planning (in my case, after 22 instances, each new one abuser imagines I am green, and never stops to wonder what I may have prepared in advance), or through their equally extraordinary belief that the victim only 6 feet away somehow cannot observe them spend 3 hours on the phone, gay sex predators demonstrate a sense of omnipotence; this manifests itself in a level of excitation, conceit and arrogance that in my experience have always been palpable enough for all intent to be declared.
They calculate that the victim, whom they have attempted to incapacitate with furtively administered drugs, is less astute than they who have remained sober. However it appears to me, after 22 abusive events, that even with such incapacitation, victims can still be more astute than most sex predators, so victims everywhere should take heart. Certainly, clever people do not engage in sexual predation. Given the potential legal repercussions it carries, these characters are compelled to do it because they have committed crimes that others in the network could expose if they do not comply, or it stimulates some part of them, or for money, or because they feel they can, and will never be held to account. 90% of sexual assaults are not investigated satisfactorily and are thus not prosecuted. However, none of this is clever.
A fifth important tell is cross-referencing.
They will frequently repeat a comment you have made to a previous predator, in an effort to find a point to engage you with. Each predator in succession attempts to add something further to the character profile of the victim. This usually happened around half a dozen times in any abusive meet I had. Knowing that I was the subject of a conspiratorial vendetta by these people, who were typing up and circulating everything I said, I realised early on the value of stating different things to different predators, or of reiterating certain things I wished to become cemented. I decided I could be slightly controversial here and there. It has given quite a bit of intellectual pleasure, I must confess, hearing items referenced at future meets, thus confirming network connections, and the danger in the situation. This is only one ruse that allowed me to obtain adequate warnings without the predator knowing.
Sixthly, and perhaps the most easily identifiable of all 50+ tells I know, is IT usage.
IT is used both to perpetrate crime and to provide evidence supporting a predator’s own version of any IBSA or assault, so it is imperative to pay attention to IT-usage.
For example, just prior to an assault, they will record themselves asking the victim 3 times in succession if they want x. By asking 3 times, the courts would see this as consent. The consent would not be unequivocal, because anyone who has been incapacitated is not deemed capable of making sound decisions, but the requests do mitigate. Therefore, you know that if ever asked an identical question related to permission, more than one time in rapid succession, you are in immediate danger. It is important to say no very loudly and clearly, even if in your heart you might want to continue.
If you notice a phone being brought into the bedroom, you are at risk. Ask why it is there. Nobody requires a phone in a bed. It is there only to film you, record your consent prior to an assault, or to record any information you might be loose-tongued enough to give.
If you notice a phone switched on and its screen remains active within a few feet of the bed, the phone is recording audio. Recording voices without permission is not illegal in the UK.
Film of the victim enjoying him or herself beforehand is secured as it helps mitigate any likelihood of prosecution or sentencing.
If you notice a phone being held during a quiet conversation in which you are asked questions, you are being recorded.
If you are asked questions about someone else you know to be in the network, you are being asked so that they can pass the voice memo on to that person. Personally, I have always found this too enjoyable to pass up. Recording someone to pass these recordings on to the person being asked about is abusive and as I knew I was in a vendetta, I have used these abusive moments to plant details that I knew would surface at an abusive meet down the line. These were clearly not genuine, private chats, so I have said whatever I wanted as part of the game.
If you notice a laptop running and the host swipes up from the bottom or side of the screen from time to time, there are other applications running on an extended desktop.
If you notice a webcam light, you are being streamed. Leave.
If the host will not engage in any activity with you unless the computer is running, or the phone is with him, there is a reason. Leave.
They circulate the images around the network and some accomplice with IT skills then edits out the host and any defining characteristics of the room in which the video was taken. In Newry, the host even blurted out that his dark wardrobes would be edited out.
When you enter a room you should always count the plugs and always count which devices and how many are plugged in when you first arrive. It is easier to count a number rather than try to recall a list of products. Repeat your count every 30 minutes. The host never realises what you are doing, but this gives you very important information that could save you from IBSA or from a streamed assault.
There are many, many more tells that I will be writing about in much more depth in a book that is on the way. But to round off this section of David’s blog, I will end with this rather spectacular tell.
Gay sex predators are excited by openly voicing aspects of their plan, as though taunting the victim, whom they regard as stupid.
They seek to derive pleasure from a victim missing the point, and see a non-reaction on the part of the victim as confirmation of their own magnificence. It does not occur to them that the victim has been waiting for a specific reference to be made, knows why it has been made, has chosen in advance of the meet to remain reaction-less when it is made, and has determined in advance how to steer the rest of the meet once he hears this tell. I have lost track of the number of times I have remained unresponsive or feigned stupor. The more stupefied the victim appears, the more likelihood that the predator will make mistakes, thus providing the victim with important cues. At one single meet in County Down in 2020, I counted over 150 possible indicators of malicious intent betrayed by this one single tell.
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