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I definately do not want to imply that you or any other blue here is a pedophile. I do not believe I or @naraburns has claimed that you or any other blue here is a pedophile. I have never understood the word "groomer" to be a synonym for pedophile, and in fact it is not a synonym for pedophile. It is explicitly a term for people who violate trust in an attempt to harmfully and secretly modify children's sexuality. Up until very recently, the only people who would even dream of doing that were in fact pedophiles, but it's the abuse of trust and the clandestine modification that's being objected to, not sex with kids. If the consernation is over percieved equivocation in language, allow me to be the first to apologize.
If you and others object to this so strongly, because suddenly conversation becomes impossible if one uses terms in a specific and unambiguous way that you don't agree with, let's not allow it to interfere with our communication. Give me a word. Give me a word and I will use it. you pick the fucking word to encapsulate "a person who is motivated to grossly abuse my trust and their authority in an attempt to fuck with my child's head, damaging their sexuality and their sanity, in secret and against my expressed wishes, to a degree that makes keeping them and anyone who associates with or supports them as far away from anyone I care about as possible", and scout's honor I will use that word unfailingly from now on. I will even translate quotes from others into that word, because I sincerely believe that is the idea most of them are trying to communicate.
This offer is open to any blue here. Pick the word that you think fairly encapsulates the above concept, and you will never hear "groomer" from me again. Make it as anodyne as you like, as anodyne as possible; it will pick up all the negative affect it needs in very short order.
(8 letters or less please for convenience, please and thank you.)
I have literally never heard it used that way except by you. Rather it has always, and for years, been used to refer to a strategy employed by child abusers: RAINN defines it as "manipulative behaviors that the abuser uses to gain access to a potential victim, coerce them to agree to the abuse, and reduce the risk of being caught," and a search of Google Scholar's case law database for cases which include the terms grooming and pedophile turns up 420 hits. A search for grooming -pedophile "sexual abuse" leads to 2600 hits. Some of those are mishits, but most are not, and at least as far back as 1987, in State v. Hansen, 304 Or. 169 (1987), the court quotes a police officer using the term to describe the process used by pedophiles to lure victims.
This review article notes several definitions used by researchers, including "A course of conduct enacted by a suspected paedophile, which would give a reasonable person cause for concern that any meeting with a child arising from the conduct would be for unlawful purposes[,] "the steps taken by paedophiles to ‘‘entrap’’ their victims", "The process by which a child is befriended by a would-be abuser in an attempt to gain the child’s confidence and trust, enabling them to get the child to acquiesce to abusive activity."
Dictionary.com has the pedophile definition, but not yours. Ditto the urban dictionary Ditto the Cambridge Dictionary
The idea that the people who make "groomer" claims re trans activists or whatever are not familiar with the standard meaning of the term is dubious in the extreme. It is meant to imply that those persons are akin to, if not actual, sex offenders or wannabe sex offenders.
This is the crux of the problem, and the crux of the strategic equivocations. Over decades of study, we have identified certain behaviors that people intent on harming children tend to use to enable that harm. Encouraging children to look at porn. Engaging them in sexually charged conversations. Pushing them to keep secrets, especially from their parents.
During the ruinous lawsuits against Boy Scouts of America, information from the records was released demonstrating the sort of things that had happened in the organization. One example in my local area was something like "Man becomes scoutmaster in 1984. In 1984, he takes 6 boys camping, and provides them with porn and alcohol," No act of pedophilia was even alleged. Phrased like that, it sounds like something The Onion's version of VP Joe Biden would do, roll up to the Jamboree with a keg and hand out some Playboys, haha what a wacky joke, what kind of insane prude freaks out at 15 year old boys getting access to porn and some beer?
