Grooming 101

What is grooming and how do you recognize it? Anney and Samantha break it down.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, this is Annie, and you're listening to stuff I
never told you. Today we are once again joined by
my good friend Samantha. Hello, Samantha, thank you. Yep you

(00:29):
are and you will be back for this, this series
that we're doing also forever sitting in the corner staring
at everyone. Yes, doing the grudge. Yeah, I'm not doing um. Yeah.
This is the second in our series examining trauma and
sexual assault in the air of me too. And you

(00:50):
are a great person to bring in for this because
you do. You have a history and social work. That
is my career thus far. That's hard thus far. I'm
gonna put that as a dot dot dot stricken there.
You know. I love including those because it just adds
a slayer of mystery and entry. What is she going
to do next? Dot dot dot? I'm going to stay

(01:11):
at home and just eat, eat and watch TV. Can
someone pay me to do that? I think there is Yeah,
I think you can get paid for that. I'm sure
it's very competitive. We're going to research this in a bit.
Oh yeahediate. Next thing we're doing immediately have goals, um,
so quick trigger warning. We are talking about grooming and

(01:34):
what what exactly that entails including specific methods and purposes. Um,
and just to kind of prep everyone, to prime everyone.
The general definition of grooming is the act of preparing
or training someone for particular purpose or activity, and oftentimes
it involves someone of power, mentoring, training, or intimidating another individual.

(01:57):
But in this conversation, we're mostly gonna be talking about
it in terms of abuse and specifically trigger warnings. UM,
we're gonna be talking about to use, sexual salt, molestation
and grooming, sexual grooming, sexual exportation, human trafficking, b reality, pedophilia.
Most of these were not going to go in depth on.

(02:19):
But if it's something that is triggering are difficult for you,
please put your own health and well being first. And
this is something that several of you have written in
about and that's been in the news quite a lot
lately because as we record this, the r Kelly thing,
the documentary is really big in the news cycle and

(02:41):
grooming is a part of that conversation. Hashtag mute r Kelly.
Hashtag mute r Kelly. Mm hmm. If we look at
this whole picture of abuse or of choosing or preparing
a victim, green ng is often the first step or

(03:03):
a quick second step. I suppose a study that came
out recently found most people couldn't identify signs of grooming.
So hopefully this episode that we're having can make us
all a little more vigilant and aware. I know I
learned a lot from researching this one, you know, any
I was going to add to that that it is
often times hard to see in a victim, which is

(03:24):
why a lot of the sites you'll see and a
lot of the statistics is to say to um, focus
on the perpetrator. You'll see their actions, including the online perpetrators.
There are specifics to that which we won't necessarily go into,
but that is something to think on too. Yeah, So
let's start, as I like to do, with a definition.

(03:47):
What is grooming? Author and counselor Eric Marlowe Garrison defines
it like this, Grooming is the slow, methodical, and intentional
process of manipulating a person to a point where they
can be victimized. After the perpetrators find their targets, they
gain trust and move in from there. The U. S.

(04:08):
Department of Justice, Office of Sex Offenders Sentencing defines it
as grooming is a method used by offenders that involves
building trust with a child and the adults around a
child in an effort to gain access to and time
alone with him or her. In extreme cases, offenders may
use threats and physical force to sexually assault or abuse
a child. More common, though, are subtle approaches designed to

(04:31):
build relationships with families. The offender may assume a caring role,
befriend the child, or even exploit their position of trust
and authority to groom the child and or the child's family.
These individuals intentionally build relationships with the adults around a
child or seek out a child who is less supervised
by adults in their lives. This increases the likelihood that

(04:53):
the offender's time with a child is welcomed and encouraged.
So we are talking a lot about children and grooming
of children in this episode, but it can happen to anyone, right, Um,
and I think we're gonna talk a little more. But
you and I discussed the fact that when it comes
to domestic violence, that is a type of grooming as well,
because oftentimes they will seek women who have already been

(05:15):
through specific situations traumas in their life, maybe have grown
up with domestic violence in their lives, and then they
kind of hone in on these women and specifically picked
them because they are easier victims. So obviously that's has
a lot to do with sexual abuse, and it is
often the precursor to the crime of sexual abuse. But

(05:36):
sexual grooming is a standalone crime in itself, but it
is hard to prove and you'll see why that is
in a minute. So as we're talking about the fact
that yes, it can be specifically to sexual abuse of children,
we can talk about all the facts about domestic violence,
as I had previously said. But also if you look
at gangs and cults, they kind of do the same thing. Um,

(05:58):
they look for individual rules who lack family and therefore
needs something to hold onto, and they groom these people
into mentoring and oftentimes involved a way. So if you
look at gang members and you look at the fact
that a lot of teenagers have been recruited for lack
of better terms, um, they're looking for father figure family figures,

(06:19):
and this is where they go to seek it. And
on top of that, they are being taught how to
make money or how to do things without going the
herd route as in like education or building family trust,
counseling and all of that it kind of pulls away
from that and they think this is what they want,
same thing as pedophiles. It's not just a pedophilic act,

(06:39):
but something done out of dominance. And honestly, while we're
talking about pedophiles, let's be specific as the differences of
pedophiles and child molesters, because I think that's not talked
about enough. Pedophiles can be sexually arousked by previous bestent
children and oftentimes form emotional attachments to their victims. If
you look at Nambula as an example. They really feel

