Is "grooming" a meaningful concept?

[Brain O'Conner]

Even young children are interested in sex, even if it's just on the level of curiosity. In fact, they're fascinated by it. They may perceive arousal differently from those who have started puberty, but they don't exist in a state of sexless purity. That's a fact that's been recognised since Freud came along.

I beg to differ. While you're are right in a way that prepubescent children do those things out of curiosity, a lot don't solely do it out of curiosity with no sexual feelings attached.

I don't see how we differ here. Kids find lots of things sexually arousing. However, the focus does change with puberty. It's quite normal for five-year-olds to find poo and snot erotic, and they are likely to enjoy playing with their genitals, but show them a romantic scene in a movie and many, if not most, will find it boring.

I may have misunderstood you then. But even so, there are a lot of kids that are five or six years old that get turn on whether they are exposed to erotic things such seeing their parents or other people having sex, particular body parts about a man or womans body, erotic poses or dances, and so on and so forth. I would also state the fact that children that young do have romantic feelings as anybody else would have them for and reenact the things they see from a movie to express the feelings and desires they want with a person. Again, none of this stuff is puberty dependent. I didn't really know that children that young get aroused over poo or snot though; I never heard of that one before

[Harlan]

Also works fairly well with 4 year intervals:
Nepiophilia 0-3
Early Pedophilia 4-7
Late Pedophilia 8-11
Hebephilia 12-15
Ephebophilia / Teleiophilia 16+

Overcomplicated. 3-4 year periods are too short and confusing. Also it seems to me unnecessary to separate Nepiophilia, it is more of a fetish and part of Pedophilia.

[Fragment]

Overcomplicated. 3-4 year periods are too short and confusing. Also it seems to me unnecessary to separate Nepiophilia, it is more of a fetish and part of Pedophilia.

In my experience working with kids these kind of seem to hit major divides in developmental milestones, though. Not precisely, of course, but very approximately.

[Anonymous_Lover]

No.

[Outis]

In my opinion, terms like grooming and rape are very serious terms with were created to describe specific and serious situations, but both of which have been coopted to serve an agenda which weakens the meaning of those terms and exposes people to increased risk who were supposed to be protected by those terms.

Rape is a terrible thing to happen, where one person forces or pressures another into sex against their will or without consent. But that term has been expanded out to include anyone having sex with someone in an age range with the justification that people in that age range have no ability or right to give consent, and no will. That removes rights from young people and reduces their self empowerment or respect while diluting the seriousness of actual rape. Dilluting the serious crime of rape in this way could lead to an increase in actual rape crime while leaving victims feeling that what they've endured is less than how serious it really was.

Grooming is a terrible thing to happen, when someone manipulates another in any way, especially if it's manipulating someone into sex or into harmful situations such as drugs, crime or seclusion. But as with the term rape, it has been expanded to include anyone who has a relationship with a child where a relationship leads to anything that doesn't fit with social norms. It doesn't even have to lead to anything, it can just be someone who is identified as a pedophile talking to and having a friendship with a child. That map might genuinely care for the child, listen to the child, be a support for the child, help with real problems such as bullying advice or dealing with abuse in the home. But as soon as it's identified that one person is a pedophile and the other a child and they have a friendly relationship then the term grooming won't be far behind. If a friendship goes further and leads to even just a kiss, you can be sure that the pedophile will be accused of grooming. The effect is that grooming is a dilluted term that again distracts from the seriousness of actual grooming of anybody of any age and could lead to an increase in actual grooming and victims.

[Harlan]

Grooming is a terrible thing to happen, when someone manipulates another in any way, especially if it's manipulating someone into sex or into harmful situations such as drugs, crime or seclusion.

There are many other words for this (deception, manipulation, etc.) But the term "grooming" is deliberately used to dehumanize things like friendliness, caring, flirting. Since society denies youth sexuality, they needed a term that would support their delusion that a minor is always being maliciously manipulated by an "adult pervert"

[Outis]

Grooming is a terrible thing to happen, when someone manipulates another in any way, especially if it's manipulating someone into sex or into harmful situations such as drugs, crime or seclusion.

There are many other words for this (deception, manipulation, etc.) But the term "grooming" is deliberately used to dehumanize things like friendliness, caring, flirting. Since society denies youth sexuality, they needed a term that would support their delusion that a minor is always being maliciously manipulated by an "adult pervert"

That's very true.