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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.
I mean, pedophiles are probably the most terrifying groomers. But I've heard it used in reference to cults and scientology.
Yes, that is precisely, 100%, what a Kindergarten lesson about the gender spectrum looks like to me. Especially when kept secret from parents. And especially when the end goal is having them mutilate and sterilize themself after years of imbibing these secret activities.
The techniques I see trans activist use on children are every bit as chilling and manipulative as anything I've read or seen depicted about pedophiles. And falling back on "But the child wants it" doesn't make it sound any better. Adults know how to manipulate children into wanting things. It often requires little more carrot and stick that making them feel special, or withholding attention. Used properly, you can get them to brush their teeth like their are supposed to. Used improperly, you get them to jack you off and feel legitimately awesome for doing so. At least until the harsh reality of adulthood sets in and they realize what was done to them.
Speaking of, we're hitting the first generation of aggressively groomed trans adults, and their regrets look an awful lot like the groomed victims of pedophiles.
That might well be. I am perfectly willing to concede that for the purpose of argument. But the term "grooming" means more than chilling or manipulative behavior; it means behavior done for the ultimate purpose of sexually assaulting the child. The intent is the key part. Hence, if I call you a groomer, that means I am accusing you have wanting to have sex with children. Is it your understanding that that is the intent of people who advocate for the policies in question?
Rephrase that to "the ultimate purpose of sexually exploiting the child." What the people using the term "groomer" now are seeing is even worse than your definition: instead of one lone perpertrator running the entire grooming schedule, there's a diffused but coordinated grooming operation with multiple points of contact that is conditioning children for sexual exploitation. Perhaps many of these so-called "groomers" were groomed themselves by snowballing social conditioning to ignore past limits on sexual definition and expression and encourage further erosion of sexual norms, as if those norms had no utility.
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