Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / Monday Mini Classics: Grooming 101
Transcript
- 0:04Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Samantha. I welcome to Stuff
- 0:07Speaker 1: I Never Told You, a production of I Heartradio and
- 0:18Speaker 1: for today's classic. Unfortunately, we thought we should bring back
- 0:22Speaker 1: our episode we did on grooming and what that looks
- 0:25Speaker 1: like and how it can manifest because a lot of
- 0:29Speaker 1: stuff is happening in the news right now and there's
- 0:31Speaker 1: a lot of conversation about it, and we are talking
- 0:34Speaker 1: about doing We're going to come back and do a
- 0:37Speaker 1: whole episode in March probably, but soon soon, but in
- 0:43Speaker 1: the meantime, we did want to bring back this classic
- 0:46Speaker 1: to help get you prepared.
- 0:49Speaker 2: We need to do a review.
- 0:51Speaker 3: We need to do a review.
- 0:52Speaker 1: So yes, please enjoy this classic episode.
- 1:02Speaker 3: Hey, this is Annie and you're listening to Stuff I
- 1:04Speaker 3: Never Told You. Today we are.
- 1:18Speaker 1: Once again joined by my good friend Samantha. Hello, Samantha, Hello,
- 1:23Speaker 1: thank you. Yep you are and you will be back
- 1:28Speaker 1: for this the series that we're doing also.
- 1:32Speaker 2: Forever sitting in the corner staring at everyone.
- 1:34Speaker 3: Yes, doing the grudge.
- 1:36Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:40Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 1:40Speaker 1: This is the second in our series examining trauma and
- 1:44Speaker 1: sexual assault in the era of Me Too. And you
- 1:46Speaker 1: are a great person to bring in for this because
- 1:48Speaker 1: you do you have a history and social work.
- 1:51Speaker 2: That is my career. Thus far, thus far, thus far.
- 1:54Speaker 4: We put that as a dot dot dot.
- 1:57Speaker 2: I'm Drincken there. You know.
- 1:59Speaker 1: I love including those because it just adds this layer
- 2:02Speaker 1: of mystery and intrigues.
- 2:03Speaker 2: What is she going to do next?
- 2:05Speaker 3: Dot dot?
- 2:07Speaker 4: I'm going to stay at home and just eat and
- 2:09Speaker 4: watch TV. Can someone pay me to do that?
- 2:13Speaker 3: I think there is Yeah, I think you can get
- 2:15Speaker 3: paid for that.
- 2:16Speaker 2: I'm sure it's very competitive. Oh, we're going to research
- 2:18Speaker 2: this in a bit.
- 2:19Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, that's immediately.
- 2:21Speaker 1: Thing we're doing immediately have goals, so quick trigger warning.
- 2:27Speaker 1: We are talking about grooming and what a what exactly
- 2:31Speaker 1: that entails, including specific methods and purposes, and just to
- 2:39Speaker 1: kind of prep everyone, to prime everyone. The general definition
- 2:42Speaker 1: of grooming is the act of preparing or training someone
- 2:45Speaker 1: for particular purpose or activity, and oftentimes it involves someone
- 2:49Speaker 1: of power, mentoring, training, or intimidating another individual. But in
- 2:54Speaker 1: this conversation, we're mostly going to be talking about it
- 2:57Speaker 1: in terms of abuse and specifically trigger warnings. We're going
- 3:03Speaker 1: to be talking about you sexual assault, molestation and grooming,
- 3:06Speaker 1: sexual grooming, sexual exportation, human trafficking, bestiality, pedophilia. Most of
- 3:12Speaker 1: these were not going to go in depth on, but
- 3:15Speaker 1: if it's something that is triggering are difficult for you,
- 3:18Speaker 1: please put your own health and well being first. And
- 3:24Speaker 1: this is something that several of you have written in
- 3:27Speaker 1: about and that's been in the news quite a lot
- 3:29Speaker 1: lately because as we record this, the R Kelly thing,
- 3:33Speaker 1: the documentary is really big in the news cycle and
- 3:37Speaker 1: grooming is a part of that conversation.
- 3:41Speaker 2: Hashtag mute r Kelly.
- 3:43Speaker 3: Hashtag mute r Kelly.
- 3:47Speaker 1: If we look at this whole picture of abuse or
- 3:52Speaker 1: of choosing or preparing a victim, grooming is often the
- 3:58Speaker 1: first step or a quick second step.
- 4:00Speaker 3: I suppose a study that.
- 4:01Speaker 1: Came out recently found most people couldn't identify signs of grooming.
- 4:05Speaker 1: So hopefully this episode that we're having can make us
- 4:10Speaker 1: all a little more vigilant and aware. I know I
- 4:13Speaker 1: learned a lot from researching this one, you.
- 4:15Speaker 4: Know, any I was going to add to that that
- 4:17Speaker 4: it is often times hard to see in a victim,
- 4:20Speaker 4: which is why a lot of the sites you'll see
- 4:22Speaker 4: and a lot of the statistics is to say to
- 4:26Speaker 4: focus on the perpetrator, you'll see their actions including the
- 4:30Speaker 4: online perpetrators. They are specifics to that which we won't
- 4:34Speaker 4: necessarily go into, but that is something to think on too.
- 4:38Speaker 1: Yeah, So let's start, as I like to do, with
- 4:42Speaker 1: the definition what is grooming? Author and counselor Eric Marlow
- 4:47Speaker 1: Garrison defines it like this, Grooming is the slow, methodical,
- 4:51Speaker 1: and intentional process of manipulating a person to a point
- 4:55Speaker 1: where they can be victimized. After the perpetrators find their targets,
- 4:59Speaker 1: they gained trust, and move in from there. The US
- 5:04Speaker 1: Department of Justice Office of Sex Offenders Sentencing defines it
- 5:07Speaker 1: as grooming is a method used by offenders that involves
- 5:11Speaker 1: building trust with a child and the adults around a
- 5:14Speaker 1: child in an effort to gain access to and time
- 5:17Speaker 1: alone with him or her. In extreme cases, offenders may
- 5:20Speaker 1: use threats and physical force to sexually assault or abuse
- 5:24Speaker 1: a child. More common, though, are subtle approaches designed to
- 5:27Speaker 1: build relationships with families. The offender may assume a caring role,
- 5:32Speaker 1: befriend the child, or even exploit their position of trust
- 5:34Speaker 1: and authority to groom the child and or the child's family.
- 5:38Speaker 1: These individuals intentionally build relationships with the adults around a
- 5:42Speaker 1: child or seek out a child who is less supervised
- 5:46Speaker 1: by adults in their lives. This increases the likelihood that
- 5:49Speaker 1: the offender's time with a child is welcomed and encouraged.
- 5:53Speaker 1: So we are talking a lot about children and grooming
- 5:57Speaker 1: of children in this episode, but it can happen to anyone.
- 6:01Speaker 4: Right, And I think we're going to talk a little more,
- 6:03Speaker 4: but you and I discuss the fact that when it
- 6:05Speaker 4: comes to domestic violence, that is a type of grooming
- 6:08Speaker 4: as well, because oftentimes they will seek women who have
- 6:11Speaker 4: already been through specific situations traumas in their life, maybe
- 6:14Speaker 4: have grown up with domestic violence in their lives, and
- 6:16Speaker 4: then they kind of hone in on these women and
- 6:20Speaker 4: specifically pick them because they are easier victims. So obviously
- 6:25Speaker 4: that has a lot to do with sexual abuse.
- 6:28Speaker 1: And it is often the precursor to the crime of
- 6:31Speaker 1: sexual abuse. But sexual grooming is a standalone crime in itself,
- 6:36Speaker 1: but it is hard to prove and you'll see why
- 6:39Speaker 1: that is in a minute.
- 6:41Speaker 4: So as we're talking about the fact that, yes, it
- 6:44Speaker 4: can be specifically to sexual abuse of children, we're going
- 6:47Speaker 4: to talk about all the facts about domestic violence, as
- 6:49Speaker 4: I had previously said, but also if you look at
- 6:51Speaker 4: gangs and cults, they kind of.
- 6:53Speaker 2: Do the same thing.
- 6:54Speaker 4: They look for individuals who lack family and therefore need
- 6:59Speaker 4: something to hold onto, and they groom these people into
- 7:02Speaker 4: mentoring and oftentimes involved a way. So if you look
- 7:05Speaker 4: at gang members and you look at the fact that
- 7:07Speaker 4: a lot of teenagers have been recruited for lack of
- 7:10Speaker 4: better terms, they are looking for by the family figures
- 7:15Speaker 4: and this.
- 7:15Speaker 2: Is where they go to seek it.
- 7:16Speaker 4: And on top of that, they're being taught how to
- 7:18Speaker 4: make money or how to do things without going the
- 7:22Speaker 4: hard route as in like education or building family trust, counseling.
- 7:27Speaker 4: In all of that, it kind of pulls away from
- 7:28Speaker 4: that and they think this is what they want. Same
- 7:31Speaker 4: thing as pedophiles. It's not just a pedophilic act, but
- 7:35Speaker 4: something done out of dominance. And honestly, while we're talking
- 7:38Speaker 4: about pedophiles, let's be specific as the differences of pedophiles
- 7:42Speaker 4: and child molesters, because I think that's not talked about enough.
