Grooming Lies
Update, contrary to popular belief, anti-grooming policies were adopted by many organizations to protect adults, not children. This was the result of many lawsuits over sexual abuse. The end result is children are viewed as a danger, resulting in adults dropping out of the lives of children.
I have lived many decades and long ago discovered the passions of parents and their fears are admirable but frightening, if not paranoid. Every few years, there is panic about sex, and often the topic of children becomes a central focus. With every panic,
parents cling to authority figures be it police, school officials, or pastors. Yet, there is a more sinister danger. However, to expose the danger, I have to break sacred myths so many people hold.
We all hear the crimes of men “grooming” children for molestation. In fact, the idea has been written into laws, school policies, and many organizations which deal with children. Right now, the focus had been on drag performances but there is more history to this. From the Catholic Church to the Boys Scouts, the fear of any supposed action being grooming has resulted in a vast array of restrictions. Many of these restrictions are harmful to children, and the trend has been to treat children as porcelain dolls and to pickle them in their youth, never to grow up. We ignore children are often resilient and will grow up, in spite of the aberrant behavior they received. Civilization requires all children to be raised to be functional adults but the fear over sex often operates in the opposite direction.
The groomer myth is just a way to demonize normal, yet possibly inappropriate, interactions between adults and children. Watch my words closely and understand I am tying two ideas together. Children can consent to sexual interaction with adults but in doing so, they are most often making bad decisions. We intentionally limit the choice of children for very good reasons. Children have a lack of experience and are governed by passions. Their knowledge of the world is limited and they make bad trade-offs. Ever give a kid an expensive toy and they trade it off for a bag of rubber bands, and you ask “Why?” and they shoot you with a rubber band? The sexual “molestation” of children is highly underreported, not just because of some victims being embarrassed, but because the supposed victim considered it a fair trade-off or found such exposure exciting or unimportant. Children are not the angels people wish to believe and many know this to be true.
Every child wants excitement, wants attention, has curiosity, and has at least some casual interest in biological functions, including sex. Children know their default setting in life and look for adults for guidance, and have every right to expect it but sometimes those expectations go beyond what most adults are willing to deliver, particularly sex.
Children play up to their parents' expectations. This is a frustration for babysitters who know the children are going to act differently when the parents are gone. This is why many babysitters quit. Parents take great joy in seeing their child take their “first steps”, yet an experienced babysitter won’t tell the parents, they had the child walking a few days ago. Also, no respectful babysitter will ever tell a parent “Your son is very proud of his penis and what he can do with it”. Dare I mention the pleasures males have with an erection?
Also, the Western World or should I say Judeo-Christianity, has had many contentions with biology regarding interactions with sexual organs. In part, this is because the Abrahamic religion overtook the very permissive pagan fertility religions. This is not noticeable until you enter countries where the Abrahamic religions had no foothold. Japan has high praise for penis parades (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanamara_Matsuri). Please note, I am not trying to disparage any religious traditions but to distinguish the difference.
Another problem: pedophiles and child molesters, while there is overlap, are two very different things. Yes, pedophiles have sexual interests in children but they also have an interest in all things children do. They genuinely care and accept when a child says “no”. A child molester is the polar opposite. A child molester is a sexual opportunist and is unpredictable and will strike, without any regard to the wishes of the child. To make matters worse, child molesters molest relatives and will likely do so repeatedly. Pedophiles are mere lurkers whereas child molesters are repetitive abusers.
The fear over molestation has attacked males particularly hard. This includes the Catholic Church, Boys Scouts, Big Brothers and schools, where a mere erect penis leads to so many problems. I see a lot of problems with these cases. It is one thing for a person to claim and prove abuse, but it is a completely another matter when the person supposedly abused voluntarily shows up to be “abused” again. Lots of holes in such allegations but in pointing these facts out, many fear being accused of “blaming the victim”. Exaggerations have fed a climate of fear and intimidation.
Now, why am I telling you all of this? I grew up under Roe v. Wade, the sexual revolution, and the AIDS crisis. A movie of the time was Kramer vs Kramer (https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/amzn1.dv.gti.48a9f721-c290-30c5-e8e8-4be32e37c920). The movie did not go far enough. Parents accused each other of sexual abuse and single parents feared their children were being abused by everyone. The fear of child molestation gripped the nation and the result has been catastrophic negligence, thus why I write this.
There are many men and some women who have absolutely dropped out of the lives of children, not just out of caution, but fear of children (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_children). Halloween used to be vibrant with vast participation but with concerns about “pins and razors” being in candy, some if not many, dropped out of the tradition of handing out candy, for fear of false allegations. Many men flat-out refuse to do any activities where “underage” people will be present. The risks of false allegations are too much for anyone to bear, let alone defeat.
