Power, Control, and the Misunderstanding of Grooming: What the Diddy Documentary Reveals About Sexual Abuse Dynamics

By Amber Schroeder, ATSA Executive Director 

While watching the Netflix documentary Sean Combs: The Reckoning with my partner over the weekend, we kept pausing the film. Each time another person described witnessing Diddy causing or directing others to cause harm while insisting that they themselves were exempt from similar harm, my partner would turn to me, incredulous. “What’s wrong with people?” he asked at one point, genuinely baffled.

It sparked a long conversation between us about why this reaction is so common: how individuals can watch others be mistreated, recognize the danger on some level, and still think, “that won’t happen to me.” As those of us in the field of sexual abuse prevention know, this response is not a personal failing —it is the predictable outcome of grooming, power, and environmental conditioning.

Most Sexual Abuse Is Not Paraphilia-Driven: What Research Actually Shows

Public narratives often conflate sexually abusive behavior with paraphilic disorders such as sexual sadism, voyeurism, exhibitionism, or pedophilia. While these disorders are relevant for a subset of individuals, research consistently shows that most sexual abuse is not motivated by atypical sexual interests. Decades of empirical findings identify more common drivers, including:

• entitlement and beliefs supporting the misuse of power
• antisocial traits and behavioral dysregulation
• cognitive distortions related to control and objectification
• opportunism enhanced by permissive or unaccountable environments

Meta-analytic research (Hanson & Morton-Bourgon, 2005; Kingston et al., 2008; Mann, Hanson & Thornton, 2010) confirms that paraphilic interests account for only part of sexual offending. In many cases, sexual behavior is instrumental—deployed to dominate or punish—rather than arising from a paraphilic preference. Distinguishing these pathways is essential for accurate risk assessment and treatment.

Grooming Creates the Illusion of Safety—Until the Moment It Doesn’t

One of the most striking themes in the documentary is the number of people who said, in one form or another: “I saw how he treated others, but I didn’t think it would happen to me.” This is precisely how grooming works.
Research describes grooming as a progressive, context-shaping process involving:

• selective attention, favors, and elevation of status
• gradual normalization of boundary violations
• intermittent reinforcement that creates psychological dependency
• manipulation of organizational or social environments

(Craven, Brown & Gilchrist, 2006).
In high-power contexts, grooming becomes environmental. Systems, not just individuals, are conditioned to reinterpret harm, rationalize behavior, or defer to authority. This systemic distortion is why people can observe clear warning signs in others yet perceive themselves as safe: the entire environment is engineered to obscure risk.

Why This Distinction Matters for Intervention, Treatment, and Prevention

Misunderstanding power-driven sexual abuse as paraphilia-driven leads to interventions that miss the mechanisms of harm. Research has long shown that sexual abuse is most often associated with entitlement, cognitive distortions, antisociality, emotional dysregulation, and environments that reward control. When viewed through this lens, the documentary becomes less a story of disbelief and more a demonstration of preventable dynamics that aligned exactly with what the research predicts.
To translate this evidence into practice, our field must confront the systemic beliefs that obscure risk and ensure prevention frameworks reflect the realities of how sexual harm develops. This includes:

• embedding research-based distinctions between paraphilic and non-paraphilic pathways into case formulation
• directly addressing entitlement, coercive control, and distorted beliefs within treatment
• designing organizational safeguards grounded in research on grooming and environmental risk factors
• expanding early-intervention strategies that identify coercive or boundary-violating behavior before it escalates

The documentary reinforces a central finding of the field: sexual abuse becomes predictable when systems rely on assumptions rather than evidence. As researchers, clinicians, and prevention professionals, our responsibility is to challenge those assumptions, elevate what the science tells us, and ensure interventions and prevention efforts disrupt these dynamics long before anyone is left saying, “I didn’t think it would happen to me.”

As My ATSA Presidency Ends: Reflecting on Two Years of Purpose

By Dr. Ainslie Heasman, President of the ATSA Board of Directors

As I enter my final month as President of ATSA, I’ve been reflecting deeply on the past two years - what we’ve accomplished together and the important work still ahead. Serving this organization has been one of the greatest professional honors of my career, and it is with pride, gratitude, and optimism that I share this update with you.

