Duggar Update

[Content Note: Sexual abuse.]

In Touch has a new report—which, be aware should you click through, contains descriptions of abuse and also confirms some of the identities of Duggar's victims (without naming them)—that sheds more light on why Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar refused to take action on their son's confessed predation for so long:

The new report is from the Washington County Sheriff's Office and was obtained by In Touch using the Freedom of Information Act...

With fewer redactions than the first report, the Washington County Sheriff's document makes it clear that despite Josh's chilling confessions the Duggars waited at least 16 months before contacting authorities about the molestations, even though the behavior was continuing and growing worse. During that period they did not get professional counseling for Josh or his victims. Legal experts tell In Touch that Jim Bob and Michelle could have faced six years in prison for their inaction, if the statute of limitations had not expired.

Emphasis mine.

According to the report, Josh confessed "on THREE separate occasions to multiple acts of sexual molestation," but his parents seemingly took no steps to protect his existing victims or prevent additional girls from being victimized.

They protected their son from consequences. They protected themselves from consequences. At the expense of his victims, their daughters.

Lots of people will be shocked and horrified by this disclosure. (Which is to say nothing of the people who continue to defend this despicable lot.) But no one who knows the first thing about the family's reality show has the right to be surprised.

It was a show that documented religiously-justified misogynist abuse. The central tenet of the show was that women's lot is to serve men, to breed their babies and keep their homes. When we see men treating women as chattel, we should expect that those women's safety and security will be sacrificed to protect men.

That's the way patriarchy works. That's the way it has always worked.

Someone who is surprised is someone who diligently ignored the abusive core of the show and the family at its center, because to acknowledge the expansive abuse being heaped upon the Duggar daughters would have inconvenienced hir desire to be entertained.