Male grooming behaviour

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Why are we so scared of speaking about behaviour which creeps us out and we know to be wrong?

It's well known that Jimmy Savile was not subtle in his approach. Many people knew what he was doing, he even wrote about it in his autobiography but somehow the truth didn't come out properly until after his death.

Similarly, the grooming gangs in Rotherham were not picked up for a long time, because no-one cared sufficiently about the girls affected and were trying to avoid being racist.

When the NSPCC came to talk on Mumsnet many women wanted to know why they weren't doing more to protect girls' boundaries in school. The NSPCC were not interested in answering.

Why is it that women can recognise boundary breaking behaviour as dangerous but organisations are very reluctant to allow discussion of it?

Have we learned nothing?

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You've all heard about what happened in Rotherham but how many of you have heard about Oldham? This is a on-going scandal. Look at the abuse that the whistle blowers have received.

In both cases the Asian councillors who raised concerns were attacked - accused of all sorts and attacked by the press. No wonder you havent heard about Oldham. Serisouly the allegations contained in this blog are jaw dropping.

When my children were young teens an elderly neighbour was very friendly and kept offering to coach them. I could never quite put my finger on why I was uncomfortable as everyone spoke very well of him and I knew there'd be outrage if I said anything about being uncomfortable with his offer so I kept stalling. Then I spotted an article in the local paper that he'd just been found guilty on historic child sex abuse on young teens

Grooming is very hard to spot and no one believes you even if you spot it and express reservations, until after of course when there's often outrage and confusion that no one said anything, ignoring the women who did and were shouted down

If we have these morally pure, amazing selfless men and we are so pathetically grateful for their sacrifices, we put them beyond reproach, morally. Whereas with the rich and powerful we just don't have the ability to hold them to account, because they are above the law and can buy their way out of anything, and sex offences are just one of a long list of crimes those men can carry out with impunity

Yes this is is where girls in particular lose out 2 fold. First we put them in the position in the first place to prove our trust in these amazing men who "wouldnt hurt a fly* and then when stuff happens we blame the victim

Girls are never seen as victims. They always did something " wrong"

I knew there'd be outrage if I said anything about being uncomfortable with his offer
Exactly, because we are supposed to be grateful that he is so nice. We can't express discomfort and we can't question his motives.
Why did he want to coach them? Out of the goodness of his heart?
If we are going to allow men to voluntarily work with vulnerable women and children, including the elderly and those with physical disabilities or learning difficulties, we have to have robust safeguarding in place because taking them at their word is just stupid.
Maybe there are some men who are community minded and caring and do things out of the goodness of their hearts but if they get offended by safeguarding measures then I'd rather they didn't bother, because all they end up doing is providing cover for predators.
If we assume all men have innocent intentions then we end up with scores of victims. If we assume all men have nefarious intentions then we upset a few men.
I'd rather go with the latter.

Girls are never seen as victims. They always did something "wrong"
Because we don't want to believe that nice helpful selfless men are predatory.
We'd rather believe that little girls are coquettish and slutty.
We expect little girls to understand exactly how to interact with stronger, smarter and more powerful grown men but we don't expect grown men to show any self control.

As others have said, the depiction of a girl meeting adult men for sex as just naturally exploring her sexuality is a huge red flag.

It is so obvious what is going on here, that I couldn't understand why posts on that thread were being deleted for discussing it. Then I queried one of my deleted posts, and after reading the response from MNHQ and thinking a bit more, it all fell into place.

And girls are rude and unsociable if they dont relish the opportunity to talk to and interact and smile at strangers or sit on uncle ians lap. After all his step daughter does drugs and hangs around with a goth at school. Theres no way shes telling the truth

As others have said, the depiction of a girl meeting adult men for sex as just naturally exploring her sexuality is a huge red flag. We need to be able to talk about this.
The sex-positive crowd never take into consideration the psychological impact of casual sex; all things bring equal, women and girls have poorer sex with strangers than they do in relationships. There are studies implying women and girls regret casual sex more. Physically, women and girls are more at risk when meeting strange men for sex.
When you then suggest that it is normal behaviour for a fourteen year old girl to meet adult men for group sex, you've lost the plot entirely.
Like the news reports of the 16 year old girl who damaged herself by re-enacting group anal sex.
She damaged herself.
She re-enacted porn.
It's her fault.
She needs a colostomy bag.
Never mind that at some point she must have been in intense pain and none of the boys/men penetrating her stopped. Never mind that at that point it was clearly rape.
No. She did it to herself.

It's just the umpteenth different version of "she asked for it" basically. Why we don't scream in pure rage when this shit is used against little girls I don't know.

It's just the umpteenth different version of "she asked for it" basically. Why we don't scream in pure rage when this shit is used against little girls I don't know

The rough sex defence Is well there are no words to describe what it is.

I read the number one risk factor for CSA in a family is overcrowding. When a girl is forced to share a room or a bed with an uncle or a cousin or a brother.
Which, taken to the logical next step, means all men are capable of it and just don't have the opportunity.
Which is just too much for people to

That just isn't true though is it? If that were the case, every man presented with the opportunity would take advantage and that simply is just not true.

