Talisker, I’ve done it before on other threads, but will tell you now what they should have done. At the first incident, they needed to get him out of the house (like living with Grandma or something) TO PROTECT THE GIRLS. Top priority.
Next he needed treatment by a mandatory reporting good psychologist or psychiatrist who has dealt with pedophiles. Maybe at an early stage there is something that could steer him in the right direction. As long as he is living outside the home and is NEVER allowed contact with the girls (except maybe at church sitting far away kind of thing), they would not have removed the girls from the home. (Yes, they needed to hire an attorney right away to prevent any removal of the girls.)
And get the girls counseling that would help them for the rest of their lives, teaching them that it didn’t happen because they failed at modesty...
That is all. No lying, no letting him have those other chances, no making the victims make lunch for him and clean up after him for years. Oh, and NO REALITY SHOW. They should have been busy enough trying to save their son if possible and protecting their girls.
They would not have done so because they didn’t want worldly mandatory reporting - a real police report - not just the little talking to they did with the cop that was collecting child porn himself! That guy IS serving hard Time now and he didn’t (that we know of) even touch a little girl.
It would be heartbreaking to find one’s son committing such crimes. Everyone tell their pubescent boys, please, that if they are past puberty and touching or being inappropriate with someone UNDER puberty, their life WILL BE OVER AS THEY KNOW IT. Period. From 13 on, don’t murder and don’t sexually touch children.
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?
“don’t murder”...Moses might have been a much younger man instead of 80 years old when he led the nation of Israel due to his murdering of the overseer!