(07:00):
like this is another white form of sexuality, that having
a relationship from a young boy with an older man
should not be stopped if it's gentle, and they truly
believe that this is a relationship that people are not
willing to see, which when we talk about the fact
that children do not have the option to consent because
they are not able to say no and understand why

(07:22):
they can say no, which is also an important part
about having parents teach their children it's okay to not
to be touched, not to be tickled, and say I
don't want to hug you, which is very important and
we talked about more and more as of late, and
I know not a lot of women and a lot
of parents have become very aware of this and started
to teach their children these things. But Nambla has this
whole fixation that I'm in love, he's in love with me,

(07:45):
and I can take care of them, which is the
sturfing on its own as where child molesters and abusers
use child for sexual stimulation and could be more about
opportunity than need. So when I say that, I often
see Pierre and Pierre victim. So you don't need crimes
where youth will actually sexual abuse another youth who may
be similar to their age, and not because they prefer

(08:06):
that child, but because it was an opportunity, and they're
still considered child molester and a sex offender. Al on
top of that, m HM, and this conversation, um, and
we're going to talk about this a little bit more.
But it also we can bring in exploitation and trafficking
in this. In this whole thing, the perpetrator of grooming

(08:30):
can be just about anyone from retired special Agent with
the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, Kenneth the Landing quote, Pedophiles
span the full spectrum from Saints to monsters. In spite
of this fact, over and over again, pedophiles are not recognized, investigated, charge, convicted,
or sent to prison simply because they are nice guys.

(08:52):
As in fact, my experiences in working with sex offenders,
it's common to see a sex offender being the most
cooperative and workable group of a offenders. They majority of
these types of offenders are not necessarily violent and often
very aware of their surroundings and how to stay under
the radar. You could also say that for female adults
with younger men or the younger teenage boys, they are

(09:15):
not volatile, but they use their sexuality as well as
their dominance and or power to get in control over
these youths and oftentimes somehow convinced these teenage boys slash
younger boys that they are not victims, but they are
the loves of their lives. They're their boyfriends, which is
a manipulation in itself, and honestly, not to make you paranoid,

(09:38):
just to give just to give empower you with information.
I think by now people are aware of all the
shocking statistics of human trafficking, so I kind of want
to jump into that and for us in Atlanta, that's
a really big issue. Atlanta has one of the high
statistics when it comes to victims and of trafficking, and
I think that has a lot to do with the

(09:58):
international airport that we have. We have heart Spilled, so
a lot of international flights come through there, so people
are easily accessible or lights are easy accessible wherever um
as well as our big events, And with that, I
want to talk a little bit about cease victims, which
means commercially sexually exploited children, which you're gonna hear me

(10:22):
say that acronym a lot, and you probably may have
already heard it and not realized what it is. But
what it comes down to is here we're defining children
or youths under the age of eighteen UM specifically victims,
about how they're found and how they're picked out, and
we're gonna talk a little more about what exactly that
looks like the whole human trafficking. I know that's a

(10:45):
pretty big word and everybody has become very aware of it.
If we go if we broaden out to grooming. We
don't have any solid numbers on it because it's something
that is surrounded by shame here, guilts or not realizing
that a form of abuse is taking place. Numbers we
do have from two thousand six indicate that one in
four girls and one in five boys will be sexually

(11:05):
abused before they turn eighteen. Some estimates put the number
of child sex offenders as low as five percent. Again,
it's one of those things that isn't reported on very often,
like it's under reported this crime. So probably numbers are
higher than what we're saying, and they're already pretty high,
And that has a lot to do with children don't
know how to report, they're not taught how to report

(11:27):
one too, they feel like they're unsafe to try to
actually report, or they do it way later in time
in which the statute of limitations are gone, and that
varies from state to state, which is unfortunate. And a
lot of times they're discouraged by members that are close
to them to not report. So all of these things
have factors into why it is so underreported. And generally,

(11:51):
grooming starts as friendship that the groomer learns what the
potential target likes, what they dislike, things that they can
use later. Social media can play a big part of this.
The groomer can learn a lot about the person from
what they post, and they can use that information to
form a friendship. That's one reason why being careful about

(12:13):
what we post, especially for younger people, is always, always,
always recommended. From the stuff you post on social media,
someone could start a conversation about your interests. They might
mention someone you know as if they know that person too,
or in the case of a power disparity in terms
of maybe a job, a coach or a teacher, or
a doctor or a priest, because there already is one

(12:34):
inherent a power dynamic if a minor is involved mentioning
the power that they have, right. I mean, we can
just talk about the fact you could lose your job.
Now if you post something that may not have anything
to do with your job, you can lose scholarships, you
can lose anything, in which we try to tell everyone,
don't be dumb. You will be found out if it's
on the internet, even once it can be found again.

(12:56):
I know that that's one of the same things that
we talk about with sharing your location. That is beyond
dangerous because oftentimes these offenders are at the level they
will stop you. I think the recent case Close Jaden
Close is that her name I don't know. I'm going
to have to go back and look at this who
just recently was kidnapped at her after her parents were shot. Oh,

(13:19):
he stalked her and they had nothing to do with
social media, but just the level at some so that
some perpetrators will go to He stalked her from a
school bus to the home, not knowing who she was,
not knowing who they were, and was willing to commit
murder and kidnapping to get to her, which is a
rude awakening. It happens since therefore things like location tagging
and all that can be very seriously dangerous, which needs

(13:41):
to be discussed with your youth teenagers. Everyone. Yeah, I've
always that that scary moment when the al least for me,
it was a little frightening. I've had it happen a
couple of times. But when the the lift driver it's like, oh,
do you live here alone? And you're like, oh, um no,
this is my friend's house. I remember being in high

(14:02):
school when social media was relatively new, my marching band
director saying that you should never trust someone who comes
up to you and says something like, um, I know
so and so, and they said I should give you
a ride or something like that, because they could find
that stuff out from social media. And I remember specifically
at the time, being kind of thrown by that idea.

