GROOMING - THE ART OF MANUFACTURING A VICTIM
THE ART OF MANUFACTURING A VICTIM
Most of who we are and the dominant attributes we adopt, have been taught to us.
We learn what it means to socialize with others and likewise what behaviors are considered acceptable from those deemed unacceptable within our primal social groups, early enough in our development stages to foster much of, not only the way we view the world around us and those in it, but also how we communicate and express ourselves.
We also learn attributes of self-care along with how well we ensure that our needs are met within those relationships, both platonic and familial or romantic alike from the affirmative or negative responses we receive within them.
These behavioral leanings are usually imbued within us in early childhood.
We conceptualize social ideals from those interactions between our caregivers and others within our primary social groups by the close relationships they themselves nurture and even in how they respond to and behave amongst each other.
These baseline attributes later become our relationship language, or those characteristics by which we derive what it means to socialize within our own social structures and the relationships we foster for ourselves outside of our primary familial social groups.
but just as we are constantly learning and adapting to our environs, we are also developing new ways to interact with those around us in our plight to procure for ourselves the connections necessary for us to thrive and survive in the world.
However, when these socializations or interactions are veiled with behavior modification attributes that serve clandestine or exploitative motives, designed to make us believe that our attributes of self-preservation are faulty or that seek to negatively reinforce the notion that self-care and the assertions of our needs within the relationship are unfavorable, we have a higher proclivity to develop the self-destructive or otherwise maladaptive social attributes that are unbalanced in reciprocity, serving only the benefit others at our own demise.
This is especially true if such behaviors are reinforced within our socializations over long periods of time.
What I am describing is know as VICTIM GROOMING, and is a destructive psycho-social means of gaining and keeping power and control over someone by seeking to diffuse, disarm and beat the self- preservation out of them through habitual and repeated acts of cruelty that shock and traumatize them each and every time they enact any form of affirmative self care or assert their wants and needs within the relationship.
Grooming seeks to essentially destroy a target's affirmative values, self identity and self esteem so that the abuser or exploiter can use them for whatever they have purposed them for.
This type of behavior is frequently used by pimps, traffickers, sexual predators and con men who aim to subdue their targets to enslave them without reprimand or recourse, so they can use and exploit them without fear that the target will leave, as they are usually trauma bonded within the relationship resulting from increasingly habitual acts of abuse carried out against them.
It is a means of manufacturing victim-hood through the use of manipulative and other predatory behavior to gain access to, coerce and solicit compliance while reducing the risk of exposure and escape from the consequence of their behavior.
THE PROCESS OF GROOMING IS
Choosing A Victim:
Predators who groom targets for exploitation are very keen on selecting those who they believe will present the least likelihood of exposure.
They typically engage in a selection process by initiating seemingly harmless interactions with potential targets to gage their psycho-social attributes to determine the succeptibility of the target to future plans of exploitation.
Likewise, with the emergence of internet social apps, like Facebook, Instagram and the various other online communication sources, it makes hunting for targets fairly easy.
The groomer is typically looking to see if the potential target can easily detect subtle queues of offensive or otherwise predatory language and behavior to gage the likelihood that their plans of harm can take shape.
Soon after initial contact, the groomer tries to procure artificial intimacy with the target by seeking to form intimate relationships with them or by using unusual emotionally intensive or subtle sexually clad language at the onset of the communication.
These are all red flags, especially if this behavior is occurring before you've had the chance to get to know the person well enough or if on social media platform if you've never actually met them in person.
The use of fallacious intimacy or sexual innuendo is a powerful weapon most sexual predators use to form synthetic or superficial bonds with their targets, to start the grooming process of eliciting supply from them.
Gaining Unrestricted Access And Isolation:
The best way to foster codependency within a predatory relationship is by isolating targets from their social support groups.
This serves to place the target in the predators world, where they best know the interworkings of the area.
They might suggest the target move from their hometown or persuade the target to make counter intuitive locality decisions that place them within the confines of the predator or group of predators, so as to continue the grooming process of exploitation.