The end result of all this fear over sexual molestation is parents easily become stressed out as others opt out of helping with their children. I hear a friend complain her son spends too much time on video games such as Halo and social media. I could offer to take her son to a shooting range and understand how guns work or a movie. But I don’t. I fear allegations of grooming. If I could help him practice shooting a gun, he may become a great soldier or police officer but the fear of allegations of molestation prevent my assistance. So, I end up not even being a part of his life. I am absent. What is his loss? What is the loss to civilization? No one cares and no one is asking. So civilization falls apart. The interaction of adults sharing a heritage with the young is lost. This neglect has a catastrophic impact which is yet to be realized.
You always see deeper ramifications to problems. Yes, when we ignore God’s parameters, we often unwittingly let the pigs out of the pigpens to do further damage than we expected.
Speaking as a parent, the fears parents have are genuine and real. Most parents don't want our kids damaged or their maturation process stunted by the exposure at too-young ages to inappropriate sexual experiences or printed or video content of a sexualized nature. Most parents are aware that sick sexual fantasies aren't a sign of a healthy psyche and won't contribute to greater quality of life for their children.
That picture from Japan--ay yai yai--that isn't a healthy thing for any culture. The peoples inhabiting Palestine before God gave it to the Hebrews following the Exodus from Egypt had their Asherah poles and their fertility gods as well. They also sacrificed children to Molech by throwing them alive into the flames. And many of us, looking around at the train wreck that the "free love" of The Sixties has led to see connections between the hyper-sexualization of our culture, the destruction of the family, the rise of the abortion industry, the proliferation of human trafficking, and the sharp downward trajectory of our nation from the strength and prosperity that it once had. We are losing our souls to this madness. Much as been written about how this horrible rot has been deliberately introduced by communist operatives using the Cloward-Piven strategy. As a conservative Christian and an American who loves my country, I am greatly concerned by what I'm seeing.
When I was raising my kids, I didn't want pedophiles around my children any more than I wanted child molesters around them. It is ALWAYS inappropriate for adults to participate in or explore sexual fantasies with kids. Period. Full stop. It also doesn't matter if it's an abused child hitting on a foster parent or a childish moment of inappropriate curiosity. There are boundaries of right and wrong, and this is one of them.
Yes, kids do have a fascination with their own body parts and a natural curiosity about sex and bodily functions, but parents have a sacred duty and obligation to explain the facts of life to their kids and warn them to beware of those people who will take advantage of their innocence and steal it from them. It is also parents' job to watch over their kids and protect them from would-be predators.
Kids' innocence is valuable and beautiful. It is a gift. We should protect it. Sometimes, that involves setting boundaries and disciplining children and reinforcing that no means NO until they start listening and understand why they shouldn't engage in certain behaviors. This can be particularly challenging with kids whose innocence has been stolen from them, who are hyper-sexualized because of sexual abuse, but it can be done. Those who are mentally and emotionally adults should have the ability and the healthy boundaries to say no and make it stick.
I see the clips of Biden pawing at little girls' chests--and the looks of unhappiness and discomfort on those girls' faces--and I think that Biden is a nasty old man who needs to be kept away from contact with little girls. And then I wonder why any parents would put their children needlessly into those situations where Biden can do that? I can't understand that. I particularly can't understand what would prompt a parent to intentionally put their child in that situation while knowing that it will be caught on camera and spread all over the internet.
That doesn't mean that the fears that men have are any less real when it comes to being accused of evil acts when they were genuinely just trying to be there for some kids. I understand why you would have those fears. In this current atmosphere, it's gotta be a real issue.
Even worse is that it isn't just men who are capable of committing these acts of depravity. In recent years, the reports of women teachers caught committing acts of pedophilia with their young male students have also risen dramatically. As a mother, I look at those reports with great concern. We need to rethink education. We need to return to a model where parents are actively overseeing their kids' daily welfare. Homeschooling is capable of preventing so much of what is going on in the public (and even in the private) schools, but it requires certain sacrifices from the families who pursue it. Most people don't get wealthy homeschooling because it usually takes a significant chunk of time and effort from one parent.
My advice for you as well as anyone else man or woman: if they aren't your kids, there's strength and support in numbers. As much as possible, avoid closed door situations where you are the only adult in the room with a child. More children is better, other adults in the room is even better. Watch each others' backs and build healthy boundaries that kids and adults respect. Teach them to respect that word, NO.