- 7:45Speaker 4: Pedophiles can be sexually aroused by previous best children and
- 7:49Speaker 4: oftentimes form emotional attachment to their victims. If you look
- 7:53Speaker 4: at Nambla as an example, they really feel like this
- 7:57Speaker 4: is another form of sexuality that have being a relationship
- 8:00Speaker 4: from a young boy where an older man should not
- 8:04Speaker 4: be stopped if it's gentle, and they truly believe that
- 8:08Speaker 4: this is a relationship that people are not willing to see,
- 8:11Speaker 4: which when we talk about the fact that children do
- 8:14Speaker 4: not have the option to consent because they are not
- 8:16Speaker 4: able to say no and understand why they can say no,
- 8:19Speaker 4: which is also an important part about having parents teach
- 8:23Speaker 4: their children it's okay to not to be touched, not
- 8:25Speaker 4: to be tickled, and say I don't want to hug you,
- 8:27Speaker 4: which is very important that we talked about more and
- 8:29Speaker 4: more as of late, and I know a lot of
- 8:31Speaker 4: women and a lot of parents have become very aware
- 8:33Speaker 4: of this and start to teach their children these things.
- 8:36Speaker 4: But Nambla has this whole fixation that I'm in love,
- 8:41Speaker 4: he's in love with me, and I can take care
- 8:42Speaker 4: of them, which is disturbing on his own as where
- 8:46Speaker 4: child molestors and abusers use child for sexual stimulation and
- 8:49Speaker 4: could be more about opportunity than need. So when I
- 8:52Speaker 4: say that, I often see Pierre and peer victim so
- 8:55Speaker 4: youth on youth crimes where youth will actually sexual abuse
- 8:59Speaker 4: another youth may be similar to their age, and not
- 9:02Speaker 4: because they prefer that child, but because it is an opportunity,
- 9:05Speaker 4: and they're still considered child molestor and a sex offender
- 9:08Speaker 4: out on top.
- 9:09Speaker 2: Of that.
- 9:12Speaker 1: And this conversation, and we're going to talk about this
- 9:15Speaker 1: a little bit more, but it also we can bring
- 9:18Speaker 1: in exploitation and trafficking in this whole thing. The perpetrator
- 9:25Speaker 1: of grooming can be just about anyone. From retired special
- 9:30Speaker 1: Agent with the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit Kenneth V. Lanning quote,
- 9:35Speaker 1: pedophiles span the full spectrum, from saints to monsters. In
- 9:39Speaker 1: spite of this fact, over and over again, pedophiles are
- 9:42Speaker 1: not recognized, investigated, charged, convicted, or sent to prison simply
- 9:46Speaker 1: because they are nice guys.
- 9:49Speaker 4: As in fact, my experiences in working with sex offenders,
- 9:52Speaker 4: it's common to see a sex offender being the most
- 9:54Speaker 4: cooperative and workable group of offenders. They majority of these
- 9:59Speaker 4: types of defenders are not necessarily violent and often very
- 10:02Speaker 4: aware of their surroundings and how to stay under the radar.
- 10:05Speaker 4: You could also say that for female adults with younger
- 10:09Speaker 4: men or the younger teenage boys, they are not volatile,
- 10:13Speaker 4: but they use their sexuality as well as their dominance
- 10:16Speaker 4: and or power to get control over these youths and
- 10:20Speaker 4: oftentimes somehow convince these teenage boys slash younger boys that
- 10:26Speaker 4: they are not victims, but they are the loves of
- 10:28Speaker 4: their lives. They're their boyfriends, which is a manipulation in itself,
- 10:32Speaker 4: and honestly, not to make you paranoid, but just to
- 10:35Speaker 4: give empower you with information. I think by now people
- 10:38Speaker 4: are aware of all the shocking statistics of human trafficking,
- 10:42Speaker 4: so I kind of want to jump into that. And
- 10:44Speaker 4: for us in Atlanta, that's a really big issue. Atlanta
- 10:48Speaker 4: has one of the highest statistics when it comes to
- 10:50Speaker 4: victims and trafficking, and I think that has a lot
- 10:54Speaker 4: to do with the international airport that we have. We
- 10:57Speaker 4: have heartspelt, so a lot of international flights through there,
- 11:00Speaker 4: so people are easily accessible or lights are easily accessible wherever, as.
- 11:06Speaker 2: Well as our big events.
- 11:08Speaker 4: And with that, I want to talk a little bit
- 11:11Speaker 4: about sea sick victims, which means commercially sexually exploited children,
- 11:17Speaker 4: which you're going to hear me say that acronym a lot,
- 11:19Speaker 4: and you probably may have already heard it and not
- 11:21Speaker 4: realized what it is. But what it comes down to
- 11:25Speaker 4: is here we're defining children or youth under the age
- 11:29Speaker 4: of eighteen, specifically victims, about how they're found and how
- 11:34Speaker 4: they're picked out, and we're going to talk a little
- 11:36Speaker 4: more about what exactly that looks like the whole human trafficking.
- 11:40Speaker 4: I know that's a pretty big word, and everybody's become
- 11:43Speaker 4: very aware of it.
- 11:44Speaker 1: If we go, if we broaden out to grooming. We
- 11:48Speaker 1: don't have any solid numbers on it because it's something
- 11:51Speaker 1: that is surrounded by a shame here, guilt or not
- 11:54Speaker 1: realizing that a form of abuse is taking place. Numbers
- 11:57Speaker 1: we do have from two thousand and six indicate that
- 11:59Speaker 1: one in four girl girls and one in five boys
- 12:01Speaker 1: will be sexually abused before they turn eighteen. Some estimates
- 12:05Speaker 1: put the number of child sex offenders as low as
- 12:08Speaker 1: five percent. Again, it's one of those things that isn't
- 12:11Speaker 1: reported on very often, like it's underreported this crime. So
- 12:15Speaker 1: probably numbers are higher than what we're saying, and they're
- 12:18Speaker 1: already pretty high.
- 12:19Speaker 4: And that has a lot to do with children don't
- 12:21Speaker 4: know how to report, they're not taught how to report one, two,
- 12:25Speaker 4: they feel like they're unsafe to try to actually report,
- 12:28Speaker 4: or they do it way later in time in which
- 12:31Speaker 4: the statute of limitations are gone, and that varies from
- 12:33Speaker 4: state to state, which is unfortunate. And a lot of
- 12:37Speaker 4: times they're discouraged by members that are close to them
- 12:41Speaker 4: to not report. So all of these things have factors
- 12:43Speaker 4: into why it is so underreported m.
- 12:45Speaker 1: HM and generally, grooming starts as friendship. The groomer learns
- 12:51Speaker 1: what the potential target likes, what they dislike, thinks that
- 12:54Speaker 1: they can use later.
- 12:56Speaker 3: Social media can play a big part of this.
- 12:58Speaker 1: The groomer can learn a lot about the person from
- 13:01Speaker 1: what they post, and they can use that information to
- 13:04Speaker 1: form a friendship. That's one reason why being careful about
- 13:09Speaker 1: what we post, especially for younger people, is always, always
- 13:13Speaker 1: always recommended. From the stuff you post on social media,
- 13:16Speaker 1: someone could start a conversation about your interests. They might
- 13:19Speaker 1: mention someone you know as if they know that person too,
- 13:22Speaker 1: or in the case of a power disparity in terms
- 13:25Speaker 1: of maybe a job, a coach or a teacher, or
- 13:27Speaker 1: a doctor or a priest, because there already is one
- 13:30Speaker 1: inherent a power dynamic, if a minor is involved, mentioning
- 13:34Speaker 1: the power that they.
- 13:35Speaker 4: Have right, I mean we can just talk about the
- 13:37Speaker 4: fact you can lose your job. Now if you post
- 13:40Speaker 4: something that may not have anything to do with your job,
- 13:42Speaker 4: you can lose scholarships, you can lose anything, in which
- 13:45Speaker 4: we try to tell everyone, don't be dumb. You will
- 13:49Speaker 4: be found out if it's on the internet, even once
- 13:51Speaker 4: it can be found again. I know that that's one
- 13:54Speaker 4: of the same things that we talk about with sharing
- 13:56Speaker 4: your location. That is beyond dangerous because oftentimes these offenders
- 14:01Speaker 4: are at the level that they will stalk you. I
- 14:04Speaker 4: think the recent case Close Jaden Close, is that her name.
- 14:08Speaker 4: I'm going to have to go back and look at
- 14:10Speaker 4: this who just recently work was kidnapped her after her
- 14:13Speaker 4: parents were shot. Oh oh yeah, he stalked her and
- 14:16Speaker 4: it had nothing to do with social media, but just
- 14:17Speaker 4: the level at some that some.
- 14:20Speaker 2: Perpetrators will go to.
- 14:22Speaker 4: He stalked her from a school bus to the home,
- 14:24Speaker 4: not knowing who she was, not knowing who they were,
- 14:26Speaker 4: and was willing to commit murder and kidnapping to get
- 14:29Speaker 4: to her, which is a rude awakening. It happens since
- 14:32Speaker 4: they were Therefore, things like location tagging and all that
- 14:35Speaker 4: can be very seriously dangerous, which needs to be discussed
- 14:38Speaker 4: with your youths, teenagers everyone.
