The Epstein files confirmed what many already knew: older men grooming and sexually abusing underage girls is not rare, not an anomaly, and not always recognized until it is too late.
When a teenage girl begins sneaking out, withdrawing from her family, keeping secrets, or spending time with an older man, adults often see rebellion. Sometimes they call her “fast.” Sometimes they assume she’s acting out or growing up too quickly. But those same behaviors can also be signs that an adult is grooming her for abuse.
We often recognize these warning signs only after a girl has been seriously harmed or killed.
The recent killings of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez and 13-year-old Na’Ziyah Harris are heartbreaking reminders of a broader pattern. Celeste was found in the trunk of a car belonging to an adult musicianprosecutors say had been sexually involved with her since she was 11. A year earlier, Na’Ziyah Harris was murdered by a 41-year-old man who had reportedly been abusing her. These cases reflect a recurring and well-documented pattern: adolescent girls are disproportionately vulnerable to exploitation and violence by older male partners. Adults often fail to recognize the danger until it is too late.
As public health researchers who study the health and well-being of Black women and girls, we have spent years examining how violence takes shape long before it becomes visible. These killings underscore a critical gap between what research identifies as risk and what adults recognize as danger. Closing this gap requires more than improved policies and institutional responses. It takes changing how adults understand girls’ vulnerability before violence escalates.
Grooming Rarely Looks Dangerous at First
Predatory relationships rarely begin with threats or violence. Adults who target young girls frequently present themselves as protectors, mentors, or romantic partners long before the people around the child recognize the danger. Research consistently shows that age-gap relationships place adolescent girls at heightened risk. In the largest U.S. study of adolescent intimate partner homicide, nearly 4 out of 5 perpetrators were legal adults, and 9 out of 10 victims were girls. Another national analysis found that breakups were a more common trigger for violence in cases involving adolescent victims than among adults. Other studies have found that larger age differences are associated with higher rates of emotional and physical victimization, unwanted sexual behavior, and sex without protection.
By the time adults become alarmed, a girl may already feel emotionally attached, protective of the relationship, or isolated from the people trying to help her. She may defend the older person, insist she is mature enough to make her own decisions, or become angry at adults who question the relationship.
To be sure, not every teenager who becomes secretive, withdrawn, or defiant is being groomed. Adolescence is often messy. Conflict, experimentation, and growing independence are normal parts of development. But dismissing warning signs as “just teenage behavior” can carry consequences when an adult is exploiting a child.
“Fast,” “Grown,” and Other Labels That Put Girls at Risk
Many warning signs associated with grooming overlap with behaviors adults often interpret as normal teenage rebellion.
By age 19, 1 in 4 girls who has ever had a partner has already experienced physical or sexual abuse. Pregnant teenage girls are nearly four times more likely to be murdered than pregnant adult women.
Too often, especially for Black and Latina girls, visible warning signs are filtered through harmful stereotypes instead of concern. Girls are labeled “fast,” “grown,” or “too mature,” language that quietly shifts responsibility away from adult male predators and onto children themselves.
Researchers at the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality describe this dynamic as “adultification”, the tendency to perceive Black girls, beginning as young as five, as more adult than their white peers, less innocent, and less in need of protection. Once a girl is seen as “fast,” adults stop viewing her as vulnerable. Her behavior becomes evidence that she chose the situation not that she was manipulated by someone older with far more power and experience.
Rather than asking why girls are “acting grown,” adults should ask different questions: Who is influencing this child? Why is an adult comfortable pursuing someone so young? Why does this relationship require secrecy? These questions keep the focus where it belongs, on the adults causing harm, not the children being targeted.
What We Miss Before Violence Escalates.
Many parents talk with their children about stranger danger, but far fewer talk openly about grooming or unhealthy age-gap relationships.
Girls should know that adults who pressure them to keep secrets, isolate them from family, rush intimacy, or make them feel responsible for adult emotions are crossing boundaries. Love should never require fear, secrecy, or cutting off the people who care about them.
These conversations should happen early, often, calmly, and without judgment. Adults should name unhealthy relationships, using everyday moments, a song, a television show, social media, or a story in the news, to start conversations before concerns arise.
Reading someone’s texts, demanding constant updates, dictating what someone wears, threatening self-harm after a breakup, or pressuring someone for sex are not signs of love. They are forms of control and coercion.
Parents should be equally clear about age-gap relationships. A 14-year-old is not in a relationship with an adult. That is an adult abusing a child.
Recognizing danger often requires looking for patterns rather than a single behavior; increasing secrecy, withdrawing from friends and family, declining school performance, or fear of upsetting a particular person.
Most importantly, girls need to know they can tell the truth without being shamed, blamed, or immediately punished. When a child discloses something concerning, listen, thank her for telling you, and focus on what she needs.
We Cannot Keep Waiting Until Girls End Up Dead
Cases like Celeste’s and Na’Ziyah’s force us to confront an uncomfortable reality: we are still not very good at recognizing what grooming looks like in girls’ lives.
Grooming is not simply something we fail to prevent. It is something we often fail to recognize.
We call vulnerability maturity. We call grooming a relationship. We call exploitation poor decision-making.
Too often, grooming is the first stage in a pattern of abuse that ends in a girl’s death. Until we learn to see these warning signs for what they are, we will continue treating adolescent femicide as an unpredictable tragedy instead of what it often is: the final stage of a pattern adults had multiple opportunities to interrupt. The warning signs were there long before these girls were killed. The question is whether we are willing to see them the next time.
About the Authors: Sativa Banks, PhD, MPH and April J. Bell, PhD, MPH are public health researchers whose work centers the safety and well-being of Black women and girls. Banks is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the UC Davis Centers for Violence Prevention and an Affiliate of the Girlx Lab at UCSF. Bell is an Assistant Professor at UCSF, Director of the Girlx Lab, and a Public Voices Fellow on Public Health with The OpEd Project and Blue Shield California Foundation.
