Is grooming ever alright? - how the fuck was this left alone when it was first posted

[PaleTay]

So I was watching Onision drama as background noise and it really highlighted to me that one of my college friends was groomed by a 30 year old when we were 20 (he started talking to her when she was underage and I'd met him at high school parties). She was super depressed and lonely, initially after they begun dating she isolated from everyone and everything, and he eventually convinced her to move across the world with him. She's also justified adults dating young teenagers as alright as it is something that happens. She's happy and successful but very codependent on him, and he buys her extravagant things. I didn't want to get involved, but I'm now wondering if it were better if someone did.

 

[DJ Grelle]

Grooming as in hair grooming = perfectly okay
grooming as in preparing an underage person for a relationship the moment they turn "legal" = never okay

 

[Governor Jeb Bush]

most adults are in a mutually grooming relationship filled with gaslighting. SO yes, fine.

Grooming underage people - no. Jail time!

 

[pedoguyguykrai]

I don't understand how a normal adult would want to fuck a teen legal or no, I remember sex in my teen years it was always unsatisfying peer pressured bad times for me, I mean thats just for teens going at it with teens, the only way I see like an older man dating a teen girl, or vice versa is that the older party is exclusively getting the better end of the deal, and the younger party has no idea how their being screwed. It's one thing to be in a relation ship and being on equal footing and know your getting screwed, thats less worse than an older party screwing the younger party.

 

[Sperghetti]

So I was watching Onision drama as background noise and it really highlighted to me that one of my college friends was groomed by a 30 year old when we were 20 (he started talking to her when she was underage and I'd met him at high school parties). She was super depressed and lonely, initially after they begun dating she isolated from everyone and everything, and he eventually convinced her to move across the world with him. She's also justified adults dating young teenagers as alright as it is something that happens. She's happy and successful but very codependent on him, and he buys her extravagant things. I didn't want to get involved, but I'm now wondering if it were better if someone did.

I think the thing is that if you actually had a healthy and balanced relationship, it most likely wouldn't be "grooming". "Grooming" isn't just dynamic where one party is older than the other, it's a state where the older party manipulates the younger party into thinking that abusive/predatory behavior is acceptable.

With the example you just gave, there are numerous red flags: The fact that your friend was isolated from others after she started dating this guy, that he convinced her to move so far away, that you described her as being "very codependent on him". These do not sound like signs of a healthy relationship to me.

 

[CivilianOfTheFandomWars]

It depends on the child.

 

[Radola Gajda]

most adults are in a mutually grooming relationship filled with gaslighting. SO yes, fine.

Grooming underage people - no. Jail time!

Only time adult/ kid is okay if it is Parent/child. It goes without saying parent must be sane person . Not "Progressive" who will destroy kids life for virtue points nor Kebab who will turn kid into newest drone of Caliphate

 

[Johan Schmidt]

It depends on the child.

Carl, please, No.

On topic though, no? This girl in your 'tale' is probably less depressed than she was before, but she was taken advantage of and likely still is. Adults have a responsibility to not fuck up children. Grooming them is taking them out of their current role as a child, and prepping them to be an adult in a malformed way so that they stay loyal to you. It's not okay.

 

[Queen Of The Harpies]

OP you forgot to add "Asking for a friend"

 

[Fanatical Pragmatist]

No.

 

[pedoguyguykrai]

Carl, please, No.

On topic though, no? This girl in your 'tale' is probably less depressed than she was before, but she was taken advantage of and likely still is. Adults have a responsibility to not fuck up children. Grooming them is taking them out of their current role as a child, and prepping them to be an adult in a malformed way so that they stay loyal to you. It's not okay.

by the sounds of it he's using her as fuck meat, compensating her with meaningless matieral gifts, and money, and emotionally abusing her into thinking he's the only one she can depend upon. Chances are in another 5 years or so he'll dump her for fresher goods, and she's ripe pickings for the next asshole who wants a doormat with some miles on it. If anything it screams probably broken home life and daddy wasn't there growing up, you either come out that kind of shit hole life jaded as fuck early on, with your shit together, or you end up broken for a person for like onision to use and abuse until he gets bored of you. the latter more often than the former, best case scenario she learns to value herself after this situation ends, because it always does and move on or your fed in to a never ending loop of self destruction. its sad but a basically sink or swim situation.

 

[Johan Schmidt]

by the sounds of it he's using her as fuck meat, compensating her with meaningless matieral gifts, and money, and emotionally abusing her into thinking he's the only one she can depend upon. Chances are in another 5 years or so he'll dump her for fresher goods, and she's ripe pickings for the next asshole who wants a doormat with some miles on it. If anything it screams probably broken home life and daddy wasn't there growing up, you either come out that kind of shit hole life jaded as fuck early on, with your shit together, or you end up broken for a person like onision to use and abuse until he gets bored of you. the latter more often than the former, best case scenario she learns to value herself after this situation ends, because it always does and move on or your fed in to a never ending loop of self destruction. its sad but a basically sink or swim situation.

