| Author |
Message |
Muffin
Member
08-29-2007
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 11:57 am 
Karuuna, being horny is not deviant, but turning to your young sisters is. These boys have no outlets for themselves, but turning on to your younger sisters is deviant to me. I know your views, but I still feel this way.
In any case, a can of worms was opened, and it won't go away so easily. If Jim Bob had handled it in the proper manner the first time, and Josh would have had proper help, none of this would be happening right now. Their praying didn't work out for them.
And putting your family in the public eye might have made you money, but doing so when you have had this problem in your family was a bad move. And then calling transgendered as molesters was the icing on the cake.
They have angered too many people and they are getting paid back right now. It's hard to feel bad for them, but I do feel bad for the other children, they didn't ask for their family to be under the microscope like this.
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Lilfair
Member
07-09-2003
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 12:39 pm
Horny is so not deviant...LOL. The entire human race would be deviant if that were the case. Playboy still has a good circulation along with other adult mens magazines. But yes the "too curious about girls" usually is taken care of with playboy or some such vehicle on line or off. I'm just saying that natural horniness that occurs in human beings often times are relieved by teenage boys in some other way than fondling the vaginas and breasts of their sleeping sisters.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 12:44 pm
As I noted, the word "horny" has a negative connotation, that's my problem with the word. You may think not, but it shouldn't be used to describe normal feelings because of that connotation.
I agree, the molestation was deviant, I have never said it was not. However, I have also said that many of the reactions have been out of scale, such as calling Josh a pedophile, or demanding he be on the sex registry.
And as I've noted, sibling sexual activity is far more common than people realize, and trust me, it's not all happening in "religious" families. It happens in all kinds of families.
So, I see no need to blame their religious practices for this situation.
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Lilfair
Member
07-09-2003
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 12:46 pm
Just to add - it is not acceptable in the Duggar family to act upon ones horniness this has been taught to them as a virtue to be celibate and not to even kiss before marriage. The Duggar kids have been painted into a corner and we saw the out come.
This molestation was done because Josh needed a sexual outlet....because of his "curiosity".
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 1:03 pm
Well, I have to disagree.
As I noted, these kinds of behaviors occur in all kinds of homes, and in fact are more likely to occur in families with less rigid boundaries, where tv and internet use is NOT monitored; and sex education and communication is poor.
So, you can believe what you want, the research says something different.
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Lilfair
Member
07-09-2003
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 1:53 pm
Of course I'll believe what I have seen. Kids like the Duggars are prime for messed up minds when it comes to sex.
Most sexual molestations are within families by family members not the stranger, you know that.
And it generally occurs in families that fall in the extremes of behavior, like the Duggars who are wildly out of touch with the realities of human sexuality and by families who have no boundaries, supervision, or love.
The Duggars breed a molester that is a fact. And the likelihood of them breeding more than one molester is high. Since their other teen sons will likely become "too curious about girls" ie too horny.... what is a curious Duggar boy to do????
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 2:01 pm
How many of these situations have you personally observed?
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Lilfair
Member
07-09-2003
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 2:12 pm
I have seen children that have parents that make sex taboo that raise sexually devious children (like Josh) and I've seen parents that do not parent at all only to see their children out of control in relationships.
That saying "happy medium" works well here.
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 2:26 pm
I was actually looking for a number but that's fine. 
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 2:30 pm
Most sexual molestations are within families by family members not the stranger, you know that.
Yes, and sexual encounters by siblings happens about 5 times as often as family sexual encounters between adults and children. In fact, those numbers are just an estimate, because most families don't report child on child sexual behavior. Some estimates put it as high as 15%!
And it generally occurs in families that fall in the extremes of behavior, like the Duggars who are wildly out of touch with the realities of human sexuality and by families who have no boundaries, supervision, or love.
That is simply not true. Kids today have a lot more exposure to the rest of the world. There is no such thing as perfect parenting to prevent that, unless you keep them in a bubble somewhere.
As a clinician, I saw families of all kinds in this situation. The common denominator was supervisory time, in other words, it was more likely in 2-parent-working families. In fact, children who were at one time in day care are most likely to engage in inappropriate sexual behaviors. And of course, access to sexual materials (tv, or internet) is also a predominant factor.
So, I guess we should now rule that one parent has to stay home with the kids?
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 2:39 pm
I have seen children that have parents that make sex taboo that raise sexually devious children (like Josh) and I've seen parents that do not parent at all only to see their children out of control in relationships.
Yes, it's a common mistake to take the situations which you have yourself observed, without scientific neutrality, and think that must be what caused it.
But that's not science, and that's not statistics. And it's not free from your own personal biases. That's why it's important to look at the actual studies, so we *truly* understand where these damaging and abnormal behaviors originate, so that we can do something about it as a society.
