“Dogs Don’t Know What They Look Like. Dogs Don’t Even Know What Size They Are. No Doubt It’s

Grooming is when someone builds a relationship, trust and emotional connection with a child or young person so they can manipulate, exploit and abuse them.

Grooming Can Look Like:

1. “Is that your real name? I don’t really like to call people by their usernames.”

Asking for personal information right away - It gives a false sense of intimacy and can be used later to threaten or blackmail.

2. “I see you like Band. My parents hate them. 😂 Do your parents know your music tastes?”

Segueing quickly into private life, sometimes asking invasive questions about home, friends, family, etc - It tells them whether or not a person is isolated, unhappy, self-destructive, unsupervised, etc. The more vulnerable a person is, the more successful grooming can be.

3. “I like your fan art. Do you do nsfw? Nothing crazy, just flirty…”

Bringing up sexuality or other adult subjects in a general way - It pushes the person’s boundaries gently, getting them to talk about nsfw things in a way that feels nonthreatening.

4. “That post made a good point. I would never guess you’re 14. You’re really mature and well-spoken.”

Describing the person as mature, smart, wise, resourceful, street-smart, etc - It’s flattering, and it gives the illusion of equality and respect in their interactions.

5. “People hate what they don’t understand. You’re just so unique. I get it.”

Reinforcing that the person is unique, misunderstood, above others, etc - It increases isolation and forms a sense of dependance on the groomer.

6. “Omg look at this guy’s outfit! It’s so hot! You know, you could totally rock something like this!”

Sexualizing the person in flattering ways - It feels like a compliment and edges farther past typical boundaries, normalizing more and more sexual interactions.

7. “That guy was out of line. 😤 I couldn’t help it, I messaged him and told him if he doesn’t leave you alone I’ll doxx him. He won’t be back. He knows I’ll do it. Please don’t be mad, I just hate when people mess with my friends… ”

Defending the person, often inappropriately - It’s a show of devotion to the person, a display of the potential for aggression that serves to nudge boundaries, and can be used to threaten or coerce later.

8. “I’m totally with you on Ship X. It’s so bigoted to break up Ship Y like that. We ought to try to get those freaks banned.”

Creating an other to unify against, often inappropriately - It creates a sense of intimacy and serves as a way to push boundaries by encouraging inappropriate behavior.

9. “Idk why you let her waste ur time. U don’t need phoneys like that. You have me!!! 😂”

Discouraging competing relationships - It increases isolation, vulnerability and dependence.

10. “Listen, don’t worry about your phone bill. I got it. Sent it thru your Kofi, plus a little extra. You deserve it.”

Giving gifts, money, or paying bills - It creates a sense of intimacy, and possibly financial dependence. And it can be used as a source of guilt.

11. “Where are you??? Tell whoever you’re with that I miss my bff!!!!!”

Checking in, keeping tabs, tracking or asking for updates - It diverts the person’s attention onto the groomer, interrupts their social life to further isolate, and creates a pattern of guilt and responsibility for the groomer’s feelings.

12. “I can’t believe you’d abandon me like this. You know I have depression. Are you trying to make me suicidal? The least you could do is give me a couple weeks to find a new therapist. I’m gonna need one now.”

Threatening to harm themselves, or implying that they might if contact ends - It plays on that sense of guilt and responsibility and can be used long after abuse has happened, to prevent disclosure.

Grooming doesn’t happen by accident. By definition, it’s deliberate. When someone begins grooming, they have already decided to abuse. From that point on, interaction has one goal. It creates a situation where the person being targeted has conflicting emotions about what’s happening, no one they trust to give advice, and no way to break out without being the bad guy.

The setup - the grooming behaviors themselves - vary. One abuser might use many approaches, and might even change methods if a target isn’t receptive. I think we can all agree that guilt-tripping and displays of aggression aren’t healthy under any circumstances, but many common behaviors are things that can happen outside of grooming, in other contexts, and be ok. (An old friend might give generous gifts purely out of friendship, but someone who’s practically a stranger, giving generous gifts, acting like an old friend, is potentially predatory.) That’s why it can be so hard to see. We can’t simply ban their tools or latch onto keywords. There are no elements that are always present. There’s no set pattern. There are few flags that are always red. It’s not that simple.

The only reliable and realistic way to keep vulnerable ppl safe is to teach them to recognize potential grooming by looking at the entirety of the situation, to trust their feelings, and to speak up.