And yet, that sort of thing wasn't tolerated even in the 80's (that scoutmaster was banned in 1985). And this was before the regulations and protections were seriously heightened in the 90's. Currently, any adult who wants to volunteer with BSA is required to take a Youth Protection training course. That course includes video demonstrating grooming behavior, including an adult man encouraging a teenage boy to look at porn, to talk about his sexual feelings and interests, and to hide those things from his parents.
Those are grooming behaviors. That is what grooming is.
And responsible organizations categorically ban those behaviors because it's just not worth trying to separate the adults who take the next step and actually molest a kid from the
creepywacky uncle Joe Biden who is just kind of inappropriate and unfiltered. It doesn't matter if they're not actually a pedo, they're wearing a pedo uniform. But the criticism is even more restrained than that; they're not being called pedophiles, they're being called groomers. Because they're doing groomer shit.And frankly, the literal pedos are common enough. Stats for public school employees seem roughly comparable to Catholic priests, and far in excess of the Scouts. And that's not even getting into the people who have Typical Minded themselves into believing that some huge portion of the population is secretly sex or gender queer and they need to
groomhelp kids understand that.No, grooming is not merely a set of behaviors. You are ignoring the intent to molest, which is the key part.
that sort of thing wasn't tolerated even in the 80's . . . And responsible organizations categorically ban those behaviors
Yes, and well they should ban those behaviors, for the reasons you discuss; bright-line rules are adopted in the law for similar reasons, even though, in the words of the linked article, that sometimes leads to inequitable outcomes. But that is not the topic at hand. The topic is what is meant when people use the term "groomer."
PS: Although the BSA is correct to have a bright-line rule re those behaviors, I am not sure that BSA is the most representative example re these general issues, since they banned gay scoutmasters until 2015
And plenty of teachers and activists have that intent, in rates at least comparable to other organizations that have faced reputational and financial ruin over their association. And as you say, we have bright-line rules to make it easier to detect bad people. Actively generating shrouds of chaff in which bad people can operate is a bad thing. It deserves criticism. "I'm not molesting children, I'm just deliberately cultivating an environment conducive to child molestation" is not the defense you think it is.
Imagine a Scoutmaster or priest actively arguing that they should be allowed to engage kids in sexually charged conversations, make sure they had access to porn, and set an official policy of keeping secrets from parents. Oh, but don't call us groomers, only an increasing-by-obvious-incentive portion of us are literally raping kids! In the real world, Scout leaders are not allowed to talk to kids at all without another adult present, or CCed in any written communications.
Frankly, this seems like a wildly isolated demand for charity.
Yes, that was definitely erring too far on the side of protecting kids, which rather undermines your point.
So, you are agreeing with me: Those with the requisite intent are groomers, and those without it are not. I have not made any claims about how many people have that intent.
I do not agree, for the exact reason it's fair to call Ghislaine Maxwell a groomer. Same as it would be fair to say it about a wife who lured children to her husband, but deluded herself about what was going on. Intent may be necessary for a criminal charge, but willful idiocy is not a defense against social criticism.
Groomer -> Pedophile
Groomer -> Ghislaine Maxwell
Groomer -> Guzman (whoever that Virginian legislator was)
Groomer -> Educators showing their charges books like lawn boy
Groomer -> Educators showing their charges media that has trans/nonbinary/gay characters not doing sexually explicit things
Groomer -> PM me classic memes
Groomer -> pro-trans people (always unclear how wide a net this is casting, sometimes allowing for plausible deniability)
All of these claims have been made in this thread, by numerous different people. At one end, groomers are pedophiles who want to fuck your children (serious and immediate threat!). At the other end, for someone doing something categorically different, you're casting a wide enough net that tens of millions of Americans are now Maxwell-Groomer-Pedophiles (yeschad.jpeg the trolls will say).
I stopped using the words racist, sexist and misogynist for the same reasons that the definitions have gotten so amorphous that some people would call tens of millions of Americans racist (yeschad.jpeg, their response is). Y'all are just playing the same game as the normie Blue tribers you love to hate, to a remarkable degree.
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