165: Wrestling with Grooming and Polygamy, Part 1

<p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Note:</strong> <em>This two-part episode (Episode 166 is Part 2) is a departure from the usual focus of Latter-day Faith, which emphasizes teaching about and encouraging healthy faith development through introducing listeners to wise and powerful teachers in this area as well as to spiritual practices that can help us face our struggles with faith and church, families, communities, and with the world. In this podcast episode, Latter-day Faith host <strong>Dan Wotherspoon</strong> and his guest, <strong>Annika Rau</strong>, seek the same goals but take us into a dark area that will force us to wrestle with our ideas about God and prophets, presented in the context of "sexual grooming" and its relationship to the establishment of polygamy  early in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.<br /> <br /> Please take care of yourselves. This podcast might not be a safe listen for you, and if you determine that to be the case, <strong>do not listen!</strong> If you do choose to listen, please stop whenever you might need to. Be kind to yourself. Breathe deeply. Practice self-care at every moment. Bless you.</em></p> <p class="MsoNormal">______</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Sexual grooming is the use of various techniques that allow someone to isolate a child or another person for the purpose of gaining trust so the groomer can initiate sexual contact with them and to then instruct the victim to keep their sexual relationship a secret. Sexual grooming often involves family members, as well, with the groomer establishing a trusting relationship with them that makes it much less likely they will suspect sexual assault is occurring while also rendering them more likely to reject any story they might be told by the victim. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The specific focus of this conversation is the relationship between sexual grooming of both the women he married and, very often, their family members and the establishment of polygamy early in the history of the Church of Jesus Chris