(14:23):
But he, I mean he was right. Yeah. As a nanny,
I was really overprotective do to having worked as an
investigator and child abuse and sexual abuse, and would oftentimes
intervene if anything looks suspicious. And I still think children
under sixteen should not be on social media. I was
very upset with my brother and sister when they are
allowed their teens or not intens eleven twelve year old

(14:46):
to get on social media and reminding them this is
not safe. You think you have a control over the phones,
over the social media, you don't know what's going on.
You will never catch up to the new ways or
fads or whatever that is happening that you think you
can be protective. I know, kick came out K I
K for a while, and that was one of the

(15:07):
scariest things to me because it was those photo messages
that would sent back and I actually had a case
where a kid sent let's just stay in a decent
picture to another kid and then it got spread all
around and we came back and It's like, you know,
this is a felony, right, This is child most stations,
this is child porn, distribution of child porn, and they
didn't understand that because they're all children. But it doesn't
have anything to do with age the fact that you're

(15:29):
spreading this. But it's such a scary thing that I
am overly cautious and oftentimes will make sure that they
understand this is not as safe as you think. I
remember I fought with my employer about getting these kids
phones and they did. They kind of stepped up to
it because they used the kid version and then another version.
But then we started talking about PlayStations, how they're easily

(15:50):
accessible to Internet and oftentimes they use that as an
outlet for social media. Me. It's a whole scary thing. Yeah,
it is, And I mean I could do I could
speak for hours and hours about the harrassment I received
through a gaming system, but that's a different episode. And
it sucks. This whole thing sucks because once again the
onus is on us to prevent someone from doing something terrible,

(16:12):
and someone who's dedicated the majority of my adult life
to this. It's taxing and it's never ending. It seems
like I'm just digging a hole, hoping that I'm kind
of helping a little bit, and then you turn around,
there's something new, there's something different, there's something more. And
another thing to keep in mind. The parents, adults, authority, figures,

(16:34):
support group, whatever it is of the target are often
groomed as well to progressively accept escalating levels of seemingly
innocent physical contact and isolation as normal. UM. And this
is one of the ways something like Larry Nasa happens,
which I read in many places like that situation was

(16:55):
just the perfect thing for grooming um or R Kelly,
I knew a guy who was really active in the
homeless transgender teen community, and he was doing something like this,
and I think he was also a government official. Um,
he's not anymore. He's in jail and should be as
he should be. And as I've said before, outside of this,

(17:16):
I do acting and unsettling amount of times I often
see a post to alert people that a predator is
asking for pictures or videos of child actors under the
guys of an audition or getting a role. It's disturbing
how often we get a note from our agent, this
guy is not for real, don't send him any pictures
of your children. I think the taboo or the stereotype

(17:39):
was the creepers come around offering you modeling jobs, and
it turns out it's not really modeling jobs, and whether
they're trying to just get nude pictures or assault someone
or do something even more dangerous. That people have started
to become a little more, a little more aware with hope.
After all the Lifetime specials that I've seen, Yeah, they're
all dangerous, that's what I figured out, but that that

(18:02):
this is a way to get to you and the
kids by promising something bigger, money, power, fame, all of
those things are Kelly. That's exactly what he did. He
takes these fifteen sixteen year olds fourteen year old, if
you're a lee, I guess um and promise I'm gonna
build you a future. I'm going to make you a star,
and then starts doing the emotional and physical and mental

(18:24):
abuse with them in order to train them and subdue
them into his power. And that's that power dynamic again.
And we're going to talk more about that after a
quick break for a word from our sponsor, m HM,

(18:47):
and we're back. Thank you sponsor. After this friendship has
been established, So we were talking about that earlier. Just
establishing friendship and or some kind of nicety. Uh. The
target views the grimmer as a friend, a mentor, or
romantic interest. Their guards down. The groomer might start offering
gifts or favors, and the goal is to make the
target feel like they owe the groom or something. They

(19:09):
usually start small, maybe keeping a promise, but build over time.
And I have some personal experience that I'm gonna share,
but don't worry, I'm not going into gorey detail. Um.
That wouldn't be good for anybody, but for me, I
have had what I call four periods of sexual abuse
in my life, and the hallmark and all of them
the common thread was vulnerability and that power dynamic. They

(19:34):
all involved authority figures. The first two times it was
someone my parents trusted and I trusted because I'm a
kid and they're in our authority role in my life.
But on the silver lining side of this awful situation,
they ended. They both ended fairly quickly because I told someone. Um.
But the first time it was a preschool teacher and

(19:55):
he had a motorcycle. That's what I remember the most.
He had a motorcycle, and I wanted to write it,
and he for like, maybe one day, I'll let you
write it, but first let's do this and this and this.
And he also had a gold stars and I wanted
to be a good girl and I'd get these gold stars.
I mean, that's exactly something that often happens. They give you,
they see the person or the victim, and then they

(20:17):
use exactly what is needed for that individual victim. So
it's not just an overall blanket. It is tailored to
each individual victim. And often, like you, you want to
please someone and you see this. And we could also
talk about the attachment issues and family life and or
previous abuse, because oftentimes I've seen children of abuse, as

(20:38):
you will show, are targeted again. They're the likelihood of
them being targeted again as a victim goes exponentially higher.
And I don't know how they know, but they know,
And I say they isn't the offenders the perpetrators that
this is someone that you can groom or may have
already been groomed, and so therefore they can tailor it
once again in a different manner. Yeah, it's a predator's instinct.