Which, taken to the logical next step, means all men are capable of it and just don't have the opportunity.
I'd disagree with with that. The majority of adult men are more than capable of keeping control.
I'd say it's more that abusers take the opportunity whenever they can as well as doing their best to arrange opportunities.

Which, taken to the logical next step, means all men are capable of it and just don't have the opportunity.

I think that's taking it a step too far. I see it as similar to any other criminal behaviour. At one end of the scale, there are those who create opportunities to offend. At the other, there are those who would never offend under any circumstances. In between those two extremes are the opportunists.

We're not scared about speaking out
Agreed we're not scared to speak about this.
We want to speak about grooming
in all of its forms.
We need to speak about grooming in all of its forms.

I'd like to speak about the extent of male criminality in all of this.

I lock up my house before I leave for work, not because all men are thieves but there might be just one man about to take advantage.

NAMALT Good men know all this.

NAMALT Good men know all this.

Due to the many bad men I’ve known, even though I also have wonderful men in my life, that now reads in my head as, Not All Men Aren’t Like That.

We expect little girls to understand exactly how to interact with stronger, smarter and more powerful grown men but we don't expect grown men to show any self control.

It's a definite attitude that men can't help themselves. That once the bit's between their teeth, they're incapable of stopping.

What was that survey where they were framing non consensual sex in different ways, and getting different answers.

And one of the questions was if you are already having sex and are turned on, and she wants to stop, if you don't stop, is it rape?

A shocking number of men said no. And it's not a rare attitude.

Maybe there are some men who are community minded and caring and do things out of the goodness of their hearts but if they get offended by safeguarding measures then I'd rather they didn't bother, because all they end up doing is providing cover for predators.

No. Any community minded man who has had any training at all understands the need for safeguarding measures. They also behave responsibly, putting restrictions on themselves because they know that in making themselves ironclad they make it harder for abusers and potential abusers to get away with it. A scout leader who avoids being alone with a teenage girl isn't saying he doesn't trust her, that she may make a false allegation. He's saying that girls are safer when trustworthy men behave carefully.

I allow a little leeway for older people, new to safeguarding, who may genuinely not realise the extent of the problem. Just a little.

Rotherham, Oldham, Oxford have all contributed to the crime of grooming recently.
Undoubtedly many other towns too.

There is this thing that men can get a girl to do anything.
At what age does this become quite apparent to them, puberty?

I've just realised that I never really knew this fact until my mid forties.

I knew there'd be outrage if I said anything about being uncomfortable with his offer

I think abusers are aided by this group response that we can't ask questions or say no if someone offers to do something that puts them out, even if we didn't ask them to.
I've been thinking about survivor guilt and FOG (Fear, Obligation, Guilt). I think abusers create guilt in several ways. Not all of them are threats. (If you tell, X will happen and Y will suffer and that will be your fault).

And I'm increasingly uncomfortable by the narrative I'm seeing pushed on social media that we must be kind. There seems to be an epidemic of 'be kind' being pushed at us at the same time that safeguarding is being dismantled on several fronts.

I don't allow my FIL to have unaccompanied access to my 3 daughters - i have no basis for this apart from when they were babies he would hold them oddly of there back was to his chest with them facing out and he would put an arm through their legs and his hand on their tummy. I actually got my DH to have a word that he cant hold them like that especially when then my eldest stopped wearing nappies.

He also consistently comments on my eldest being the prettiest grand daughter (they have a few) now my eldest has striking looks as she has very dark hair and bright blue eyes so does stand out but these two things make 'something' in me stay alert when we're in there presence that i cant and wont shake.

I also am now very aware of how my male colleagues act around younger junior females colleagues and once got call a cock blocker as I tend insert myself in situation i see going south. The thing is I remember female managers doing this for me.

And I'm increasingly uncomfortable by the narrative I'm seeing pushed on social media that we must be kind. There seems to be an epidemic of 'be kind' being pushed at us at the same time that safeguarding is being dismantled on several fronts

Almost every single time I've seen someone told to 'be kind', it's a woman being told to be kind to a male person when she's either asserting her own boundaries or calling out bad behaviour.
It never seems to occur to the 'be kind' brigade that they should also be kind to women and girls, even when those women or girls say they would be scared, vulnerable or at risk in a situation.
'Be kind' almost always only goes one way.

The sex-positive crowd never take into consideration the psychological impact of casual sex; all things bring equal, women and girls have poorer sex with strangers than they do in relationships. There are studies implying women and girls regret casual sex more. Physically, women and girls are more at risk when meeting strange men for sex.

If they did see it as a problem it would contaminate their ideas about sexual freedom being all that, and it might look like telling people who are of age that they shouldn't make certain sexual choices.

Casual sex as normal is almost completely ubiquitous, even people on sitcoms do it. If that's ok, then the logical question is, when does it become a good choice? When you are 16 and of legal age? When you are 20 and leave home? When you are 25 and get a good job?

This is an amazing thread. So many brilliant, insightful posts. Makes me feel proud to be here.

Theres also the perception that 'falsely' accusing, or even suspecting, a male of sexual impropriety is absolutely the most life ruiningly awful thing you can do to someone, therefore you should keep any suspicions to yourself until it's far too late. But then it will be the victims fault anyway, or else the people who suspected and failed to act. Basically anyone except the actual abuser