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 2:51 pm
Another factor is people (for obvious reasons) find these things horrifying. So the natural reaction is to rationalize why it isn't as likely to happen to their family (i.e. different religious beliefs, different family structure, different education, different social behavior, etc.). The same thing happens when people hear about someone who is sick.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 3:05 pm
Exactly Jimmer. We want to believe it can't happen to *us*, and we do that by saying well, *they* are different, that's why it happened to them, and it can't happen to us.
I assure you, that every family I worked with, whatever the psychological issue was with their children, thought it would never happen to their family. But it does.
Sometimes we can find the reason, like with my DS's friend, that unfettered access to HBO late at night when his parents thought he was sleeping, lead to some inappropriate behavior. They were just as shocked as anyone that their son would do such a thing, and in fact, it took some time to break through the denial.
I guarantee you, there are an awful lot of families who have HBO or Showtime in their homes, and don't realize what's on there late at night!
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Lilfair
Member
07-09-2003
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 3:10 pm
I'm not sure what's going on here but I think we can all agree that Josh's molestation of his 4 sisters and a babysitter didn't happen in a vacuum . And can we all agree that if a 2 nd charge of molestation occurs with them that none of us would be surprised. And can we all agree that that there isn't a one size fits all when it comes to the type of molesting that happened in the duggar house. Molestation isn't like math 1 +1 always equal 2. The scenarios are endless. Once you think you have it figured out is when the poop hits the fan.
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Dogdoc
Member
09-29-2001
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 3:12 pm
Maybe it was my generation, but my parents never talked to my sister or me about sex.
The most I got from my mother was she told me that I would be getting a 'period'.
She called it "Falling off the roof"! lol
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 3:25 pm
I think we can all agree that Josh's molestation of his 4 sisters and a babysitter didn't happen in a vacuum .
No behavior happens in a vacuum, desirable or undesirable. So I don't know what you mean by this statement.
And can we all agree that if a 2 nd charge of molestation occurs with them that none of us would be surprised.
I don't know what this has to do with anything either. A second charge of molestation concerning which child? Josh isn't in the home any more. The family has been made aware that this can happen in any home, and has taken steps to make sure it doesn't happen in theirs again. So yeah, I would be kind of surprised. In fact, with all the kids in the home, and no recurring behavior (so far), it's more likely that they have dealt with it adequately.
Once you think you have it figured out is when the poop hits the fan.
Exactly. Which is why I say pointing the finger at their particular type of household and/or beliefs is fruitless. It happens in all kinds of families, religious, not religious, careful parents, absent parents, kind parents, abusive parents.
And as I noted, some of the greatest risk factors are things that good parents do, like put their kids in day care. And how many families let their teens surf the internet without supervision? The vast majority. And even if you don't allow it in your home, you can never be quite sure what happens in other homes.
It's a very very very different world than it was when we were kids. VERY different.
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Texannie
Member
07-15-2001
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 5:08 pm
um...many, many people choose to wait until marriage before having sex and they don't molest their siblings or anyone else.
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Kitt
Member
09-05-2000
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 5:36 pm
I agree with the word deviant. It's deviant because the children he molested were so young.
He's horny because he's a teen (no negative connotation to that for me either), he has absolutely ZERO sexual knowledge apart from what he sees when he's out of the house. I understand he's curious.
Giving him the biggest benefit of the doubt that I can, he didn't know whether young girls were sexual in any way, or even assumed they were sexual simply because they were female and he knew no better. So maybe he spies on them as a first step. Wouldn't a normal horny teen who wants some sort of sexual gratification see a body that's basically the same as his little brothers, and realise they're not the "girls" or "women" he sees in the real world. Maybe (and again, I'm giving him every little bit of benefit I can muster) he would touch once in case he had in his head that girls were made of something different - again, wouldn't he immediately realise they just felt like boys, nothing special. But he got sexual gratification from that enough to do it again and again. A normal teenage boy would perhaps (although I think a normal boy wouldn't do it at all) be: try it once - oh, that's not what I needed - not going to do that again. But he got enough gratification that he wanted to keep on doing it, and couldn't stop himself doing it.
Given his situation if he spied on teenage sisters who were developed or developing, that would be understandable. If a little iffy. But these were five year olds, and he got enough gratification out of it that he kept on doing it. That's deviant behaviour.
I'm not making any comment on how the family handled it, or whether it's something he could grow out of, but at the time, he was getting sexual gratification from something that would not sexually gratify most boys (by far), even those who lived in a similar situation. No, got no stats behind that, and I realise things happen more often than we know, but to me the "deviant" label is accurate, even if it might not be helpful.
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Muffin
Member
08-29-2007
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 6:27 pm
This has nothing to do with statistics and I don't care what the statistics are quite frankly. Josh KNEW it was wrong and repeated it more than once. According to Jim Bob and Michelle he went CRYING to them about it.........so he knew! They did nothing and he repeated it again, more than once.
