Stop sexually grooming children and quit gaslighting parents

By Brandon Showalter, Opinion writer and social commentator Thursday, April 28, 2022

Evidence continues to pour in that insidious, widespread sexualization of children is taking place.

As a journalist who has tracked some of this over the years, I have heard from parents whose political and religious views span the spectrum. Many contact me and are enraged, fuming over what they see happening to their kids. Such parents feel like they are going crazy. I usually assure them that, no, they are not being paranoid. What they are watching unfold with their very own eyes is real. 

I have compiled a sample of what has become a disturbing cultural trend. At some point it must be asked: How much do parents have to witness before they can know that these are not isolated incidents but part of a larger pattern? Dare we call this grooming problem “systemic” despite how legacy media talking heads and others are posturing over the technical definition of “grooming”?

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Here are 12 examples I’ve observed:

1. In 2020, game and toy company Hasbro had to remove a new troll doll from the shelves after consumers found a button located in the crotch area of the doll that, when pressed, elicited gasps and giggles.
2. That same year, it was discovered that when LOL dolls are bathed in ice water, tattoos of pizza slices, bondage gear, and other sexually perverse messages and imagery appeared on their small, baby-like bodies.
3. Also that year, 11-year-old girls appeared twerking in skimpy outfits in the movie "Cuties" on Netflix. The American movie cover for that film was notably salacious and markedly different from the European cover.
4. More recently, as has been highlighted by parents in many counties nationwide, so-called "queer" books featuring lurid prose and graphic illustrations of minors fellating adults are stocked in public school libraries of middle schoolers.
5. And then we have “drag kids,” young boys like “Desmond is Amazing” who infamously strutted and gyrated down a runway in front of a cheering audience on ABC's "Good Morning America." Another boy who goes by the drag name "Lactatia" was prominently showcased by Elle magazine. In some photos, both of these young boys appear dissociated and anorexic. Desmond has been seen performing in a nightclub where rowdy men threw dollar bills at him. He has also been seen being interviewed by extremely shady men in front of a painting containing the word "Rohypnol" (the date rape drug). Meanwhile, “Lactatia” has been pictured posing suggestively in racy undergarments and alongside naked men with small pasties covering up their genitals. When did this become acceptable? What happened to child safeguarding?
6. Then there is Teen Vogue, which in 2017 published an article pushing abusive sexual deviance aimed at young girls, or as the magazine calls them, "non-prostate owners." As a result of similarly-themed content found in online porn, troubling figures have emerged in medical journals showing how young girls speak to physicians about internal damage to their bowels.
7. Sex education in schools is the Grand Central Station of Groomlandia.  It promotes the nonsensical yet sinister "gender unicorn" and “gender-bread person," as well as video instruction materials from groups like AMAZE featuring creepy cartoons and confusing, innuendo-laden messages.
8. Not to be outdone, Nickelodeon's "Blue's Clues" featured a Pride parade last summer with a cartoon beaver sporting bilateral mastectomy scars and a pink and blue transgender armband. In case you’re wondering, “beaver” is crude slang for female genitalia. Consider the layers to that and remember that the target age demographic for this show is 3 to 5-year-olds.
9. In June 2021, The Washington Post ran an op-ed from a "gendervague" contributor who explained why she thinks kink belongs at Pride…and why it's important that her children see it.
10. To no one's surprise, some academics are openly promoting (in oh-so-nuanced academic-speak, of course) the idea that child rape is fine. Perhaps the best example of this is SUNY-Fredonia philosophy professor Stephen Kershnar who has published a book called Pedophilia and Adult-Child Sex: A Philosophical Analysis and was recently seen on video yukking it up about all the boundary-breaking he has accomplished (thank you, LibsofTikTok!). For those interested in further reading on this, check out Gayle Rubin's "Thinking Sex," which is considered the founding document of queer theory. Or, if you can stomach it, take a peek at anything by Judith Butler.  Be forewarned though, brushing your teeth with a blowtorch is probably more pleasant.
11. And then, Disney. Need I say more?
12. Finally, behold the edifice of "gender-affirming care.”  While not overtly pedophilic, no other movement breaks down a child's boundaries as much as this does. Fully embraced by the Biden administration, some "doctors" today are making confused children and their parents believe that kids can give informed consent and can make decisions that carry lifelong consequences, such as taking pediatric Lupron to block their normal puberty, which will likely render the child permanently sterile, particularly if combined with cross-sex hormones. JAMA Pediatrics has documented that gender-dysphoric females as young as 13 have had their healthy breasts amputated. Young people are being irreversibly disfigured at an alarming rate and will probably never enjoy sex. Most egregiously, the NIH has funded "research" on children where documents obtained by a FOIA request revealed that the age was lowered for the cross-sex hormone cohort inclusion criteria so that an 8-year-old child could receive the experimental drugs. J.K. Rowling was not speaking hyperbolically in August 2020 when she warned of a brewing medical scandal. 

To anyone breezily dismissing the mounting concerns of parents, or to those who might think that this is limited to the fringe of our politics, how many more anecdotes do you need before you see a pattern? When might you realize that these are not random one-offs?

And before anyone asks, no, you will not hear me excusing grooming in conservative spaces or in religious settings. In my estimation, that’s even worse because God's name and twisted theological claptrap are often used to cover it up. Yet when parents demand that their elected officials do something about this in the schools or in the wider culture, it is frustrating when they are told that they are not being "inclusive" enough or that it doesn't technically fit the precise definition of "grooming." Parse words all you want, if none of what I've listed here constitutes "grooming," nothing does. 

Please, let kids be kids. Stop sexualizing them. And for the love of God and all that is decent, quit gaslighting their parents.