Adult Sexual Grooming: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Grooming is the manipulation and intimidation of people into acts that may appear consensual but are in fact exploitative and harmful, activities they would not have chosen otherwise. Different legal definitions and shifting social perspectives on consent complicate efforts to determine whether a given behavior is a result of informed consent or a response to grooming behaviors. Most studies on grooming and sexual assault focus on adults grooming and abusing children—research on adults grooming other adults is scarce. Therefore, the purpose of our study is to conduct a systematic review of current research on the grooming of adults. We used the PRISMA guidelines for our review and revised AMSTAR to rate the quality of each study, with the rating mean ranging from 1 to 4.2 for the studies on a 0–5 scale. The initial search yielded 569 studies; after screening and review, we found five studies that met our inclusion criteria, but only one that specifically researched adult sexual grooming. We address the current gaps in the literature and discuss the implications for policy and practice.