Sexual Exploitation and Grooming as Mechanisms of Patriarchal Control in Domestic Violence

This entry conceptualizes sexual exploitation and grooming as core mechanisms through which patriarchal power is exercised and sustained within domestic violence. Rather than treating these practices as isolated or exceptional forms of abuse, it defines them as systematic strategies of control that regulate women’s bodies, sexuality, and agency. Sexual exploitation and grooming operate through coercion, manipulation, dependency, and fear, embedding male dominance within both intimate relationships and wider social structures. This entry situates sexual exploitation within broader systems of patriarchal governance, drawing on examples such as organized grooming networks, human trafficking, and cases like the Rochdale grooming scandal to illustrate how exploitation is enabled by gendered, racialized, and class-based inequalities. The entry further emphasizes the “in terrorem effect” of sexual exploitation, whereby harm is not only inflicted on direct victims (proximal victimization) but also functions to discipline and govern women more broadly through fear (distal victimization) (Perry & Alvi, 2012). The entry defines sexual exploitation and grooming as integral to the operation of patriarchal control in domestic violence, producing profound and enduring psychological, emotional, and physical harms. By foregrounding power, fear, and structural inequality, it underscores the need to understand these practices as central rather than peripheral to the dynamics of gender-based violence.