I'm not one for reality television. I've never watched a single reality TV show. It seems an oxymoron, somehow. If I want to watch real life, I can actually experience real life, and if I want to learn something from watching programming about real life that is important for me to understand, I can watch documentaries.
I'm also not a religious person. And I'm a politically liberal person. Everyone knows that already. It's not of interest here, except to say that I am about to disagree with something that I've seen popping up all over social media recently from people who purport to think like me.
If you read the above, you will know that I have never had any interest in the Duggar family, their lifestyle, or their show. I don't care about who is getting married or having babies or how many. That way of life is completely alien to me and not interesting enough for me to seek out for further review. When it came out a few days ago that one member of this family had committed sexual assault--incest--against family members and then everyone and their brother helped to cover it up, I found it repulsive, and I recognized the hypocrisy in the crowing the family apparently did about family values and worrying that all the gay folks would molest their children.
But I guess I am in the minority here, because there is something that I did not feel. I didn't feel that self-satisfied aha moment of "it was only a matter of time."
I keep seeing all these articles and blogs and statements cropping up that are along the lines of "I told you so," and "I'm not surprised," and "it was almost to be expected" and "this is what happens when children are raised in isolation" and "this is what happens when we don't teach kids about sex" and "fundamentalism leads to this."
No. I'm sorry, but NO.
The only thing that leads to this is that some people are selfish, manipulative sex offenders and society doesn't care enough to punish them. There is nothing inevitable about rape or incest in any situation. Can I say that again? RAPE IS NEVER INEVITABLE.
Rape is always a result of a series of decisions. It is not a mistake or a transgression. It is not the result of repressed sexuality or confusion or curiosity.
Look, people. Most 14 year old boys are not having sex, regardless of their sexual orientation, family upbringing, or access to their little sisters. They are as clueless about sex and isolated from the reality of it ever happening to them as the day they were born, for the most part. They are horny and curious and obsessed. What do most of them do? Fantasize. Masturbate. Play aggressive sports.
They don't molest their sisters.
Let's take this further. Boy gets curious, lives in isolated fundamentalist family. Why, naturally, he does the following: Waits until his sisters are asleep. Sneaks into their bedroom. Sticks his fingers inside their bodies. Hopes they will never tell.
Of course!
NO NO NO.
Those who claim that this is the natural result of any lifestyle or religion are not saying anything so different than those who say that when boys get together in groups, especially if they are drinking, they naturally rape people (frat parties). I guess there are no other options left. Rape must be an act of self defense! THERE WERE NO OPTIONS LEFT. Let's see--what if we decided as a society that the sororities of the world would be the ones to host parties? Do you think suddenly boys would form alliances and buddy systems beforehand so that they could avoid being sodomized by beer bottles because THAT'S JUST WHAT HAPPENS WHEN GIRLS GET TOGETHER AND GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS!
There is no lifestyle or religion that can justifiably explain why someone would sexually assault a family member. It is not inevitable, for anyone including the Duggars, and people who are using this as an I told you so moment are completely missing the point, in my opinion.
Would it be helpful for girls to be taught that their agency and sexuality is as important as boys? Yes, and we fail miserably as a society in doing that. Perhaps the Duggars are worse than most of us in this regard. Perhaps not. But let me take that argument a step further as well. Is the notion that if the Duggar girls were taught more about their bodies and sex and owning their own identities, they could have prevented their brother from being a sex offender? Even in this restrictive, isolating environment...those girls DID tell on their brother. It's kind of amazing that they did that. But honestly, what more could they do? Are people really arguing that children can prevent sexual assault from an older and stronger person WHO IS SUPPOSED TO LOVE AND PROTECT THEM by saying: "hey! that's my body! stop!" You guys. This is their BIG BROTHER. I cannot imagine any child from any family reacting to that situation--remember the situation, with the sneaking in when he thought they were asleep, with the planning and the foresight and the absolute purposefulness of it all--with anything other than disgust, fear, and, probably...silence.
I have an older brother. When we were adolescents, I'm pretty sure we each thought the other was a eunuch, a pest, and a friend ALL AT THE SAME TIME. We spent a lot of time ignoring each other, pretending the other one didn't date, and occasionally bonding by watching Eddie Murphy's Delirious together. My brother didn't date until the middle of his junior year in high school, when I had had breasts and a figure and boyfriends for years, and you guys: HE SURE AS HELL NEVER CAME NEAR ME. And his friends who I saw as funny but dorky and ridiculous? They bonded over things like Atari baseball, table football, and sailing accidents. The boys I knew as a teenager did things like get drunk and ride their bikes around aimlessly, practice with the band in the garage, eat 17 pizzas. I've written before about how I learned it was possible for boys you trusted and thought were friends to turn against you and do something that would forever alter the trajectory of your life--but THAT WAS NOT NORMAL. That experience was NOT the inevitable outcome of boys drinking together, of me being the only girl in the room. That situation was a series of decisions made by selfish, entitled people who fed off of my terror and laughed about it.
No, it was not inevitable. And there sure wasn't anything I could have done to deserve it. And there sure as HELL isn't anything I should have been expected to do to avoid it, as if it were my job to do that, though I tried for years to recreate the possibility of avoiding such situations, and 24 years later I still can't be the only woman in the room or watch a basketball game with more than 3 people.
Children's, girls', women's, experience is used against them as often as their innocence in sexual assault cases. You don't get some magic wand that stops people from preying on you because you know your body and are comfortable with your sexuality. Take it from me--please, do. I was very comfortable with myself, and outspoken, and I made decisions and related them clearly. And I was sexually abused, what I now understand to be assaulted, and harassed. I drove my grandfather around in my mother's car with my keys dangling from a keychain that read "no condom no way" when I was a teenager and I felt no shame and that did not stop me from having horrifying experiences. It didn't stop me from remaining silent. It didn't stop me from assuming I would be blamed, maybe because of my comfort with myself and my body and everything else.
Sexual abuse happens to all kinds of people, from and within all kinds of families. Most families do a terrible job of dealing with it and protecting victims. Most victims walk around with the assumption of blame, no matter how they were raised. Girls should not expect to be assaulted because of their own ignorance, innocence, experience, or social or family position. Boys should not be expected to assault for any of the same reasons.
RAPE IS NEVER INEVITABLE.
So, journalists and bloggers of the world, stop saying it is. Stop saying "I'm not surprised," or "this is what happens." No, it's not--it's just not. There is no circumstance in which ignorance, isolation, confusion, or curiosity inevitably leads to forcible incest. There are eighteen other Duggar children, all of whom must have felt curious and sexual if they are old enough, and they did not sexually assault other members of the family. One person did that, because of decisions he knowingly made, and other people helped him get away with it, because of decisions they knowingly made.
In that sense, the Duggars are like everyone else. We don't take these situations seriously as a society, and we are still finding subtle ways to explain the perpetrators' behavior and make assumptions about how the victims could have stopped the abuse. We are all guilty in perpetrating that crime.
Rape is never inevitable.
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