Duggar son allegedly molested girls including sisters

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think what happened 12 years ago in the Duggar family was sad and unfortunate. I think they handled it well. I can understand that the parents felt they dealt with the situation the best way they knew how. The girls were unaware. They put safeguards in place. When it happened again, by Josh's admission, they sent him away for counseling. I just don't know what else should have happened in this case.

This was touching over the clothing of sleeping girls. They responded. When it continued and was under clothing and awake, they responded.

Is there anything that someone who understands what the Duggars did here and understands that they did the best they could can say here?

I don't think that's good enough, and don't think they did the best they could. They did not get *real* counseling for Josh. They sent him to a Christian youth camp. Not good enough. And they didn't get any real counseling for the daughters. And locking them in their room isn't good enough, or even a safe thing to do.

In your opinion it wasn't good enough.\ in your opinion it wasn't "real". They as parents thought it was the best choice for the situation they were dealing with. They have a right to make a choice that they feel is best for their family.

Yes, in my opinion. And in your opinion it is good enough. And a parents' rights have limits. Failing to protect your daughters from a molester isn't a right.

For all we know they did protect them. After Josh confessed again and they took more serious action we have no evidence of this happening again.

We know for certain that they did not protect them. After it happened once that he confessed to, they allowed it to happen again. To a 5 year old. Great job protecting them. But, you know, they're girls so they're expendable.

They thought the safeguards would work. F*ck them right? Because as parents we never make mistakes.

If they were saying they had made mistakes, I would be judging them much less harshly. They don't admit any mistakes in this.

In the interview they said this is what they thought was best. They said they were wrong, it wasn't enough because it happened again, so they took further action.

By sending him to aTI which excused his behavior and was run by a sex offender. Great.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:We can deal in hypotheticals all day long or we can take the word of the now adult victims. Instead we are doubting them and calling them stupid and brainwashed. How kind.

Your first mistake is in thinking we think they're stupid and brainwashed. Your second mistake is in not seeing their cult programming for what it is: minimize anything that will damage first their church or second their brand. Sexual crimes by men and boys are minimized, ignored, blamed on the victim, especially if they're female. These women were abused twice - first by their brother, and second by their parents' inexcusable inaction. For over a year until the "safeguards" - after which the five year old was sexually assaulted, mind you - were finally put into place.

Then we should definitely throw Josh in jail FOREVER and rip Jessa, Jill and the three others away from their lives for deprogramming. Then lets put the other 14 children into the CPS system and put JimBob and Michelle on house arrest. Because f*ck this is the worst situation to happen EVER.

Or we could realize this happened over a decade ago and was dealt with and not a single victim has come out saying they were irreparably damaged or recently felt up by Josh.

Literally no one suggested that. You are really having a hard time being reasonable about this. What I'd like to see happen is real counseling for those girls, and some real counseling for Josh, to make sure this isn't something that will recur. And for the parents to admit taht they made a mistake in how they handled it by not protecting their girls. (Hello, they didn't protect them -- it recurred and recurred for a year!)

Pretty close to some of the things suggested.

Even if they did all that, people would still hate them. Because you know, christians, conservatives. They are the literal devil.

Nope. You're pretending that's the motivation so you can continue to portray them as victims. I know and love many conservative Christians. They wouldn't do this to their daughters.

Be honest, that is the motivation behind a great deal of the hatred and the need to spin this as worse than it is (and I agree this is bad). Maybe *you* specifically don't, but I doubt PP was speaking only about you.

I disagree. I think PP is trying to dismiss opposing viewpoints by spinning the duggars persecution narrative. Which is bs.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:What should we do to them?

The Duggars should be off TV, and no longer be able to financially profit from the false "wholesome" or "moral" family they set themselves out to be.

I don't think this negates their wholesome image.

If they taught their teenage sons to grope sleeping females that would negate it.

They were a family who dealt with a heartbreaking incident. Its a year in their lives.

I don't agree with their religion or politics, but it is what they believe and they have a right to believe it.

They have the right to believe it. They don't have a right to a tv show. They don't have a right to allow their son to molest their daughters for a year because they're afraid of the harm to their reputation if they're honest about it.

[Anonymous]

I can't read through this whole thread but I did want to contribute as I had a very similar experience personally in that a sibling came into my room for a number of years as a child. I have never come out to my parents about this or confronted my brother. I have told my DH and a few close friends and my sister as I wanted to know if this had happen to her. She says it didn't and confirmed that I can NOT reveal this to our parents as it would devastate them.

This whole experience the last couple weeks of this being in the news has been a combination of personally horrifying as it makes me relive something that I have tried very hard to forget and also a little bit reassuring in a weird way that something that has greatly affected me my whole life and forced me to feel like a hypocrite in continuing to have a relationship with my brother (who aside from this issue for a few years when he was a child, I actually like) is not "wrong" of me to feel.