It is critical to note that this is very dangerous for anyone to do, especially if they have no intrinsic knowledge of certain places or neighborhoods or the affiliations of the people they are communicating with.
Most predators form militias or are involved with predatory groups or even gangs, who can best subdue and groom targets for exploitation by gaining untethered access to them in isolation, outside of the target's familiar surroundings.
Developing Trust And Keeping Secrets:
When we feel comfortable with someone, it is a natural process to share or reveal privy attributes of ourselves with them in our aim of developing intimacy within the relationship.
This is also the aim of the groomer.
Superficial charm is frequently used by predators who groom their targets so they might procure and leverage intimate details and sensitive information from them that they can use as pivot points against them later on in the relationship to regain compliance if ever their demands aren't met or to prevent exposure and consequence for their future intentions.
They might seek to leverage the sensitive information we share with them or even use our loved ones or children as powerful weapons against us later on.
Some groomers even seek to gain compliance, loyalty and unwavering allegiance from their targets by making them believe there's benevolence behind the otherwise nefarious plans they've concocted, such as a group initiation or some other affirmative aim, to force secrecy and deflection of their true intentions or motives.
Trust, secrecy and the belief that there is somehow an affirmative or benevolent aim in abusive relationships, are exceptional deterrents used by groomers as a means of maintaining target compliance, while evading retribution for crime, subsequently forging acceptance and acquiescence to harmful behavior.
Desensitization:
Most grooming behaviors start in subtle ways at first, while gradually increasing in both occurance and severity of offense, as the relationship progresses.
This serves twofold, as a means of desensitizing the target while minimizing the detection of red flags, and also to, over time, normalize otherwise abnormal or dysfunctional behavioral attributes within the relationship.
For instance, a sexual predator might bombard or love bomb their targets with unwarranted non-sexual, yet intimate overly affectionate gestures, such as excessive hugging, kissing, touching or caressing before they graduate to more sexualized behavior, such as inappropriate touching or groping, as a means of preparing the target for future predatory behavior.
The more frequent an incidence occurs in our relationships, the more likely we are to expect it's occurance without shock or awe, even if the incidence is invasive or malevolent to us.
It then becomes the deliberate and consistent act of the groomer to inflict abusive behavior onto the target, such that the target not only expects that the harmful act is sure to be carried out, but to, in their aim to subvert or lessen it, act adversely sacrificial, or counterproductive to themselves in their effort not only to survive the abusive circumstances, but to desperately prevent them altogether.
Repeated acts to punish or harm someone whenever they make affirmative or self-supportive decisions or act in their best interest, such as consistently stealing from them, sabotaging their survival efforts or even inundating them with hypersexualized concepts or gestures, seeks to force complicity and desensitization within predatory contexts.
GROOMING IN PERSPECTIVE
Grooming is a predatory means of subverting our defenses by progressively desensitizing and minimizing our natural tendency toward rejecting abusive or otherwise harmful behavior.
It is most frequently used by pedophiles to groom unsuspecting children and their caretakers, conmen who engage in confidence scams, and by pimps and sex traffickers, who force targets into sexual slavery by consistently subjecting them to dehumanizing behaviors that serve to force submission, while instigating confusion, as to what is actually happening in the relationship.
It then becomes the mix of superficial charm, deception and deflection, that contribute to desensitization, so the dysfunctional behavior can commence without refute or objection, thus becoming progressively normalized by the target.
This is why it is so critical that we learn to recognize the signs of malevolent and otherwise offensive or harmful behavior, as it could be the very thing that saves us from the pain and agony of becoming entangled with people who mean us harm.
It is our goal to engage, educate and empower our readers so they are equipped with the keen attributes of what Social and Domestic Violence is, so as to foster healthy relationships that are free from harm.
There are so many good natured well intended people in the world, who are equipped to meet us where we are and help us thrive and survive in the world, free of abuse, exploitation and harm without trying to subdue or groom us into dystrophic socializations.
May we each of us have the courage to seek them, connect with them, and most of all may we be them.
- OasisAgainstViolence