The Sexual Grooming Model: How Manipulation Unfolds, and How Understanding it can Help you Heal
- Kylie Walls
- Oct 15
- 7 min read
Many survivors of sexual or spiritual abuse describe a moment of clarity that comes after the relationship has ended — a sudden recognition that what they experienced was not care, mentorship, or love, but a gradual and intentional manipulation.
Psychologists have studied this pattern for decades. One of the most comprehensive frameworks comes from researchers Georgia Winters and Elizabeth Jeglic, who developed the Sexual Grooming Model (SGM) [1]. Originally designed to explain child sexual grooming, later research found that many of the same processes also apply when adults are groomed — particularly in situations involving power, trust, or authority [2][3].
Understanding this model doesn’t just explain how grooming works — it can also help survivors reclaim self-trust and recognise that what happened was a process, not a single moment of consent or poor judgment.
An Overview of the Sexual Grooming Model
The SGM outlines five core stages, each involving distinct tactics that gradually entrap the victim and secure silence after the abuse. These are:
Victim selection
Gaining access and isolation
Trust development
Desensitisation to sexual content or physical contact
Post-abuse maintenance
Although these stages appear sequential, they often overlap. Perpetrators may move fluidly between them, testing what works and adapting to the environment.
Stage 1: Victim Selection
Every grooming process begins with observation. Perpetrators look for vulnerabilities, not because the target is weak, but because they are perceptive manipulators.
Research shows that offenders often select individuals who appear conscientious, compliant, or emotionally open [1][4]. In adult contexts, vulnerability might also come from:
Recent loss, illness, or trauma
Desire for mentorship or spiritual growth
Loneliness or isolation
Financial or occupational dependence
In faith communities, abusers often target people who are devoted, forgiving, and eager to serve — qualities that can later be twisted into self-blame. Aletky and colleagues (2025) found that this first stage often involves identifying people whose boundaries are flexible because of cultural or religious expectations of submission or trust [2].
For survivors to consider: It is vital to remember that your kindness, openness, or faith were not flaws. They were good qualities that someone else exploited.
Stage 2: Gaining Access and Isolation
After identifying a target, the abuser works to create opportunities for private or unsupervised contact.
In the Boy Scouts of America study [1], this often meant volunteer leaders inviting boys on camping trips, staying overnight, or offering extra mentoring sessions.In adult or spiritual contexts, the same dynamic might appear as:
Private “pastoral counselling” meetings
Late-night text conversations
Invitations to serve or travel together
Gradual reduction of outside friendships
These steps are framed as special attention or care. But what is really happening is environmental control — the removal of witnesses, accountability, and competing influences.
Faith leaders who offend often engage not only the victim but also their family or community. Researchers call this familial grooming [5] — gaining trust from those around the victim so the abuser’s access appears safe and honourable.
Signs this stage may be occurring include:
Being told you have a “unique” relationship that others wouldn’t understand.
Increasing secrecy (“Let’s keep this between us so others don’t get the wrong idea.”)
Subtle undermining of other support systems.
For survivors to consider: If you experienced this, isolation was not your choice. It was engineered. Recognising this helps dismantle guilt about “allowing” it to happen.
Stage 3: Trust Development
This stage often feels like the heart of the relationship — full of care, attention, and sometimes spiritual or emotional intensity.
The groomer builds dependence and emotional attachment, often using strategies such as:
Frequent communication or affection (“You’re so special to me.”)
Gifts, compliments, or favours
Confiding personal stories to create false intimacy
Framing the relationship as “God-ordained” or “spiritually unique”
Winters and Jeglic (2024) found that offenders in youth organisations used these same behaviours to appear nurturing and trustworthy [1]. In adult settings, perpetrators may use love-bombing — overwhelming affirmation and praise — to bypass critical thinking.
When a person in spiritual authority employs these tactics, it can feel sacred. A rabbi in one study [6] justified increasingly intimate behaviour as “spiritual education,” convincing both the victim and family that the connection was holy.
For survivors to consider: It’s normal to feel attached to someone who groomed you. Emotional bonds are not evidence of consent; they are proof of successful manipulation.
Stage 4: Desensitisation to Sexual or Boundary-Violating Behaviour
By this point, the relationship feels emotionally fused. The abuser starts to test limits through humour, touch, or spiritual framing.
This may include:
“Accidental” brushes or hugs that linger too long
Sexual jokes or conversations disguised as teaching
Normalising nudity or physical proximity
Framing sensuality as divine connection or healing
Each small violation redefines what is acceptable, creating incremental erosion of boundaries. The individual’s body, faith, and autonomy become entangled in the abuser’s narrative.
In the Boy Scouts cases, perpetrators often used routine activities like swimming or camping to introduce nudity and touch, later escalating to abuse [1]. In adult grooming, the shift may involve suggestive comments, escalating self-disclosure, or emotional dependency that makes refusal feel impossible.
Because these acts happen gradually and are rationalised as caring, victims often experience deep confusion. This confusion is intensified by shame — a feeling that somehow, they should have known better.
