That scene in season 16 where Emily says “I’m giving him what he wants, Mommy” is all fun and games bc Prentiss calling herself mommy is just… so on the nose. But it’s also so much deeper than that.
When she was fairly new to the team, she was almost always the one they would use if someone had to seduce/attract an unsub. Even when she didn’t want to (in ‘52 Pickup’ when the boys all look at her expectantly and she says ‘oh, this is really gonna suck’). She didn’t want to do it but she knew their best chance of catching the guy was if she used herself as bait. She even puts herself in danger in that one bar scene in a different episode. Basically, the team expected her to use her looks and flirt with dangerous men.
Then, flashback to her days as Lauren Reynolds… I don’t even need to get into all of that because we all know how much that cost her mentally and psychologically. And then you have Derek essentially slutshaming her for it, even though the team expects that of her when it’s to their benefit.
Even if you want to take it further, when she was 15 she felt she had to sleep with someone to feel accepted, again using her body as a tool to please others. It’s something she’s been taught to do from a very young age, and was consistently reinforced throughout her career.
So yeah, I get why it felt like the natural next step during that interrogation. Without even thinking about it that hard she just starts unbuttoning her blouse and making herself more attractive to get information out of the suspect. I honestly think Douglas Bailey was the first man to ever tell her not to do it.