- 14:40Speaker 1: Yeah, I've always that scary moment when the at least
- 14:44Speaker 1: for me, it was a little frightening. I've had it
- 14:46Speaker 1: happened a couple of times, but when the lift driver
- 14:49Speaker 1: is like, oh, do you live here alone and you're like, oh.
- 14:55Speaker 3: No, this is my friend's house.
- 14:57Speaker 1: I remember being in high school when social media was
- 15:00Speaker 1: relatively new, my marching band director saying that you should
- 15:04Speaker 1: never trust someone who comes up to you and says
- 15:06Speaker 1: something like I know so and so, and they said
- 15:09Speaker 1: I should give you a ride or something like that
- 15:11Speaker 1: because they could find that stuff out.
- 15:13Speaker 3: From social media. And I remember specifically at the time,
- 15:16Speaker 3: being kind of thrown by that idea. But he, I
- 15:20Speaker 3: mean he was right.
- 15:21Speaker 4: Yeah. As a nanny, I was really overprotective due to
- 15:26Speaker 4: having worked as an investigator in child abuse and sexual abuse,
- 15:29Speaker 4: and would oftentimes intervene if anything looks suspicious. And I
- 15:33Speaker 4: still think children under sixteen should not be on social media.
- 15:36Speaker 4: I was very upset with my brother and sister when
- 15:39Speaker 4: they are allowed their teens or not empteens eleven to
- 15:42Speaker 4: twelve year old to get on social media and reminding
- 15:44Speaker 4: them this is not safe. You think you have control
- 15:48Speaker 4: over the phones, over the social media, you don't know
- 15:50Speaker 4: what's going on.
- 15:51Speaker 2: You will never.
- 15:52Speaker 4: Catch up to the new ways or fads or whatever
- 15:57Speaker 4: that is happening that you think you can be protective.
- 15:59Speaker 4: I know, Kick came out kik for a while, and
- 16:03Speaker 4: that was one of the scariest things to me because
- 16:04Speaker 4: it was those photo messages that would send back and
- 16:07Speaker 4: I actually had a case where a kid sent let's
- 16:11Speaker 4: just stay in an indecent picture to another kid and
- 16:13Speaker 4: then it got spread all around and we came back
- 16:15Speaker 4: and I was like, you know, this is a felony, right,
- 16:17Speaker 4: this is child molestation, this is child porn, distribution of
- 16:20Speaker 4: child porn. And they didn't understand that because they're all children.
- 16:22Speaker 4: But it doesn't have anything to do with age the
- 16:25Speaker 4: fact that you're spreading this. But it's such a scary
- 16:27Speaker 4: thing that I am overly cautious and oftentimes will make
- 16:30Speaker 4: sure that they understand this is not as safe as
- 16:33Speaker 4: you think. I remember I fought with my employer about
- 16:37Speaker 4: getting these kids' phones, and they did. They kind of
- 16:40Speaker 4: stepped up to it because they used the kid version
- 16:42Speaker 4: and then another version. But then we started talking about
- 16:44Speaker 4: the PlayStations, how they're easily accessible to Internet and oftentimes
- 16:48Speaker 4: they use that as an outlet for social media.
- 16:50Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's a whole scary thing.
- 16:52Speaker 3: Yeah it is.
- 16:53Speaker 1: And I mean I could do I could speak for
- 16:55Speaker 1: hours and hours about the harassment I received through a
- 16:58Speaker 1: gaming system.
- 17:00Speaker 3: That's a different episode. And it sucks.
- 17:02Speaker 1: This whole thing sucks because once again, the onus is
- 17:04Speaker 1: on us to prevent someone from doing something terrible.
- 17:08Speaker 4: And someone who's dedicated the majority of my adult life
- 17:12Speaker 4: to this is taxing, and it's never ending. It seems
- 17:16Speaker 4: like I'm just digging a hole, hoping that I'm.
- 17:18Speaker 2: Kind of helping a little bit.
- 17:20Speaker 4: And then you turn around and there's something new, there's
- 17:22Speaker 4: something different, there's something more.
- 17:25Speaker 1: And another thing to keep in mind, the parent, adult authority, figures,
- 17:30Speaker 1: support group, whatever it is, of the target are often
- 17:34Speaker 1: groomed as well to progressively accept escalating levels of seemingly
- 17:39Speaker 1: innocent physical contact and isolation as normal. And this is
- 17:46Speaker 1: one of the ways something like Larry Nasser happens, which
- 17:48Speaker 1: I read in many places like that situation was just
- 17:52Speaker 1: the perfect thing for grooming or r Kelly, I knew
- 17:57Speaker 1: a guy who was really active in the homeless, transgend
- 18:00Speaker 1: teen community, and he was doing something like this, and
- 18:02Speaker 1: I think he was also a government official.
- 18:05Speaker 3: He's not anymore. He's in jail. It should be as
- 18:09Speaker 3: he should be.
- 18:10Speaker 1: And as I've said before, outside of this, I do
- 18:12Speaker 1: acting and unsettling amount of times I often see a
- 18:15Speaker 1: post to alert people that a predator is asking for
- 18:19Speaker 1: pictures or videos of child actors under the guise of
- 18:22Speaker 1: an audition are getting a role. It's disturbing how often
- 18:27Speaker 1: we get into from our agent.
- 18:28Speaker 3: This guy is not for real. Don't send him any
- 18:31Speaker 3: pictures of your children.
- 18:33Speaker 4: I think the taboo or the stereotype was the creepers
- 18:37Speaker 4: come around offering you modeling jobs, and it turns out
- 18:39Speaker 4: it's not really modeling jobs, and whether they're trying to
- 18:41Speaker 4: just get nude pictures or assault someone or do something
- 18:45Speaker 4: even more dangerous. That people have started to become a
- 18:47Speaker 4: little more, a little more aware with hope. After all
- 18:52Speaker 4: the Lifetime specials that I've seen, yeah they're all dangerous,
- 18:56Speaker 4: that's what I figured out. But this is a way
- 18:59Speaker 4: to get to you and the kids by promising something bigger, money, power, fame,
- 19:04Speaker 4: all of those things are Kelly. That's exactly what he did.
- 19:07Speaker 4: He takes these fifteen sixteen year olds fourteen year old,
- 19:09Speaker 4: if you're a lee, I guess and promise, I'm going
- 19:13Speaker 4: to build you a future. I'm going to make you
- 19:14Speaker 4: a star, and then starts doing the emotional and physical
- 19:20Speaker 4: and mental abuse with them in order to train them
- 19:22Speaker 4: and subdue them into his power race.
- 19:26Speaker 3: And that's that power dynamic again.
- 19:30Speaker 1: And we're going to talk more about that after a
- 19:31Speaker 1: quick break for a word from our sponsor, and we're back,
- 19:44Speaker 1: Thank you sponsor.
- 19:45Speaker 4: After this friendship has been established, so we were talking
- 19:48Speaker 4: about that earlier. Just establishing friendship and or some kind
- 19:51Speaker 4: of nicety. The target views the groomer as a friend,
- 19:56Speaker 4: a mentor, or a romantic interest.
- 19:58Speaker 2: Their guard is down.
- 19:59Speaker 4: The groomer might start offering gifts or favors and the
- 20:02Speaker 4: goal is to make the target feel like.
- 20:03Speaker 2: They owe the groom or something. They usually start.
- 20:06Speaker 4: Small, maybe keeping a promise, but build over time.
- 20:09Speaker 2: Right.
- 20:10Speaker 1: And I have some personal experience that I'm going to share,
- 20:14Speaker 1: but don't worry, I'm not going into gory detail.
- 20:16Speaker 3: That wouldn't be.
- 20:17Speaker 1: Good for anybody, but for me, I have had what
- 20:20Speaker 1: I call four periods of sexual abuse in my life,
- 20:23Speaker 1: and the hallmark in all of them, the common thread
- 20:26Speaker 1: was vulnerability and that power dynamic. They all involved authority figures.
- 20:32Speaker 1: The first two times it was someone my parents trusted
- 20:36Speaker 1: and I trusted because I'm a kid and they're in
- 20:38Speaker 1: our authority role in my life. But on the silver
- 20:42Speaker 1: lining side of this awful situation, they ended. They both
- 20:45Speaker 1: ended fairly quickly because I told someone. But the first
- 20:49Speaker 1: time it was a preschool teacher and he had a motorcycle.
- 20:52Speaker 3: That's what I remember the most.
- 20:53Speaker 1: He had a motorcycle and I wanted to ride it,
- 20:55Speaker 1: and he offered, like maybe one day, I'll let you
- 20:58Speaker 1: write it, but.
- 20:58Speaker 3: First let's do this and this and then.
- 21:00Speaker 1: And he also had a gold stars and I wanted
- 21:04Speaker 1: to be a good girl, and I get these gold stars.