I was left frozen last week when my mother out of the blue started talking about Josh Duggar and how disgusted she was with him and the horrific punishment she described that she felt was appropriate. She has absolutely no idea and this would kill her and devastate our family. It also oddly felt good to know she didn't condone this and was disgusted by it.

I guess I don't really know where my input fits in this discussion but I guess for me, a victim of incestual sexual abuse, this feels like something that is probably much more common than any of us want to realize and for me it has nothing to do with conservative or christian beliefs. My family is very liberal.

I am a professional educated woman married with two beautiful children and a success career. I am a victim like these girls and the bottom line is there are no easy answers. This hurts everyone. Just know that in your efforts to protect your own children life is cruel and brutal sometimes and you probably don't have the ability to know everything that goes on. Don't assume you and your family are immune.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was raised hardcore fundamentalist. Some of the rules I lived by were more strict than what the Duggars live by. Some of the people I encountered were hateful and self-righteous, others were normal. While too much emphasis was put on the girls and women covering themselves to avoid tempting the men, it wasn't as bad as some of the PPs are insisting.

There definitely are people who are stricter than the Duggars. But your "hardcore fundamentalist" upbringing probably wasn't just like the Duggar kids'. There's lots of information out there about the organization, ATI, whose philosophies the Duggars taught their kids and that organization's leader (Bill Gothard). Among Internet sources are folks who were raised in ATI, at least one of whom saw the Duggars pretty regularly at conferences. I don't accuse the Duggars of extreme sexism and victim-blaming based on their long dresses and curled hair but instead on all the information out there about ATI and how it has treated sexual abuse both in its literature and at the organization's headquarters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't read through this whole thread but I did want to contribute as I had a very similar experience personally in that a sibling came into my room for a number of years as a child. I have never come out to my parents about this or confronted my brother. I have told my DH and a few close friends and my sister as I wanted to know if this had happen to her. She says it didn't and confirmed that I can NOT reveal this to our parents as it would devastate them.

This whole experience the last couple weeks of this being in the news has been a combination of personally horrifying as it makes me relive something that I have tried very hard to forget and also a little bit reassuring in a weird way that something that has greatly affected me my whole life and forced me to feel like a hypocrite in continuing to have a relationship with my brother (who aside from this issue for a few years when he was a child, I actually like) is not "wrong" of me to feel.

I was left frozen last week when my mother out of the blue started talking about Josh Duggar and how disgusted she was with him and the horrific punishment she described that she felt was appropriate. She has absolutely no idea and this would kill her and devastate our family. It also oddly felt good to know she didn't condone this and was disgusted by it.

I guess I don't really know where my input fits in this discussion but I guess for me, a victim of incestual sexual abuse, this feels like something that is probably much more common than any of us want to realize and for me it has nothing to do with conservative or christian beliefs. My family is very liberal.

I am a professional educated woman married with two beautiful children and a success career. I am a victim like these girls and the bottom line is there are no easy answers. This hurts everyone. Just know that in your efforts to protect your own children life is cruel and brutal sometimes and you probably don't have the ability to know everything that goes on. Don't assume you and your family are immune.

I know you haven't read the thread, but many posters have been sexually abused themselves or have had it in their immediate family. It's one of those rare-common things, and, yes, it can happen in any family, but there are several risk factors in a patriarchal, sex-obsessed, insular culture like the Quiverfull movement that make it more likely.

It's not too late to talk with someone about your abuse. Telling your parents might be an important step down the road.

[Anonymous]

Do you have any proof that it's more likely in fundamentalist groups? Or reported less often?

When I was molested when I was under the age of 5, the police advised our parents not to press charges. They told them going through the court system would be more traumatic than the abuse. When I was attacked by a pedophile as a tween, the police arrested him, but dropped the charges as part of a plea deal.

Sadly, going to the cops is a pointless exercise and only adds humiliation. You guys are nuts if you think it ends dofferently for the majority of sexual abuse victims. You may want them a jailed, but that's a pipe dream.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you have any proof that it's more likely in fundamentalist groups? Or reported less often?

When I was molested when I was under the age of 5, the police advised our parents not to press charges. They told them going through the court system would be more traumatic than the abuse. When I was attacked by a pedophile as a tween, the police arrested him, but dropped the charges as part of a plea deal.

Sadly, going to the cops is a pointless exercise and only adds humiliation. You guys are nuts if you think it ends dofferently for the majority of sexual abuse victims. You may want them a jailed, but that's a pipe dream.

No one was talking about JOsh being jailed. He was a minor when this happened. What people were talking about was doing something more serious and effective than sending him to ATI and doing nothing for the girls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you have any proof that it's more likely in fundamentalist groups? Or reported less often?