When my term began, we were welcoming a new Executive Director after a thoughtful and strategic assessment of our organization’s strengths, challenges, and opportunities. That transition marked the beginning of a period of meaningful evolution for ATSA. Over these two years, we have sharpened our focus, strengthened our foundations, and positioned ourselves to lead - confidently and visibly - in a global landscape that urgently needs evidence-informed voices.

ATSA has always existed to represent and support our members. Today, that mission is more vital than ever. Our field faces rapid shifts in local, national, and international policy. We are navigating an era where the role of science is being questioned and where prevention efforts are too often misunderstood or overshadowed. Yet we are also a community of nearly 3,000 people - students, researchers, clinicians, supervisors, policymakers, advocates, and law enforcement professionals - who carry an extraordinary amount of expertise and influence.

And I have long believed: ATSA must take up more space.
We do not simply participate in conversations about preventing sexual violence. We have the knowledge, the experience, and the responsibility to shape those conversations. Over the past two years, we have moved decisively toward that role.

At every decision point, the Board has asked itself a simple but powerful question:
“Does this align with our mission?”
That values-based approach has ensured that our actions reflect not only who we are, but who we aspire to be. It has made us more intentional, more strategic, and more unified as we position ATSA for the future.

I want to highlight just a few of the major developments that reflect this collective effort:

A Strategic Plan with Clarity and Purpose

We developed a streamlined strategic plan that sharpens ATSA’s priorities and provides a clearer path forward. This plan centers our mission, strengthens our organizational structure, and guides us toward meaningful impact.

Chapter Realignment - A Renewed Commitment to Local Leadership

Local representation is essential to ATSA’s reach and relevance. They are our eyes, ears, and leadership on the ground. We know we have not always supported Chapters as well as we should have. Over the past few months, we launched a full chapter realignment process - including surveys, listening sessions, and consultation with an external partner - to better understand what Chapters need to thrive.

In 2026, we will renew, rebuild, and reinvigorate our chapter system so that ATSA and its Chapters can work in true partnership, amplifying local and national voices and strengthening our collective influence.

A Strategic Research Agenda - A Bold New Direction

ATSA has always been home to exceptional researchers and to practice leaders who translate that research into real-world change. Now, for the first time, we are developing a formal Strategic Research Agenda.
Through this work, ATSA will:

• champion increased global research funding,
• identify gaps and emerging needs,
• foster stronger connections between science and practice, and
• build new partnerships that elevate the prevention of sexual violence worldwide.

The first meeting of this initiative will take place next month in Toronto - a milestone that reflects both our ambition and our commitment to shaping the future of the field.

On a personal note, I cannot close this message without reflecting on what ATSA has meant in my own journey. I still remember attending my first ATSA conference as a student in the early 2000s, watching from afar the people whose work shaped the field - and who would later become my colleagues and collaborators. From that very first conference, I knew this was a community I wanted to belong to. A community of people committed to safety, to science, to compassion, and to prevention.

ATSA influenced not just my professional development, but the direction of my career. It was through ATSA - through conversations at conferences, through colleagues who pushed the field forward - that I came to believe in the importance of reaching people before harm occurs. That belief ultimately led to my current work with Talking for Change in Canada, where we support individuals who are at risk of causing sexual harm. That work exists because ATSA created the space for innovation, for curiosity, and for courage.

And I know that today, there are students and early-career professionals attending ATSA events who will, years from now, write their own reflections on how this organization shaped their path. That is the legacy we carry - and the legacy we continue to build.

I am proud of where we are. I am even more excited about where we are going.

On January 1, 2026, I will pass the presidency baton to Professor Simon Hackett, whose leadership, expertise, and vision will continue to strengthen and grow our organization. I look forward to serving ATSA for one final year on the Board as Immediate Past President and supporting this ongoing work.

Preventing sexual violence takes a village. It takes collaboration across disciplines, sectors, and countries. It takes people who believe in science, in evidence, in accountability, and in the possibility of change.

For over two decades, I have been honoured to be part of the ATSA village. Thank you for your trust, your partnership, and your unwavering commitment to making our communities safer.

Our work is far from finished - but we are stronger, more prepared, and more united than ever.

And I cannot wait to see what we will achieve together.