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ise 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 452-1 Filed 11/12/21 Page 25of Dietz 31 not mention the misuse of the term in civil litigation. Where a victim is suing an employer or organization in connection with the sexual abuse of a minor by an employee or volunteer, it has become commonplace for the victim’s advocate to argue that the failure to detect “grooming” was negligent on the part of the employer or organization. If their use of the term “grooming” always encompassed excessive focus on a particular child, time alone with the child, or inappropriate touching, this usage might not be problematic, but when “grooming” is applied to such common and desirable behaviors as being kind or attentive or helpful or caring, there is considerable risk of mis- leading the fact finder into believing that these latter behaviors are well- established predictors of child sexual abuse when there is no evidence whatsoever that they can help discriminate between good employees and vol- unteers, on the one hand, and risky employees and volunteers, on the other hand. In the litigation context, efforts to expand the concept of “grooming” to encompass desirable behaviors that are not associated with elevated risk is misleading, particularly when coupled with the presumption or suggestion that “grooming” always reflects an intent or plan to offend or, worse, that an offense can be proved by the fact that the accused engaged in “grooming.” Seduction Although I agree with Lanning (2018) that the term “seduction” is preferable to the term “grooming,” at least when there is an opportunity to explain how similar the seduction of a child is to the seduction of an age-appropriate part- ner, there is ample historical reason to be cautious about the use of the term “seduction” in this context without further explanation. This is because of two archaic usages of “seduction” in the older literature. Archaic Usage #1: Seduction as a Euphemism for the Offense One of the archaic usages of “seduction,” found often in the older scientific literature, is as a vague euphemism for any occurrence of child sexual abuse or an event that may have been sexually simulating to the child, as in these passages: e “[A] shock of some kind is held responsible for the neurosis—an attack by an animal, a threat of castration, a seduction, an actual view- ing of parental coitus...” (Isaacs, 1928, p. 193). e “... I wondered whether the precocity of these fantasies and their frequency might not be due to actual seduction that the child had expe- rienced... .” (Rank, 1942, p. 56). DOJ-OGR-00006817