Grooming: The Latest Sexual Revolution in Public Schools
Introduction. Recent political demonstrations, as well as multiple short (and full production) films about the horrors of child trafficking, have rightly spawned a hyper-awareness in the victimization of the innocent by sexually depraved predators. This has led to extremely heated debates about the root cause of an alleged explosion of incidents involving the exploitation of children.
In 2023, the U.S. Department of State wrote in their Trafficking in Persons report that, “While the TVPA and the UN TIP Protocol call on governments to proactively address trafficking crimes, some governments are part of the problem, directly compelling their citizens into sex trafficking or forced labor.”[1] This agency probably failed to realize that it was also implicating governmental institutions within its own borders.
While many often visualize the trafficking of minors as a simple linear model of predators snatching and exploiting children, the capacity to commit such a crime is frequently a more complex process requiring the careful development of a cooperative setting. The Polaris Project (an anti-human trafficking organization focused on statistical analysis and reporting) directly addresses this myth, countering that, “Most child sex traffickers operate by building trust with victims, and manipulating them into sexual exploitation.”[2]
To achieve this more likely scenario, priming and normalization is key. Individuals (both predators and victims) must be exposed to objectionable performances on a consistent basis, so they do not respond negatively when they, themselves, become fully immersed. They become more impressionable when led to believe these activities are not really THAT abhorrent, but a natural part of life.
Environment. So, where is one place in the United States this grooming has taken a firm hold?
To begin, so absurd is this debate even – to keep this article from being flagged by platforms and outlets for presenting readers with sexually explicit content, the above images had to be edited. However, the uncensored, fully explicit versions can be found in school libraries across the nation, made available to (sometimes even impressed upon) children as young as eleven years old.
As any sane person would acknowledge, these drawings illustrate much more than the rudiments of consensual sex (something that might imaginably be attributed to conventional curricular programs promoting safe sex). They are clearly a focused attempt to exemplify increasingly erotic activities to a child audience – activities that, if added to any other manuscript type, would readily be categorized as mature content or pornography.
Dawn Hawkins, CEO for National Center on Sexual Exploitation noted on X (formerly Twitter), “Child sexual abuse, sex trafficking, rape, pornography – they have all merged online in today’s digital world!”[6] However, this virulent concoction has now become so ubiquitous that it is also made accessible to children, by government institutions no less, in hard print.
In just one school district in Colorado Springs, TakeBackOurSchools (TBOS), an organization focused on exposing woke and sexual “educational material” in public school libraries, uncovered hundreds of books in the last couple years in elementary, middle, and high schools that have been challenged elsewhere in the U.S. for having exceptionally troubling content – to include pedophilia, sodomy, rape, incest, and bestiality – all hidden under the satanic schema of empathy, inclusivity, and gender ideology. Volunteers, which include concerned parents, grandparents, and residents, continue to assess each challenged book on an individual basis; but the current number verified to exceedingly (meaning they contain explicit sexual nudity or aberrant activities) violate federal and state laws on distribution of obscene materials to minors, alone, rests above two hundred.[7]
Resemblance. Author and anti-human trafficking advocate, John DiGirolamo, presented in his book It’s Not About the Predator[8] strategies an aggressor uses to pursue victims. Note the similarities (emboldened and underlined) between these and what American parents have discovered taking place across public schools across the United States:
(1) Victim Targeting: Predators constantly seek out children to interact with.
(2) Information Gathering: Asking innocent question about the person they are targeting. These questions are intended to find common ground and identify susceptibilities.
(3) Gaining Trust: Using gathered information to demonstrate commonality with the victim. This often includes exploiting emotionally deep vulnerabilities.
(4) Filling Unmet Needs: In the case of emotional and psychological needs, this may include false assurances of love, affirmation, attention, acceptance, stability, or self-esteem building.
(5) Isolation: At this stage, the predator will attempt to convince the victim that their family and friends are untrustworthy.
(6) Manipulation: As the predator becomes more powerful, they expose the victim to sexually related activities which increase in intensity over time.
(7) Abuse and Shame: Victims begin to show signs of depression, suicidal thoughts, and physically destructive traits because of the predator’s actions.
(8) Normalization of Sexual Activities: Throughout the process, the predator attempts to normalize sexual activities to convince their victims to participate in activities they would not normally engage in.
(9) Maintaining Control: Predators will take all hope away from their victims to create a dependency. Often, they achieve this through threats against the victim, family members and friends.
DiGirolamo also notes in his book that exposure of children to pornography typically occurs at the age of ten to twelve years old, and that much of it is violent and degrading, especially towards women and girls. He states that viewing such content has a significant impact on the teen brain, causing them to believe the activities they’re watching or reading about are normal. In complete contrast to assertions by advocates that exposing children to filth is somehow therapeutic or “affirming”, viewing this content instead generates a reflex desire to become the main character, and to physically experience the activity for themselves – whether as perpetrator or victim. This, he says, causes a visible increase in self-harm, cyberbullying, and depression.
Measure the subjecting of children to these topics with other fraudulent ideologies that some educator and outside organizations have been caught approaching children with (i.e., questioning one’s own mental health or sexual identity), and it’s impossible to deny that systematic direction is taking place.
Recently, parents of students at Cherry Creek Elementary School in northern Colorado reported posters hanging in schools encouraging children to reach out to a crisis hotline. While, on the surface, the service appears well-intentioned, it was quickly discovered staff members at that organization were willfully steering students into complex enigmas while facilitating a divide between them and family members – an approach considered highly unethical in the field of psychiatry.
With so many entities in education sponsoring sexual activities, gender theory, and other harmful philosophies, one is left to deliberate how a fetish movement has been allowed to thrive in the most vulnerable of environments.