- 21:06Speaker 4: I mean, that's exactly something that often happens. They give you,
- 21:10Speaker 4: they see the person or the victim, and then they
- 21:13Speaker 4: use exactly what is needed for that individual victim. So
- 21:17Speaker 4: it's not just an overall blanket. It is tailored to
- 21:21Speaker 4: each individual victim. And often, like you, you want to
- 21:24Speaker 4: please someone, and you see this. And we could also
- 21:27Speaker 4: talk about the attachment issues and family life and or
- 21:31Speaker 4: previous abuse, because oftentimes I've seen children of abuse, as
- 21:34Speaker 4: you will show, are targeted again. They're the likelihood of
- 21:39Speaker 4: them being targeted again as a victim goes exponentially higher.
- 21:43Speaker 4: And I don't know how they know, but they know,
- 21:46Speaker 4: and I say they is, and the offenders, the perpetrators
- 21:48Speaker 4: that this is someone that you can groom or may
- 21:50Speaker 4: have already been groomed, and so therefore they can tailor
- 21:52Speaker 4: it once again in a different manner.
- 21:55Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like a predator's instinct.
- 21:59Speaker 1: And after this whole situation, my family moved for other
- 22:04Speaker 1: reasons too, but in part because of this. And I
- 22:07Speaker 1: don't blame my parents, but they didn't really explain it
- 22:09Speaker 1: to me. And again I think it's a horrible difficult
- 22:12Speaker 1: conversation to have with your young child. But all I
- 22:15Speaker 1: knew was we were moving away from my friends because
- 22:18Speaker 1: I had said something. And the second time, I was
- 22:21Speaker 1: still really young, and it was a friend of a family,
- 22:24Speaker 1: and he definitely played up the whole like boys will
- 22:27Speaker 1: be boys. Your value is in how desirable you are.
- 22:30Speaker 1: This is a good thing. Don't be a cry baby,
- 22:33Speaker 1: don't be so weak. And I felt this pressure not
- 22:35Speaker 1: to say anything that would ruin his life. And I
- 22:38Speaker 1: already felt that I was lesser and that I should
- 22:40Speaker 1: stay quiet and not rock the boat.
- 22:42Speaker 3: And I was eight, and.
- 22:44Speaker 1: Both of these men, yeah, they knew what to say
- 22:47Speaker 1: and how to earn my chrest and how to keep
- 22:49Speaker 1: me from saying anything.
- 22:51Speaker 4: Right, And I was going to add with that. That's
- 22:54Speaker 4: part of the thing I see in a lot of
- 22:56Speaker 4: victims is that at the very beginning, they're fairly empathetic,
- 23:00Speaker 4: and therefore they wear the guilt on themselves, which is
- 23:04Speaker 4: kind of why everything's underreported. And as we look at
- 23:07Speaker 4: more the me Too era, even for older women, adult
- 23:11Speaker 4: women who have gone through the situation, whether it's rape
- 23:14Speaker 4: or sexual abuse or whatever as an adult, you see
- 23:17Speaker 4: that same statistics. I don't want to ruin this person's life.
- 23:20Speaker 4: He's a good man, but he is a good They
- 23:24Speaker 4: are a good person, but they only did this to me.
- 23:27Speaker 2: I'm the only victim. It's okay.
- 23:29Speaker 4: So so many times a lot of the victims or
- 23:31Speaker 4: survivors are willing to take on his shame, which is absurd.
- 23:38Speaker 4: And part of that is also because people don't want
- 23:40Speaker 4: to hear it, and so therefore it's easier to be
- 23:43Speaker 4: quiet and say never mind, don't worry about.
- 23:45Speaker 3: It, right.
- 23:46Speaker 1: That's something I still catch myself like speaking in that way,
- 23:49Speaker 1: like I don't want to ruin his life.
- 23:51Speaker 3: He ruined his life.
- 23:54Speaker 1: The third and longest phase of my abuse, it started
- 23:57Speaker 1: as a building of trust. Both of my parents and
- 24:00Speaker 1: my older brother were hospitalized, which was traumatic in excelf
- 24:04Speaker 1: and I had no idea when they were coming back.
- 24:07Speaker 1: I was a teenager in a house by myself with
- 24:09Speaker 1: my little brother, and I was so scared. I was
- 24:12Speaker 1: in this vulnerable state, and these two men knew that,
- 24:15Speaker 1: and they did say something along the lines of like
- 24:18Speaker 1: my parents had sent them, and I was like, okay,
- 24:21Speaker 1: but I was really suspicious and uncomfortable. But I was
- 24:24Speaker 1: grateful that I had some kind of help in this situation,
- 24:29Speaker 1: and even kind of flattered because they would tell me how.
- 24:31Speaker 3: Mature I was or how pretty I was for my age.
- 24:33Speaker 1: But I had a turning point and I realized, like,
- 24:35Speaker 1: I really don't like these people. I don't want them
- 24:38Speaker 1: near my little brother. I told them I didn't want
- 24:40Speaker 1: them coming around anymore, and they became extremely violent enough
- 24:44Speaker 1: so that I never ever wanted.
- 24:47Speaker 3: That to happen again.
- 24:48Speaker 1: It scared the hell out of me, and they threatened
- 24:51Speaker 1: me and my little brother. That's why the situation lasted
- 24:54Speaker 1: so long, because I didn't know what to do, and
- 24:55Speaker 1: obviously so much of my life suffered because of it.
- 24:59Speaker 1: My friend suffered, my mental health, my physical health. But
- 25:02Speaker 1: I felt like I had to be the strong one
- 25:05Speaker 1: for my brother. And every night I just remember laying
- 25:07Speaker 1: awake listening because his room was next to mine.
- 25:10Speaker 3: I was just not sleep because I was so so scared.
- 25:14Speaker 4: Right, you are a protector, and actually, any what you
- 25:16Speaker 4: experienced is something many of the perpetrators use as a
- 25:19Speaker 4: grooming tactic as well as that they single out one
- 25:22Speaker 4: child out of a group of peers or even in
- 25:25Speaker 4: a group of siblings, or they specifically target loners for
- 25:28Speaker 4: the lack of a better term, and will use threats
- 25:30Speaker 4: or rewards as a way to maintain their holds over
- 25:33Speaker 4: these victims. And that includes I'm going to hurt your brother,
- 25:36Speaker 4: I'm going to hurt your mother, I'm going to hurt
- 25:37Speaker 4: your father, things that they know you are worried about.
- 25:40Speaker 2: And they're not.
- 25:41Speaker 4: Afraid to use these tactics to get what they want
- 25:44Speaker 4: because in the end, they have the power, and that's
- 25:47Speaker 4: more gratifying than the end result of what could happen.
- 25:50Speaker 4: And it works because children believe adults, and that's part
- 25:54Speaker 4: of the problem. We want them to understand adults, we
- 25:57Speaker 4: want them to respect adults, but it's the same time,
- 26:00Speaker 4: do you differentiate respecting the right adult?
- 26:03Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean these are difficult.
- 26:06Speaker 1: There are questions, and they're difficult conversations to have, but
- 26:08Speaker 1: we do need to be having them.
- 26:13Speaker 3: So when the groomer becomes.
- 26:16Speaker 1: A part of the target's daily life, maybe shows up
- 26:18Speaker 1: at events that the target is attending alone, this builds
- 26:22Speaker 1: that trust and eventually, when the groomer is feeling confident,
- 26:25Speaker 1: they'll start asking for these favors back, and they usually
- 26:28Speaker 1: start as a non sexual favor, and then they become
- 26:31Speaker 1: progressively more sexual in nature, maybe watching pornography together, touching,
- 26:37Speaker 1: sending sexual materials.
- 26:39Speaker 3: And another hallmark of grooming is secrecy.
- 26:42Speaker 1: For obvious reasons, the groomer tries to keep this relationship
- 26:45Speaker 1: under wraps, especially in the early stages, and in order
- 26:49Speaker 1: to try to ensure silence from their victims, they will
- 26:51Speaker 1: say something like, don't tell anyone I did do this favor,
- 26:55Speaker 1: because they'll be jealous and everyone will want me to
- 26:58Speaker 1: do the same thing for them. The key is flattery
- 27:01Speaker 1: and to make the target feel special. At the same time,
- 27:05Speaker 1: the groomer starts to distance the target from people in
- 27:08Speaker 1: their life that could help them. Once the physical aspect
- 27:11Speaker 1: of the relationship is established, then shame plays a huge
- 27:14Speaker 1: role in the silence, along with things like force. Are
- 27:17Speaker 1: these threats, Separating the victim from their support group makes
- 27:21Speaker 1: controlling them easier. Treating the target as a co conspirator
- 27:25Speaker 1: is also.
- 27:26Speaker 3: A part of this. Yeah, one of my abusers was
- 27:29Speaker 3: really good at that.
- 27:30Speaker 1: He would say stuff like everything you are I made
- 27:32Speaker 1: you as if I owed him a big favor, and
- 27:36Speaker 1: I would willingly go back to him because I didn't
- 27:38Speaker 1: know what else to do. But I knew not going
- 27:40Speaker 1: back to him would make him very angry be a
- 27:43Speaker 1: very bad thing for me.