We are sharing some of our favourite gifs each day this month for Antifa International’s fifth anniversary. Today: Nazi monuments being destroyed after the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Not much focus on rehabilitation

Some random Classic Who textposts I’ve been meaning to post for too long

A very beautiful image of these smiley blackfoot. It seemed everything was alright…

Photograph by Mary T. S. Schaffer in 1907.

So you're writing slash for a gay pirate show...

Awesome! Have so much fun :D

That said, if you are the kind of person who feels compelled to engage in historical accuracy, I feel like you should know that your average gay pirates didn't do oral sex. Handjobs, frottage, anal sex? All a big Yes but no oral. No blowjobs and no rimming. That was just...not a thing for pirates. It was considered a taboo during the Age of Piracy. Why? Well, the main reason theorized is that the hygiene practiced by the classes that produced men who were on-board ships for months at a stretch was not really, um, conducive to putting your mouth anywhere you didn't have to. You know who did oral? The elite. The wealthy. The folks who could afford to wash their ass on the reg. Just an interesting sex fact available to you when writing class differences in the pirate era, if ya need it.

I read about it in Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition : English Sea Rovers in the Seventeenth-Century Caribbean, Second Edition which I read cover to cover 5 years ago. Yes, it is a scholarly work on queer pirate sex.

If you're curious about Gay Pirate Fucking and want to lean into some historical references, I downloaded the relevant chapters (1 - about 17th century sodomy and 4 - pirate sexuality). Take or leave it but if you want to download it from my Dropbox, these chapters might provide some inspiration or guidance or things to make raucous fun of. Regardless, I wanted you all to have an option to access what I have if you want it.

Happy sails and good writing, fairy pirates.

(This is chapter 4 - I've been informed it wasn't included in the first download! SORRY ABOUT THAT!)

reblog if you:

are nonbinary

have dyed/cut your own hair over quarantine

love netflix cartoons

support nonbinary people

here's some more unsolicited adult advice as someone in her 30s who knows there are a lot of twenty somethings and teens that follow her: if you're trying to build a new habit you really want, and are struggling, you have to break it down to the smallest building block possible. If you're failing, you haven't thought small enough. I know it's possible to hear stories of people who just snapped into new life mode one day by "just deciding", but truly what's happening there is a confluence of events and experiences that force the brain into some sort of epiphany. You cannot will an epiphany. It'll never work. For most times of your life, you will need to build habits intentionally, and that means not working against yourself and to set micro goals. like laughably tiny goals. because once that easy tiny goal is met, you can build off it, tiny goal after tiny goal until you reach your big goal.

so for example, if you want to be a morning person that gets up at ass crack dawn so that you can work out, eat brekkie, shower, and get to work at a leisurely pace, and you're not that person because you will hit your snooze button 800 times, you have to get the big picture goal out of your head. think smaller. "I want to get up 15 minutes earlier than I normally do." If you can't do that, make it 5 minutes. "I want to cook breakfast every day" hell no too big. "I want to eat something, anything, before I leave the house" hell yeah, fantastic. When you go to the grocery store to make sure there are things in the house for breakfast, if you keep buying bagels and microwave sandwiches that you ignore, you gotta think smaller. SMALLER. What's something so easy to eat that you'll never say no to. Is it a yogurt? Is it a handful of grapes? Is it a hostess ho ho? is it hot cheetos? FORGET the big picture of the fantasy put-together woman preparing a full nutritious meal that you'd be proud to admit to. Think only of the smallest goal you can achieve. If you know you can't say no to an ice cream sandwich, put a ton of ice cream sandwiches in your freezer and have one for breakfast every day until it's so instilled in you that you gotta get up to eat something you can start diversifying.

It sounds like, from the lack of habit place, that must take forever. But really it doesn't take too long to form the habit once the discipline kicks in. the trick is that you have to give your brain something easy to become disciplined to. If it's too hard, think easier and smaller. No one has to know. Literally no one in the gd world has to know that for 4 weeks when you were 22 you had an ice cream sandwich for breakfast every day. who cares. If it gets you eating oatmeal with fresh fruit in a few months who cares. you did it, yay. smaller, easier. if you can't do it, think smaller and easier. smaller!! EASIER!!! You are not thinking smaller and easier enough. break your brain thinking how small and easy you can go. SMALLER. EVEN SMALLER, SIS.