I think people have mistaken the grooming target in these situations. Normally you would imagine children are being groomed, but the child is unhappy with bullying and puberty related confusions already. They will tend to respond to anything they are told which helps.

The real grooming has been institutional - of medical practitioners, politicians, parents and teachers. The groomer establishes the threat and guilt that the child will die, that only groomers understand the problem, and only they can address the solution, contrary advice is hostile, and that they operate within a charitable context, and only they should provide mentoring with children.

It’s quite startling because in any other context, the people involved would be in prison - imaging groups of people online teaching children to wear inappropriate clothing, discussing sexual feelings, being told not to talk to their parents, receiving sexually orientated gifts from organizations, and asks to adopt sexually inappropriate behaviors and language - and record them and share them.

A child wearing assless leather chaps or a ball gag on camera is just as wrong as a child wearing binders, or a fake penis, or an underwear tuck, a bra.