Grooming has been talked about and related to child sexual abuse a lot recently. Especially when it is done by those in positions of authority and trust and how they can twist what they’re doing around to make it *seem* perfectly okay and justified. Larry Nassar comes to mind when I make this statement. Yet there are other sexual predators that use threats, violence, fear, intimidation to get what they want and to be able to continue doing what they want.
Sadly, sexual abuse perpetrated by minors is the most common. According to YWCA CSA FACT SHEET 93% of CSA instances [Child Sexual Abuse] are done by people known to the child. Nearly 70% of all reported cases of CSA are by those under 17 years of age. For 12.3% of females, their first rape happens before the age of 10. The younger the child, the greater the chance the child is/was abused by a family member – 50% for 5 year olds and younger!
These stats show that CSA is still prevalent the world over. It is not localized to specific countries, demographics, nor ethnicity. It is a global epidemic.
So how do the perpetrators get away with doing this especially since more and more of us are being educated on this sensitive topic?
It is because of Grooming. Grooming is: Behaviour by an individual who enjoys power and control. In the context of sexual abuse, grooming involves specific skills of manipulation, coercion, domination so they can sexually abuse their target and keep doing so as long as they want.
Grooming is a calculated, strategic, and continuous process of manipulation used by abusers to gain power, control, and access to their victims. The goal of every stage is to isolate the victim and protect the abuser’s reputation. These abusers are excellent manipulators. The facts show all (including the parents of the target) can be duped, fooled, tricked, and manipulated by a perpetrator of ill intent.
From what I’ve seen in my Trauma Recovery Coaching practice there are four basic types of grooming. Grooming is done at three different stages in the abusive relationship to ensure that victim is compliant and silent and that they maintain power and control over the target and any support system they may have.
For those who’ve been randomly been abused by a stranger almost always violence and or threats were involved. Since most CSA stems from either a family member or someone who is trusted by the family, I will list grooming behaviours coming from this lens.
The Three Chronological Stages of Grooming: A Cycle of Control
Stage 1: Pre-Abuse Grooming (Building Access and Isolation)
This stage involves establishing an environment where the abuse can occur undetected. It focuses on manipulating the target and their entire support system to create an atmosphere of safety and trust around the abuser.
Target: The Victim and their Support Circle (family, friends, community). Goal: To establish trust, neutralize suspicion, and dismantle the victim’s emotional support structure.
Key Tactics Used:
Building False Trust: Using affection, excessive praise, gifts, or special favors to make the target feel singled out, special, or indebted.
Trust-Building Ploys: Engaging with the victim’s support circle (e.g., helping the family, volunteering) to build an unimpeachable reputation within the community.
Isolating the Victim: Gradually alienating the victim from people who might notice changes or interfere, often by subtly sowing conflict or mistrust.
Testing Boundaries: Employing mind games, emotional seduction, or small acts of coercion/violence to gauge the victim’s compliance and tolerance for control.
Duration: This stage is often lengthy, lasting days, weeks, months, or even years before the sexual abuse begins.
Stage 2: Concurrent Grooming (Maintaining Control and Silence)
Once the sexual abuse has begun, the abuser’s tactics shift to maintaining the secret and ensuring the victim’s silence through intense fear and psychological manipulation.
Target: The Victim. Goal: To maintain the abuser’s sense of power and control, and enforce absolute silence from the victim.
Key Tactics Used:
Coercion and Guilt-Tripping: Using twisted logic to shift blame onto the victim (e.g., "You didn't stop me, so you must like it") to create deep-seated guilt and shame.
Threats of Retaliation: Employing escalating threats to enforce silence, including threats to harm the victim, their family, friends, pets, or property.
Reputational Blackmail: Threatening to reveal private information, spread lies, or ruin the victim's reputation (online or in the community).
Emotional Blackmail: Threatening self-harm or suicide to place immense psychological distress and guilt on the victim, ensuring they remain compliant out of fear of causing harm.
Physical Control: Ongoing violence, physical abuse, or torture to demonstrate physical dominance and intimidate the victim into submission.
Stage 3: Post-Abuse Grooming (Discrediting the Survivor)
This phase encompasses the strategic efforts the abuser makes to control the narrative, maintain their power, and ensure that the victim is never believed, typically becoming more fear-based and aggressive.