They spoke to a someone who told him it will ruin his life. That person is now in jail for child pornography! They took him to this Gothard person, who also has 34 charges against him for molesting and he helped Josh.
When something like this happens multiple times in your family, it's time to go to a professional, like a psychologist or a psychiatrist for help. You don't send him to get counsel from your church! and, when they did go back to the police, the statute of limits was over!
The Duggars tried to cover this up, and they did a lousy job!
I don't care what the text books say, or what the statistics say, it was handled wrong from the get go.
No one would care or feel betrayed, or feel that the Duggars were hypocrites if they didn't shove their family, religious beliefs, travels, side hugs, etc. down our throats. That is what their show was about.....their wonderful family of 16, 17, 18 and then 19 children and how pure they raised their family.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 6:58 pm
But he got enough gratification that he wanted to keep on doing it, and couldn't stop himself doing it.
Okay, that's kind of a big leap of logic.. that he got "enough gratification" to do it again. And none of the research supports that either.
Did he get gratification? Or was his curiousity NOT satisfied? Or did he not understand why it wasn't a big deal like he had heard it was and think something was wrong with him? Or did he think he just didn't get it? Or perhaps someone did it to him and he was trying to figure out why?
There are a whole LOT of possibilities on why he continued. In fact, it may surprise you to learn that stress is a primary influence for this kind of behavior. Stress. Not hormones, or horniness, or deviancy.
A normal teenage boy would perhaps (although I think a normal boy wouldn't do it at all)
Well, I guess something like 15% of siblings are not "normal" then.
Sexual activity between siblings is not abnormal, it happens in over 50% of households. In 15% of them, the age difference is more than 3 years.
Does it need to be treated and/or addressed? Yes. But unusual? No.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 7:00 pm
I don't care what the text books say, or what the statistics say, it was handled wrong from the get go.
I don't know who you are arguing with, because it's not me. I have said from the start that they didn't handle it in the best way.
His compulsivity, from the statistics (whether you care about them or not), indicate to me that he quite possibly had something similar happen to him. That's what I would be most concerned about.
Josh KNEW it was wrong and repeated it more than once. According to Jim Bob and Michelle he went CRYING to them about it.........so he knew!
Perhaps it's a surprise to you then that children and young teens and even older teens do lots of things that they know are wrong.
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Kitt
Member
09-05-2000
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 8:26 pm
Did he get gratification? Or was his curiousity NOT satisfied? Or did he not understand why it wasn't a big deal like he had heard it was and think something was wrong with him? Or did he think he just didn't get it? Or perhaps someone did it to him and he was trying to figure out why?
Was his curiosity not satisfied the second time, or the third, or with a girl from outside the family? How much curiosity should we allow him before we call it abnormal?
If he didn't think it was a big deal or thought he didn't get it, then why keep on doing it when he is in no doubt (as he showed when he told his parents) that it was wrong, and not just a little bit wrong, but an enormous, perhaps unforgiveable sin? He couldn't help himself because of the gratification he got from it.
If someone did it to him, and that's why he tried it, again I don't see how it was something he would repeat after the first instance. He might be curious, but he was 14, he's a thinking teen, not a little child, and normal teens would realise right away that it was not for them. They'd realise it was a child not a sexual being.
It's possible former abuse "broke" him in some way. Or maybe he was always "broken" and no one touched him. But I don't buy these attempts at rationalisation of his deviant behaviour. He knew he was doing wrong, knew that more so than most other teens, given his family, and yet he couldn't stop himself. That's not normal thinking. And it's not "normal" sexual activity between siblings. Even in the realms of "normal" sexual activity between siblings, which are usually between children of similar stages in life (physically or mentally), if not similar ages. And of course it wasn't even always between siblings.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 8:41 pm
I don't know where I said it was not abnormal. Nor did I ever say it wasn't wrong or that he didn't know it was wrong. Nor did I rationalize anything.
So I really don't understand what you are trying to dispute.
I said the behavior was not all that unusual.
The word deviant applies if you are using it to say it is not typical or not appropriate, as a deviation from the norm.
But most people are using it as in despicable or evil... And I simply don't agree. We simply don't have enough information to make a diagnosis in that way...and only someone who actually examines him could do that.
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Kitt
Member
09-05-2000
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 9:11 pm
It reads as if you are suggesting it's not abnormal when you say things like "Sexual activity between siblings is not abnormal, it happens in over 50% of households. In 15% of them, the age difference is more than 3 years."
But I'm not trying to "dispute" anything, just trying to explain my opinion, which is that his behaviour cannot be excused or explained away as normal, even given his very unusual family situation. Just taking all the emotion out of it.
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Sueby
Member
11-18-2004
| Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 11:18 pm
This article is written by a lawyer who is an ex-Gothardite. I think he does a good job explaining Josh's behavior without excusing it.
http://fiddlrts.blogspot.ca/2015/05/the-duggars-how-fundamentalisms.html
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