Sexual grooming refers to actions or behaviors used to establish an emotional connection with a minor, and sometimes the child's family, to lower the child's inhibitions with the objective of sexual abuse. It can occur in various settings, including online, in person, and through other means of communication. Children who are groomed may experience mental health issues, including "anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, and suicidal thoughts."
History and recognition
Origins
Before the term "grooming" was associated with grooming a child for sexual abuse, it had come to have a meaning of mentorship, coaching, or preparing someone for leadership.
From 1975 to 1985, law enforcement in the United States became increasingly aware of child sexual abuse that happened to children from outside their family, committed by those who were not strangers. Previously, the focus of law enforcement had been on "stranger danger" and those who used threats of violence to ensure compliance from their victims. In these newly recognized sexual abuse cases, children were manipulated with a "combination of attention, affection, kindness, gifts, alcohol, drugs, money, and privileges." While there are examples before this time where the pattern was recognized, it was during this decade that the FBI became aware the pattern and criminal investigations began to be taken seriously in the United States. There was also growing awareness that offenders joined youth-serving organizations to gain access to potential victims.
As an example, a 1977 study used the terminology "pressured sexual contacts" and "forced sex contacts" to distinguish two types of offenders. Sex-pressure offenses had a lack of physical force and behavior that was counter-aggressive, using "persuasion of reward, attention, affection, money, gifts, or entrapment". "Sex-force offenses" used the threat of harm or physical force, such as "intimidation, verbal threat, restraint, manipulation, and physical strength."
Ken Lanning is credited with being one of the first professionals using the term "grooming". He recalls it being used in conversations between law enforcement professionals, and pinpoints the first known written description of the process of child grooming to a 1979 book written by Nicholas Groth, and the first printed use of the word grooming to a 1984 article by Jon Conte. At the beginning of its use, both grooming and seduction were being used to describe this type of non-violent offender, and Lanning recalls using both terms interchangeably.
A January 1984 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin used "seduction" and being "seduced" to describe the activity of non-violent offenders. By 1985, the Chicago Tribune had used the term, reporting "These 'friendly molesters' become acquainted with their targeted victim, gaining their trust while secretly grooming the child as a sexual partner."
In the 1980's, the public in the United States became increasingly aware of child sexual abuse through the nursery school cases and abuse in religious settings.
Changing meaning
During the 1990s, the term grooming began to replace seduction as the most commonly used term. However, there was not "one official, legal, mental health, or even lay definition" of grooming. Growing awareness of chat rooms being used by pedophiles to target victims came to public notice, and the use of 'grooming' to mean "To win the confidence of (a victim) in order to a commit sexual assault on him or her" became mainstream. In academia, the description of grooming strategies in online cases became distinct from the descriptions of pre-Internet grooming strategies.
In 2008, a BBC report stated that "grooming" had taken on a pejorative meaning; no longer associated with animal care or mentoring, it had become associated with pedophiles and pedophilia. This caused outrage when the term "groomed" was used to describe the behavior of someone who had obtained leaked documents from a civil servant. The news report mentioned other uses of the term "groom" that also had negative connotation, such as "groomed for terrorism" or "groomed to become suicide bombers".
A 2022 report by the Christian Monitor, reported that the word "grooming" was now seen as "sinister". Instead of meaning "to prepare as a political candidate ... to prepare or coach for a career," the term had shifted in public discourse to mean "to befriend or influence (a child), now esp. via the internet, in preparation for future sexual abuse."