The Predator Awakens

As readers of my original Fifthnail blog (link, top-right) may know, while I was living in North Dakota I took up skiing for the first time. The slopes were no resort, more like just a few hills. But they did have lifts, and Thursdays were “student night”, so I could use my NDSU I.D. To get rentals and lifts until midnight for only $25. It was the perfect chance for me to learn something I had always wanted to learn.
Of course there are always a lot of kids around the ski slopes, especially little slopes like these. But I wasn't interested in the children, I was there to practice skiing, and even if I happened to get a lift with a cute kid, I would be courteous, but otherwise ignore them. Like I said, my mind was on skiing, and I was enjoying myself responsibly for once.
I spent hours at a time on the slopes without a break, even in below zero weather (I'd learned how to dress warm living in Fargo). But, at some point I had to stop to use the bathroom.
On one such occasion I found myself in the small “boys room” alone, relieving myself in a urinal with my mind on what run I would choose next, or some such thing, when I heard the door to the bathroom open behind me and someone come in. As I finished relieving myself I instinctively noted that whoever came in did not move into the bathroom to take care of business, so I glanced out of curiosity over my shoulder to see if anyone was actually even there.
I saw a young boy, about nine or ten years old standing by the door, dressed as though he'd just come off the slopes for a quick pee, like me. Several children had just exited the bathroom a moment beforem after I had politely waited for them to finish theis business before pulling out my own hose to take care of mine. So seeing the kid in the bathroom alone was no real shocker, or turn on. I figured immediately that he must be waiting for me to finish – since it was such a small bathroom with only two urinals side-by-side – the same way I had waited for the kids before me to finish, just being polite.
But then I saw him flinch with hesitation. It was the most subtle movement that I caught out of the corner of my eye just as I was looking away from him. The boy had made a move that an animal makes when it is suddenly afraid and uncertain of its predicament. Something inside of me became suddenly awake, and aroused at the same time.
Of course I did not move on the boy, he was very safe where he was. In fact – and I know many will scoff at this, but it is absolutely true – I would have risked my life to protect that boy from harm if any had been threatened. At least in that context I would have; the chalet was not a safe “hunting ground”, not by far.
But the predator had definitely been stirred and awakened, and I took due notice. It wasn't the boy's appearance, age, or circumstances that aroused me, it was his fear, and his fear alone. The boy's fear had awaken a very dangerous predatory instinct.
I turned again and shrugged, nodded, and smiled to the boy, to assure him that I was finished, and that he was safe. As I washed my hands, I metaphorically scratched the predator inside of me behind the ears and thought to it: not yet my friend; not yet... go back to sleep.

P.S. We all have “sleeping predators” inside of us. Predators are born of fear, and live by it. To teach our children to “be afraid of strangers” (e.g. “stranger danger”) is to prepare them to be a victim. Children who are not afraid of strangers are not nearly as appealing to child predators. That does not mean they are immune to attack, only that they are much less likely to be targeted. And, if they are attacked, they are much more likely to escape unharmed. As a “child predator” myself I speak from direct experience, not psychological theory. Several times children that I targeted as prey escaped using natural instincts that were unhampered by fear. (Once a 7-year-old boy who I had alone in the woods, a firm grip on his arm, and a sharp knife in his face, got away by screaming and fighting. He was lucky I did not use the knife, or was he? Perhaps he instinctively knew that I wouldn't. Who knows, but he got away unscathed.) I also know of other child predators who have said the same thing (Westley Allan Dodd, for one), though most child predators are oblivious to their own predatory nature, so they do not even realize that it is fear that drives their lust. The same can be said for most other predators as well.