- 27:44Speaker 4: And this is where I would step in and say, remember,
- 27:47Speaker 4: guilt and shame and loneliness are major emotions that offenders
- 27:51Speaker 4: know can be easily manipulated. They want to use this
- 27:54Speaker 4: as a tactic to silence you. Guilt and shame we
- 27:57Speaker 4: have on our own pretty easily. Yeah, I could list
- 28:00Speaker 4: off all the exhameful things I did today. I'm not
- 28:04Speaker 4: going to because that's going to be three episodes long.
- 28:07Speaker 2: Unless you guys want to hear it. I'm just plain.
- 28:09Speaker 2: But this is why.
- 28:11Speaker 4: As a social worker we advise guardians and parents that
- 28:14Speaker 4: they watch out for the physical signs of abuse because
- 28:18Speaker 4: you're not going to necessarily know what's happening. These offenders, groomors,
- 28:23Speaker 4: perpetrators are really good in putting themselves in the middle
- 28:27Speaker 4: of a situation at the perfect time. And it has
- 28:30Speaker 4: nothing to do with your weakness. It has nothing to
- 28:32Speaker 4: do with their weakness. It's just they find the opportunity
- 28:36Speaker 4: and they take it. And again, like I said before,
- 28:39Speaker 4: these offenders slash perpetrators, they seem like nice guys or
- 28:45Speaker 4: nice women, nice people in general. They seem like they're
- 28:48Speaker 4: coming in to help you. They want to make your
- 28:52Speaker 4: life better. And this is the tactic that they know
- 28:54Speaker 4: to use. They can't just come in. There are the
- 28:57Speaker 4: aggressive ones. Let's talk about that. I realized that is
- 29:00Speaker 4: Jamie Close, not Jayden who I was talking about previously,
- 29:03Speaker 4: which he just came in with his mental health issues
- 29:06Speaker 4: and just drug her out. That's more unusual, which is
- 29:10Speaker 4: why we don't hear about that as much. But when
- 29:12Speaker 4: we do, it's like, oh, my gosh, what happened. What
- 29:14Speaker 4: we don't hear about is the years and years and
- 29:17Speaker 4: years and years of abuse that they had from the uncle,
- 29:19Speaker 4: or the years and years and years and abuse of
- 29:21Speaker 4: the neighbor or the pastor or their coach, you know,
- 29:25Speaker 4: stuff like that. That's when you start realizing, oh, my gosh,
- 29:28Speaker 4: I didn't know. And that's also when you start hearing
- 29:30Speaker 4: he was such a nice guy. I thought he was
- 29:32Speaker 4: helping us. And that's part of the problem in which
- 29:36Speaker 4: we can't always see what is happening with a child
- 29:39Speaker 4: until after the fact. So some of the signs, and
- 29:42Speaker 4: I know we're going to go into this a little deeper.
- 29:44Speaker 4: I know you have a laundry list, awesome, so we
- 29:47Speaker 4: can take notes. But just to throw that out there,
- 29:49Speaker 4: some of the signs would include withdrawal and isolation from
- 29:52Speaker 4: the victim, bed wedding, early sexualization, which is something that
- 29:56Speaker 4: I don't think people realize enough because they think it's just.
- 29:59Speaker 2: Funny if they say something ridiculous.
- 30:03Speaker 4: But when you start realizing what's happening, or at least
- 30:05Speaker 4: sexualization is a big, big part of it, and you've
- 30:09Speaker 4: got to figure out where they're learning this from, because
- 30:11Speaker 4: either way because they are so young, they they may
- 30:14Speaker 4: act on it in a way that you don't want
- 30:16Speaker 4: to know about, whether it's with their cousin, whether it's
- 30:19Speaker 4: with a dog, whether it's with you know, whatever's there
- 30:23Speaker 4: for their opportunity. So that's something that I always talk about,
- 30:26Speaker 4: is like, you need to see how they're acting out.
- 30:29Speaker 4: If they're acting out, you need to be concerned and
- 30:31Speaker 4: start asking why are they acting out? And it may
- 30:33Speaker 4: be as simple as they watch the wrong show. Yeah,
- 30:37Speaker 4: and then we always talk about regression as well, which
- 30:39Speaker 4: they go back and start more and more childlike maybe
- 30:44Speaker 4: you know, thumb sucking, start crying more, all of those things.
- 30:48Speaker 4: But any like I said, I know we're going to
- 30:50Speaker 4: go into more of the details, but just to throw
- 30:52Speaker 4: that out there once again.
- 30:53Speaker 3: Right and grooming.
- 30:55Speaker 1: Another part that that makes it difficult is that it
- 30:57Speaker 1: can be hard to separate from romance because there is
- 31:01Speaker 1: this slow build and it can seem innocuous at first.
- 31:04Speaker 1: The target and other people in the target's life can
- 31:06Speaker 1: mistake it as romance.
- 31:08Speaker 4: Right, And this is where I want to come back
- 31:10Speaker 4: into talking about human trafficking SLASH, domestic human trafficking and
- 31:14Speaker 4: c SEC that commercially sexually exploited children because oftentimes most
- 31:18Speaker 4: of the targets believe they're going into something on their
- 31:22Speaker 4: own with their free will, thinking that they're coming into
- 31:24Speaker 4: a relationship and or a living situation that's benefiting them both. Oftentimes,
- 31:31Speaker 4: children who are part of these circumstances happen to be
- 31:34Speaker 4: kids who are seeking something better, Like we're talking about
- 31:38Speaker 4: that whole isolating being alone, bad family situation, and honestly,
- 31:43Speaker 4: with the LGBTQI generation is even more prominent in that
- 31:47Speaker 4: group because they're already feeling isolated, if they're being shunned
- 31:51Speaker 4: by their family, they're trying to find someone to help
- 31:53Speaker 4: them to seek out what they need.
- 31:57Speaker 2: So we're going to go back and.
- 31:58Speaker 4: Talk about the fact that child's sex trafficking SLASH the
- 32:01Speaker 4: prostitution of children, which is defined as child sex tourism
- 32:06Speaker 4: involving commercial sexual activity, the commercial product production I'm so sorry,
- 32:12Speaker 4: the commercial production of child pornography, and the online transmission
- 32:16Speaker 4: of a video of which child is engaged in sexual
- 32:19Speaker 4: activity in exchange for anything of value. And I think
- 32:24Speaker 4: I wanted to bring this up at this time because
- 32:26Speaker 4: what we often see is that children who are manipulated
- 32:29Speaker 4: with this type of situation, believe, like we said, that
- 32:31Speaker 4: they are in a romantic relationship and see this as
- 32:34Speaker 4: a normal way of living.
- 32:35Speaker 2: And getting money.
- 32:36Speaker 4: I've had to have many conversations with a lot of
- 32:40Speaker 4: my females. My girls who go into a situation will
- 32:45Speaker 4: not say that they are victims, even though they know
- 32:47Speaker 4: that they have had to have sex with older men
- 32:50Speaker 4: and give them money to their boyfriend quote unquote, or
- 32:55Speaker 4: they get tagged with the name of the boyfriend as
- 32:58Speaker 4: a way of a marker, or they are having to
- 33:02Speaker 4: pay back for food or drugs that they're giving by
- 33:05Speaker 4: using drugs. So oftentimes I don't think people see that
- 33:09Speaker 4: as a thing. And this is why we have this
- 33:11Speaker 4: conversation of charging teenage girls or teenage boys as prostitutes
- 33:17Speaker 4: is problematic because oftentimes what you see is there is,
- 33:21Speaker 4: for the lack of better terms, a pimp, flash a
- 33:23Speaker 4: perpetrator who is pushing this from behind, threatening her, telling
- 33:27Speaker 4: her she's going to be alone all of these situations
- 33:30Speaker 4: because they are being forced to But we don't see that.
- 33:34Speaker 4: We just see, and I say we, as the government
- 33:36Speaker 4: sometimes until recently, saw that as these kids are committing
- 33:40Speaker 4: a crime, we're going to give them a prostitution charge
- 33:44Speaker 4: or soliciting charge, which is absurd as in fact, we're
- 33:47Speaker 4: talking about that case in Tennessee where she finally was
- 33:50Speaker 4: given to clemency, grained clemency when she shot the man
- 33:53Speaker 4: who was pimping her out at sixteen. And I'm not
- 33:55Speaker 4: gonna lie. I know that what happened was great because
- 33:58Speaker 4: the governor finally released her A granted that. However, he
- 34:01Speaker 4: also said she did a heinous crime, but she's ready
- 34:06Speaker 4: to make up for it, and that's I have a
- 34:08Speaker 4: problem with that. She did a crime, yes, but I
- 34:12Speaker 4: have a feeling as a person who's worked in this field,
- 34:16Speaker 4: to her, it was survival and should we be punishing
- 34:20Speaker 4: her to that level and still using her as a
- 34:23Speaker 4: stigma as a murderer when she was maybe defending herself
- 34:27Speaker 4: or trying to get out of the life without losing
- 34:29Speaker 4: her life.
