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Boise Pride cancels "Drag Kids" event after a number of sponsors withdrew, with a predictable dose of corporate doublespeak.
I have a lot of thoughts about this, but what is actually bothering me most right now is the coverage. Particularly this gem:
As far as I can tell, this is a publicly-funded news organization actively spreading outright disinformation--FUD, really--about the term "groomer." It reminds me of when "cultural Marxism" became an "anti-Semitic conspiracy theory" practically overnight (no big deal, the term "critical theory" recaptured the energy). It reminds me of the sudden fluidity of online dictionary definitions every time a Democrat politician tells an obvious lie. It reminds me of Clarence Thomas being referred to by Harry Reid as a white man.
"Groomer" is effective rhetoric, so I can understand why certain groups want it killed. But like... how is "Drag Kids" even remotely plausibly not grooming? Some of the talking points I see floating on Twitter are, like, "What about child beauty pageants?" But this moves me not a single iota--I hate child beauty pageants for exactly the same reason. It's weird! It's creepy! Or to put it in less emotionally-charged terms: it's not something kids do, when they grow up in loving, healthy, stable environments. At best it's a symptom of deeper troubles; at worst, it's a direct cause of some of those troubles. I mean, yes, emotional and physical and sexual abuse, but also just long term psychological problems. Have you seen the stats on child movie stars? Olympic athletes? I don't think it's necessarily fair to insist that we strip away the culture war angles entirely, but if I'm steelmanning "Drag Kids" the best I can come up with is "this is a new manifestation of an old and widespread form of child abuse, namely, using children for adult entertainment, often by putting inappropriate pressure on them to participate." Are we really going to say Hollywood isn't rife with child abuse? (Hmm, they're also mostly Democrats...) And when someone says "Drag Kids is sexualizing children" only to be met with "no, you're making it sexual, you right-wing pervert, we're just having silly fun"--it's maddening. Like, really? I'm supposed to believe that you're putting your kid in a leather thong for silly fun? Be serious. If that's not grooming, nothing is.
Am I ranting? This feels pretty ranty. But I do have a serious question. What's the appropriate mistake-theory response to strategic abuses of language? How should I react, if not with ranting, to a transparent attempt to tar people who clearly want to protect children from manifest harms as mere conspiracy theorists? I am a bit old school, I learned to hate the phrase "think of the children" before many of you were born, but surely sometimes we do, in fact, need to protect children. Not incorporating child-sexualizing events into our civic religion seems like a pretty obvious way to do that.
And, I suppose, someone will point out that Boise Pride's "Drag Kids" grooming hour did indeed get canceled! The system works! The subtext there being--what am I complaining about? Well, in brief, I'm still complaining about the news coverage, which has very big "Republicans pounce" energy. I would like to be able to seriously criticize that sort of thing without actively culture warring, but I don't feel like I have a lot of good mistake-theory tools to respond with. Maybe that's the point, I guess--to try to maneuver people into a position where they feel sheepish for acting like an "aggressor" in the face of kids having "silly fun." Which seems, to me, like an especially evil way of being a conflict theorist.
It isn't. Grooming in the context of CSE means to try to position a child so that you can have sexual contact of one sort or another with them. If you convince a child to wear a thong via drugs or alcohol or love bombing or manipulation so that you can have sex with them, or derive sexual enjoyment from watching them, this would be grooming. If you did so for any other reason it really shouldn't be called grooming. It's probably a terrible idea and might open your child up to positions where OTHER people can take advantage or derive the sexual pleasure talked about earlier, but it isn't grooming in this context.
Just like having your child take part in beauty pageants (as you mentioned) where they dress up as adults, might wear swimwear etc, wear make up, is not grooming unless it is with the intention of taking advantage of them sexually. In both cases you may well find such activities attract predators and this is a real risk, but the mothers of these sexualized girls are not groomers either. Living out some strange projected idea of success and acceptance through their own kids? Sure. Depriving them of a healthy childhood? Almost certainly. Guilty of some kind of emotional abuse? There is a good chance. But those things aren't grooming as used in the context of CSE which is the link that the rhetoric is trying to make.
It's a rhetorical weapon, building off of visceral dislike for these behaviors. Just like calling right wingers Nazis. The vast majority of right wingers, voters, politicians et all are not Nazis. The vast majority of parents and organizers of Drag events or child beauty pageants are not groomers.