(21:02):
Um And after this whole situation. My family moved for
for other reasons too, but in part because of this,
And I don't blame my parents, but they didn't really
explain it to me. Um. And again, it's a horrible
difficult conversation to have with your young child. But all
I knew was we were moving away from my friends

(21:22):
because I had said something. And the second time, I
was still really young, and it was a friend of
a family, and he definitely played up the whole like
boys will be boys. Your value is in how desirable
you are. This is a good thing. Don't be a
cry baby, don't be so weak. And I felt this
pressure not to say anything that want to ruin his life.
And I already felt that I was lesser and that

(21:44):
I should stay quiet and not rock the boat. And
I was eight, And both of these men, yeah, they
knew what to say and how to earn my chest
and how to keep me from saying anything, right, And
I was going to add with that. That's part of
the thing I see and a lot of victims is
that at the very beginning they're fairly empathetic, and therefore

(22:04):
they wear the guilt on themselves, which is kind of
why everything is underreported and as we look at more
than me too era even for older women, adult women
who have come gone through the situation, whether it's rape
or sexual abuse or whatever as an adult, you see
that same statistics. I don't want to ruin this person's life.
He's a good man, but he is a good They

(22:27):
are a good person, but they only did this to me.
I'm the only victim. It's okay. So so many times
a lot of the victims or survivors are willing to
take on his shame, which is absurd. And part of
that is also because people don't want to hear it,
and so therefore it's easier to be quiet and say
never mind, don't worry about it. Right. That's something I

(22:50):
still catch myself like speaking in that way, like I
don't want to ruin his life. He ruined his life. UM.
The third and longest phase of my abuse. UM. It
started as a building of trust. Both of my parents
and my older brother were hospitalized, which was traumatic and itself,
and I had no idea when they were coming back.

(23:10):
I was a teenager in a house by myself with
my little brother, and I was so scared. It was
in this vulnerable state and these two men knew that,
and they did say something along the lines of like
my parents had sent them, and I was like, okay,
but I they I was really suspicious and uncomfortable, but
I was grateful that I had some kind of help
in this situation um and even kind of flattered because

(23:34):
they would tell me how mature I was or how
pretty I was for my age. But I had a
turning point and I realized, like, I really don't like
these people. I don't want them near my little brother.
I told them I didn't want them coming around anymore,
and they became extremely violent enough so that I never
ever wanted that to happen again. It scared the hell
out of me, and they threatened me and my little brother.

(23:56):
That's why the situation lasted so long, because I didn't
know what to do and obvious so much of my
life suffered because of it. My friendship suffered, my mental health,
my physical health. But I felt like I had to
be the strong one for my brother. And every night
I just remember laying awake listening because his room was
next to mine, and I was just not sleep because
I was so so scared. Right, you were a protector

(24:19):
and actually any what you experienced is something many of
the perpetrators use as a grooming tactic as well as
that they single out one child out of a group
of peers or even a group of siblings, or they
specifically target loners for the lack of a better term,
and we'll use threats or rewards as a way to
maintain their wholes over these victims. And that includes I'm
gonna hurt your brother, I'm gonna hurt your mother, I'm

(24:40):
gonna hurt your father, things that they know you are
worried about. And they're not afraid to use these tactics
to get what they want because in the end they
have the power and that's more gratifying than the end
result of what could happen. And it works because children
believe adults, and that's part of the problem. We them
to understand adults. We want them to respect adults. But

(25:02):
at the same time, how do you differentiate respecting the
right adult? Yeah, I mean these are difficult. There there
are questions and they're difficult conversation to have, but we
do need to be having them. Um. So, when the
groomer becomes a part of the target's daily life, maybe
shows up at events that the target is attending alone.

(25:24):
This this builds that trust, and eventually, when the groomer
is feeling confident, they'll start asking for these favors back,
and they usually start as a non sexual favor, and
then they become progressively more sexual in nature, maybe watching
pornography together, touching, sending sexual materials. And another hallmark of
gramming is secrecy. For obvious reasons, the groomer tries to

(25:47):
keep this relationship under wraps, especially in the early stages,
and in order to try to ensure silence from their victims,
they will say something like, don't tell anyone I did
do this favor because they will be elis and everyone
will want me to do the same thing for them.
The key is flattery and to make the target feel special.