Yeah, it's like the whole 'sugar daddy' thing. The men that do this, aren't the sort who are going to settle down and live a long, fulfilled life with the girls that they snatch up the second they turn 18. They're going to pump, dump, and then get another one when the broken home estate factory churns them out.

 

[Just Another Apocalypse]

Depends on the people doing the grooming and being groomed.

If it's a priest grooming a ward in an orphanage, that's bad.

Pakis grooming kids in care so they can be trafficked. A O fucking K.

(Satirical commentary on the lefties)

 

[Scolopendra Dramatica]

No.

Next question please.

 

[Spooky Bones]

"Grooming" doesn't even have to involve a minor. The story you tell isn't inherently alarming because it is a 30yo and a 20yo although ten years is a big gap in that case especially if the 20yo is still in college/dependant on parents (10yrs could be fine if the parties are significantly older than this though.) It's a question of not just maturity but life situation, creeping on someone who doesn't even pay bills yet is definitely creeping every time. But a dynamic can be grooming even in older people if as you mention there is a situation involving mental health or the like. Grooming is about creating an unhealthy power imbalance which can manifest in a variety of ways often as someone else mentioned isolating the groomee from their friends and supports etc. which is actually something in common with alot of abusive relationships. Grooming is by definition bad so it's never OK but not every situation involving an age gap (between independent people over the age of majority) is grooming. The situation you describe sounds like it is though.

 

[pedoguyguykrai]

Yeah, it's like the whole 'sugar daddy' thing. The men that do this, aren't the sort who are going to settle down and live a long, fulfilled life with the girls that they snatch up the second they turn 18. They're going to pump, dump, and then get another one when the broken home estate factory churns them out.

pfft those types, they aren't even waiting until legal age, shit in highschool I knew of atleast 2 girls 15 and 16 who were fucking old ass men for money, because they're mom was a fucking crack addict hoe bag, like meth trailer trash who whored her self out for 20 a go near the gas station at the truck stop every fucking day. DHS does shit unless babbies are involved.

 

[Johan Schmidt]

pfft those types, they aren't even waiting until legal age, shit in highschool I knew of atleast 2 girls 15 and 16 who were fucking old ass men for money, because they're mom was a fucking crack addict hoe bag, like meth trailer trash who whored her self out for 20 a go near the gas station at the truck stop every fucking day. DHS does shit unless babbies are involved.

Yeah. I used to live in a pretty rough area; and one of the girls that lived in a part of our little council estate was a known hooker. She was like fifteen at the time? Which always struck me as her not being a hooker so much as she was being abused. But the police seemed to not give a fuck.

 

[KateHikes14]

"Grooming" doesn't even have to involve a minor. The story you tell isn't inherently alarming because it is a 30yo and a 20yo although ten years is a big gap in that case especially if the 20yo is still in college/dependant on parents (10yrs could be fine if the parties are significantly older than this though.) It's a question of not just maturity but life situation, creeping on someone who doesn't even pay bills yet is definitely creeping every time. But a dynamic can be grooming even in older people if as you mention there is a situation involving mental health or the like. Grooming is about creating an unhealthy power imbalance which can manifest in a variety of ways often as someone else mentioned isolating the groomee from their friends and supports etc. which is actually something in common with alot of abusive relationships. Grooming is by definition bad so it's never OK but not every situation involving an age gap (between independent people over the age of majority) is grooming. The situation you describe sounds like it is though.

Grooming has a terrible connontation, but it's not definitionally abusive or coercive. Grooming is only as bad as the intentions, mentorships tend to be grooming, and those can be extraordinarily beneficial.

 

[Swein Forkbeard]

Celine Dion was groomed. She met her future husband when she was 12 and he was in his 20s I believe. When she turned legal he married her.

no grooming is not ok because of the inherent power imbalance. What interests me is industrial scale grooming like the grooming gangs which Just Another Apocalypse mentioned upthread. In those cases it was dozens of men working together to groom hundreds of girls, girls who were already so vulnerable and came from such shitty backgrounds that they thought their groomers loved them, even as they were being pimped out and raped.

Then we have the troon subculture, where older AGP troops groom kids to become troons, they call it ‘cracking the egg’. It’s sketchy as hell and happens in plain sight on Reddit.

 

[Spooky Bones]

Grooming has a terrible connontation, but it's not definitionally abusive or coercive. Grooming is only as bad as the intentions, mentorships tend to be grooming, and those can be extraordinarily beneficial.

No. Grooming has a terrible connotation because it is a term for a bad dynamic. If it's a good dynamic, it's not grooming, it's something else. I don't know why people are trying to extend the definition of grooming to include both good and bad situations, that seems to me to be a very slippery slope.