Sexual Predators

As the term sexual predator has entered popular culture, the definition of the term has been corrupted. In general, the term has come to connote any type of deviant sexual behavior. From a social science perspective, the trouble with this lack of specificity of it as a term has been that the use of the term depends on the moral orientation of the user. For example, many laypeople use the term to identify people interested in recreational sex with a partner who has reached the age of consent, whereas others use it synonymously with pedophile. For the purposes of this discussion, the term will indicate adults who abuse their position of power and authority over minor children by coercing those children, through either persuasion or ...