Dishing the Duggars

Almost everyone in America now has an opinion on the Duggar family, stars of the reality television show, 9 Kids and Counting. As per Wikipedia, “The show is about the Duggar family: parents Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and their 19 children—nine girls and ten boys, all of whose names begin with the letter “J”. On May 21, 2015, a police report from 2006 was revealed to the public by In Touch Weekly magazine, stating sexual molestation allegations against the Duggars’ eldest son, Josh Duggar. The report states that in 2002–2003, Josh – then 14 to 15 years old – fondled five girls, including four of his sisters, by touching their breast and genital region on multiple occasions while they were asleep and in a few cases while awake. These events occurred prior to the beginning of the reality series. The case was never fully investigated, and the statute of limitations has expired.”

A week ago I had never heard of the Duggar family. Today I’ve been so inundated with information on what they went through that I feel sorry for them. Privacy is an almost forgotten word. The general public is of two minds. One is that, as the Duggar family says: “We are simply Bible-believing Christians who desire to follow God’s Word and apply it to our lives”, they are appearing as hypocrites. How dare a family who professes such a profound faith in God and has raised their children to have a like mind have one of their children as a child molester who has never been punished by the law for his sexual abuses towards his sister? The other public opinion is that it is no one’s business but the Duggars, the tabloid magazine who released the story was out of line in publishing a story which happened several years ago, the Duggars have taken steps to have their son in counseling and he has apologized profusely for his wrong doing to his sisters. The sisters themselves love him deeply as they do all of their family, do not believe that what he did left any scars and feel the media has re-victimized them with something they resolved and put behind them. There is no ill will towards Josh by any of his family including his wife who was told what happened two years before they were married.
Two of the girls were interviewed by Fox News Megyn Kelly and defended their brother strongly saying they do not feel he is a child molester. I watched the interview and while I was of the opinion that Megyn Kelly was adding fuel to the flames, she nonetheless conducted a sensitive interview that revealed the impact that this sad story had on both girls.

I have my own opinion on this matter and would like to share it with my readers. As a victim of severe child sexual abuse you would think that I would have a negative attitude towards Josh and would view the girls as victims whose lives have been ruined. I want to preface my remarks with a description of child sexual abuse that I wrote in my book REPAIR Your Life.

Webster defines incest as “sexual intercourse between persons too closely related to marry legally.” It is a simple, almost clinical description that does not in any way imply trauma or abuse. The all-encompassing and often unspoken reality is much broader. Anyone in a position of power who coerces a person of lesser power into any sort of boundary violation dealing with their sexuality, either emotionally, mentally, or physically, is a sexual abuse perpetrator. This includes a grandfather who pins his granddaughter down while he fondles her breasts; a father who insists on watching his daughter, against her wishes, while she bathes; an older brother who forces his sister to do oral sex; and any other such boundary violation from the most minor to actual forcible entry and rape. It does not have to be a family member to have the same resultant despair. That despair, whether by a family member or an outsider, can be a life sentence of pain.

What’s missing in the Duggar story is “coerces a person of lesser power into any boundary violation dealing with their sexuality.” I have heard nothing about the use of force or coercion on the part of Josh with his sisters. Most of the time they were asleep and didn’t even know it happened. Here I want to go into the weeds so to speak and talk about something rarely heard in child sexual abuse cases. The curiosity of both female and male adolescents regarding the sexual act, what is appropriate (masturbation for example) and what is not is highly prevalent. Very few of us can claim to have never had that curiosity. In Josh’s case he carried it a step further and used “inappropriate actions” to satisfy his curiosity. When I was pre-kindergarten age my siblings and I along with several other neighborhood kids decided one day to get behind a bush, drop our pants and check each other’s privates out. A lot of giggling and pointing ensued along with remarks like, “How comes yours hangs down?” And “Why don’t you have any?” Etc. etc. We thought it was great fun and once our curiosity was satisfied we pulled our pants back up and went off to play. I didn’t feel there was any abuse. No one was touched and no one was forced to pull their pants down.

Playing doctor seemed to be another regular in our list of entertainments. My father worked for a construction gang that built electrical substations and we traveled from town to town along with all of the other families and were all friends. Some of the girls were more aggressive than others but one thing we all had in common was our curiosity about our privates, what they were for and the realization that they brought forth pleasure if manipulated accordingly. I even belonged to a club called the Petersburg Hiking Club in the primary small town we lived in that I call home. Despite it being all girls there was a lot of poking at each other’s chests with smart ass remarks referring to each other’s budding breasts as, “ibble-bibble” etc. Since I was flat chested until in my thirties I was rarely the recipient of the poking and prodding and viewed it all as sort of silly and immature. One thing I did find, many decades after I moved away, deeply disturbing, was that one of the girls in our group, younger and living in a home without proper parental supervision, gave oral sex regularly to a town perpetrator named Sherm Warden. Even back then if I saw him coming down the street I crossed to the other side. I knew something was wrong with him but didn’t know what it was. Was this young lady, who gave freely of her favors in exchange for some money for candy, a victim? You bet she was. Despite the fact that she gave consent, she was a very young child, who came from a bad home and who was victimized by a creepy old man who knew that what he was doing was wrong, by today’s standards, illegal and punishable by prison.

Sex is a normal part of the human condition. Without it we wouldn’t exist. Curiosity about sex is another part of the human condition and as natural as the bees and flowers. Forcing yourself though someone else’s boundaries is not okay, no matter what age. Bullying someone who has never learned to set strong boundaries is another wrong. As I say on the Lamplighter website under A Child’s Bill of Rights, “Your body belongs to you; you can decide who touches it.” That’s the bottom line.

What is Josh Duggar guilty of? He is guilty of inappropriate behavior. In touching the private parts of his sisters, while they were asleep or not, he did wrong and knew he was doing wrong, otherwise he wouldn’t have confessed it to his parents years later. What I do find terribly offensive about this entire Duggar story is the tabloids getting ahold of something that had already been resolved and healed in the Duggar family circle and dragging it through the mud thereby re-victimizing the young girls.

The entire world of child sexual abuse can be complex. I had two older brothers who never laid a hand on me inappropriately, who were in fact, extremely protective of me. Had one of them placed his hand on my private parts out of a sense of curiosity I would have been embarrassed and shoved his hand away. But I would not have born him any ill will. But once, at the age of thirteen, my father had raped me, initiating five years of an incest relationship, I no longer knew what I had the right to refuse. I no longer knew that I was in charge of my own body.

We should leave the Duggar family alone. They have closed ranks and handled this sad story with appropriate and loving decisions. The family circle is still intact. If there was any victimization it has been healed. We need to let them go forward with their lives and use them as an example of what should be done if you find out one of your sons had acted inappropriately towards his sisters. The Duggar parents acted wisely; the girls have forgiven their brother and still love him and Josh himself has reconciled himself to what he did that should not have been done and asked forgiveness.
Unfortunately too many of the American public don’t like doling out forgiveness. Being judgmental is so much more fun and makes one feel so superior. They need to get a life ─a healthy one.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *