Designer sex is the term given to teen prostitution or teen prostitutes that have sex for thrills or the money to buy designer items they want but not necessarily anything they need to survive. Middle and upper class teenagers are finding that performing simple intimate acts is an easy way to earn money in a short period.

Teens that hang out at local shopping malls are especially vulnerable. Parents often feel that a local mall is safe to allow their children to go with a friend or even unsupervised, as it populated and enclosed. They may be dead wrong.

Malls are havens for sexual predators. They can hang out, watch, and wait to make the right move. A food court is the perfect place for a predator to blend in, and sit around watching young teens, waiting for the right moment to make a move. Usually the first move would be to strike up a conversation.

People imagine sexual predators as monsters and believe these predators will immediately be identifiable when they approach you or your child.

Sexual predators are not Cyclops; they do not have a third eye in the middle of their forehead. They do not have horns. They will not breathe fire immediately on opening their mouths to speak. Pedophiles are charming, handsome, considerate, comforting, figures on the outside.

The local child rapist may look just like Santa Clause. He may be a big jolly comrade, with a deep cheerful trusting voice, white hair and beard, bright eyes and a friendly smile. Add in someone having a little concern for what is happening in the child’s life and the willingness to listen to a teen’s troubles, suddenly this is a recipe for a teen to fall victim to a pedophile.

While this man has time to spend with the child, and the child’s parents both work and have outside interests at home, leaving the child to feel alone. When, the teen realizes what is happening it is too late and he is too embarrassed to tell anyone that a man whom he thought was his friend has raped him.

In the past teens often forced into prostitution, or went into prostitution for survival. Teen prostitutes were illegal immigrants, lived-in poor urban areas, were runaways, and had histories of abuse, mentally, physically, or sexually. Today, the average age of a young woman or a boy, starting into prostitution is thirteen. When it comes to designer sex the teen is often a willing participant, living in a middle or upper class neighborhood. If you find thirteen shockingly young, consider some children are starting as young as nine years old.

Just imagine being nine years old and already having sex. How old were you when you had your first sexual meeting? What about being thirteen years old and already knowing how to please a man intimately, and getting paid money? Money the teen will then go out and buy clothes, or electronics, not because the teen needs the money to survive but because the teen wants to go shopping at the mall for designer items he or she could not afford otherwise.

Remember I am not speaking of poor urban, illegal immigrants, or homeless children whose parents cannot buy them food or shelter, much less clothes or electronics. These middle and upper class teens have homes, clothes, and cars and still choose to prostitute themselves out for money to buy things they want but cannot afford readily.

This is an alarming trend. This trend concerns both the FBI and Child Advocacy Workers nationwide. Working together, they are focusing on thirteen cities that have seen a rise in designer sex and middle and upper class teen prostitution. These cities include Chicago, Dallas, Minneapolis, Miami, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and New York as well as several others. This is obviously not isolated to a select area and is a nationwide problem. Do you know what your teen is doing while you are at work?