I used to work with social workers and dealt with and wrote reports on some CSE cases, including Rotherham et al, the people grooming kids in those situations were doing so, to literally rape them and then often prostitute them. So no, neither child beauty pageants or drag kids stuff are in and of themselves grooming, without that intent. Stupid and possibly psychologically damaging yes. Grooming no. There is a gap in between. Just like there is a gap in between "I don't like illegal immigration" and "I hate the Jews".
It's entirely understandable for it to be used in the normal context, it is an effective weapon. I'd certainly if I were still a political advisor be advocating for Republicans to use it as an attack strategy. I am a little disappointed it seems to be getting traction here. The behaviors can be bad without being actual child grooming. A mother who has her child wear make up, takes bikini pictures of her in suggestive poses and the like in order to offer her to her new boyfriend (a real case) is a groomer. A mother who does all the same things because she things it's progressive or because it will let her child experience new things or because she wants to live out her glory days vicariously is not. It is still probably a terrible idea regardless.
For those who deal with CSE, and hopefully for us here, that is a distinction worth making.
I don't think I agree with this. If a mother is, e.g., using psychological pressure on her child to tolerate her boyfriend's sexual abuse out of a sense of loyalty or even fear of the boyfriend, I would still characterize that as a central example of "grooming".
Sure as I said: "A mother who has her child wear make up, takes bikini pictures of her in suggestive poses and the like in order to offer her to her new boyfriend (a real case) is a groomer."
Replace the you or someone else can have sexual contact in the first sentence. If your goal is not for someone to derive sexual pleasure (yourself or another person) then it isn't grooming. otherwise people putting pictures of kids in the bath on Facebook, that someone then masturbates over is a groomer. They may be unwise, but that isn't the same thing.
Okay, take it another step back. The mother does all that same stuff, but doesn't have a specific boyfriend to offer her to. Instead, she does all the same things, because her social group praises her for doing it. Grooming or not?
It seems to me that shaping a child's sexuality in unhealthy ways that make them easier to prey on is the essence of grooming, and whether it's done on behalf of a specific person or just for the community of predators in general doesn't really change why that shaping is harmful or objectionable.
In your original example, the mother doesn't actually tell the kid that she's doing these things to get the kid to have sex with her boyfriend. Yet we consider these things harmful, even if the sex with the boyfriend doesn't happen, which is why we made a word for the "lowering kid's defenses to sexual exploitation" in the first place. The effect on the kid is the whole point.
Nope. If she doesn't have the intent of sexual contact from her child to someone else it is not grooming. She isn't preparing them for predators, she is behaving in ways that incidentally some predators like. Those are very different things. Like teaching your 12 yo daughter to wax her legs is in some way preparing them for adult grooming (in the other sense) norms but that doesn't mean you are doing it so that your daughter will attract predators who like underage girls. Will some sexual predators prefer her hairless? Most likely. But that isn't the goal. She isn't doing it FOR the community of predators, she is doing it for her own reasons AND the community of predators might like it. The fact that might increase risks should be a consideration IMHO but it shouldn't be called grooming (in the CSE sense). If I polish my expensive watch so it shines beautifully, then walk down a dark alley and get mugged for it, I may be stupid, but unless I intended for the watch to be stolen I am not grooming my watch for theft.
Otherwise grooming becomes so wide that its meaning is essentially lost. Which isn't normally an issue, except in that it might muddy the waters for agencies and people who want to prevent "real" CSE. Child grooming is a real and serious problem, that results in the abuse of many children in ways that will often impact them for life. If one wants to oppose Drag Kids or child beauty pageants because they do expose kids unnecessarily to risks because of people who do target those communities, I think that is fair and reasonable. But using groomer for the organizers and parents is a rhetorical smear. Which is fine in the proper context, as a politician it would be a weapon that would be hard to ignore. But I do think here we should be more nuanced.
Because if we can't be more nuanced than bloody politicians what are we even for?
I think your 'grooming' may be a term of art at which point the authorities have a reasonable likelihood of success legally when they intervene.
The local townspeople and I likly have a lower threshold for grooming as our actions may be more likely to be extra-judicial.
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