| Author |
Message |
Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Friday, June 12, 2015 - 9:44 am 
Kitt, I should have said "unusual" not abnormal.
Deviant is simply not correct, unless you are a statistician, or you are a clinician and have interviewed and diagnosed him. 
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Friday, June 12, 2015 - 9:45 am
This article is written by a lawyer who is an ex-Gothardite.
He's a lawyer, not a psychiatrist or psychologist. Again, like most people do, they create an explanation for behavior based on their biases and experiences, rather than unbiased scientific study.
And of course, as an ex-Gothardite, of course he is biased. Saying that Christian fundamentalism makes these issues "inevitable" is a clear indication of such bias, because the actual research into these behaviors do not reflect that view.
His view is interesting, and he makes good points. But there is simply no science that backs up the idea that these issues are more prevalent in certain religious communities.
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Ophiliasgrandma
Member
09-04-2001
| Friday, June 12, 2015 - 10:05 am
Kar, I'm a 'science' girl also. I'm still stunned by people who believe because it is on the internet that it is fact.
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Muffin
Member
08-29-2007
| Friday, June 12, 2015 - 10:09 am
It is not a surprise to me what teens or even older teens do that they know is wrong!!
I take that as an insult to my intelligence. I gave raised 3 children and have 5 grandchildren, 2 of which are boys that are 16 and 18!! I also have lots of friends who have grown children also and grandchildren in their teens, so yes, I do know what they can do that they know is wrong. Adults should be included.
I do not believe that 50% of households have teenage sexual sibling activity! Does that include average household incomes as well?
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Friday, June 12, 2015 - 10:32 am
I think he makes a lot of good points. People other than pychchiatrists and psychologists do have the ability to learn and understand. I do think his article, while of course not perfect, and nothing is perfect, does hit on all the major points that are relevant here .. and it is nice that he includes the issue of consent and also that the upbringing of these girls would lead them to have to "forgive" and not understand that they didn't consent and are not to blame.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Friday, June 12, 2015 - 10:34 am
Muffin, I did not mean to insult you, I said "perhaps" you would be surprised. I don't know. I can only base my response on what you said. You said that Josh knew it was wrong. My point is that kids and teens do lots of things that they know are wrong. It doesn't make them deviant.
And I did not say 50% of households have "teenage" sibling sexual activity. I said 50% of households have sibling sexual activity. And I said about 15% of those are between siblings with more than a 3 year age difference.
I don't understand your comment about income. It has nothing to do with it.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Friday, June 12, 2015 - 10:45 am
Kar, I'm a 'science' girl also. I'm still stunned by people who believe because it is on the internet that it is fact.
I agree, OG. I understand the impulse to want to understand why these things happen, and also as Jimmer mentioned, it is often a protective measure because we want to believe it can't happen in our own families.
But that's exactly why research matters more than *opinion*. Because we all have this story, or that story, or our biases, and many times our own unhealed or painful experiences, that influence our *opinions*, while scientific study of behaviors works very hard to eliminate such biases so we can get to the truth.
So, opinions are interesting. But they are not facts. And if we really want to make a difference for these kids, and the serious issues facing our society, we need to base our decision making on facts, not on some dislike or hatred of certain faith groups, and also not on our personal experiences.
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Kitt
Member
09-05-2000
| Friday, June 12, 2015 - 10:52 am
Kar, I'm also a scientist, there are a lot of us around, so yes, when I say deviant I am talking statistically; as I said, just trying to take all the emotion out of it. And, you did say earlier that the molestation was deviant, so it sounded then like you were thinking something similar, if not now.
I thought the article was interesting. I didn't realise they were that extreme, never having watched the show. I think the culture makes it more likely for a child to act on deep seated and unfulfilled desires, but I don't think he can say it creates it. It just limits the more usual ways children work through such feelings.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Friday, June 12, 2015 - 11:15 am
thank you, Kitt. I admit to not always writing clearly.
Frankly, I think the exposure to sexual activity in today's society is more of an influence on acting out behaviors than religious societies prohibition of it. And that's what the research says also.
The key influencers are:
prior sexual molestation or abuse
violence in the home
stress & anxiety (everything from divorce to high/unrealistic academic expectations)
day care
exposure to sexual activity on the internet or tv
Ever watch daytime soap operas? There's something like 8 sexual acts every hour (I may have that number wrong, but don't have time to look it up).
