Chronicles of an Eclectic Life: Psychopath's Grooming

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Psychopath's Grooming

Reading on "grooming behavior" lends a further approval to the aphorism "nothing in this world free".

Grooming is a manipulation tactic used by most predators to gain the trust of their victims and their caretakers. Within grooming the predator may provide gifts, attention, time, mentoring, special privileges, alcohol, drugs, or companionship. If the abuser is successful, the grooming process will connect positive experiences to the perpetrator within the victim's mind.

Essentially, what the groomer is saying is: "This is the beginning of a long-winded transaction, at the end of which I'll be the one to profit and maximally so, through my techniques of delayed manipulation. At a later stage when I decide to take advantage of you or abuse you in any way, either you would perceive it as good, or see it as an exception that is outweighed by all other goods I have done (for you), or treat it with ignorance (assent without much deliberation), or in retrospect understand it as something because of your own fault."

How we understand this world is being upfront transactional. We might sometimes lament about this culture of "transactionality", but in most cases, it is laying the foundation for a fair game. There are predators operating under the guise of favors and charity who give benevolent or empathizable behavior a bad name.

The bottom line - grooming is manipulation and demonstrates the predator’s premeditation to later violate their target.

Most of the things that shock us today start with grooming... because abuse is a long road. The longer the chapters take, the more our hearts cry out if we do ever get to know about em. Some last for a lifetime, and are buried as secrets with the abuser and the abused.

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