WHEN Theresa Goddard touched down at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, she thought she was meeting the man of her dreams to start her “incest family”.

The 45-year-old whose online avatar is “pervstepmom”, had been chatting with a 51-year-old father-of-two online for months, sharing photographs, messages and plans to have a baby of their own.

Only after she quit her job at a lumber mill and flew south, she was arrested in an undercover sting led by US Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Kevin Laws, who had been working undercover to capture the woman in the unusual case.

“I was the dad pimping out my children,” Mr Laws told news.com.au.

“She posted an ad looking for an incest family. I responded. She wanted to do a number of things. [For me] to get her pregnant. To adopt a child to keep in the basement.”

Ms Goddard is now serving 10 years in jail and Mr Laws used the example as part of his keynote address at a Gold Coast conference focussing on the underreported and often misunderstood realm of female sexual offending.

The Youth, Technology and Virtual Communities Conference is attended by more than 300 delegates from around the world and is focusing on female sexual offenders as its main theme.

“They’ve always been out there but this conference is centred around them. It’s good to get people to think outside the box,” Mr Laws said. “A lot of the females are worse than the males, as far as deviants go.”

The conference takes place over the next three days and aims to provide those in law enforcement and protective services with international expertise to tackle a difficult and evolving issue.

Detective Inspector Jon Rouse, from Taskforce Argos, the Queenland Police unit responsible for hunting down sexual predators said feedback from previous years meant delegates wanted more information on what motivates female sexual offenders.

“We are certainly seeing an increase in our arrests for female sexual offenders,” he said.

“In 12 months we arrested 172 sex offenders - three have been female. The proportion is very different, we are interested in what drives this to happen.”

“Also the variance in sentencing we see …. What is the society view? What is the media view? What is the judiciary view? We’re black and white, but the sentencing regime tends to be very interesting.”

The Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault estimates female offenders are responsible for just 5 per cent of all offences, but it’s a hugely undocumented area made difficult by the lack of research and victims’ reluctance to report crimes.

Studies show that female sex offenders are likely to be known to the victim and male coercion can be an important part of their offending. Detective Rouse said as in all cases, there is no typical profile of a sex offender.

“They come from all walks of life. There’s no way you can put them in a box and say that is the threat. There are always common denominators …[but] there is no single common denonimator.”

The role of technology is also a major component with speeches by representatives from Facebook and Google. Detective Rouse said the rise of online dating has provided would-be offenders with plenty of opportunity, however it’s also given greater scope to police to catch criminals.

“We’re quite patient. We spend several years on a lot of our operations. It comes with that element of risk.”

He said parents and children need to remember not to post photographs of themselves or accept friend requests from strangers.

“We really need mums and dads to educate themselves about the technology they’re providing their kids. You’ve got to remember it does more than ring — it’s a mobile computer now. Threatening that you’re going to take device away and block them from the internet, that’s not going to work, you’re much better off supporting them.”

victoria.craw@news.com.au