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How Sex Offenders Groom Their Victims
Most sex offenders "groom" their victims prior to any sexual abuse for a period of weeks, months or even years. After gaining trust in the parents, the offender offers to baby sit the child or provide fun activities. During this time, he/she proceeds to groom the child. The perpetrator is aware that the child must be controlled to the extent where he/she can sexually abuse the child without fear of disclosure to another adult. This manipulation may be obtained in many ways: favors, threats, guilt, shame, etc.
A mother revealed her husband played a tickling game with their three-year-old son. The rules of the game was to play with Daddy and have fun—the son was instructed to tickle his father’s nipples while sitting in a straddled position over his father’s nude body from the waist up. The object of this game was, ‘Make daddy laugh.’ Of course, the father could withhold laughing until he experienced the sexual stimulation he desired. When the mother objected to this game, the father admonished her for being jealous of his time with their son.
Another mother was horrified when her three-year old daughter asked her to play the ‘pee-pee’ game. She asked her daughter to explain this game. Her daughter lay on her back on the floor; legs spread and said, “Touch my ‘pee-pee,’ Mommy, that is what Daddy does.”
Fathers often cuddle in bed with their daughters in a spoon position, arm across their mid-body with only underware or pajamas on. Several clients have reported feeling their father’s penis against their legs or back, while not knowing what to do—as they wanted their father’s affection—they didn’t like the feeling of his genitals against their body. This cuddling seems harmless. The women also reported sexual abuse occurred sometime later. Was the cuddling in bed a form of grooming or was the cuddling an ill advised way to show affection with the child that unwittingly led to subsequent sexual abuse? In either belief, the damage is done.
In a study of twenty adult sex offenders conducted by Jon Cote, Steven Wolf and Tim Smith; two of the key questions asked were:
1. “Was there something about the child’s behavior which attracted you to the child?”
• “The warm and friendly child or the vulnerable child. Friendly, showed me their panties.”
• “The way the child would look at me, trustingly.”
• “The child who was teasing me, smiling at me, asking me to do favors.”
• “Someone who had been a victim before [sexual abuse or spankings], quiet, withdrawn, compliant. Someone, who had not been, a victim would be more non-accepting of the sexual language or stepping over the boundaries of modesty. Quieter, easier to manipulate, less likely to object or put up a fight…goes along with things.”
2. “After you had identified a potential victim, what did you do to engage the child into sexual contact?” The responses included:
• “I didn’t say anything. It was at night, and she was in bed asleep.”
• “Talking, spending time with them, being around them at bedtime, being around them in my underwear, sitting down on the bed with them. Constantly evaluating the child’s reaction… A lot of touching, hugging, kissing, snuggling.” [Desensitizing the child with appropriate behavior.]
• “Playing, talking, giving special attention, trying to get the child to initiate contact with me… Get the child to feel safe to talk with me… From here I would initiate different kinds of contact, such as touching the child’s back, head… Testing the child to see how much she would take before she would pull away.”
• “Isolate them from other people. Once alone, I would make a game of it (red light, green light with touching up their leg until they said stop). Making it fun.”
• “Most of the time I would start by giving them a rub down. When I got them aroused, I would take the chance and place my hand on their penis to masturbate them. If they would not object, I would take this to mean it was okay… I would isolate them. I might spend the night with them. Physical isolation, closeness, contact are more important than verbal seduction.
Many clients have reported their sexual abuse grooming started when they showered with a parent—or the parent/caretaker washed the child’s genital area with bare hands and soap long past the stage a child can attend to their own genital hygiene. While for some this activity was the extent of the covert sexual contact, but for others it evolved into overt sexual abuse. Even though the activity was only ‘rubbing’ the genital area ostensibly for bathing purposes, many people have suffered classic aftereffects of sexual abuse.
How? You might ask, would the child experience sexual abuse by having their genital area washed with bare hands and soap? The answer is simple. At birth, children are complete neurological sexual beings who can experience erotic sensation although they are sexually immature and without an active sex drive. Furthermore, the child experiences the adult’s physiology, which has sexual overtones, thus although the child doesn’t have a name for the experience the child knows something has changed. Within the definition of sexual abuse it is abuse, “If a child cannot refuse, or who believes she or he cannot refuse she/he has been violated.”
Grooming or sexual abuse activities include:
• Playing pool tag—when the child is tagged ‘Playfully’ pulling the child’s swimsuit down.
• Pulling her panties down without her permission.
• Male holding a child on his lap while he has an erection.
• Kissing the child in a way that is sexual for the giver and inappropriate for the child.
• Seemingly innocuous touching, caressing, wrestling, tickling or playing, which has sexual overtones or meaning for the other person.
• Adult treats the child as an equal/peer, pseudo or surrogate spouse.
Unique and less frequently reported grooming activities:
• Male demonstrates and instructs the child how to suck on a peeled banana without breaking or putting teeth marks on it. Once the child has complied and masters the skill; this activity is shifted to his penis—often using the con—“I have a big banana between my legs, you can suck on it.”
• Male initiates a game of ‘sucking the jelly’ out of my big toe. Once the child has complied and understands the ‘game.’ This activity is shifted to his penis.
• Invading a child’s privacy, such as entering the bathroom or bedroom without knocking, catching her/him unaware or indisposed. This invasion is a power play—disempowering their victim—indoctrinating the child to comply with the adult’s authority and control in all situations and circumstances.
• Enemas or frequent inspection of the child’s genitals ostensibly for health reasons.