(26:08):
At the same time, the groomer starts to distance the
target from people in their life that could help them.
Once the physical aspect of the relationship is established, then
shame plays a huge role in the silence, along with
things like force. All these threats, separating the victim from
their support group makes controlling them easier. Treating the target

(26:28):
as a co conspirator is also a part of this
um Yeah one of my abusers is really good at that.
He would say stuff like everything you are, I made
you as if I owed him a big favor um,
and I would willing I would willingly go back to
him because I didn't know what else to do. But
I knew not going back to him would make him
very angry, be a very bad thing for me. And

(26:48):
this is why I would step in And so they remember.
Guilt and shame and loneliness are major emotions that offenders
no can be easily manipulated. They want to use this
as a tactic to silence you. Guilt and shame we
have on our own pretty easily. I could list off
all the exchangeful things I did today. I'm not going
to because that's gonna be three episodes long, unless you

(27:11):
guys want to hear it. I'm just playing. But this
is why as a social worker, we advise guardians and
parents that they watch out for the physical signs of abuse,
because you're not going to necessarily know what's happening. These offenders, groomers,
perpetrators are really good and putting themselves in the middle
of a situation at the perfect time, and it has

(27:34):
nothing to do with your weakness. It has nothing to
do with their weakness. It's just they find the opportunity
and they take it. And again, like I said before,
these offenders slash perpetrators, they seem like nice guys or
nice women, nice people in general. They seem like they're
coming in to help you. They want to make your

(27:55):
life better. And this is the tactic that they know
to use. They can't just come in. There are the
aggressive ones. Let's talk about that. I realized the name
is Jamie Close, not Jaden who I was talking about previously,
which he just came in with his mental health issues
and just drug her out. That's more unusual, which is
why we don't hear about that as much. But when

(28:16):
we do, it's like, oh my gosh, what happened. What
we don't hear about is the years and years and
years and years of abuse that they had from the uncle,
or the years and years and years and abuse of
the neighbor or the pastor or their coach, you know,
stuff like that. That's when you start realizing, oh my gosh,
I didn't know. And that's also when you start hearing
he was such a nice guy. I thought he was

(28:36):
helping us and that's part of the problem in which
we can't always see what is happening with a child
until after the fact. So some of the not signs,
and I know we're gonna go into this a little deeper.
I know you have a laundry list, awesome, so we
can take notes. But just to throw that out there,
some of the signs would include withdrawal and isolation from
the victim, bed wedding, early sexualization, which is some thing

(29:00):
that I don't think people realize enough because they think
it's just funny if they say something ridiculous, But when
you start realizing what's happening or at least, sexualization is
a big, big part of it. And you've got to
figure out where they're learning this from. Because either way,
because they are so young, they will they may act
on it in a way that you don't want to
know about, whether it's with their cousin, whether it's with

(29:23):
a dog, whether it's with you know, whatever is there
for their opportunity. So that's something that I always talk about,
is like you need to see how they're acting out.
If they're acting out, you need to be concerned and
start asking why are they acting out? And it may
be as simple as they watched the wrong show. Um,
And then we would talk about regression as well, which

(29:43):
they go back and start more and more childlike maybe
you know, thumb sucking, start trying more all of those things.
But any like I said, I know, we're gonna go
into more of the details, but just to throw that
out there once again. And another part that that makes
it difficult is it it can be hard to separate
from romance because there is this slow build and it

(30:06):
can seem innocuous at first. The target and other people
in the target's life can mistake it as romance, right,
And this is where I'm going to come back into
talking about human trafficking slash domestic human trafficking and sea
sec that commercially sexually exploited children because oftentimes most of
the targets believe they're going into something on their own

(30:26):
with their free will, thinking that they're coming into a
relationship and or a living situation that's benefiting them both. Oftentimes,
children who are part of the circumstances happen to be
Kauds who are seeking something better. Like we're talking about
that whole isolating being alone, bad family situation and honestly

(30:46):
with the lgbt q I generation is even more prominent
in that group because they're already feeling isolated, if they're
being shunned by their family, They're trying to find someone
to help them to seek out what they need. So
we're gonna go back and talk about the fact that
child sex trafficking SLASH, the prostitute prostitution of children, which

(31:07):
is defined as child sex tourism involving commercial sexual activity,
the commercial product production I'm so sorry, the commercial production
of child pornography, and the online transmission of a video
of which child is engaged in sexual activity in exchange
for anything of value. And I think I wanted to

(31:28):
bring this up at this time because what we often
see is that children who are manipulated with this type
of situation believe, like we said, that they are in
a romantic relationship and see this as a normal way
of living and getting money. I've had to have many
conversations with a lot of my females. My girl who
go into a situation will not say that they are victims,

(31:50):
even though they know that they have had to have
sex with older men and give the money to their
boyfriend quote unquote or they get tagged with the name
of the boyfriend as a way of a marker, or
they are having to pay back for food or drugs
that they're giving by using drugs. So oftentimes I don't

(32:11):
think people see that as a thing. And this is
why we have this conversation of charging teenage girls or
teenage boys as prostitutes is problematic because oftentimes what you
see is there is, for the lack of better terms,
a pimp, flash, a perpetrator who is pushing this from behind,
threatening her, telling her she's going to be alone, all

(32:32):
of these situations because they are being forced to. But
we don't see that. We just see, and I say we,
as the government sometimes until recently, saw that as these
kids are committing a crime, we're going to give them
a prostitution charge or soliciting charge, which is absurd, as
in fact that we're talking about that case in Tennessee
where she finally was given clemency, granting clemency when she

(32:55):
shot the man who was pimping her out at sixteen.
And I'm not gonna lie. I know that what happened
was great because the governor finally released her or granted that. However,
he also said she did a heinous crime, but she's
she's ready to make up for it, and that's I
have a problem with that. She did a crime, yes,
but I have a feeling as a person who has

(33:18):
worked in this field, to her, it was survival and
should we be punishing her to that level and still
p using her as a stigma as a murderer when
she was maybe defending herself or trying to get out
of the life without losing her life. Yeah. Yeah. One
warning sign, according to experts, is the potential groomers insistence

