This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
This is at least a very noncentral example of sexual exploitation, and by implication of grooming. The modal example that the term evokes, and that makes it work as a rhetorical superweapon, is something along the lines of "kid is made to watch as parents engage in 'swinging' and eventually 'invited' to participate" or recently "40 year old creep baits kids on Roblox into sending him nudes and eventually convinces them to meet up offline, keeping it a secret from their parents". If you can have "sexual exploitation" without the "exploiter" deriving a direct personal sexual benefit from it, then the tropey staple chill grandpa who tells the kids of a straight-laced household where in the attic to find the porn stash of his youth is also a groomer.
I understand that "groomer" is an effective rhetorical weapon, but I really don't think it lives up to the standards of discussion we were supposed to be striving for as a community.
In A Brave New World there is a comment about encouraging kids to play sexual games with each other as a normal part of schooling. Would you consider this grooming, even though the adults performing the encouragement are not the ones getting sexual pleasure? Would an adult standing over two five year olds, helping them get undressed, telling them where to put their hands on the other, be grooming?
I think most people regard any outside encouragement for kids to have more and riskier sex to be a Bad Thing, and the more severe and direct examples ought to be criminal. Absent any other criminal terminology, people use the word Grooming, regardless of who is getting sexual pleasure.
And yes, technically any adult helping any kid gain access to porn is grooming. Even the cool grandpa and the old fashioned magazines. It is illegal to show porn to minors. Do people forget this?
Not if it's not for their own pleasure, as I see it. I've seen something like this rule mentioned in the past in the context of advice for parents who are unsure if it's socially acceptable to do this thing or another (I think the example was "father applying lotion on female baby") - formulated as "if you do it for the kid, it's okay, if you do it for yourself, it's not".
No, I don't think it's standard to use the word "grooming" for this, and before the current CW battle, I've not seen it used outside of the contexts I mentioned. This was even though culture warring about "encouragement for kids to have more and riskier sex" is something that has been going on for decades now.
"Technically" according to what technicality exactly?
How is that a pertinent argument? It is also illegal to not pay your taxes, but that doesn't mean that tax evasion is an instance of grooming.
You are the one who brought up a grandpa showing pornography to minors as if it was something socially accepted and reasonable.
"Harmful to minor" laws prohibit showing obscenity to minors. Because it is considered harmful in and of itself. Showing pornography to minors normalizes sexual behaviors and is often used in the process of grooming.
Child advocacy groups consider showing pornography to minors as sexual abuse itself.
If someone shows a minor porn and is arrested and accused of grooming, how do they prove that they had no intention of sexually abusing the minor (when the action itself is considered sexual abuse)? Outside of education, which the law allows for, showing porn to minors will be considered grooming behavior.
Yes, it came up in a popular comic, which is probably as good an n=1 argument for it having been considered a reasonably common thing by some nontrivial set of people in the past as it gets.
There is no mention of "grooming" in the "harmful to minor laws" article you linked, nor in the "child advocacy groups" one. Conversely, the "abusers may also show..." article does not argue that each of the things mentioned on their own already amount to "grooming". Just because something is often used in the process of grooming does not mean that it amounts to grooming: Discord DMs and more generally one-on-one chats are also frequently used in the process of grooming, but most people would not use this to conclude that DMing a minor constitutes grooming.
By whom? I think this is what Wikipedia calls "weasel words". I looked this up, and it turns up that there is actually a legal definition of grooming in the US, which does not appear to cover showing porn to minors as written:
Is masturbating to pornography not sexual activity any more? And showing porn to kids is something "for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense?"
To your wider point that the Right has begun using the word grooming in wider and wider contexts, they are not the first to consider the similarities between grooming and political radicalization. Grooming itself is a broader word with multiple meanings - grooming a young politician for a higher office for example. It is not weird or purely waging a conflict for the word grooming to be used to describe persuasion, enticement, or cohesion to ingrain in children sexual politics their parents would not approve of (which is what schools are accused of.)
You cut off the sentence at a convenient point so as to change its meaning. It's "...any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense". I'm not aware that you can be charged with a criminal offense in the US for masturbating to (generally legal) pornography. (Also, let's not forget that we were originally talking about "watch drag queens", not "watch porn". If you think the kids will wank to drag queens, you seem to have a surprisingly high opinion of the attractiveness of drag queens.)
Perhaps it is, but in that case the law as written would apparently apply to someone who is enticing kids to show porn to [other?] kids. (Even if it is illegal for adults to show porn to kids, is it also illegal for kids to show porn to kids? Not that I went to school in the US, but if it is then TIL that this primary school classmate of mine would have broken US law multiple times.)
You can't just cut up a paragraph and form some sort of gestalt interpretation based on the general shape and collection of words that come up in it; usually, the ordering and relation of words actually matters in law (and other domains of life).
This interpretation strikes me as disingenuous. Someone grooming someone for higher office is not usually referred to as a "groomer", and the rhetoric around it is making it amply clear that the intended association really is "drag queen story hour = perverts wanting to fuck your kids".
I think we have radically different interpretations of "to engage in prostitution, or in any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense." I really didn't think I was cutting it up, I was addressing two halves of a requirement seperately.
Or does the law not apply to an adult having sex with a minor? The minor is not breaking any laws - it's the adult who's breaking the law. "Any person can be charged with a criminal offence" - if any person in the event, child or groomer, is doing something which they could be charged a criminal offence for, it applies.
What are the two halves in question? "for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense" qualifies the sexual activity described: that is, the law is not to apply if you merely "persuade, induce, entice, or coerce" someone to engage in a sexual activity for which nobody can be charged with a criminal offense. As far as I know, masturbating to legal pornography is a sexual activity for which nobody can be charged with a criminal offense. Your statement "Is masturbating to pornography not sexual activity any more?" is therefore as relevant as if you had just said "...not an activity any more?", dropping yet another qualifier ("sexual").
In my reading, it does. How does that matter here? We were first talking about making minors watch drag queen story hour, which doesn't break any laws, and then about masturbating to pornography, which also doesn't break any laws.
We haven't established that anyone is doing something which they could be charged with a criminal offense for yet. Are you trying to go for some sort of circular argument, like "showing pornography to minors is a criminal offense [per this law], therefore this law says showing pornography to minors is a criminal offense"? Also, you are again seemingly dropping the relations between the different clauses of the sentence. It is not sufficient that someone in the general vicinity of the event is doing something that is considered criminal; for this law to apply, the adult has to "persuade, induce, entice, or coerce" the minor to engage in an an action that the minor or someone else [participating in the same action? performing an identical action? this is not entirely clear] could be charged with a criminal offense for. It is not sufficient for the adult to also be doing something, even something sexual, that amounts to a criminal offense: for instance, an adult coercing a minor to buy candy while the adult is also indecently exposing himself would not run afoul of this particular law. On the other hand, an adult persuading a minor to have sex with another adult would run afoul of it, because (1) the adult is persuading the minor to (2) engage in an activity that someone (the other adult) can be charged with a criminal offense for. I imagine this is the case that the "any person" wording is intended to catch.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link