There's nothing in the research that would indicate that religious beliefs are one of the primary roots of inappropriate child (or teen) sexual behavior. It's just not there.
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Connies
Member
03-11-2010
| Friday, June 12, 2015 - 11:44 am
Thank you again Karuuna for trying to be the voice of reason. Repeatedly people are saying there was no counseling and yet both of the sisters stated there was and to the satisfaction of the courts.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Friday, June 12, 2015 - 11:55 am
Thank you Connies. I don't know if they got appropriate counseling or not, however, it is their belief that it was, and unless I see some kind of aberrant behavior out of them that contradicts that, I would defer to them.
I see no point in revictimizing them by saying that they are lying, and/or wrong, when we simply have no evidence of that.
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Connies
Member
03-11-2010
| Friday, June 12, 2015 - 12:05 pm
Amen!
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Friday, June 12, 2015 - 1:22 pm
I see no point in revictimizing them by saying that they are lying, and/or wrong, when we simply have no evidence of that.
I was thinking about this, and remembered the wise advise of my own therapist years ago, when my very dearest friend was about to marry someone who was untrustworthy.
She said, you may well be right, but my best advise to you is don't alienate her by telling her she's making a big mistake. Tell her you are concerned for her well being, and that you will stand by her, whatever she decides.
If you tell her she's wrong, and you can't stand up for her, then she is most likely to cut you out of her life. Then when things go south, she won't have you, to turn to for *nonjudgmental* caring and love to help her move out of it.
Regardless of what you think about this man, tell her you love and support her, because she will need to know some day that she can trust you to love her without passing harsh judgment on her.
It's the same here. Maybe these young women are not healed. Maybe they are. But if they are not, we do them no favors by criticizing them, and saying they can't be telling the truth. They will be far less likely to come forward at some future date if they do find they need more help.
They're adults. We need to respect their choices, like them or not. And if we do want victims to feel free to come forward, we need them to understand that we won't revictimize them by telling them how they should feel or what they should do. Love, express concern, and be there if/when they have a new need.
That's the mature, and truly compassionate, response.
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Mamabatsy
Member
08-05-2005
| Friday, June 12, 2015 - 2:46 pm
Karuuna, please don't put all your eggs in the statistics basket. My graduate degree was in statistical analysis for sociological studies. Show me the head of the study and what they are trying to prove and I'll predict within a 5% margin of error what they find.
When I saw the ways we were legitimately skewing the numbers, I quit with just a masters. Statistic lie plain and simple. They do whatever they can to prove their point. The one that shook me to the core was multiply everything by the square of it's numbers and presto-chango we have a significant result. I'm not talking about silly little polls, I'm talking about the national data base that most university researchers use.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Friday, June 12, 2015 - 3:03 pm
Karuuna, please don't put all your eggs in the statistics basket.
My experience at University was quite a bit different. We had great integrity, as I did in my research. I"m sorry yours was not the same. So perhaps you might not paint with such a broad brush. Not all researchers lie.
However, I much prefer the statistical basket to the egotistical/opinionated one, either way.
And of course, you would want to look at the individual research. I can't imagine why anyone would lie about the statistics on the vulnerability factors for juvenile sexual misbehavior. Nor can I imagine, if there WAS a religious component, why they would purposefully omit that from such a study.
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Mamabatsy
Member
08-05-2005
| Friday, June 12, 2015 - 4:05 pm
My experience at University was quite a bit different. We had great integrity, as I did in my research.
We did too. It's just the nature of research. The school I attended is very well respected. Ever hear of Log Linear? The one thing our Statistics Department taught us was never trust any statistics. EVER. Even when we did it ourselves. 1. People lie on their questionnaires . 2. Numbers can be manipulated. 3. If there is any money involved in the research it is by definition, false.
We used statistics as a guide but also used common sense. I remember one assignment was to "prove" that short people were smarter than tall people. Being short myself, I loved it and of course was able to prove it. Funny some of the taller students couldn't. You have to keep in mind the bias of the statistician.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Friday, June 12, 2015 - 5:11 pm
So, trust it but don't trust it? I"m sorry, that makes no sense to me.
We didn't skew results. We didn't manipulate them. Many times we did not prove what we thought we were going to, or we found something totally unexpected.
Because we had extensive peer review, it eliminated bias, maybe not completely, but to a very reliable extent.
