They used to call it "seduction"

But we're more sophisticated these days

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6)

In one more consequence of the gelding of language, the powerful term “seduction” has become, at least in the most commonly used sexual sense, “grooming.” And that’s a shame, since “seduce” conveys a richer variety of meanings (Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, s.v. “seduce,” accessed April 28, 2023)…

• to persuade into disobedience, disloyalty, or desertion

• to persuade or entice into partnership in sexual intercourse

• to attract or gain by or as if by quiet subtle charm

In the famous passage of John chapter 8, in which the woman caught in adultery is about to be stoned, Jesus challenges the mob (verses 7-8): But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he bent down and wrote on the ground.

Thus, Jesus acknowledges the allure of sexual sin, being based on such a primal drive, while calling out the hypocrisy of the accusers, and presumably writing THEIR sins on the ground.

Meanwhile, according to the CDC, around a quarter of high school students identify as gay, bisexual, or have a more fluid sexuality. Notwithstanding that after the COVID debacle, the reputation of the CDC is in ruins, even that agency could hardly screw up a simple survey, beyond the usual dodges of how the questions were written.

In any case, these grim findings are the result of impressionable, hormonal youth being…seduced.

As Kinsey debunker Dr. Judith Reisman and others have pointed out, the impetus for the so-called “sexual revolution” stemmed from the gay rights movement, as a more tolerable pathway to make homosexual practices acceptable to the mainstream. It certainly helped that under the rubrics of the Civil Rights Leviathan, every conceivable injustice became a matter of civil rights.

Thus, awkward and unattractive teenagers would find succor in the companionship of friends of their own sex, and might convince themselves that their lack of dating success might (or must) mean that they are gay. An obvious follow-up effort from the CDC would look into the ORIGINS of how these kids became so sexually confused. Only, don’t hold your breath waiting for such a study.

Now, add in the factors of denialism, incrementalism, and the need to belong, and you have support for Drag Queen Story Hour, mass sexual confusion, and mutilation surgery. If the AMA and AAP can be all in on gender affirmation surgery, what can we expect from confused teenaged kids? Indeed, if we can drastically harm the educational experience of tens of millions of kids with the absurd lockdown policies promoted during the pandemic, why should the sacrifice of our children surprise anyone?

58 years ago, Richard Fariña was more correct than he could have possibly imagined with his Children of Darkness—the prey of a foul command.