You dismiss the healing done as inadequate, when the victims themselves say they have healed and forgive. You dismiss the separation between the boys and girls, the youth of Josh at the time, the fact that he admitted what he did and that it was wrong, the formal therapy sessions, and that he has apparently grown up to be a fine man and husband and father.
Further, you declare the victims to be unable to determine their own mental health, and the actions of the boy to indicate a permanent criminal psychosis that makes him a danger to children for the rest of his life. You look at all the work that has been done and reject it as fraud, out of hand.
And yet in support of your actions, what do you have? Simply your declarations. Your invocation of the worst types of sexual predators and criminals as equal to Josh because you say so. The invocation of the worst types of criminal enablers against the parents simply because you say so. The invocation of the most badly traumatized and emotionally destroyed rape victims against the victimized girls simply because you say so.
You seem to need the entire spectrum of inappropriate sexual interaction in the entire world to be the same - that of violent, destructive, psychotic, permanently damaging criminal rape.
It’s not.
In fact, it’s nowhere even close, especially in this situation. Whether you’re pursuing a personal vendetta based on your own trauma, a political agenda, or both, you’re simply wrong. And you’re arguing for a catastrophic disempowering of women to be able to heal, to endure ranges of difficult or negative sexual interaction with strength and understanding, and to be free from victim status without demonizing sexuality or, especially, men in general.
It’s simply NOT all permanent. It doesn’t ALL last forever. Many mistakes are made that are NOT crimes, and many crimes are committed that do NOT require permanent punishment. People ARE strong and resilient and CAN heal. Sex is NOT a monster, even though sexual monsters DO exist.
And as far as I can tell, based on ALL his actions, Josh is NOT a monster. Nor are his sisters permanently injured, in denial, in shock, traumatized anymore, or frightened of speaking the truth.
In fact, they actually all seem to love each other - for real, and I’m sorry if that upsets you, because I think that’s what angers you the most about this situation. This family pops the feminist sexual victimization meme precisely BECAUSE they healed. And the healed precisely because of the love and honesty they shared they you outrageously say never happened. You deny them the very effort they put into healing, the very genuineness and courage itself that enabled that healing to take place.
But that makes sense, because there’s no votes in that, is there?
As the victim of sexual assault as a child by another older child, I could not agree with you more. My situation is different than this one, but I am here to say that things like this don’t wreck the lives of people forever. They just don’t.
Your main point is true. I don’t know what healing or private therapy has taken place, what forgiveness was genuine.
But neither do you. We don’t know. We know what “appears” so on camera. Which makes the Duggar show no different from the Kardashian show, tech speaking, and both are lightly scripted. Thus sort of fake, if you will.
There is no way Josh would want to appear a pedophile sex predator. Of course his appearance in public would never show it. But Ted Bundy, in between murdering girls, worked a night shift at an emergency hotline, alone in the building with one young woman, his coworker. He even walked her to her car after work to keep her safe.
A principal, awaiting trial for child molestation right now of children at his school as young as three, conducted his job for years and people thought him the best. So caring, so loving, so devoted to those kids. Until you hear what he was DOING to those kids.
None of the concern over Josh is because I say so. It’s because no one knows if his sexual excitement over children lasted, and he would be a more dangerous pedophile than the cop who advised him. The cop is doing hard time for just POSSESSION of child pornography. Josh was bold enough to act on his urges. Is he still doing so? Does he bathe his little girls? His actions repeated so often that it does cause some concern. And that is only what we know about.