During the many, many hours I have spent reading about child sexual abuse I have often heard mention of perpetrators grooming children. While I could see how grooming could assist perpetrators who were targeting children that were not their own, I never thought it seemed very relevant in terms of a father abusing his own daughter. I've also often heard people say that it is totally normal for a child to physically enjoy the abuse; however, being a victim myself I have been confused by the intense shame that is felt for something that was simply a natural physical reaction.

Recently I have had a new clarity on both of these issues, and how very intertwined they can be. I want to share this new understanding with others, because if you struggle with the same feelings you might find reading it helpful. However, I would like to warn that you may also find reading this to be very triggering.

It now seems perfectly plausible to me that if a father introduces his child early enough to the idea of sexual things being totally normal, as well as a fun thing they can do together, it becomes easy for him to continue to abuse the child for many years to come.

If at first the abuser does things that in no way scare or hurt the child but instead encourage a child's natural curiosity, and leave the child with only positive feelings, then the child will be more than happy to repeat the same behavior. If after a while some physical stimulation is added to the "game", again in a non confronting way, it seems logical a child might actually feel a desire to repeat that behavior. It is a scientific fact that children's bodies do respond to sexual stimulation with arousal, and let's face it, if something feels good we all want to do it again. For this reason the child may even ask for the behaviour to be repeated, because at this point they do not know it is wrong. To the abuser I imagine his child's enjoyment would not only be arousing, but also would reduce his sense of guilt and therefore his will power to stop.

At some point the child will start to sense that what is happening is wrong. By this time, however, they have learned the benefits of the behavior; such as, it makes Daddy happy, it makes Daddy love them, it gives them attention, physically it feels really good, to name a few.


This is very emotionally damaging to the child. They are doing things they feel are wrong, their parent who they trust is doing things to them that feel wrong, and yet they enjoy it. Not only might a child be too scared to stop their parent from the behavior, but, for all the reasons mentioned above (and probably many more) they don't want to. This I believe is where the feelings of guilt and shame come from. It is not only because things were done to them that they didn't stop, but also because they may not have wanted them to stop. Now I am not saying that this justifies the feelings of shame and guilt, or makes them warranted. I am not saying the child was wrong or bad in any way. What I am saying is that the reasons the child doesn't want it to stop are very connected to the grooming, because the child learned all the good feelings associated with the behavior long before they became aware it was bad.