Making Sense of the Gray Area Called Grooming
Grooming. It’s a concept that we who work to serve children and families impacted by abuse are glad to hear people discussing. If you haven’t heard this term before or don’t quite know what it means, here it is. Grooming is a process used by those who abuse children to gain trust, access to children, and even silence about suspicions, not only on the part of the children they intend to abuse, but also on among the entire community. The trusted doctor, coach, pastor, or neighbor that turns out to be a mass-abuser? Without gaining the trust or at least the benefit of the doubt of the community, the abuse would have been unlikely to move beyond the initial victim. So, for the American public to grow wise to this strategy must be a good thing.
Or is it? Chances are, if you’ve heard someone in your life, your community, or in the media talk about grooming, it’s just as likely you’ve heard them misuse it to describe something that isn’t grooming. One of the latest hot-button issues in the culture wars is leveling accusations of “grooming” against LGBTQ+ educators, or even against sex educators of any gender or orientation. And, in these culture wars, misusing the term “grooming” and leveling accusations of “grooming” are a deeply damaging way of attacking a group by subtly linking that group to child sexual abuse even though the two things are unrelated.
Getting the definition right matters. And, most of all to child sexual abuse victims and survivors. Any misuse of the term “grooming,” whether intentional or accidental, hurts the victims of child sexual abuse by minimizing their experience and makes it harder and more confusing to identify potential abusers.
One can forgive a certain amount of confusion about what constitutes grooming behaviors given that in the appropriate context the behaviors are not in and of themselves wrong: giving gifts to children, taking them on special trips, one-on-one attention etc. Context and boundary violations are what make the difference. Unconcerning behavior by a family member for a child’s birthday, but alarming behavior to a child by clergy or a teacher on any day.
I agree with Carole Swiecicki, a psychologist who serves at the Dee Norton Child Advocacy Center in Charleston, S.C. — one of 939 such centers serving child abuse victims in the US regarding the central point that grooming is about boundary-breaking. “I prefer the term, ‘desensitizing to boundary-breaking,’” she says in an interview with Rolling Stone. She goes on to describe grooming as a clear, intentional set of behaviors that desensitize children and their families to increasingly inappropriate behaviors.
And what’s the risk of getting it wrong? Of course, it’s inappropriate and harmful to use grooming allegations as a weapon against marginalized people. But beyond that, throwing around terms like “grooming” instead of using them accurately and in proper context can backfire: trivializing the experience of being groomed, so that children truly experiencing the prelude to abuse can’t recognize what is happening to them. Not to mention, that if we make the term grooming meaningless, then we weaken our ability to prevent abuse from happening in the first place, confusing adults about what signs are concerning enough to report.
Tempted to use the word grooming to describe behavior you just don’t like? Don’t. And, don’t let others chip away at the real meaning of the word either. Every misuse of the term grooming directly erodes our ability to protect children from sexual abuse by whittling away at our collective ability to identify signs of abuse in time to take action to prevent it.
America’s children can use all the help they can get to stay safe and healthy. Can they count on yours?
