TOM VINEYARD IS A GROOMER. From outofthefog.net:
Adult grooming is correspondent to child grooming and applies to any situation where an adult is primed to allow him or herself to be exploited or abused. While it is a common assumption that grooming is only practiced on the very young, identical emotional and psychological processes are commonly used to abuse or exploit adults the elderly, and those with compromised mental facilities.
An predator will identify and engage a victim and work to gain the target’s trust, break down defenses, and manipulate the victim until they get whatever it is they are after. Overt attention, verbal seduction (flattery / ego stroking), recruitment, physical isolation, charm, gift-giving, normalizing, gaslighting, secrecy, and threats are all hallmarks of grooming.
Abusers who groom their victims often claim to have a special connection with the abused. The so- called connection might be emotional, intellectual, sexual, spiritual, or all of the above. This is often backed up by the predator echoing back part of the target's own background or story, altered to fit the groomer’s back-story, in order to confirm the connection.
In order to abuse or exploit another person without fear of discovery, a sexual predator or con artist will frequently condition their intended victim to keep secrets for them. When building this bond of trust, an abuser may share seemingly personal or private information, and then swear the victim to secrecy. The victim is made to believe that they are being trusted with something of value, before being asked to share something of value with his/her abuser.
Abusers use shared secrets to bind their victims to them. By degrees, the target is gradually lured in to revealing private information, giving up money, property or sexual favors, or permitting /engaging in inappropriate, unsafe, or illegal behaviors. • The victim is often drawn in to being a "co-conspirator†(also known as forced teaming) with his or her abuser.
Eventually, the bond of secrecy is nearly always reinforced with threats, shaming and guilt to keep the victim silent about his or her shared crimes or misdeeds.