I’ve been so immersed in war news that I missed a bunch of developments right here in the US. There was a mass shooting in a New York subway conducted by a racist maniac? WashPo has doxxed an Orthodox Jewish woman on Passover? I snoozed through all that.
One news item I missed was the rise of the “groomer” narrative in response to the increased gender madness in primary and secondary education. Instead of opposing gender lunacy on the grounds that it’s wrong, some geniuses decided to sabotage a clearly winning issue by drowning it in the quagmire of discussing whether a groomer is an actual pedophile. There’s overwhelming bipartisan support for removing gender propaganda from schools. People don’t want children to be taught that male and female aren’t a biological category but a feeling. They don’t want it because it’s untrue. It’s a fantasy. It’s untrue whether it’s taught by an actual pedo or by a sweet, hetero, completely vanilla grandma from Northern Indiana.
Moving the debate from the terrain of ideas to ad hominem attacks on individuals is a losing strategy. We are now in a bizarre spot of our own making where we have to write mile-long sermons on what constitutes grooming and whether a groomer can be somebody who doesn’t want to have sex with children but does something that can somehow make it easier for somebody else at some later date to do something that somebody might construe as actually pedophilic. Say, what?
Not only is this line of argument mind-numbingly boring, it’s also self-defeating. Nobody is going to believe that their kid’s second-grade teacher Mrs Jackson is a pedo. Because she probably isn’t. It’s the class plan foisted upon her that’s the problem. And it was done not in order to have sex with children but in order to deprive a whole generation of a stable sense of self.
The reason why the left-wing media glommed on to the groomer narrative so eagerly is because it’s helpful to them. It moves a very clear-cut debate into the cuckoo land of pedo groomer cabals and all that fantasyland stuff. Battling imaginary groomers stands in the way of winning a very real and a very reasonable fight against teaching gender fluidity as a norm.
Believing that a man is a woman because he says so won’t turn you into a victim of pedophilia. But it will, without variation, turn you into somebody who rejects reality in favor of fantasy. Why isn’t it good enough to stand up for reality? Why is it necessary to catastrophize the issue to make it meaningful? Isn’t that also an escape from reality? Do we really need to become the very thing we fight?
Clarissa's Blog 
Yes, this is why reading Rod Dreher lately has become increasingly painful and unsustainable.
This kind of contest is not won by demonising one’s opponents but by giving them a reality check.
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To be honest, I also found the latest travel posts to be way too long and repetitive. It’s just not my thing.
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I haven’t really been reading up on it, except the part where Disney decided to threaten FL politicians over it, and now they’re losing their special legal privileges (about dang time! The universities should be next! Why should institutions of any kind have special legal privileges again?).
I’d certainly characterize total strangers talking to my young children about sexual topics without my permission as “grooming behavior” so don’t see any reason not to call it that. What am I missing by not reading the news and commentary about it?
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It’s the Trump’s wall situation all over again. People enjoyed chanting the slogan so much that they forgot to care that no actual wall was built.
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Perhaps. Though in FL at least, it has brought the internal rot at Disney out into the open, so… not without positive effects, IMO.
Any company that targets, employs, and attracts children also inevitably attracts creeps. A good company rigorously self-polices for this. Disney has not been a good company for a long time, if ever (witness the testimony of numerous ex-child-stars processed through the mouse machine). The rash of Disney+ cancellations this week says a lot of people just realized this. It’ll be nice if we finally get the mouse out of state politics as well. In FL at least, it looks like the legislation will pass in spite of the perhaps poor marketing? We’ll hope it doesn’t hurt efforts elsewhere.
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I definitely disagree with you on the utility of describing it as grooming (good! It’s boring when we always agree.) Well before this recent controversy bubbled up, I’ve been using it to describe the way left wing activists talk to children behind their parents’ backs on websites like Tumblr, etc. I do feel like I was “groomed” into this ideology when I was young. I obviously don’t mean to downplay the experiences of people who were actually sexually abused, but I haven’t found any word that describes my experiences better. I could describe all the parallels but this comment is already long.
And I do, also, think it is a pedophilic ideology at heart, even though many transmitting it don’t have those kinds of intentions (some do; I’m disturbed to read back over some of the stuff I used to read on Scarleteen.) This became incredibly clear to me after reading pedophilia activist material and seeing how familiar their talking points were.
All that said, none of this says anything about the political utility of calling people groomers. I’m undecided, but your arguments about that make a great deal of sense. Though I will say smearing the right with nasty names seems to have worked very well for the left, even though I don’t like it.
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This. I was the child safety admin for my (previous) church. Had to be background-checked and do all the training etc. etc. … and in that context, a non-parent adult talking to any minor kid (not just k-3 aged but all the way up to 18) about any sexual topic is completely off-limits. That’s a job for parents and professional counselors only. I’m genuinely confused about why this is supposed to be OK for public school staff (and guest speakers!). I assume they have all been through the same training.
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So Zelensky is talking to Biden, right? There’s no doubt in my mind that what he really wants to say is, “wake up already, you stupid, sclerotic piece of demented uselessness. Do what your own congress told you to do weeks ago. Stop using us to score your inane political points and act, you fucking useless idiot.” Not only would that feel good, it would describe the situation perfectly. But it would be counterproductive. So Zelensky bites it down and leads with, “we are so grateful for your help, you are amazing, you are helping so much. Now if we could get that list of things you mentioned earlier, that would be so great, and we know we can count on you, our wonderful, true friend.” I imagine it feels not great. And it’s also untrue. But it works. After endless delays, heavy weaponry from the US finally started to move to Ukraine.
I want the genderbread person out of schools. I’m looking at what will achieve that purpose. Once the purpose is achieved, that will be the perfect time to use the groomer vocabulary. The goal should lead, always.
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Halfway there.
OK Groomer is great.
“You’re a pedo” is counter-productive
As in, these people support systemic child abuse that advantages predators. Some of whom want to prey on your kids for sex, some for profit, and some for status.
Your groomer is just an enabler. Most just want to appease the bosses and go along with the narrative, while getting a buzz off being self-righteous. And they do not care if your kids are hurt along the way.
Just as they did with the school closures, isolation, and masks.
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Real child abuse in Russia:
Сталингулаг, [20.04.2022 19:24]
18+ Петербургских младшеклассников довели до истерики выпуском «Бесогон TV» о нацизме и Украине на уроке патриотизма. В школе № 321 ученикам 4-го класса показали фильм Никиты Михалкова «Откуда растут ноги» о происхождении нацизма (с трупами и маркировкой 18+), сообщает Фонтанка.ру
После этого в родительском чате появились сообщения, что дети «рыдали от ужаса, а один мальчик обещал забрызгать перцовкой показанную в фильме украинскую девочку и разобрать её на органы». Учительница оправдывалась тем, что прививала детям патриотизм, чтобы они не стали жертвами «митингов Навального».
Журналисты сообщают, что фильм начинается с чёрно-белых фотографий трупов изнасилованных женщин, у одной из которых из вспоротого живота вывалились внутренности.
Какие же чудовища: полностью уничтожили детство в Украине, теперь уничтожают в России
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