Just because some people do manipulate things (and it happens a lot in corporate funded research) doesn't mean everyone does.
And yes, you are correct, you must look at how the study was done, the methodology, to see how reliable it is.
And yes, I have done that with these various studies. In fact, I have even posted at times where I say there may be some flaws.
But that's no reason to throw out research as a viable method for understanding various behaviors.
And again, it is far more reasonable and logical to trust the research over the various opinions and experiences of people who are not even trying to eliminate bias.
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Kitt
Member
09-05-2000
| Friday, June 12, 2015 - 11:39 pm
It's all about sample size and sample reliability. Take the 50% of families have sibling sexual activity stat you quoted, Kar.
There was probably a small sample set.
The families were chosen in some way which may have been biased, for example you don't just knock on street doors and ask a question like that, it's likely the larger sample pool has some sort of bias (e.g. those that have been in contact with social services).
You have to rely on the families telling the truth.
You have to rely on the families being aware of the situation.
So as well intentioned as a genuine statistician can be on those stats they have biases. Often big ones. And that's ignoring the specifics of the question asked: how vague it was, how people interpreted it compared to how the clinician asked it, or whatever is relevant to where the data came from.
Statistics in situations like these are not hard science. The mathematics of the statistical process might be hard, but the data you get from any real world studies very rarely are, however well intentioned, honest, and even careful the researchers are.
(And my apologies for the off topic post.)
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Ophiliasgrandma
Member
09-04-2001
| Saturday, June 13, 2015 - 5:26 am
Dr. House always stressed, 'Everybody lies'. But I'm with statistics every time over opinions. It seems the lesser of two evils.
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Dogdoc
Member
09-29-2001
| Saturday, June 13, 2015 - 7:10 am
I have another question about large families. Don't adults change the baby's diapers in front of the other children. Wouldn't Josh haven seen his baby sisters being changed?
Does a little girl point at her baby brother and say "Why don't I have that?".
How does the parent answer?
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Jimmer
Moderator
08-30-2000
| Saturday, June 13, 2015 - 7:55 am
Easy. Boys and girls are different.
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Ophiliasgrandma
Member
09-04-2001
| Saturday, June 13, 2015 - 9:41 am
Sorry if this is a bit too much levity for this ongoing subject, but it came to mind and I thought I would share it as it seems pretty appropriate at this point:
"Dad, where did I come from?" asks this 10-years-old.
The father was shocked that a 10 year old would be asking a question like that.
He was hoping to wait a few more years before he would have to explain the facts of life,
but he figured it was better a few years early than a few days too late,
so, for the next two hours he explained every thing to his son.
When he got finished, he asked his son what prompted his question to which his son replied,
"I was talking to the new kid across the street and he said he came from Ohio,
so I was just wondering where I came from."
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Saturday, June 13, 2015 - 11:21 am
There was probably a small sample set.
The families were chosen in some way which may have been biased, for example you don't just knock on street doors and ask a question like that, it's likely the larger sample pool has some sort of bias (e.g. those that have been in contact with social services).
You have to rely on the families telling the truth.
You have to rely on the families being aware of the situation.
Well, thank you for doubting my ability to review a study on my own and decide whether it is reliable. Yes, I know all that, I"m well educated in scientific research, and I know the issues involved. Which is why scientific research, to be valid, must be repeated.
And as I noted, from the very first post I made about the 50% statistic, I realize that there may be some issues. And I presented it that way. In fact, I pointed out that it was an ESTIMATE.
The reality is that if people lie about sibling sexual activity, it is usually to DENY that it happened, not say it did when it didn't.
I'm really not stupid, and I really don't need to be schooled on how to evaluate research. I've done it for 30 years.
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Ophiliasgrandma
Member
09-04-2001
| Saturday, June 13, 2015 - 11:24 am
Well put, Kar!
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Kitt
Member
09-05-2000
| Saturday, June 13, 2015 - 11:29 am
Well of course statistics are more reliable than opinions, not sure that was ever in doubt, but it's a mistake to rely on one study without other studies. It's too easy for bias to set in.
Not meaning to insult you Kar, and I don't think you're stupid. And I realised you knew those things from other threads, yet it seemed like from your previous post you were saying that wasn't so. I just don't always follow which side of the discussion you're on.
And if you don't mind me saying, you're not the only one with relevant experience. But I don't want to upset anyone, and it's the weekend, so I'll leave you guys to it.
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