May 13, 2021
Josh Duggar has done it again.
On April 29 2021, Josh Duggar of 19 Kids and Counting Fame was arrested for and is accused of possessing some material that is so disgusting and despicable as to be illegal. Unfortunately—and I truly mean it when I say it’s unfortunate—I don’t think anyone is surprised by this.
“Former reality TV star Joshua Duggar has been arrested on federal charges related to the possession of child pornography, according to the US Attorney’s Office in the Western District of Arkansas.
Duggar allegedly downloaded material that depicted the sexual abuse of children under the age of 12, the US attorney’s office said in a statement. Duggar allegedly possessed the material in May 2019.
Duggar, the oldest son of Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar, whose family was the subject of the TLC show “19 Kids and Counting,” faces two charges, the indictment shows—one count of receipt of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. He faces up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000 if convicted, the statement said.
Duggar was arrested in Arkansas Thursday, according to the statement. He appeared in federal court Friday via video conference and pleaded not guilty to both charges.”
This isn’t the first time Duggar has been in hot water for similar issues. In 2015, he was accused of sexually molesting five girls, some of whom were his own sisters.
This is from The Daily Mail:
“The arrest marks Duggar’s latest brush with the law after his father, Jim Bob, reported him to police in 2006 for allegedly molesting five young girls over multiple occasions back when he was 14 and 15. It took several years and a tip-off to local police that finally forced Jim Bob to report his son’s behavior to authorities.
Josh’s behavior was first discovered in March of 2002, when one of his youngest sisters went to Jim Bob ‘very upset and crying’. Josh admitted to touching her breasts and genitals while she was sleeping on multiple occasions.
In the report, Jim Bob said Josh was ‘disciplined,’ though didn’t reveal what the discipline entailed.
But there were more incidents to follow after that. And it was revealed that Jim Bob decided to finally go to authorities after an anonymous tip was made to the Arkansas State Police Child Abuse Hotline about Josh’s behavior.
Finally speaking to police on Dec. 12, 2006, Jim Bob said when he learned about what his son was doing, he ‘met with the elders of his church and told them what was going on.’
They sent Josh to a Christian program that consisted of hard physical work and counseling from March 17, 2003 to July 17, 2003.
It later emerged that the institute’s founder, Bill Gothard, was accused of sexually harassing or assaulting 34 women in 2014 and resigned shortly afterward.
It wasn’t until May 2015, when the police report leaked in the media, that details of the accusations went public. The reality show was cancelled by TLC two months later.
Duggar’s sisters, Jessa and Jill Duggar, have since claimed they were two of their brother’s alleged victims.”
A couple of weeks ago, I released an article called Why the Church Thinks Men Can’t Control Their Lust. These recent revelations about Duggar demonstrates everything I said in that article.
Purity culture within strict Christian fundamentalism has received much ire over the years, and deservedly so. This was the very situation under which Josh Duggar was raised—we know because his life and family were the subject of the reality TV show 19 Kids and Counting. Purity culture and Christian fundamentalism go to great lengths to teach young boys and girls that their naturally-developing sexuality and sexual desires are evil and wrong and that they need to be repressed and prayed away. That literally never works.
Instead, sex energy—like any other energy that is blocked—gets diverted. In the case of sex energy, it gets diverted into unhealthy ways that harm the individual or others. For this particular individual in question—Josh Duggar—it appears that he felt compelled to act out against the only women that were in his immediate context, some of which happened to be his own sisters.
What’s important to note here about Josh Duggar is something I didn’t mention in the previous article, but is yet another erroneous belief among Christian fundamentalists: that “hanging on” until you’re married is the ultimate goal because, once married, all strange desires or compulsions that may have cropped up during an adolescence spent repressing sexual desire will magically go away.
This is untrue.
Josh Duggar is married and has been for a long time. Clearly, the compulsions he developed as a teenager did not get cancelled out by the magical God-blessing that is his wife and the sex they have together. Not in the least.
This just goes to show how important it is to engage young people early on and provide them with the appropriate and accurate sex education that they need. Things learned during this delicate and important time in a person’s life are things that he or she is very likely to carry into the future—even things that he or she eventually comes to know are wrong.
- Waiting until marriage to even address the topic of sex is not enough.
- Teaching young teenagers abstinence-only sex education is not enough.
- Imploring young teenagers to “pray away their lust” is not enough.
Young teenage boys and girls are humans who are developing into adults and need proper guidance on a healthy way to view, express, and handle their developing bodies and the sex energy that is just beginning to flow within them. If this is not done, then they will seek out ways to make sense of it themselves, and this can lead to disastrous results.
There is an entire generation of men and women who have not acted out in the same way Josh Duggar has, but are still struggling as adults to unlearn all the bullshit they were indoctrinated with when they were teenagers in the grip of purity culture.