In the twenty-five years I have worked with sexual abuse survivors in the healing process, I have discovered a child is rarely subjected to only one type of sexual abuse. Furthermore, I have learned the sad truth about the human mind’s ability to seemingly conceive of endless ways to sexually abuse children.
Resource: Conte, Jon R., Steven Wolf, Tim Smith. "What Sexual Offenders Tell Us About Prevention Strategies." Child Abuse & Neglect Vol. 13 (1989): 293-301.
Sex Offenders--Do Laws Restricting Where They Live Protect Children?
Society needs to take a hard look to make sure such laws are not giving families a false sense of security. Many municipalities are debating whether to ban registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of schools or day care centers. This decision is fool-hardy because if sex offenders are unable to control their compulsions they will find access to children no matter where they live.
Incarcerating sex offenders for life doesn’t stop sexual child abuse either. As a society we are ‘creating’ new sex offenders every day. Sex offenders are men or women, who are sexual or physical abuse survivors and they are using sex with children as a way to cope, to numb or distract themselves from the emotional pain. Frequently, the sex offender is seeking a similar experience to the pain they endured as a child. Unbeknownst to them, they are creating the moth to the flame scenario. In other words, the offender might believe she/he will never offend again, but when the compulsion to relieve the internal pain becomes too great they will offend. It is a compulsion that she/he can not stop. This compulsion solves the internal pain if only for a brief period albeit at the peril of going to jail. However, since the internal pain is beyond their ability to override its excruciating effect, they can not merely stop their compulsion.
Healing emotional issues for anyone who has sexually abused—no matter the reason—is possible. An innovative and highly effective process to achieve deeper and more total healing can be achieved through healing mind, body and spirit. This process is direct, focused, and combines healing the past while creating the future. You will make a subtle and effective transition to self-discovery and empowerment.
Healing emotional issues at the core addresses the all-important relationship to one's true spiritual nature. Transforming the psychological conditional patterns and unconscious beliefs that arise from our personal histories and adaptations effectively transforms our mind, body and spirit. Thus, you transform how you feel, sense, and experience global political mass consciousness, as well as your individual consciousness, like never before. A Mind, Body, Spirit approach addresses the three critical aspects of one's being, therefore opening the door to true balance and emotional healing.
Well-being comes from the understanding of the Self, the family, the local community in which we live, and the global community of which we are a part. We are each one heart of the Whole; each heart here to express its unique piece of the Whole. Knowing Self creates a sense of "I as a piece of this Whole," different and one at the same time.
The real answer to stopping sexual child abuse is stopping what creates people to sexually abuse children and to heal those who are sex offenders.
Sex Offender Profile
According to Finkelhor (Finkelhor, 1984; Araji and Finkelhor, 1985) there are four components that contribute, in differing degrees and forms, to development of a child molester's behavior. To explain the diversity of behavior of sexual abusers, there are four factors in a complementary process. These four factors are sexual arousal, emotional congruence, blockage, and disinhibition:
Sexual arousal: In order for an adult to be aroused by a child, there has frequently been cultural or familial conditioning to sexual activity with children or early fantasy reinforced by masturbation. In my 25 years of working in recovery with sexual abuse survivors and sex offenders, all sex offenders are either physical and/or sexual abuse survivors as well. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of sex offenders can be healed and live a normal life without offending. The key to successfully treating sex offenders is to address their physical and/or sexual abuse after affects. Once their emotional wounds are healed their attraction to pre-pubescent or pubescent children is non-existent. The reason for this is that sex offenders are acting out what was done to them—i.e. the moth to the flame or they are attempting to soothe and/or numb the pain of their abuse. This, of course, is not an excuse for their behavior, however, it is an explanation and the key to successful recovery.
Emotional congruence: There is comfort in relating to a child and satisfaction of emotional need through the abuse. This is apt to be due to arrested development through limited intelligence, immaturity or low self-esteem.
Blockage: Age appropriate sexual opportunities may be blocked by bad experiences with age appropriate adults, sexual dysfunction, limited social skills, or marital disturbance.
Disinhibition: The abuser may lose control through impulse control deficits, psychosis, alcohol, drugs, stress, or nonexistent family rules.
Finkelhor suggests that examination of these factors can help explain why sexual abusers are predominately male. Rowan, Rowan, and Langelier (1981) studied 600 sex offender evaluations in New Hampshire and Vermont and found that in only nine cases (1.5 percent) was the perpetrator a woman. These nine incidents are reviewed in terms of Finkelhor's (1984) four-factor model. In five of the incidents studied, the abuse occurred in conjunction with a dominant male partner; in four, the woman acted independently. The histories of several of the women revealed a history of childhood abuse and all had serious psychological problems or limited intelligence. The victims of the four women who acted independently were male.
Of the five women who acted in conjunction with a male, three victimized females, one victimized a male, and one victimized both a son and a daughter. The authors concluded that none of these incidents were true paraphilics according to the DSM-III-R but that the female molesters did fit the model proposed by Finkelhor. Understanding what motivates a person to abuse children sexually does NOT excuse him/her, or remove responsibility for the choices he/she has made. If abused as a child, the perpetrator is still responsible for his/her adult behavior and for the denial system that allows them to continue. The adult is responsible for protecting the welfare of children; therefore, the adult is responsible for protecting children even from him/herself if necessary.
Dorothy M. Neddermeyer, PhD, author, If I'd Only Known...Sexual Abuse in or out of the Family: A Guide to Prevention, is noted for her pioneering work in verbal, physical and sexual abuse prevention and recovery. http://www.gen-assist.com
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