as a boy gets convicted for 'grooming' other students..when does the line get crossed for seduction to become 'grooming'.

In retrospect (as in the Savile Matter)- couldn't everyone accuse their former partner of 'grooming'?

shouldn't the 'grooming' law lay out exactly what 'grooming' constitutes ?..

say 2 drinks is OK but buying the third now becomes an act of grooming...likewise 2 dinners etc etc..walking your date home 3 times is an obvious act of grooming...paying too many compliments repeatedly ?...sending Valentine cards over a number of years..obviously a grooming technique

Grooming is the new bullying. Everyone's at it.

The clear difference is whether or not you're trying to seduce someone who is not legally allowed to consent to sex because of their age.

No Robbie, that's just it. Being nice and kind and decent to someone is now considered "grooming" if the accuser wants to stamp a motive on the person.

robbiex wrote:
The clear difference is whether or not you're trying to seduce someone who is not legally allowed to consent to sex because of their age.

Yes, it was originally used for situations where the abuser gradually exposed the child to sexual material and persuaded them it was normal so no force would be necessary.
This is, and should be (i think) a crime, but it is difficult to see how this applies when both parties are children.

It must be murder to be a teacher these days. You'd have to be as aloof as possible. Forget 'mentoring,' which used to be valued, it could now be changed whenever it suited to 'grooming'.

JK2006 wrote:
No Robbie, that's just it. Being nice and kind and decent to someone is now considered "grooming" if the accuser wants to stamp a motive on the person.
Well if thats the case, then that is unacceptable and yet another removal of our human rights.

Ask Ed Stewart, what he thought he was doing, dating his (later ex-wife)when he met her at the age of 13, on Top Of The Pops, as he quoted in his autobiography! Words alude me.

JK2006 wrote:
No Robbie, that's just it. Being nice and kind and decent to someone is now considered "grooming" if the accuser wants to stamp a motive on the person.

I really think JK has a point here Robbie. The problem today is that society has become blind to innocence. Thanks to the media, almost every bloke on the street is a potential child abuser or peado. In spite of what the press have us think people do not go about their daily lives thinking 100% of the time about sex.

I think the 'grooming' laws are bound to cause a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering to a lot of people. For example, I went to a indoor boot sale the other day and there was a little lad of about 6 selling a few toys and stickers on his grannies stall. I bought some Christmas wrapping paper at another stall and the gran spoke to me about it when I got around to her stall. "I'm actually Father Christmas - but don't tell him' I said putting one hand over the side of my mouth in a mock way as to pretend not to let the little chap hear. After looking around the hall a second time, just before I went I glanced over again at the little boy and thought I would go and buy something off him because he wasn't taking any money. When I asked him how much his stickers were he said 10p, "well, seeing as I'm father Christmas I'd better buy them then' I said and gave him £2. "Make sure grannie lets you spend the rest of that on sweets I said" and smiled. The boys gran looked quite shocked at this behavoir and though she said thank you to me I got the feeling she was worried about who I might be. I don't have any kids of my own, have no girlfriend and often feel very lonely - I did what I did purely to be kind and in the spirit of Christmas ( of which I am a HUGE fan - www.tm.christmas.blogspot.co.uk) but came away feeling awkward about what I'd done.

Was I wrong to be kind? I certainly was NOT 'grooming' I can tell you that!

robbiex wrote:
JK2006 wrote:
No Robbie, that's just it. Being nice and kind and decent to someone is now considered "grooming" if the accuser wants to stamp a motive on the person.
Well if thats the case, then that is unacceptable and yet another removal of our human rights.

I don't mean to sound overly pedantic, but our rights can't be removed, only denied. It might sound a quibble but this is quite a widespread inaccuracy and it encourages people to think of rights as some kind of gift. They're not. They're inalienable.

robbiex wrote:
The clear difference is whether or not you're trying to seduce someone who is not legally allowed to consent to sex because of their age.

Yeah but what if both are underage? What if a really unworldly 16 year old slept with a 15 year old who had been around the block a few times and knew a lot more for the first time?

These things are entirely possible, and happen a lot actually, who is the 'groomer' in those instances?

Both the 15 and 16 year old would be aware that the age of consent is 16 these days, though perhaps not, that for anyone over the age of 16, even kissing someone under the age of 16 is against the law - this was not the case 20 years ago, why does the law keep redefining 'abuse'? Could taking so many of young people's freedoms away not also be viewed as 'abuse' by some?

Are we all compeletly the same?

and don't forget...Jimmy Savile groomed the nation.

Anon wrote:
robbiex wrote:
The clear difference is whether or not you're trying to seduce someone who is not legally allowed to consent to sex because of their age.

Yeah but what if both are underage? What if a really unworldly 16 year old slept with a 15 year old who had been around the block a few times and knew a lot more for the first time?

These things are entirely possible, and happen a lot actually, who is the 'groomer' in those instances?

Both the 15 and 16 year old would be aware that the age of consent is 16 these days, though perhaps not, that for anyone over the age of 16, even kissing someone under the age of 16 is against the law - this was not the case 20 years ago, why does the law keep redefining 'abuse'? Could taking so many of young people's freedoms away not also be viewed as 'abuse' by some?

Are we all compeletly the same?

No we're not all the same, but you have to have a consistent age limit for everyone, otherwise the law would be an administrative nightmare.

I think you'll find that it is extremely rare for someone to be committed of consensual underage sex when there is only a small difference in ages between the two partners.

robbiex wrote:
Anon wrote:
robbiex wrote:
The clear difference is whether or not you're trying to seduce someone who is not legally allowed to consent to sex because of their age.

Yeah but what if both are underage? What if a really unworldly 16 year old slept with a 15 year old who had been around the block a few times and knew a lot more for the first time?

These things are entirely possible, and happen a lot actually, who is the 'groomer' in those instances?

Both the 15 and 16 year old would be aware that the age of consent is 16 these days, though perhaps not, that for anyone over the age of 16, even kissing someone under the age of 16 is against the law - this was not the case 20 years ago, why does the law keep redefining 'abuse'? Could taking so many of young people's freedoms away not also be viewed as 'abuse' by some?

Are we all compeletly the same?

No we're not all the same, but you have to have a consistent age limit for everyone, otherwise the law would be an administrative nightmare.

I think you'll find that it is extremely rare for someone to be committed of consensual underage sex when there is only a small difference in ages between the two partners.

Even if one is over 16 and one is under? You'd hope so as it would hardly be crime of the century under those circumstances and far from black and white as to who was the leader and who was the follower.

I knew a woman once who kicked off and wanted a boy of 14 done for sleeping with her daughter, who was 14 too, because I think the age of concent was far more in favour of girls back then, and it was her who actually begged him to do it, he'd never done it before, she had (probably a lot), just shows how people's perceptions can be so misplaced sometimes...