(33:43):
to to meet up beyond what might be considered normal,
and potentially utilizing threats or guilt to get the person
to show up. Um, since the groomer has put a
lot of time and maybe money into grooming, they want
to check in on their progress in the person. Experts
also point out that the target usually has some sense

(34:03):
that something is not quite right, a feeling that isn't
there in consensual romance, like right, Actually, I know, like
I said, as us, I've spoken with many girls coming
out of that situation. They will tell you at what
point they were like, this is not what I thought. Yeah,
there is that moment, whether it's their first client and

(34:24):
or the fit client, or when you hit her, or
when they know or when she demanded things. There are
there are moments that they have like I didn't want this.
I thought I was in love and I thought we
were in this together, right and well. Another thing is
that grooming can take place completely online, coercing someone to
take part in online sexual activities like sending pictures or videos,

(34:47):
having sexual conversations. Then the groomer might tighten their control
by threatening to send these things to the targets friends
and family, and a groomer just they might message one
children at a time, like just seeing what sticks. And
this is again that shame factor. I've got something of yours.
If you don't do this, I'm going to embarrass you

(35:09):
and out you as a deviant or whatever whatnot. And
again I do want to mention even for miners, they
cannot send these sexually explicit pictures because in the law
you're sending child pornography. Therefore you can be arrested or
a very sensive amount of time because we know the

(35:29):
g b I or where we are and FBI see
this as a heinous crime now and they will come
at you at full fource right and kind of a
strange aside, but it kept coming up when I was
researching this. Um this movie called Show Dogs, which was
a children's movie that came out earlier in about uh.

(35:52):
I don't really know much about the Show Dogs scene,
but um, it's about that, and it actually got recut
prior to its theatrical relea because of a scene where
a character was touching the dogs jails and telling him
to go to his inn place. And people pointed out
that this is something that happens during grooming, telling a
child to pretend you're somewhere else and to throw it

(36:14):
out there. I have seen cases where children who have
been sexually abused, severely abused us pets and dogs as
their sexual outlets. So bestiality is that isn't unheard of
for this type of community, because, as I said before,
when opportunities there, they're going to try it. And when

(36:35):
listener Emma wrote about this a while ago, she suggested
we could extrapolate this whole thing out to a societal
level to how we groom and sexualize young women in
the United States and probably a lot of the Western world.
And I mean, in my personal examples, the fact that
these men told me I was beautiful or that I
was sexy. They they knew that that's how I saw

(36:58):
my value, and they knew they could use that to
manipulate me. Um, are you, Samantha, you brought up religion?
How we could bring it out to that when we
talk about grooming or bringing someone up or making someone
in a certain way. When you look at religion, not
all religions, but when you look at some religions, they
specifically target women to be the subservient person, and so

(37:21):
that subservient person becomes a specific representation of a good person.
So like when I say, I'm struggling with this term
right now, So yeah, for women, sometimes in some religions,
they're used as trophy wives. So think about the stereotypical
preacher's wife. Not only are they created to birth children,
but they're also create to hold up the man and

(37:43):
be in the background and all of these things and
make the right food and make the right gestures and
make the right connections, but never be allowed to be
above the man. So you can you look at religion
and you're like, are they grooming certain things? And you
start grooming certain kids to be pastors used grooming certain
kids to be missionaries. So I see this in you.
I see this in you, so why don't we do
this for you? Yeah? The point being this is this

(38:07):
could be such a bigger conversation than the one we're
having today, and I think that is really fascinating and
kind of scary to think about. But I wanted to
put that in there. I'll be back to do that
one too, the one that's we're not talking about. But yeah,
I just created that. Okay, perfect. Um, Well, we do
have some more for you about recognizing signs, but first

(38:30):
we have one more quick break for a word from
our sponsor M and we're back. Thank you, sponsor. So
there are some signs that you can look out for
if you suspect someone you know is being groomed or
I guess even like turning it inward. Um, so, alcohol

(38:53):
or drug use, nightmares, changes in diet or exercise patterns, insomnia,
disorder to eat in anxiety withdrawn nature, risk taking, acting
inappropriately sexual for their age, and self harm are suicidal tendencies.
And it's so strange during episodes like these for me
because it's kind of a checklist of things I experienced

(39:15):
and as I was researching this, I got a pit
in the feeling of my stomach because I I retroactively
recognized these signs it myself, right, And I think that
happens when you start looking back, you're like, oh my gosh,
this is a clear sign of And I though I've
actually spoken with a few women and it doesn't necessarily
have to do with grooming. But they didn't realize what

(39:37):
was happening was an assault onto them because they were like, oh,
I just gave up, blah blah blah. I said this
and he didn't listen, but whatever, And then they moved
on and we're having this conversation. They made the realization, oh,
my gosh, I was raped or I was assaulted, or
I was being groomed for this. And it's that clarity
of oh, because also at the initial moment, you don't

(39:59):
want to say you're victim. That's the last thing you
want to think. As bad as everything is, you don't
want to be one more thing of I'm a victim,
and not that is a bad thing, but it does
feel like such a weakness even though you shouldn't. It
has nothing to do with you. Yeah, and I know
so many listeners have written in about that very thing
you're talking about, Like, I didn't realize what happened to

(40:20):
me was this, um and it is. It's very difficult
to except like to put it in those terms, and
I think a lot of people will avoid doing it.
And I know there's also and I'm pretty sure we're
gonna be talking about this in later episodes because I
will be here forever um where they don't think it's
as bad. So maybe as a child you are never

