One of them is Talitha (all names have been changed to protect privacy), a 38-year-old English teacher in Jakarta. In 2017, when she was heartbroken, tremendously stressed at work and feeling lonely in her boarding house, she met a man through a Facebook poetry community.

She said the man was highly charming and very handsome. She felt a sense of affinity with the man since they both were writing poetry about their heartbreak.

“He complimented me, asking how a woman as beautiful as myself was still single,” Talitha told The Jakarta Post.

Little did Talitha realize that the man was merely playing victim and faking his heartbreak to gain sympathy from her. Furthermore, all the praises the man sang her in the beginning of their courtship only sought to manipulate her to turn her into convenient prey.

“If someone is too nice, too complimenting, excessively charming and looks perfect – these are red flags. You usually have a feeling in your gut saying something doesn’t feel right [about the man], yet you can’t really pinpoint it,” said Candice Christiansen, founder and clinical director of the United States-based Namasté Center for Healing.

“However, people who have low self-esteem, have recently gone through breakups, have had a history of abusive relationships and/or are depressed, tend to question that gut response, which says ‘ick’ about their online date. Those who seek social media validation could also be more vulnerable [to sexual predators],” Christiansen, author of the 2016 book Mastering the Trauma Wound: A Mindful Approach to Healing Trauma and Creating Healthier Relationships, told the Post in a Zoom interview.

This is why, according to Christiansen, people tend to stick with their online dates despite the initial icky feelings they might have about them. From now on, the sexual predators will escalate their power play using sexuality.

Talitha said that, after a little while, this man started calling her on the phone. It was not long before he started to sexualize every topic of conversation they had.

“When I asked him ‘how are you holding up [with all your problems]’, to know how he managed to stay sane amid all his pain, he answered that, if it weren’t for the belt around his waist, he would’ve taken his pants off [to let off steam] more often,” Talitha recounted.

“What’s scary is that, when someone moves really fast from text messages to having phone calls and they go very sexual, causing you to feel aroused; that’s another red flag,” Christiansen advised.

"Ask yourself a cautionary question: Why does talking about sex with someone I do not know feel so good?" she continued.

“Therefore, if you have a physiological response when they’re flirting at you, better cut the conversation short, even when it feels good. You have to look at what’s going on, especially when you haven’t met your date offline yet,” she explained.

Talitha said it was not long before her online date escalated from making sexual innuendos to sending her videos of himself half-naked (and later, totally naked) in the bathroom.

She said that sexual predators often sexualized themselves, turning their sexuality into a weapon to control their victims and feel powerful.

“They think ‘if I get my clothes off and you give me a response then, I can give you more. I have the power to describe or show you just how much I want, you don’t get to ask me for that’. Then, if he escalates by asking you to show him your body parts [in return], who’s in control now?” Christiansen said.

She said soon after you sent him your naked pictures, he would raise the stakes by telling you that he touched himself and was getting off by looking at your pictures.

Talitha said she got traumatized from seeing her former online date masturbate and ejaculate on camera upon asking her to dance topless in front of him, which he considered a "return of favor" after he had shown himself naked to her. She went on to say that she got suicidal when she discovered that her online date was leaking nude pictures of other women, fearing he would leak her nude video call screenshots as well.

Before that worst-case scenario happened, her online date was nabbed by police on August 2019 on charges of raping a 9-year-old girl.

Yet, Christiansen said that, aside from committing revenge porn, many online sexual predators went as far as stalking their victims.

This is why she advised: “You want to block their phone numbers and their social media accounts right away and even report them if they’re on dating sites. You might want to warn the people around you [in case you’re afraid they’re stalking you]”.

Also, it is important to remember that what you have gone through is not your fault. Reach out to your friends and a professional therapist for help.

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