Was it not one of the Pearl children that told a tale of walking through the woods and seeing pornographic photographs stapled to nearby trees? Between that tale, others and this posting I have to wonder if the part of Tennessee the Pearlβs inhabit has a sexual predator problem, or just a lot of people that use old fashioned printed pornography. More likely is that the Pearls are making this up, like they seem to do with many of the letters that come in over their transom.
Today we have Debi Pearl explaining why sleepovers with other children are a very bad idea in her mind. Sheβs answering a likely self-penned letter in this monthβs βNo Greater Joyβ magazine. Hereβs the question:
Yes, many times if there is sexual abuse of children it is someone in that childβs circle. That is true. But keeping them away from other kids does not mean everyone gets molested. Especially in Quiverfull. Remember the Josh Duggar scandal where he molested his sisters? Remember that Jim Bob brushed off/minimized what heβd done because he claimed it was very common in big families he knew. Sounds more like youβd be less likely to get molested as a child at a friendβs sleepover than home.
This is a sub-culture with such sexual repression that it comes out in much weirder and criminal ways. Repressing all knowledge of sex and sexuality tends to create some strange ways it reemerges.
But Debi merely parrots her usual line about everyone out there being a potential offender.
No statistics, no backing research, just Debi babbling about letters coming in. Again, is free-floating porn everywhere much more of a problem in their fundamentalist circles than out in polite normal society?
Why not simply put an age barrier in place on sleepovers? A moratorium until the child is a pre-teen if youβre freaking worried about someone showing a six year old porn? Thinking back to those adolescent parties and sleepovers of my youth (ages ago, I know) we had some of the most fun ever without parents hovering over us and no one looked at porn or molested/were molested by anyone else. The worst hi jinks involved a bonfire in the backyard and hotdogs followed by lots of giggling over certain boys.
The other important part of sleepovers is knowing the parents and family of the child hosting the sleepover pretty well, doing your due diligence by actually talking to the hosting parents and discussing with them any concerns you have well before the sleepover happens.
Or if youβre that worried, why not host the party yourself so that you can keep an eye on whatβs happening.
Again, a normal rite of passage in most childrenβs lives in America is being treated like a demon-addled orgy!
Again, this sounds very conveniently made up just to push Debiβs book. How likely is it in Debiβs culture of near-poverty for most of these families that an eight year old would have her own smartphone? Very unlikely.
This is a big part of why I consider much of Quiverfull theology to be a damaging lie. It promotes the idea that everything outside of the strict Quiverfull bubble is to be feared, and imbued with many scary apocryphal tales to ramp up the fear and obedience.Β How is this any different than out and out lying?
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