(40:43):
actually raped, but you are touched and fondled. That's bad.
Let's just put it out there. That's abuse and it
shouldn't have happened, and that will traumatize you. And if
you were able to move past it in a healthy manner, wonderful.
If you haven't, it's not bad. You didn't do anything wrong,
it's not abnormal. You need help to get past this

(41:04):
because it happened to you, it was unwelcome, and it
was harmful. In the story, there's no this is worse
than this, that needs to be throwing out the window. Yeah,
we need to talk about all of these things. Um. So.
The NSPCC has a list of science um for children specifically,
and they include being secretive, especially about what they're doing online,

(41:27):
dating someone older, meeting up with people in strange places,
having new things they can't or won't explain, having access
to drugs and alcohol, nightmares, cleanness, bedwedding, masturbation, or touching
others inappropriately. Right, And I think I would include in
some of these things. When they randomly start bringing up
strangers names that you don't recognize, which has happened a lot,

(41:50):
and you start asking questions and if they can't tell
you last names. As a person who has done investigations
for child abuse, that was one of the things that
I would look for. I saw it met with this part. Really,
who is this is my soul? And solo's friend? Okay,
what's his last name? I don't know. How often do
you see him? When do you just things like that.
That's actually a big sign too. They start suddenly talking
about this wonderful person, but yet you don't know who

(42:12):
they are, where they came from, but they crept up.
That's something to watch from two. And when talking about prevention,
especially when it comes to children, it's recommended speaking to
them about sex and anatomy at a young age, letting
them know that they can come to you with concerns
and teaching them about grooming behaviors and like you were
seeing touching, like if you don't want to hug, it's

(42:34):
totally cool and just I think it's just a reminder
for the parents and our adults who are dealing with
the situation too. If this happens to your child, your niece,
your nephew, your student, it isn't your fault. And I
know part of that shame comes on to the parents
or adults as well. I actually experienced this myself as

(42:55):
a child. I had gone through several different types of
abuse and I was acting out in class and I
also was suicidal, and because my parents didn't know what
to do and they felt shame and they felt guilt,
they lashed out in a different manner, which they have
apologized when we've gone through all the nose and is.

(43:17):
But I shouldn't essentially making me feel more ashamed and
not being able to come out again with any of
more information. On top of that, this should not be
something that you beat yourself up for. That is part
of the health as well, you being in the proximity
of someone else being victimized. It is not your fault.
Either and you need to care for yourself as much

(43:39):
as you need to care for this victim, right Yeah.
And as I've said on this show before, um I've
actually never told anyone in my family any of this,
like they would be shocked. Um And then part of
that is because I didn't want them to feel guilty,
right So, and the thing is that that's me. They've
never really given me indication that they would, but that

(44:01):
is a part of it. Like I considered that I
haven't told them. Um. So those that's a good point,
and we have some some resources to to put in here.
If you realize that you or someone you know is
the target of grooming, there is there is help for
you out there. The first step is recognizing what's going on.
Once you do that, identify someone outside of this relationship

(44:25):
that you can talk to about it. In a perfect world,
this would be a professional someone who doesn't know the groomer,
but that isn't always an option for everyone, unfortunately. You
can find resources online that have advice on getting out
of a situation like this, and you can call the
U S National Domestic Violence Hotline, which is eight zero

(44:46):
zero seven nine nine seven two three three, or the
US Victim Connect Resource Center eight five eight four to
eight four six. They also have online options, but I
mean one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever seen
is that they have like this function or if you
click away, it erases your history. Right. There are several
options for domestic violence victims where you click it and

(45:06):
it goes to whether it's your dial page or whatever. Unfortunately,
it's necessary, and I wanted to add one more out there,
which is with the Child Health National Hotline, so this
could be specifically to child services child needs. It is
one eight hundred for a child, so are one eight
hundred four two two four four or five three. And
I know in each individual state there are hotlines to

(45:30):
your department Family and Children's Services or Family and Children's
Services that are available, which in the perfect world would
be the end all, but at least you are doing something. Yeah,
and for listeners not in the United States, there are
resources in UM a lot of a lot of other
countries as well, obviously, so there there is help out there.

(45:55):
A lot of times targets of grooming might not realize
what's going on. And we'll outright to this came up
a lot with the thing with R Kelly, which makes
helping them difficult, and the best way to approach the
situation from what I've read, is to be a friend
and good listener to the target of grooming, voice your
concerns and give reasonings in a calm manner. If you

(46:17):
try to remove someone from the situation forcefully, it could
get worse for the person that you're talking to. However,
if the target is a minor or otherwise vulnerable adults,
and authorized adults really needs to intervene. And then again,
this is something you see with like cults. Yeah, and again,
I keep referencing my job and my career. I have

(46:38):
seen many times where our parents just kind of go
after him, go after him and continuously kius. Run away kids,
run away kids run away. And one of the big
things that we have to say, we can't make them
admit what's going on. We can't make them say they're
a victim, we can't make them say this makes them
unhappy because in the end, we don't know where they
come from or came from. And oftentimes in my job

(47:00):
as a social worker working with children and working with teenagers,
I see that they think this is a better route
because they feel like they have more control than what
is happening at home. So that is definitely a situation, UM,
and there's not much you can do other than make
sure you're there for them and continue to be there
for them and check in on them. So I guess
to give a little bit of closure for for what

(47:24):
I was talking about earlier in my situation. The longest
phase of abuse I had ended with a car crash
and um arrest that I still feel very guilty about
because I really wanted them out of my life. Um,
I couldn't do it, and when it happened in this abrupt,
violent way, I was so relieved, and that, even though
I know it's totally legitimate and human to feel that way,

