I am given to understand that this is more a case of “forcible penetration”, i.e. children waking up to find themselves the recipients of non-consenting finger-in-vagina activity. In the jurisdictions with which I am familiar, this is classified as “rape”, so I am happy if Josh Duggar were instead described as “child rapist”.
Though for all I know, in Arkansas this is classified as “foreplay”, or “playing doctor with anesthetised patients”.
He sued for the right to spend more unsupervised time with his victims? What a treasure he is.
Who is this “we”? Seriously. Who else aside from @pdmcmanus does that apply to?
Who, specifically, in this discussion should operate the way you say? Me? @Mausium? @boingboing? The police? The media? Who do you mean when you say “we”?
It seems to me that this is by far the most important part of the story – the attempted heavy-handed cover-up and abuse of power. A horny 14-year old boy being a perv really isn’t that unusual or noteworthy (well, okay, fiddling with your 5 year old sister is). It’s the kind of thing parents take care of, work out, and kids grow out of. But trying to expunge his record as an adult by taking it to the courts gets into some weird territory.
It would surprise me not one iota if their entire clique was rife with such abuse. Organised, concealed and encouraged. Authoritarian structures are an absolute magnet for abusers, be it weird churches/sects, care homes/borstals, and on and on.
Why are you still trying to make it a “boys will be boys!” thing when this was nonconsensual among all parties? 14 year olds should not be serial rapists.
To the other point, it was also pointed out that he made these moves when his father was exerting some amount of local power, and others may have actively complied.
Exactly, we’re on the same page. 14-year old boys shouldn’t be “serial rapists”, as you put it, but his age at the time and the fact that this was largely him being pervy with his own family is something that would typically be dealt with as a family matter, yes? To me, the fact that they decided to report him to police and then he decided, as an adult, to try to expunge his record… and the fact that not only was the police officer in charge but also the Duggar’s assigned counselor later revealed as child-porn collectors and molesters, respectively, that’s the larger story. Something normally dealt with as a family matter’s turning into a pretty creepy rabbit hole.
They didn’t. They reported it to a person who happened to be a police officer. If this had happened in the UK, that man would be subject to criminal proceedings of his own (I believe the charge would be something along the lines of “failure to report”. IANAL), unconnected to the later discovery of child abuse images.
It wasn’t even “reported” so much as asked: “hello trusted Church-friend, please let our rapist son do menial labor for you remodeling your house so he is without ‘temptations’ and perhaps he’ll develop more Christian values”.
Yes. Of course. Thank you for your all-caps. A teen who rapes other teens is absolutely noteworthy.
I’m saying that what’s interesting to me is that something that I’d expect the Duggars to have dealt with privately when the kid was still a kid has turned into something far, far larger that has ended up snowballing in his adulthood.
You’re making massive leaps in logic here and insulting me.
No, I never said, or implied, this was consensual, and I never said it wasn’t rape.
Are you saying it wasn’t “pervy”? i.e., it was a normal sexual act? That’s what I mean by pervy. I guess you decided it means that I have “problems with women”. That’s kind of sick.
What you are saying is that you would have dealt with it privately.
I am not sure you see that leaves us with an impression of who you are that isn’t… well…it isn’t easy to be charitable with anyone who calls rape pervy, and says they would expect people to handle it themselves.
I’d ask yourself if you’re an enabler, in fact. You seem quick to excuse the Duggars, and quick to find fault with anyone who is upset by all this… what’s in it for you?
Edit: I am reading your text. Not reading into it. Please have a good day.
