It has become quite common to use the term "grooming" when referring to politicians, religious organizations, and specific disliked individuals.
People who use the term grooming don't truly understand exactly what it really means. I promise, they don't.
Unless it has actually happened to you.
I was a victim of childhood sexual assault for ten years. And I was groomed.
What does that really entail? It isn't about physical treatment. In my case, it was all about mental manipulation.
I was told so often by the man who assaulted me that it would be my job when I grew up to serve the man I married, no matter what he wanted. It would be my job to be a good wife, to cook, to clean, to have my husband's children and raise them. And above all, to have sex with and please him at his every whim.
It was driven into my psyche almost constantly that this was my future and that I had no choice in the matter.
It has caused my an incredible amount of harm as an adult. Not only has it taken away my sexual autonomy, but nearly all my autonomy within the relationship I maintained for more than 30 years.
It didn't help that I lived in the Midwest, where the ideas that sexual service, childbearing and rearing, cooking and cleaning are all the wife's "duties". This only reinforced the grooming I suffered as a child.
Even worse, being groomed took away from me any choice to admit or explore who I really was, or the opportunity to ever live that truth.
I never felt like the girl or woman I was told over and over I was and had to be. I could never explore my own feelings about my gender, which were in direct opposition to what I was constantly told.
My sexuality was also twisted in my own head. I was not sexually attracted to men; even in early puberty my chosen sexual interactions were with other girls.
It was hard enough living in a world where being LGBT was not understood or even accepted. Being groomed to live as a woman completely changed my life. The demeaning and controlling behavior made it nearly impossible for me to ever speak up for myself within the boundaries of my marital relationship.
These factors combined to cause an incredible amount of damage.
Tossing the word "grooming" around as if it were just a mainstream term is heinous and callous to us, the real victims.
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