For survivors to consider: Recognising this desensitisation process helps reframe memories that may feel “complicit.” Each step was part of a deliberate sequence designed to blur your internal alarm system — a grooming pattern that can occur in both adult clergy sexual abuse and in the sexual abuse, where trust and authority are gradually exploited to normalise boundary violations.
Stage 5: Post-Abuse Maintenance
Once abuse occurs, the abuser works to maintain control and silence. They may:
Express love or remorse to retain attachment.
Threaten exposure, punishment, or divine consequences.
Reinterpret the abuse as mutual sin, spiritual trial, or secrecy “for the sake of the ministry.”
This is not just damage control — it’s part of ongoing grooming. Many survivors describe being praised for their discretion or told they had caused the temptation.
Winters and Jeglic (2024) found that direct threats were less common in institutional abuse than emotional manipulation. Perpetrators relied on their status and authority to guarantee silence rather than overt intimidation [1].
In faith contexts, this may take the form of religious manipulation:
“God has forgiven us, so there’s no need to tell anyone.” “You’ll destroy the ministry if you speak.”
For survivors to consider: If you were pressured into silence, it was not because you lacked courage — it was because the system was built to protect the abuser, not you.
Understanding Grooming as Coercive Control
The SGM is not just a set of personal tactics; it reflects a pattern of coercive control [7]. Coercive control is a sustained campaign to dominate another person’s thoughts, emotions, and choices. In grooming, control is achieved not through physical violence, but through emotional dependency, fear, and spiritual distortion.
Aletky et al. (2025) argue that this overlap between grooming and coercive control explains why adult victims often feel unable to label what happened as abuse [2]. The abuse feels relational — not violent — and the manipulator frames it as connection, healing, or destiny.
Understanding grooming through this lens helps survivors stop asking “Why didn’t I stop it?” and start asking “Why did someone choose to exploit trust?”
Common Emotional Aftereffects
Research shows that survivors of grooming frequently experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress, shame, and dissociation [2][5][8]. Many also struggle with:
Loss of faith or meaning
Fear of intimacy or authority
Hypervigilance or self-blame
Difficulty trusting their own perception
Because the abuse was relational, survivors may grieve not just the harm but also the loss of the connection itself — what trauma therapists call ambiguous grief.
Therapeutic recovery often involves three key movements:
Reclaiming narrative clarity — understanding the grooming stages restores coherence to what felt chaotic.
Reconnecting with safe relationships — healing the capacity for trust through consistent, non-exploitative care.
Reintegrating faith and self-worth — distinguishing the voice of control from the voice of compassion.
Breaking the Cycle of Silence
Grooming flourishes in secrecy. Breaking that silence — through therapy, community education, or survivor advocacy — is essential for prevention.
For churches and faith-based organisations, prevention means more than background checks. It involves:
Training leaders to recognise emotional dependency and boundary erosion.
Creating transparent complaint processes free from conflicts of interest.
Encouraging open dialogue about sexuality, power, and consent.
When communities refuse to talk about grooming, they unknowingly protect abusers. Silence is fertile soil for manipulation.
If You Are Beginning to Recognise a Pattern
If you are reading this and recognising elements of your own story, please know:
You are not alone.
What happened was not your fault.
The slow, confusing nature of grooming is exactly what makes it so effective.
Therapy can provide space to make sense of this complexity — without judgment, pressure, or shame.
If you have experienced abuse by someone in a position of spiritual authority, you are not alone. For confidential support, contact 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) or Blue Knot Foundation (1300 657 380).
To connect with Kylie Walls, a psychologist offering trauma-informed, faith-sensitive therapy, visit the Refuge Psychology bookings page. You can find more information about faith-sensitive counselling here, contact me here, or book directly here.
References
Winters, G. M., & Jeglic, E. L. (2024). Sexual grooming in the Boy Scouts of America. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 33(8), 1066–1099.
Aletky, C., Sharma, B., Carbajal, J., & Eubank, T. (2025). Adult sexual grooming: A systematic review. Journal of Social Work in the Global Community, 9, 1–17.
Jeglic, E. L., & Winters, G. M. (2023). Testing the sexual grooming model for adults. Journal of Sexual Aggression, 29, 1–16.
Elliott, M., Browne, K., & Kilcoyne, J. (1995). Child sexual abuse prevention: What offenders tell us. Child Abuse & Neglect, 19, 579–594.
Krinkin, Y., & Dekel, R. (2023). Sexual grooming processes carried out by offending rabbis toward religious men and their families. Child Abuse & Neglect, 139, 106491.
Flynn, K. (2008). The impact of clergy sexual abuse on survivors’ spirituality. Pastoral Psychology, 56, 223–239.
Stark, E. (2007). Coercive control: How men entrap women in personal life. Oxford University Press.
Ullman, S. E., & Peter-Hagene, L. (2014). Social reactions to sexual assault disclosure, coping, and PTSD symptoms. American Journal of Community Psychology, 54, 181–194.
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