3a: Anticipatory Grooming
This tactic involves laying the groundwork before or immediately upon the threat of disclosure to ensure the community is already primed to doubt the victim.
Target: The Victim's Support Circle, Community, World at Large. Goal: To establish a foundation of lies and slander that prevents any listener from ever believing the abused victim.
Key Tactics Used:
Pre-emptive Slander: Spreading lies and casting doubts on the victim’s mental stability, honesty, or moral character long before, or at the first sign of, disclosure.
Manipulation of Thought: Engaging in complex mind games, coercion, and manipulation of the feelings of as many community members as possible.
Control the Known Circle: If the abuser cannot control (silence) the victim, they will focus their energy on controlling the people the victim knows, isolating the victim further.
The Power Game: The abuser views this as a "game" to see how many people they can fool or destroy to maintain their sense of power and control.
3b: Reactive/Retaliatory Grooming
This is the aggressive, direct response that occurs after the victim has broken their silence and begun talking about the abuse.
Target: The Victim, the Victim's Support Circle, Community. Goal: To violently deny the truth, attack the victim’s credibility, and ensure the listener feels sympathy for the abuser and doesn’t listen to the survivor.
Key Tactics Used:
DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim Offender): The abuser vehemently Denies the allegations, Attacks the victim’s character (character assassination, gaslighting), and Reverses the role to portray themselves as the victim.
Weaponizing Doubt: Citing twisted "examples" as "proof" that the victim is not afraid of them (e.g., "If I’m so horrible then why would she still [x]?").
Intimidation and Threats: Uttering overt threats toward those who believe the victim to discourage them from coming forward or offering support.
Escalated Aggression: Towards the victim, this may involve aggressive behaviour, physical attacks, attempted assault, or kidnapping/attempted kidnapping to silence them. Towards their family members it may involve the above plus threats of harm or death.
Twisted Rationale: To the untrained ear, what the abuser says may sound rational or believable, as it is purposely executed to make the listener feel sorry for the sexual predator. And to make the victim retract her statement or go silent.
It is very important to remember that all Grooming behaviour is effective, intentional and calculated; it is done callously. Because it works so well, it is used by sexual predators, by politicians, in business, in families, and in religion. DARVO is a favourite ploy of all those who want to have a sense and need to maintain this sense of power and control. DARVO is successful only when we are ignorant about it. Many abusers claim they are victims of a smear campaign, or that the accuser is only after their money, for example.
The reality is that it is the abuser or the individual in power that is afraid of the truth coming out, so a lot of their grooming is fear based. These ones are cowards in many ways. Yes, when all is said and done it is the abuser/perpetrator who feels powerless, but they won’t admit it. They are the ones who feel week, shame and pathetic and work hard at inflicting these sad feelings of inadequacy onto their victims. Or they’re just afraid of the stigma of being labeled as a sexual predator and the consequences that will ensue.
It just breaks my heart when I think of these innocent little children some too young to even speak who are subjected to these grooming stages – to this form of manipulation, coercion, and toxic, shameful, and egregious behaviour.
As you’re reading this, perhaps you’ve noticed this identifiable behaviour from someone who has not sexually abused you. Instead, they may be emotionally abusive, and you weren’t sure what was going on. Perhaps they made you feel not good enough or less than. Perhaps you ended up playing small in your life, holding yourself back, not believing you could achieve your dreams. Grooming is emotional abuse and manipulation; it is a way for one person to dominate over another. Without sexual abuse, this type of grooming is more known as Coercive Control and is a common tool of narcissists.
When victims feel safe enough to tell the truth, they free themselves, they feel empowered. By telling, they throw the shame, blame and guilt back onto the perp – where it rightfully belongs.
As a society it is important to open our eyes and see Grooming and DARVO for what it is and only then will this type of “woe is me” attitude and punishment/backlash for telling stop working. We need to listen. We need to believe their stories. Abuse does NOT happen in a vacuum. There are always enablers. Educating ourselves on Grooming is one way to fight against denial and complicity.
This is why I wrote my book, Identifying the Wolf Shedding Light on the Grooming Behaviours of Sexual Predators.
