Why I talk about abusers “testing” instead of grooming

Groom (verb)-to get into readiness for a specific objective: Prepare

Test (verb)-to make a preliminary test or survey (as of reaction or interest) before embarking on a course of action

Prior to learning in 2011 that my dad was a very sophisticated child sexual predator, I had no reason to believe he was abusing children. Not only was he abusing many young children, he was doing it in our own home. It was my youngest sister who disclosed to me that she had been sexually abused by our dad for years. An entire family and community was clueless. We had no idea. And we are right in step with the rest of society. Dr. Gene Abel estimates that a child molester has less than a 3% chance of ever getting caught every time they create a hands-on victim. In my father’s case, he operated at a 100% success rate with every victim. In other words, he successfully abused all of his many victims without anyone ever suspecting that he was abusing children.

The one thing that kept coming up in every book I read was the concept of “grooming behavior.” It has become the universal language to describe what abusers do to both their victims and the community at large in order to sexually, physically, or emotionally abuse their victims. Darkness To Light describes grooming this way:

Grooming is a process by which offenders gradually draw victims into a sexual relationship and maintain that relationship in secrecy. At the same time, offenders may also fill roles within the victims’ families that make them trusted and valued family friends.

Darkness To Light continues:

The key is to recognize red flag behaviors and to minimize opportunity for abuse.

Here are some red flag behaviors to watch for:

1. Targeting specific kids for special attention, activities, or gifts. Some offenders show preference for a particular gender, age, or “type.”
2. Slowly isolating a kid from family members and friends: physically and emotionally. This could include finding reasons for isolated, one-on-one interactions (sleepovers, camping trips, day activities, etc.), or undermining relationships with parents and friends to show that “no one understands you like I do.”
3. Gradually crossing physical boundaries. Full frontal hugs that last too long, making kids sit in their laps, “accidental” touches of private areas – all of these are causes for concern. In some cases, offenders have engaged in partially clothed tickle sessions, showered with kids, or slept in the same bed with them.
4. Encouraging a kid to keep secrets from family members. The shame and fear associated with child sexual abuse make it easy for offenders to enforce secrecy in this area as well, keeping abuse “just between us.”

As the son of a pedophile who was learning and growing and questioning everything about my childhood, this notion of “grooming” victims into being abused just didn’t seem adequate to describe what happened between my dad and his victims. It’s close, but I think the terminology is too broad and descriptions of grooming are way too static. We can’t reduce what abusers do to a quick checklist of red flag behaviors.

Pedophiles are experts at deception. They are artists and therefore are incredibly creative in how they implement their strategies. They are adaptable and nimble. What they do is dynamic, always changing. Abusers are the definition of becoming all things to all people. They do heinous acts, and thousands of them to dozens or even hundreds of kids, without having anyone suspect it. In the rare case that someone does suspect it or a victim discloses, the abuser can easily explain the actions away. I know. I lived with one such abuser. They have already thought of and rehearsed every possible scenario. They think on their feet much better than most of us do. Much of the abuse pedophiles do is intentionally done right in front of us. In fact, the ultimate trophy is to be able to abuse their victims in plain sight of adults without their noticing it. Sure, they abuse in isolation. But they also abuse many of their victims within inches of our eyes. And we don’t notice!

Let me first walk through the four “red flags of grooming” mentioned by Darkness To Light above. If the key really is to recognize the red flags so we can minimize opportunity for abuse, the absolute most important question I can possibly ask is, Does it actually work?

First, targeting specific kids for special attention, activities, or gifts; showing preference to a specific gender, age or type–I have fond memories as a kid going on beach trips with just my dad and my brothers. We have a large family (11 kids) and I am the 5th boy in a row. My parents would split up vacations and the two of them would take the girls then just my dad would take only us boys on a separate vacation. None of us boys were abused.

Presents-I still remember one day my older brother Tim and I waking up to two brand new three wheelers parked outside in our driveway. One was for Tim and one was for me, bought by my dad. There was no special occasion. He was an impulse buyer and showered all kinds of people with all kinds of gifts. He was generous with his time and money. Even looking back now, I don’t think he used presents to “groom” victims into being abused. Furthermore, the segregation of kids based on gender, age, and type is too generic. This “red flag” describes my wife. It describes me. It describes just about everyone I know. This makes the needle-in-the-haystack-phenomenon even worse when we tell people that “abusers can be anyone.” Do you see why this language isn’t specific enough? I can’t overstate the fact that abusers are dynamic in the application of their techniques. What works for one victim may not work for the next. An abuser will adapt to find the proper techniques to match the specific vulnerabilities in each victim and their families. And they do this by testing.

Second, slowly isolating kids from family and friends: physically and emotionally; finding reasons for isolated, one-on-one interactions (sleepovers, camping trips, day activities)–Once again, this is too broad. Dad took us boys on camp outs often. He never abused us. He also took girls on camp outs. He did abuse some of them. I have camped out many times with just my kids and have never abused them. My wife doesn’t like camping so she happily stays behind, which could have the appearance of “isolating” my kids. There was one key difference that I can see between instances when my dad isolated kids: he acted too excited to take certain kids on trips or sleepovers. But even this is very subjective because there were plenty of times that he was excited to take us boys on camping trips. Some of my best memories are of overnight trips my dad and I took together–camping, sail boating, going to the beach, and on I could go.