- 34:30Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
- 34:33Speaker 1: One warning sign, according to experts, is the potential groomers
- 34:38Speaker 1: insistence to meet up beyond what might be considered normal
- 34:43Speaker 1: and potentially utilizing threats or guilt to get the person
- 34:47Speaker 1: to show up. Since the groomer has put a lot
- 34:50Speaker 1: of time and maybe money into grooming, they want to
- 34:53Speaker 1: check in on their progress in the person. Experts also
- 34:57Speaker 1: point out that the target usually has some sense at
- 34:59Speaker 1: something is not quite right, a feeling that isn't there
- 35:04Speaker 1: in consensual romance, like.
- 35:06Speaker 4: Right, actually, I know, like I said, As I've spoken
- 35:09Speaker 4: with many girls coming out of that situation, they will
- 35:13Speaker 4: tell you at what point they were like, this is
- 35:15Speaker 4: not what I thought. Yeah, there is that moment, whether
- 35:19Speaker 4: it's their first client and or the fifth client, or
- 35:22Speaker 4: when you hit her, or when they you know, or
- 35:23Speaker 4: when she demanded things. There are moments that they have
- 35:27Speaker 4: like I didn't want this. I thought I was in
- 35:31Speaker 4: love and I thought we were in this together.
- 35:33Speaker 3: Right.
- 35:34Speaker 1: And another thing is that grooming can take place completely online,
- 35:39Speaker 1: coursing someone to take part in online sexual activities like
- 35:42Speaker 1: sending pictures or videos, having sexual conversations. Then the groomer
- 35:46Speaker 1: might tighten their control by threatening to send these things
- 35:50Speaker 1: to the target's friends and family, and a groomer just
- 35:55Speaker 1: they might message one hundred children at a time like
- 35:58Speaker 1: just seeing what sticks.
- 36:00Speaker 4: And this is again that shame factor. I've got something
- 36:02Speaker 4: of yours. If you don't do this, I'm going to
- 36:04Speaker 4: embarrass you and out you as a deviant or whatever whatnot.
- 36:10Speaker 4: And again I do want to mention even for miners,
- 36:14Speaker 4: they cannot send these sexually explicit pictures because in the law,
- 36:19Speaker 4: you're sending child pornography. Therefore, you can be arrested for
- 36:23Speaker 4: a very sensive amount of time because we know the
- 36:26Speaker 4: GBI for where we are, and FBI see this as
- 36:28Speaker 4: a heinous crime now and they will come at you
- 36:31Speaker 4: at full force.
- 36:32Speaker 1: Right and kind of a strange aside, but it kept
- 36:37Speaker 1: coming up when I was researching this. This movie called
- 36:41Speaker 1: show Dogs, which was a children's movie that came out earlier.
- 36:44Speaker 3: In twenty eighteen about I don't really know much about
- 36:49Speaker 3: the show Dog scene, but.
- 36:52Speaker 1: It's about that, and it actually got recut prior to
- 36:55Speaker 1: its theatrical release because of a scene where a character
- 36:58Speaker 1: was touching the dog's jenitles and telling him to go
- 37:01Speaker 1: to his in place, and people pointed out that this
- 37:04Speaker 1: is something that happens during grooming, telling a child to
- 37:07Speaker 1: pretend you're somewhere else and.
- 37:09Speaker 2: To throw it out there.
- 37:11Speaker 4: I have seen cases where children who have been sexually abused,
- 37:15Speaker 4: severely abused, use pets and dogs as their sexual outlets.
- 37:19Speaker 4: So beastiality is not as unheard of for this type
- 37:23Speaker 4: of community. Because as I said before, when opportunity is there,
- 37:27Speaker 4: they're going to try it.
- 37:29Speaker 1: And when listener Emma wrote about this a while ago,
- 37:34Speaker 1: she suggested we could extrapolate this whole thing out to
- 37:38Speaker 1: a societal level to how we groom and sexualize young
- 37:42Speaker 1: women in the United States and probably a lot of
- 37:45Speaker 1: the Western world. And I mean, in my personal examples,
- 37:48Speaker 1: the fact that these men told me I was beautiful
- 37:50Speaker 1: or that I was sexy. They they knew that that's
- 37:54Speaker 1: how I saw my value, and they knew they could
- 37:56Speaker 1: use that to manipulate me. Are you, Samantha, you brought
- 38:00Speaker 1: up religion. How we could bring it out to that.
- 38:04Speaker 4: When we talk about grooming or bringing someone up, or
- 38:07Speaker 4: making someone in a certain way. When you look at religion,
- 38:10Speaker 4: not all religions, but when you look at some religions,
- 38:13Speaker 4: they specifically target women to be the subservient person, and
- 38:17Speaker 4: so that subservient person becomes a specific representation of a
- 38:22Speaker 4: good person. So like when I say, I'm struggling with
- 38:25Speaker 4: this term right now. So yeah, for women, sometimes in
- 38:28Speaker 4: some religions they're used as trophy wives. So think about
- 38:31Speaker 4: the stereotypical preacher's wife. Not only are they created to
- 38:35Speaker 4: birth children, but they're also created to hold up the
- 38:38Speaker 4: man and be in the background and all of these
- 38:41Speaker 4: things and make the right food and make the right
- 38:43Speaker 4: gestures and make the right connections, but never be allowed
- 38:46Speaker 4: to be above the man.
- 38:47Speaker 2: Right.
- 38:48Speaker 4: So you look at religion and you're like, are they
- 38:50Speaker 4: grooming certain things? And you start grooming certain kids to
- 38:53Speaker 4: be pastors, grooming certain kids to be missionaries. Oh, I
- 38:56Speaker 4: see this in you. I see this in you, So
- 38:58Speaker 4: why don't we do this for you?
- 39:00Speaker 3: Yeah?
- 39:01Speaker 1: The point being, this could be such a bigger conversation
- 39:05Speaker 1: than the one we're having today, and I think that
- 39:07Speaker 1: is really fascinating and kind of scary to think about.
- 39:11Speaker 3: But wanted to put that in there.
- 39:14Speaker 4: I'll be back to do that one too. No one,
- 39:16Speaker 4: that's we're not talking about.
- 39:18Speaker 2: But yeah, I just created that.
- 39:19Speaker 3: Okay, perfect.
- 39:21Speaker 1: Well, we do have some more for you about recognizing signs,
- 39:25Speaker 1: but first we have one more quick break forward from
- 39:27Speaker 1: our sponsor.
- 39:38Speaker 3: And we're back, Thank you sponsor.
- 39:40Speaker 1: So there are some signs that you can look out
- 39:43Speaker 1: for if you suspect someone you know is being groomed
- 39:46Speaker 1: or I guess even like turning it inward. So alcohol
- 39:49Speaker 1: or drug use, nightmares, changes, in diet are exercise patterns, insomnia,
- 39:55Speaker 1: disordered eating, anxiety withdrawn nature, risk taking, acting inappropriately sexual
- 40:01Speaker 1: for their age, and self harm are suicidal tendencies. And
- 40:05Speaker 1: it's so strange during episodes like these for me because
- 40:09Speaker 1: it's kind of a checklist of things I experienced. And
- 40:11Speaker 1: as I was researching this, I got a pit in
- 40:13Speaker 1: the feeling of my stomach because I retroactively recognize these
- 40:18Speaker 1: signs in myself.
- 40:20Speaker 4: Right, And I think that happens when you start looking back,
- 40:22Speaker 4: you're like, oh my gosh, this is a clear sign
- 40:25Speaker 4: of and I know I've actually spoken with a few
- 40:27Speaker 4: women and it doesn't necessarily have to do with grooming,
- 40:31Speaker 4: but they didn't realize what was happening was an assault
- 40:35Speaker 4: onto them because they were like, oh, I just gave up,
- 40:37Speaker 4: blah blah blah. I said this and he didn't listen,
- 40:40Speaker 4: but whatever, And then they moved on and we were
- 40:43Speaker 4: having this conversation, they make the realization, oh, my gosh,
- 40:46Speaker 4: I was raped or I was assaulted or I was
- 40:48Speaker 4: being groomed for this, And it's that clarity of oh yeah,
- 40:53Speaker 4: because also at the initial moment, you don't want to
- 40:55Speaker 4: say you're a victim that's the last thing you want
- 40:58Speaker 4: to think. As bad as everything is, you don't want
- 41:00Speaker 4: to be one more thing. I'm a victim, and not
- 41:03Speaker 4: that it's a bad thing, but it does feel like
- 41:05Speaker 4: such a weakness even though you shouldn't.
- 41:08Speaker 2: It has nothing to do with you.
- 41:10Speaker 1: Yeah, And I know so many listeners have written in
- 41:14Speaker 1: about that very thing you're talking about, like, I didn't
- 41:16Speaker 1: realize what happened to me was this, and it is.
- 41:21Speaker 1: It's very difficult to accept, like to put it in
- 41:25Speaker 1: those terms, and I think a lot of people will
- 41:26Speaker 1: avoid doing it.
- 41:27Speaker 4: And I know there's also I'm pretty sure we're gonna
- 41:30Speaker 4: be talking about this in later episodes because I will
- 41:32Speaker 4: be here forever where they don't think it is as bad.
- 41:36Speaker 4: Oh yeah, so maybe as a child you were never
- 41:39Speaker 4: actually raped, when you were touched and.
- 41:41Speaker 2: Fondled, that's bad. Yeah, Well, let's just put it out there.
