"Groomed" with Sonia Orchard

Content warning: This conversation is about sexual grooming. Sonia focuses on her experience as a teenager of sexual grooming and abuse by an adult man. If you need support, please refer to the link to support services located at the bottom of the show notes.

"Groomed" with Sonia Orchard

What happens when the relationship you once believed was love is later revealed as abuse?

In this episode, writer and author Sonia Orchard joins me to talk about her powerful memoir, Groomed.

Author Sonia Orchard was in her 40s when a moment in therapy forced her to re-examine her past. Could the relationship she’d had as a teenager, with a man more than a decade older, have been abuse?

Through therapy, writing, and the justice system, Sonia began the painful but liberating process of naming what had once been unspeakable.

Together, we explore the questions that too often remain unasked:

* What is grooming?

* As an adult, isn’t sex with teenagers okay? (Spoiler: No!)

* How common it is for survivors to arrive in the therapy room with depression, substance use, sexual dysfunction in relationships, only to uncover that the root cause is historical sexual abuse.

* The nervous system’s response to delayed realisation of abuse.

* What survivors need: truth-telling, accountability, apology, and repair

* The limits of the justice system

* And why is our culture still so quick to protect powerful men accused of abuse?

We name the pattern philosopher Kate Manne calls “Himpathy”—the instinct to extend sympathy and protection to men in power, even when they’re accused of harming others.

We challenge the myth of the “grey zone,” and unpack why consent isn’t the real issue—power is.

We call for a cultural shift: from conversations focused on the technical age of consent to those that centre power dynamics and coercion.

This episode is for anyone navigating the long shadow of grooming, for those working with survivors, and for a culture that must do better.

Guest Bio

Author Sonia Orchard. Speaker. Survivor Advocate. Mentor. Festival Director.

Sonia is an award-winning author, freelance writer, speaker, writing teacher/mentor and survivor advocate. Sonia writes and speaks about social justice, gendered violence and the environment, drawing upon both research and her lived experience of sexual abuse and domestic violence.

Sonia’s latest memoir Groomed, about going through the Australian justice system as a complainant in a historical childhood sexual abuse case, can be purchased here. You can her other books here. Sonia also writes short non-fiction and opinion pieces, some of which can be seen here.

See Sonia’s full bio here

See Sonia’s workshops here

Support Hotlines:

Link to all support hotlines in NSW, Australia: https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/mentalhealth/services/Pages/support-contact-list.aspx

Link to USA hotlines:

https://www.apa.org/topics/crisis-hotlines

Contact me:

https://www.jaimesimpsoncounselling.au

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