(47:46):
it made me feel really awful about myself. So that's
something I still struggle. These aren't easy, easy things to
deal with, Like we're giving you advice, but we're telling
you from people who have experienced things we know super
cool And this is where we're coming back to understanding trauma.
And that's why we are talking about this because we

(48:06):
want you to see every different aspect. Maybe all you
had was the grooming experience that's still traumatic. Maybe someone
you knew went through that experience that's still traumatic, and
of course we're gonna keep talking about it and keep
going into it um as we go into more of
these episodes. But again, these are things that both Annie
and I have experience, have seen, continue to see and

(48:27):
try to hopefully champion for the people who can't champion
for themselves essentially, but it's important once again to take
care of yourself and these guilt acknowledge that they're there.
Trying to pretend like it's not there does not work,
I promise. I have come out on many panic attacks
trying to repress a lot of a lot of things

(48:49):
in my past, and unfortunately, which is what we're gonna
talk about, with the different types of trauma, PTSD, c PTSD,
all of those things it comes out, unfortunately, whether it's
in your relationships in the daily life, or whether it's
in panic attacks and mental health things, it does. And
so therefore, caring for yourself and acknowledging that these are
there are actually very very important. Yes, And um that

(49:11):
brings us to we're going to try to end all
of these episodes with some self care stuff. UM, So
we're gonna like go through what we're doing for self
care for me, I am finally watching Spider Man three,
which I know some people who would argue as the
opposite of self care. But I'm excited about These are

(49:32):
not things I don't know. I'm so excited. It's notoriously
pretty bad and I'm making I'm doing this because I'm
working on a Venom parody music video, so it's very important,
which I'm very excited about. Gosh, I am too. I
can't tell you how excited I am about it. We
cannot be in it, Oh, please be in it. I'm
recruiting everyone who will help me. So listeners, if you guys,

(49:55):
it's a song parody to the tune of Beck's Loser,
because in the movie Venom, if you don't know, he
calls himself a loser in a very funny tone of voice. Anyway,
Also hanging out with friends and going hiking, and um
for the D and D fact of the episode, because
I'm going to include one of these for everyone since

(50:15):
my the whole reason I started playing D and D
was to deal with my c PTSD. UM. Okay, so
one thing that's great about DN D or terrible, depending
on who you ask, is that it rarely goes as
planned for anybody, and my character is sort of notorious
for blowing stuff up, and and in the game, we

(50:36):
were invited to this very fancy partycy like we had
to buy dresses our suits. Yeah, very fancy. It went
terribly arrived. All the authorities of this entire town are
looking forward like they chase us out of the party,
and I make time my character to blow something up

(51:01):
while we're being pursued by the police. And then we
broke into this mean old ladies magic shop again being
pursued by the police. When you're saying this, this is
all on the game, not in real life, because I
got really like, how are you not arrested? And also
who has a magic shop? Keep going, I'm ready now. Yes,

(51:23):
so we're not great people, if that's not clear, our
characters aren't, but we're fun. We're fun at parties. Are
the party's imaginary parties or okay, so parties we'll see. Yes, um,
but one of our party members stole an owl cloak
that when he put it on our dungeon masters, the
person that's kind of running the game, he said, you're

(51:46):
not sure what it does, but you feel really confident.
And now he never takes his character never takes it
off and he looks cool as hell. He always describes
how he's wearing it. The next day after we played,
Paul Manafort got busted for his ostrich coat, and I
thought it was perfect, perfect. So he's pretty much Dungeons
and Dragons meaphor who doesn't want to be that. Oh

(52:08):
my gosh, I right there, that's the parody in itself.
It is okay. So my fun facts would have to
do with my dinky dog, Peaches Gertrude Buzzin. Yeah, that's
her full name. She yelled that out loud to her
when she does something dumb, which is often, and I
have been told that dogs taking on the characters of

(52:29):
their person. Yeah, I can't deny that. I can't deny
that she's a jerk, but I love her. She can't
go out in public because she acts a fool, but
she loves everyone except for other dogs. She loves men
more interesting. And I'm not gonna slut shamer, but that

(52:52):
makes me feel some type of way because I don't
have that many men come in through my life, and
I already feel kind of weird about that because I
feel like I should. As we talked about the previous episodes. Um,
so I feel like she's giving me a double wimmy
of shame and like you're not good enough and why
don't you have a man? I'm pretty sure that's the
look I got from her. And if you see, if
anybody ever wants a picture of me and her during

(53:15):
the New Year's and I give her a kiss and
she rolls her eyes at me, that is a constant yes, yes,
And you have offered before if you have pictures, she
has pictures, And if you want them, if you need
them for your own self care, you can write in
I got him. She's wearing a hat and one she's
wearing a tiger suit, no, a lion suit and one
Christmas p js. In one she's sitting on top of

(53:38):
people in another. Oh my goodness. See a lot of options. Yeah,
And if you need resources, you can reach out to
us as well. Um, Samantha will be back in our
our next episode ever forever in this series on examining trauma,
and the next episode is about trauma specifically, so you

(54:01):
can look out watch your feed for that. In the meantime,
if you want to email us, if you need any
of those resources. Are those pictures you can. Our email
is mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com. Our
Twitter is mom Stuff Podcast, and on Instagram we are
stuff I've never told you. Thanks as always to our
producer Andrew Howard, and thanks to Andrew for listening.