Now can we stop? Please? Can we please stop acting as if Conservative, right-wing "Christians" make any sense or are even "good" people? Any extreme is bad. Any. And that goes for people who call themselves "Christians" and it goes double for anyone who calls him or herself a "fundamentalist" anything.
Of course Josh Duggar was on Ashley Madison. Of course he has an alleged penchant for strippers. Can we please stop pretending that religion can somehow alter human nature? Humans are animals. They are sexual creatures. If you cage them, they will claw their way out or claw themselves to death or claw the eyes out of those they purport to love.
I could not feel any sorrier for Josh Duggar. He has desperately needed help for so long and his parents were so busy worrying about their image and their TV show and their commitment to a "religion" that blames the victims of sexual abuse rather than the abusers that they couldn't be bothered to get him the help he needed. Instead they swept it under the rug and "prayed."
Let me be clear here. He sexually assaulted his sisters. He's a criminal. He belongs behind bars for those crimes.
But the Ashley Madison account? The affairs? The strippers? I only have one thing to say on that front -- Duh.
Of course he behaved that way. He was kept from a normal life, a normal childhood, a normal upbringing. He was raised to believe that the natural, healthy feelings he was having about sexuality were wrong. He was taught that there shouldn't even be any kissing until marriage. Are you kidding me? Think about that for a minute -- telling an adolescent that they are to bottle up all of their healthy, happy sexual feelings because they are "bad" and "wrong." It's sick. It's dangerous. And, obviously, it's escalating all around.
In fact, I believe it was that very upbringing that lead him to the criminal behavior with his sisters. He was taught that victims were to blame. He was taught that women were put on this earth to serve men. He was taught that life barely existed outside of the four walls of his family home. What on earth did we expect to happen?
How many more examples do we need? Seriously. If you teach nothing but abstinence, girls get pregnant and contract STI's. If you damn homosexuality, young people run away or kill themselves. If you teach a child that sexuality is bad or wrong or dirty or only for married people in love making babies, they go on the DL. They join Ashley Madison. They do untoward things because they are not "allowed" to do perfectly healthy natural things.
I truly believe that if Josh Duggar was taught the scientific truth about human sexuality (and about evolution, while we're on the subject), if he had been allowed to date, if he had been taught about the health and joy of masturbation, if he had been respected and supported as a human male, none of this would have happened. None of it. Including the molestation of his sisters.
The Duggars are creating monsters. They may mean well. They may be equally brainwashed and ignorant and sheltered and mislead. But they are creating monsters.
Extremism creates monsters. We have to teach science. Not fantasy. We have to respect the reality of humans and their development. Not promote puritanical myths of purity.
The Ashley Madison hack may have been the Godsend we have been needing for so long, the pulling back of the proverbial curtain. Look at the facts. Looks at the history. This shit goes on -- the lying, the cheating, the molesting -- because we are refusing to accept reality. People are claiming monogamy and cheating all over the place. When are going to stop turning a blind eye to all of the truths that are right there in front of us?
Sex is wonderful. People have sex. Sex is healthy. There is nothing wrong with sex outside of marriage between two enthusiastically consenting adults. Young people are sexual. If we don't give them information (real sex ed) and an outlet (facts about masturbation and sex before marriage) and support (a sympathetic and knowledgeable ear when they have questions about what they are feeling and experiencing), things are going to go badly. Very badly.
Every sex scandal exposes these truths -- the Senator and his aide, the sexts between boss and intern, the golf star and his stable of strippers, the preacher and his addiction to meth and male prostitutes. If we keep people from healthy sexuality, they will pursue it in an unhealthy way. That's all there is to it.
It's almost too simple really. We could stop nearly all of this with a little honesty and education. All we have to do is give up on the lying and the religious nonsense and the pretending. And so I am asking, once again - -
Now can we stop? Please?
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