When I was molested when I was under the age of 5, the police advised our parents not to press charges. They told them going through the court system would be more traumatic than the abuse. When I was attacked by a pedophile as a tween, the police arrested him, but dropped the charges as part of a plea deal.

Sadly, going to the cops is a pointless exercise and only adds humiliation. You guys are nuts if you think it ends dofferently for the majority of sexual abuse victims. You may want them a jailed, but that's a pipe dream.

I think you're asking me: I posted earlier in the thread article that talks specifically about why it's more likely in fundamentalist groups, but I don't remember what page and googling has yielded nothing. It's back in the thread somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you have any proof that it's more likely in fundamentalist groups? Or reported less often?

When I was molested when I was under the age of 5, the police advised our parents not to press charges. They told them going through the court system would be more traumatic than the abuse. When I was attacked by a pedophile as a tween, the police arrested him, but dropped the charges as part of a plea deal.

Sadly, going to the cops is a pointless exercise and only adds humiliation. You guys are nuts if you think it ends dofferently for the majority of sexual abuse victims. You may want them a jailed, but that's a pipe dream.

I think you're asking me: I posted earlier in the thread article that talks specifically about why it's more likely in fundamentalist groups, but I don't remember what page and googling has yielded nothing. It's back in the thread somewhere.

Yes, I was asking the PP who said it's more likely. I have been unable to find anything via Google that backs that up.

[Anonymous]

Jill Duggar Details "Safeguards" After Brother Josh Duggar's Molestation Confession: "Locks on the Doors," Trust Came Later
http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/jill-duggar-on-familys-safeguards-after-josh-confession-locks-201556

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you have any proof that it's more likely in fundamentalist groups? Or reported less often?

When I was molested when I was under the age of 5, the police advised our parents not to press charges. They told them going through the court system would be more traumatic than the abuse. When I was attacked by a pedophile as a tween, the police arrested him, but dropped the charges as part of a plea deal.

Sadly, going to the cops is a pointless exercise and only adds humiliation. You guys are nuts if you think it ends dofferently for the majority of sexual abuse victims. You may want them a jailed, but that's a pipe dream.

I think you're asking me: I posted earlier in the thread article that talks specifically about why it's more likely in fundamentalist groups, but I don't remember what page and googling has yielded nothing. It's back in the thread somewhere.

Yes, I was asking the PP who said it's more likely. I have been unable to find anything via Google that backs that up.

Look up the Dutch study.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Many people are posting here from the perspective of parents and what THEY would do as PARENTS. It's sad to see the stories of abuse here, but people are free to express what they would do if confronted with this situation. If anything, this case has brought up interesting conversation, forcing us to think about really, what would we do? And it's OK for many of us to still say that yes, we would go to the police (or maybe no, we would not). That doesn't negate any of the victim's who are posting here and their experiences. I'm sorry things didn't "work out" (whatever that may mean for people who experienced abuse - no jail, therapy, whatever) but people are in fact free to respond to this. Your experience was yours. It doesn't negate our ability to discuss this case, whether we hate the duggars or not.

Exactly. The molestation victim who got angry and started calling everybody "asshole" is not right about what was said to her. People said we would report it or get real therapy (which she says was horrible for her). I said basically, "what should she have done? Not get therapy for a victim of molestation?" That doesn't negate her experience. It asks the question "do you really think doing nothing is better?"
Some of us have experienced this and think that being taken seriously and getting help WAS the best thing to do.

Excuse me. I am the one you are referring to. I called ONE person an asshole. I believe it was the person who told me I shouldnt be posting my experience because the thread wasn't about me, but I don't remember and many posts were deleted. You are really missing the point of my experience. My family was destroyed by the revelation of my being abused. My mom forced me to see a therapist who wasn't very good and I wasn't ready to talk to a stranger about what I went through. I really regret posting what happened to me, but I did because somebody stated that I had no idea if the duggars handled it well because I was never molested. So I shared my experience to show that involving the police doesn't always make things better for the victim. Some of you are so rude and insensitive, I truly can't believe it.

I'm the PP wno posted my story on the last page. I was called a pedophile earlier in the thread because I was trying to clarify details. People can't, or choose not to, see past their own issues with the Duggar's religious practices. It's pointless to argue anything else with those posters.

You can't really separate how the Duggars handled this from their religious practices, because the only way they handled it was to send the molester off to a religious camp. So, how are we supposed to separate the two? They sure didn't.

[Anonymous]

There is nothing to be done about it now, its water under the bridge. If you hate the Duggars, contact TLC and ask for cancellation. If you love the Duggars, contact TLC and ask for revamping of the show without Josh.

FWIW, I think they handled it well, except for not coming clean about it once their series started.

[Anonymous]

Why are people so sure the show can't go on with Josh? I would bet there would be higher ratings to see him appear now than ever before. People would be intrigued and tune in.