- 41:44Speaker 4: That's abuse and it shouldn't have happened, and that will
- 41:47Speaker 4: traumatize you.
- 41:48Speaker 3: Yep.
- 41:49Speaker 4: And if you were able to move past it in
- 41:51Speaker 4: a healthy manner, wonderful. If you haven't, it's not bad,
- 41:56Speaker 4: you didn't do anything wrong, it's not abnormal. You need
- 41:59Speaker 4: help to get past this. Because it happened to you,
- 42:02Speaker 4: it was unwelcomed, and it was harmful. End of story.
- 42:05Speaker 4: There's no this is worse than this that needs to
- 42:07Speaker 4: be thrown out the window.
- 42:09Speaker 3: M hmm.
- 42:09Speaker 1: Yeah, we need to talk about all of these things. So,
- 42:13Speaker 1: the NSPCC has a list of science forged children specifically,
- 42:19Speaker 1: and they include being secretive, especially about what they're doing online,
- 42:23Speaker 1: dating someone older, meeting up with people in strange places,
- 42:26Speaker 1: having new things they can't or won't explain, having access
- 42:30Speaker 1: to drugs and alcohol, nightmares, cleanness, bed wedding, masturbation, or
- 42:35Speaker 1: touching others inappropriately.
- 42:37Speaker 4: Right, And I think I would include in some of
- 42:40Speaker 4: these things when they randomly start bringing up strangers' names
- 42:43Speaker 4: that you don't recognize, which has happened a lot, and
- 42:46Speaker 4: you start asking questions and if they can't tell you
- 42:48Speaker 4: last names. As a person who has done investigations for
- 42:52Speaker 4: child abuse, that was one of the things that I
- 42:54Speaker 4: would look for. I saw I met with this person? Really,
- 42:56Speaker 4: who is this is my sole and so's friend? Okay,
- 42:59Speaker 4: what's his last name? I don't know. How often do
- 43:01Speaker 4: you see them? When do you just things like that?
- 43:03Speaker 4: That's actually a big sign too. They start suddenly talking
- 43:06Speaker 4: about this wonderful person, but yet you don't know who
- 43:09Speaker 4: they are, where they came from, but they crept up.
- 43:12Speaker 2: That's something to watch for too.
- 43:13Speaker 1: Right, And when talking about prevention, especially when it comes
- 43:18Speaker 1: to children, it's recommended speaking to them about sex and
- 43:20Speaker 1: anatomy at a young age, letting them know that they
- 43:23Speaker 1: can come to you with concerns, and teaching them about
- 43:26Speaker 1: grooming behaviors and like you were seeing touching, like if
- 43:29Speaker 1: you don't want to hug, it's totally cool.
- 43:32Speaker 4: And I think it's just a reminder for the parents
- 43:34Speaker 4: or adults who are dealing with the situation too. If
- 43:37Speaker 4: this happens to your child, your niece, your nephew, your student,
- 43:43Speaker 4: it isn't your fault. And I know part of that
- 43:46Speaker 4: shame comes on to the parents or adults as well.
- 43:50Speaker 4: I actually experienced this myself as a child. I'd gone
- 43:53Speaker 4: through several different types of abuse and I was acting
- 43:56Speaker 4: out in class and I also was suicidal because my
- 44:01Speaker 4: parents didn't know what to do, and they felt shame
- 44:04Speaker 4: and they felt guilt. They lashed out in a different manner,
- 44:08Speaker 4: which they have apologized. And we've gone through all the
- 44:12Speaker 4: knows and is, but essentially making me feel more ashamed
- 44:17Speaker 4: and not being able to come out again with any
- 44:18Speaker 4: of the more information. Right on top of that, this
- 44:22Speaker 4: should not be something that you beat yourself up for.
- 44:25Speaker 2: That is part of the help as well.
- 44:27Speaker 4: You being in the proximity of someone else being victimized.
- 44:31Speaker 4: It is not your fault either, and you need to
- 44:34Speaker 4: care for yourself as much as you need to care
- 44:36Speaker 4: for this victim.
- 44:37Speaker 3: Right Yeah.
- 44:38Speaker 1: And as I've said on the show before, I've actually
- 44:43Speaker 1: never told anyone in my family any of this, like
- 44:46Speaker 1: they would be shocked, and part of that is because
- 44:49Speaker 1: I didn't want them to feel guilty, right So, and
- 44:53Speaker 1: the thing is that that's me. They've never really given
- 44:56Speaker 1: me an indication that they would, but that is a
- 44:58Speaker 1: part of like I considered that I haven't told them.
- 45:02Speaker 1: So those that's a good point, and we have some
- 45:06Speaker 1: some resources to put in here. If you realize that
- 45:09Speaker 1: you are someone you know is the target of grooming,
- 45:11Speaker 1: there is there is help for you out there. The
- 45:14Speaker 1: first step is recognizing what's going on. Once you do that,
- 45:17Speaker 1: identify someone outside of this relationship that you can talk
- 45:22Speaker 1: to about it. In a perfect world, this would be
- 45:25Speaker 1: a professional, someone who doesn't know the groomer, but that
- 45:29Speaker 1: isn't always an option for everyone. Unfortunately, you can find
- 45:33Speaker 1: resources online that have advice on getting out of a
- 45:36Speaker 1: situation like this, and you can call the US National
- 45:39Speaker 1: Domestic Violence Hotline, which is eight zero zero seven nine
- 45:43Speaker 1: nine seven two three three or the US Victim Connect
- 45:47Speaker 1: Resource Center eight five five four eight four two eight
- 45:50Speaker 1: four six. They also have online options, but I mean
- 45:53Speaker 1: one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever seen is
- 45:55Speaker 1: that they have like this function or if you click away,
- 45:58Speaker 1: it erases your history.
- 45:59Speaker 2: Right.
- 46:00Speaker 4: There are several options for domestic balance victims where you
- 46:02Speaker 4: click it and goes to whether it's your dial page
- 46:05Speaker 4: or whatever. Unfortunately, it's necessary and I wanted to add
- 46:08Speaker 4: one more out there, which is with the Child Health
- 46:11Speaker 4: National Hotline, so this could be specifically to child services
- 46:14Speaker 4: child needs. It is one eight hundred for a child
- 46:18Speaker 4: so or one eight hundred four two to two four
- 46:21Speaker 4: four five three. And I know in each individual state
- 46:24Speaker 4: there are hotlines to your department Family and Children's Services
- 46:28Speaker 4: or Family and Children's Services that are available, which in
- 46:33Speaker 4: the perfect world would be the end all, but at
- 46:37Speaker 4: least you are doing something.
- 46:38Speaker 3: Yeah, and for listeners not in the United States.
- 46:42Speaker 1: There are resources in a lot of a lot of
- 46:46Speaker 1: other countries as well, obviously, so there there is help
- 46:50Speaker 1: out there. A lot of times targets of grooming might
- 46:54Speaker 1: not realize what's going on, and we'll outright deny it.
- 46:56Speaker 1: This came up a lot with the thing with r. Kelly,
- 46:58Speaker 1: which makes helping them difficult. And the best way to
- 47:02Speaker 1: approach the situation, from what I've read, is to be
- 47:05Speaker 1: a friend and good listener to the target of grooming,
- 47:08Speaker 1: voice your concerns and give reasonings in a calm manner.
- 47:13Speaker 1: If you try to remove someone from the situation forcefully,
- 47:15Speaker 1: it could get worse for the.
- 47:17Speaker 3: Person that you're talking to.
- 47:18Speaker 1: However, if the target is a minor or otherwise vulnerable adult,
- 47:21Speaker 1: an authorized adult really needs to intervene. And again, this
- 47:26Speaker 1: is something you see with like.
- 47:27Speaker 4: Cults, right, yeah, and again, I keep referencing my job
- 47:33Speaker 4: in my career, I have seen many a times where
- 47:36Speaker 4: parents just kind of go after them, go after them
- 47:38Speaker 4: and continuously because run away kids, run away kids run away.
- 47:41Speaker 4: And one of the big things that we have to say,
- 47:45Speaker 4: we can't make them meant what's going on. We can't
- 47:47Speaker 4: make them say they're a victim we can't make them
- 47:49Speaker 4: say this makes them unhappy because in the end, we
- 47:52Speaker 4: don't know where they come from or came from. And
- 47:55Speaker 4: oftentimes in my job as a social worker working with
- 47:59Speaker 4: children and working with tea, I see that they think
- 48:01Speaker 4: this is a better route because they feel like they
- 48:03Speaker 4: have more control than what was happening at home. So
- 48:06Speaker 4: that is definitely a situation, and there's not much you
- 48:10Speaker 4: can do other than make sure you're there for them, yeah,
- 48:12Speaker 4: and continue to be there for them and check in
- 48:14Speaker 4: on them.
- 48:16Speaker 1: So I guess to give a little bit of closure
- 48:19Speaker 1: for what I was talking about earlier in my situation.
- 48:22Speaker 1: The longest phase of abuse I had, it ended with
- 48:24Speaker 1: a car crash and arrest that I still feel very
- 48:29Speaker 1: guilty about because I really wanted them out of my
- 48:31Speaker 1: life and I couldn't do it, And when it happened
- 48:34Speaker 1: in this abrupt, violent way, I was so relieved, and that,
- 48:39Speaker 1: even though I know it's totally legitimate and human to
- 48:42Speaker 1: feel that way, it made me feel really awful about myself.