Aberrant Lawfare. Federal and state laws are quite clear about distribution of obscene materials to minors. The third paragraph of Roth v. United States (decided June 24, 1957) very specifically states, “Obscenity is not within the area of constitutionally protected freedom of speech or press either (1) under the First Amendment, as to the Federal Government, or (2) under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as to the States.”[11]
Miller v. California (decided June 21, 1973, by the U.S. Supreme Court) upheld a standard also known as the “Miller Test” which determines whether a work presumed obscene is legitimately subject to state regulation and not protected by the First Amendment. The three criteria, all of which a material in question must meet to be considered obscene, are as follows:
(1) Whether the average person, applying contemporary “community standards”, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;
(2) Whether the work depicts or describes, in an offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions, as specifically defined by applicable state law; and
(3) Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value[12]
Yet, as clear as law is from the highest court in the country regarding this activity, sexually depraved idealogues still invent crafty measures and justifications to deposit their suggestive content before impressionable children.
Whether the assertion is these material have educational value and inclusive of all types, or that those against it are in violation of a child’s rights (demonstrated false under Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Steven A. Pico: reference section (c)[13]), proliferators attempt every disingenuous method to get their way and ruin anyone who dares oppose them – often intentionally misrepresenting or bastardizing law.
Yet, as clear as law is from the highest court in the country regarding this activity, sexually depraved ideologues still invent crafty measures and justifications to deposit their suggestive content before impressionable children.
As in the case mentioned above where the claim was the case was centered on first amendment rights, activists typically exercise selectivity in only citing portions of a judgement without full context (the ruling against the Board of Education was primarily because they ignored their own existing policies, not because they violated a child’s right to access porn). But because corroboration by an amateur source could never be sufficient to keep a lie alive, these radicals, who’d over time infiltrated varying levels of government institutions, also successfully lobbied for the illusion of legitimacy through untenable diktats (using unenforceable terms like “rules”, “standards”[14], and “exemptions”[15]) to preserve the continued propagation of filth. But, make no mistake, these paper tigers hold little to no legal weight, if only the righteous stood against this evil.
Cowardice. Herein lies the problem. These militant deviants have circumvented so many, to include apathetic parents, self-serving elected officials, and lazy prosecutors – those directly responsible for defending innocence, by claiming that their sexual fantasies are some bizarre demonstrations of “love” towards children. That any person who speaks out against this obvious evil is an ancient dogmatic bigot. So, the majority avoids confrontation in fear of suffering a negative public image rather than considering the impact on their own.
Impact. The American College of Pediatricians reported in June 2016 “Consumption of pornography”, which it defines as sexual displays in both pictures and writing, “is associated with many negative emotional, psychological, and physical health outcomes…[including] increased rates of depression, anxiety, acting out and violent behavior, younger age of sexual debut, sexual promiscuity, increased risk of teen pregnancy, and a distorted view of relationships between men and women.” In its determination, the ACP went so far as to urge the protection of children from viewing pornography and the treatment of individuals suffering from its negative effects.[19]
(1) Be involved and invested in the education of your child. As obnoxious as you may be perceived, fully embrace the role of helicopter parent.
(2) Interrogate your school district. Investigate what ideas they teach; what curriculum they are using; and, whether they are succeeding in educating (not indoctrinating) children.
(3) Never allow any staff member to stipulate or limit your access to publicly available information that reveals what they are telling your child. Your right to access records is just as ingrained into law as is the restricting of access to sexually explicit garbage.
(4) Hold your elected officials (boards of education, city council, county commissioners, state officials) accountable for addressing violations. They have an obligation, often written into law, to protect their constituents (especially children). If they fail to perform, work with others to vote them out.
Make no mistake, the activists who support or proliferate this activity, no matter who they are, are groomers (aka, predators, abusers, perverts, pedophiles). These reprobates hate the term, and virulently react to the notion…but only because it so accurately describes them: individuals who should not be allowed anywhere near children.
Written by Dr. William Sawvel[20], with input from Dr. Edward Waldrep[21] and Mr. John DiGirolamo[22]
[2] https://polarisproject.org/child-sex-trafficking/
[3] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/52751434
[6] https://twitter.com/DawnHawkins33/status/1539722842144653315
[8] https://www.amazon.com/Its-Not-About-Predator-Internet/dp/B0BM42BBYP
[9] https://coloradocrisisservices.org/toolkit/youth-toolkit/
[10] https://www.instagram.com/p/Cy0tp1qLTqr/
[11] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/roth_v_united_states_(1957)
[12] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/413/15
[13] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/457/853
[14] https://www.sos.state.co.us/CCR/3%20CCR%20708-1.pdf?ruleVersionId=6008&fileName=3%20CCR%20708-1
[16] https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/05/10/parents-are-right-to-be-angry-about-drag-queen-story-hour/
[17] https://reason.com/2022/06/07/drag-shows-for-children-under-fire-in-texas/
[19] https://acpeds.org/position-statements/the-impact-of-pornography-on-children
[20] Dr. William Sawvel, founder of TakeBackOurSchools (TBD20), has over twenty years’ experience in the defense industry, retiring from the U.S. Army and working several high-profile joint cases with federal law enforcement agencies, including those related to terrorism, transnational organized crime, and human / narcotics trafficking.
[21] Dr. Eddie Waldrep, Ph.D., is a veteran of the War in Iraq and Purple Heart recipient. He is currently a staff psychologist at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
[22] Mr. John DiGirolamo is a critically acclaimed author, speaker and anti-human trafficking advocate, and is a member of the Christian Authors Network. John has written several notable books, to include It’s Not About the Predator, It’s Not About the Sex: True Stories of Human Trafficking, and It’s Not About the Devil.