Third, gradually crossing physical boundaries; hugs that last too long, sitting kids in laps, “accidental” touches of private areas–I can’t name a parent who hasn’t exhibited the above behaviors, with the exception of “accidental” touches to private areas. But still, these are considered grooming behaviors to manipulate a child into a sexual encounter. Larry Nassar is one case where we know for certain that his physical contact with victims was sexual. And he did much of it–with over 100 victims that we know of–just inches away from the parents. Kristen Chatman was one such mother who was in the room as her daughter was being sexually assaulted by Nassar. Here is her account:

She was fully covered – even wearing running shorts. I, unlike others, don’t remember him ‘blocking’ my view, but since she was covered, I was unaware of what he was doing under the sheet. After he was done, he washed his hands and I remember thinking “Did he just do what I think he did? Where are his gloves?” I immediately dismissed the thoughts as there must have been some good reason. This was Larry after all. No need to question him. I trusted him. We all trusted him.

Deb McCaul was another attentive parent who not only was in the same room as Nassar while he abused her daughter Morgan, but actually walked up to be near her daughter to comfort her during the “procedure”:

“I wasn’t somebody with, like, my nose in the phone,” McCaul says. “I was having conversations with them. And whenever Larry was doing something in that [pelvic] area, I would go up and stand by the table, because I wanted her to feel more comfortable.”

Nassar was not deterred by his victim’s mother walking up and standing right next to him! Did he groom Morgan and Deb or did he test them first to find out which deception techniques he’d use to pull this off? Sexual predators are artists of deception. They constantly test their victims and their families to see which techniques will work best. Nassar did not gradually cross physical boundaries with his victims. He knew what he wanted to do to his victims so he tested them and their parents to know how he could pull it off, then he just did it. Abusers are dynamic. When Nassar saw Deb McCaul walk up next to him, he didn’t “groom” her into believing he was trustworthy. Nassar already had her trust because he had authority as a doctor and respect as a friend. All Nassar had to do was simply test Deb to see how he could hold her spotlight of attention. Once he initiated conversation, he sexually assaulted Deb’s daughter as he was casually talking with Deb. This is the dynamic nature I talk about. Abusers test. They adapt. And they do it proficiently on the go. They never skip a beat. They can’t. Otherwise they will get caught.

Finally, encouraging kids to keep secrets from family members–Again, this is not something my dad did. Both he and his victims tell me that he never told them to keep the abuse a secret. He didn’t need to. That’s not to say that some abusers don’t because we know that many do tell their victims to keep it a secret. But should this be considered a “grooming” technique? Grooming, by definition, is preparation. Grooming gets ready or prepares someone for a specific objective. An abuser who tells the victim to keep the abuse a secret is not preparing them for abuse; he has already has obtained his objective. He is not grooming the victim into being abused; he is merely warning the victim not to disclose the abuse that has already happened.

I think it’s important that we shift our language to be more precise. The above four “grooming behaviors” miss the most important issue at hand–they don’t tell us how abusers abuse their victims. I don’t want to focus on static behaviors, I want to focus on dynamic techniques abusers use to deceive us. I confess that we are grossly inadequate at identifying abusers “out there” in the real world. Even those of us who live and breathe abuse have many vulnerabilities that abusers will see and exploit. Because they are so adaptable, they are really good at deceiving others. Yet the common phrases that are thrown around to help us “identify” abusers are:

• Abusers can be anyone
• It’s all about control
• They are master manipulators
• They groom both their victims and communities
• They’re incredibly good at controlling narratives
• Watch out for people who are too good to be true

The problem (and it’s a major problem!) with this is that it tells us nothing about their techniques. It tells us nothing about how they do what they do. Though some of the grooming lingo is helpful, if falls way, way short of being specific enough to pick someone out of a crowd. If we want to understand how deception works, we need to study deception. I wanted to know, step by step, how abusers test us, deceive us, and what it is that they are doing along the way. How do they adapt and blend in with the grace and natural blending of a chameleon? What I found is that they are not merely “grooming” us and their victims. Rather, the bigger part of what they are doing is testing us. They test us to know exactly what each of our vulnerabilities are and they instantly exploit those vulnerabilities.

The difference between grooming and testing may seem like a trivial difference, but I assure you it’s the most important distinction. If someone is skilled at testing their subjects and they know what works for different people, they will learn deception techniques and adjust them from person to person. They not only know who to exploit, but they know how to exploit each person and what technique works best to pull it off. This describes abusers much better. When people say that, for abusers, “it’s all about control,” my response is, “No, it’s all about technique.” You can tell me that someone is controlling but what does that actually tell me about how he maintained control?

My theory led me to the brilliant work of neuroscientists and deception experts Dr. Stephen Macknick and Dr. Susana Martinez-Conde. I ran my theories by them and we ended up collaborating and putting on a training together in my hometown last year. The videos below show how and why our human brains are constantly making up information and how abusers hack and exploit our brains.

Drs. Macknik and Martinez-Conde collaborated with magicians to understand how the human brain is so easily fooled. What is it about us that makes us so susceptible to abuse? Magicians and abusers alike know how to exploit our vulnerabilities. Magicians make a living fooling people and abusers spend a lifetime abusing children by fooling adults. Magicians don’t need to groom us into being deceived any more than abusers need to. Because it’s not so much about grooming. It’s more about testing and adapting. Magicians are experts at deception. And so are abusers. For both, it’s about testing people, reading them, feeling them out, and knowing which techniques work best for each individual. Once a deceiver knows how this all works, they don’t need to slowly groom someone along. They simply test each of us, then use whatever techniques are best suited for us. Below is one example of how Apollo Robbins exploits this woman’s confidence. And watch how quickly he does it:

I am not knocking our current training here. What I am saying is that I’m hopeful for where our research is headed. There is so much to explore and learn when it comes to deception and the testing techniques abusers use. If we want to keep pace with abusers, we need to understand deception as good as they do. And that’s not going to happen if we keep assuming that abusers simply groom people into being abused. No–there’s so much more to what they do and I hope to link arms with more people who have the same desire to understand deception techniques.

Photo by Gareth Newstead on Unsplash