- 48:45Speaker 3: So that's something I still struggle.
- 48:48Speaker 1: These aren't easy, easy things to deal with, Like we're
- 48:51Speaker 1: giving you advice, but we're telling you from people who've
- 48:54Speaker 1: experienced things.
- 48:55Speaker 4: We know it's difficult, and this is where we're coming
- 48:57Speaker 4: back to understanding trauma. And that's why we are talking
- 49:01Speaker 4: about this, because we want you to see every different aspect.
- 49:04Speaker 4: Maybe all you had was the grooming experience that's still traumatic.
- 49:08Speaker 4: Maybe someone you knew went through that experience that's still traumatic.
- 49:12Speaker 4: And of course we want to keep talking about it
- 49:14Speaker 4: and keep going into it as we go into more
- 49:16Speaker 4: of these episodes. But again, these are things that both
- 49:20Speaker 4: Annie and I have experienced, have seen, continue to see
- 49:23Speaker 4: and try to hopefully champion for the people who can't
- 49:27Speaker 4: champion for themselves essentially, but it's important once again to
- 49:31Speaker 4: take care of yourself and these guilt acknowledge that they're there.
- 49:35Speaker 4: Trying to pretend like it's not there does not work,
- 49:38Speaker 4: I promise.
- 49:39Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
- 49:41Speaker 4: I have come out on many panic attacks trying to
- 49:43Speaker 4: repress a lot of a lot of things in my past,
- 49:46Speaker 4: and unfortunately, which is what we're going to talk about,
- 49:48Speaker 4: with the different types of trauma, PTSD, CPTSD, all of
- 49:52Speaker 4: those things it comes out, unfortunately, whether it's in your
- 49:56Speaker 4: relationships in a daily life, or whether it's in panic
- 49:58Speaker 4: attacks or mental health things, it does. And so therefore
- 50:01Speaker 4: caring for yourself and acknowledging that these are there are
- 50:03Speaker 4: actually very very important.
- 50:05Speaker 1: Yes, and that brings us to we're going to try
- 50:09Speaker 1: to end all of these episodes with some self care stuff.
- 50:14Speaker 1: So we're gonna like go through what we're doing for
- 50:17Speaker 1: self care for me. I am finally watching Spider Man three,
- 50:20Speaker 1: which I know some people would argue with the opposite
- 50:23Speaker 1: of self care, but I'm.
- 50:26Speaker 3: Excited about it.
- 50:28Speaker 2: These are nerd things. I don't know.
- 50:30Speaker 3: I'm so excited.
- 50:31Speaker 1: It's notoriously okay, pretty bad, and I'm making I'm doing
- 50:35Speaker 1: this because I'm working on a Venom parody music video
- 50:39Speaker 1: so very important, which I'm very excited about.
- 50:42Speaker 3: Oh gosh, I am too. I can't tell you how
- 50:43Speaker 3: excited I am about it. It's oh, please be in it.
- 50:47Speaker 1: I'm recruiting everyone who will help me, so listeners if
- 50:50Speaker 1: you guess them. It's a song parody to the tune
- 50:54Speaker 1: of Beck's Loser because in the movie Venom, if you
- 50:58Speaker 1: don't know, he calls himself loser in a very funny
- 51:02Speaker 1: tone of voice. Anyway, also hanging out with friends and
- 51:05Speaker 1: going hiking, and for the D and D factor of
- 51:07Speaker 1: the episode because I'm going to include one of these
- 51:09Speaker 1: for everyone, since the whole reason I started playing.
- 51:13Speaker 3: D and D was to deal with my CPTSD.
- 51:16Speaker 1: Okay, so one thing that's great about D and D
- 51:20Speaker 1: or terrible, depending on who you ask, is that it
- 51:22Speaker 1: rarely goes as planned for anybody. And my character is
- 51:27Speaker 1: sort of notorious for blowing stuff up. And and in
- 51:32Speaker 1: the game, we were invited to this very fancy party,
- 51:37Speaker 1: like we had to buy dresses our suits.
- 51:41Speaker 3: Yeah, very fancy. It went terribly awry.
- 51:45Speaker 1: All the authorities of this entire town are looking for it, like,
- 51:48Speaker 1: they chase us out of the party, and I make
- 51:53Speaker 1: time my character to blow something up while we're being
- 51:58Speaker 1: pursued by the police.
- 52:00Speaker 2: And then.
- 52:02Speaker 1: We broke into this mean old lady's magic shop again
- 52:06Speaker 1: being pursued by the police.
- 52:07Speaker 4: Okay, when you're saying this is all on the game
- 52:10Speaker 4: not in real life, because I got really for a second,
- 52:13Speaker 4: I was like, how are you not arrested? And also
- 52:16Speaker 4: who has a magic shop? I keep going, I'm ready now.
- 52:19Speaker 1: Yes, So we're we're not great people, if that's not clear,
- 52:22Speaker 1: our characters are, but we're fun.
- 52:25Speaker 3: We're fun at parties.
- 52:27Speaker 2: Are the party's imaginary parties. Oh okay, so in parties
- 52:32Speaker 2: both we'll see, yes.
- 52:35Speaker 3: But one of our party members.
- 52:36Speaker 1: Stole an outcloak that when he put it on, our
- 52:39Speaker 1: dungeon master is the person that's kind of running the game.
- 52:41Speaker 1: He said, you're not sure what it does, but you
- 52:43Speaker 1: feel really confident. And now he never takes his character,
- 52:47Speaker 1: never takes it off, and he looks cool as hell.
- 52:50Speaker 3: He always describes how he's wearing it.
- 52:52Speaker 1: The next day after we played, Paul Mannerfort got busted
- 52:56Speaker 1: for his ostrich coat, and I thought.
- 52:58Speaker 3: It was perfect.
- 52:58Speaker 2: Perfect.
- 52:59Speaker 4: So he's prettymuch much Dungeons and dragons all metaphor exactly.
- 53:03Speaker 2: Who doesn't want to be that?
- 53:04Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, I don't care right there, that's the
- 53:08Speaker 4: parody in itself. It is, okay, So my fun facts
- 53:12Speaker 4: would have to do with my dinky dog, Peach's Gertrude buzzing.
- 53:16Speaker 2: Yeah, that's her full name.
- 53:17Speaker 4: She I yelled that out loud to her when she
- 53:19Speaker 4: does something dumb, which is often, And I have been
- 53:22Speaker 4: told that dogs take on the characters of their person
- 53:27Speaker 4: I can't deny that. I can't deny that she's a jerk,
- 53:32Speaker 4: but I love her. She can't go out in public
- 53:35Speaker 4: because she acts a fool, but she loves everyone except
- 53:41Speaker 4: for other dogs. She loves men more interesting. And I'm
- 53:46Speaker 4: not gonna slut shame her, but that makes me feel
- 53:49Speaker 4: some type of way because I don't have.
- 53:51Speaker 2: That many men coming through my life. And I already
- 53:53Speaker 2: feel kind of weird about.
- 53:55Speaker 4: That because I feel like I should, as we talked
- 53:57Speaker 4: about the previous episodes, so I feel like she's giving
- 54:00Speaker 4: me a double wimy of shame. I'm like, you're not
- 54:02Speaker 4: good enough, and why don't you have a man? I'm
- 54:05Speaker 4: pretty sure that's the look I got from her.
- 54:07Speaker 2: And if you.
- 54:07Speaker 4: See, if anybody ever wants a picture of me and
- 54:11Speaker 4: her during the New Year's and I give her a
- 54:12Speaker 4: kiss and she rolls her eyes at me, that is
- 54:14Speaker 4: a constant yes.
- 54:16Speaker 1: Yes, And you have offered before if you have pictures,
- 54:21Speaker 1: she has pictures, and if you want them, if you
- 54:23Speaker 1: need them for your own self care, you can write
- 54:25Speaker 1: in God him.
- 54:26Speaker 4: She's wearing a hat, and one she's wearing a tiger suit, no,
- 54:29Speaker 4: a lion suit, and one Christmas pj's.
- 54:31Speaker 2: In one she's sitting on top of people. In another.
- 54:35Speaker 3: Goodness, see a lot of options.
- 54:38Speaker 1: Yeah, And if you need resources, you can reach out
- 54:42Speaker 1: to us as well. Samantha will be back in our
- 54:46Speaker 1: next episode whatever, and this series on examining trauma, and
- 54:52Speaker 1: the next episode is about trauma specifically, so you can
- 54:57Speaker 1: look out watch your feed for that. In the meantime time,
- 55:00Speaker 1: if you want to email us if you need any
- 55:02Speaker 1: of those resources or those pictures, you can. Our email
- 55:05Speaker 1: is mom Stuff at hawstuffworks dot com. Our Twitter is
- 55:08Speaker 1: Mom's Stuff Podcast, and on Instagram we are stuff We've
- 55:12Speaker 1: never told you. Thanks as always to our producer Andrew Howard,
- 55:16Speaker 1: and thanks to much for listening.