Spiritual Self-Defense: Part One - Commentary One

My life has become unexpectedly busy recently.  I don't remember what I've shared so I'm just going to do a fast overview.  Due to some family issues, my husband decided to end his partnership on his family farm.  Since April, he's been wrapping up his work on the farm and finding a new job.  After a few false starts, my husband starting training on installing refrigeration/cooling units for agricultural, industrial and commercial uses as an employee for a local company.  He's really enjoying the new work - but that lead to his burnt arm. 

A month before that, his maternal grandmother was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer that's metastasized to the lymph nodes and chest wall.  She's survived several bouts of cancer previously and she was very clear that she was not interested in doing radiation or chemo ever again.  She's doing very well so far - good spirits, still able to do most basic care for herself - but her appetite is gone, she can't eat solids, and she's needing oxygen 24/7.  I'm taking Jack over to see her several times a week because she enjoys seeing her great-grandchildren who live close by.  I'm choosing to enjoy the time that we have together while she's able to fully participate with minimal pain medications.   I do expect that some time soon she will move into a more physically compromised state and when that happens I will be providing more direct care.

My son is doing great - but he has quarterly cycles of "All the specialists wanna see Jack.  Now.  On different days.  Preferably in a way that disrupts his nap cycle and leaves him cranky until the day before his next appointment."   We are entering that cycle again.

Because of that, I need to make two changes to my blog.  First, I will probably be posting on Tuesdays and Thursdays instead of the MWF cycle I was trying to hit.  Secondly, I am going to be focusing more on the web writings of the Botkins, Maxwells, etc.,  simply because it save a heap of time to not have to transcribe their books. 

Now, up until last week, I thought moving to a web-based discussion would free me from the Botkin Sisters because they never, ever update their website.   Except... they did update their website with a six-part digression on #Metoo that makes me deeply sad because they've grown so little since their teenage years.  It's pretty much a re-hash of "Good Girls and Problem Guys" - which was a re-hash of "It's Not That Complicated" - with a rare few changes in thinking.

There's a whole ton of bad ideas to unpack interspaced with an occasional neutral or even good idea.

To jump off, I'll run through the Botkin Sisters' idea of how a normal relationship ends up in a date-rape by coercion situation.

For example: Bryan is pushing his girlfriend Emily’s physical boundaries. Emily says no, I don’t want to do this. Bryan pushes harder. Emily finally gives in, but reluctantly. Afterwards, she’s furious and devastated and blames him for forcing her. Bryan says, What are you talking about? You were going along with it the whole time, and besides, look how you were dressed. Don’t try to tell me you weren’t asking for this. It was half your fault; don’t you go trying to get me in trouble like you’re some victim here.

There is no point in this scenario that looks like  a healthy relationship.   

This is a relationship that is dysfunctional far beyond a normal dating relationship.  In a healthy relationship, when Emily says, "I don't want to do this" Brian's response would be "ok" or "If you want to in the future, let me know" or "Well, what if we do _____ instead?"

Bryan's response afterwards is pathological.  The first part of his response expressing confusion since he thought she consented makes sense if he was a normal human being.  Jumping into how she was dressed and stating that her clothing choices equal consent for sex is literally a pathological reaction.  The "women's clothing" as a defence for rapists has been socially frowned on since the late 1990's thanks to activism like "Take Back The Night" and awareness through shows like "Law and Order" and "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit".   Even in the 1980's, that defence was shaky-as-hell within relationships.

Why do the Botkin Sisters assume that men will react like that?  I've never had a man I was in a relationship with act like a petulant child when I didn't want to participate in a given sexual activity.  If a guy did act that way, I would be seriously turned off - both in terms of not wanting to do anything sexual with him right then AND in terms of continuing a relationship forward.  My assumption is that they are mostly reacting to the fact they were raised in a cult.  Their father has told them - over and over and over - that men are generally untrustworthy, that young women like Anna Sofia and Elizabeth cannot determine which men are trustworthy, and that Geoffrey Botkin's protection is the only thing that stands between the girls and being raped by a boyfriend.  In "It's (Not) That Complicated" one of the girls talks about how her father was great at protecting her emotional purity because she'd tell him who she had a crush on and he'd spell out how dating that guy would lead to being abandoned after an unwed pregnancy and grinding poverty.

I suspect Bryan follows the lead that Geoffrey Botkin has used in his family their whole lives.  Men tell women what to do.  If women object, emotionally abuse them until they concede they follow the plan.  If the plan fails - or the women bring up more objections afterward, point at the previous consent as giving the women equal blame in the failure of the plan.

The Botkin Sisters never say this in any of the six parts, but I will.  If you are in a relationship with someone who acts like Bryan, get the hell out now.  Find someone to stay with for a few days. Let your job know you are breaking up with an unstable partner who might try something at the workplace; even shitty managers will generally side with a worker over a crazy stranger.   Break up with Bryan in the safest way possible - text, phone call, in a public place with huge male bodyguards at a nearby table.  Remove him from all your social media.  Route his email or text messages to a separate file.  Let friends and family know that Bryan is bat-shit crazy and that you do not want them to communicate about you with him.  (If anyone objects, you can state that you are the bat-shit crazy party, then, but that doesn't change the fact that no one tells Bryan anything about where you are or what your are doing.)

Bryan is crazy and abusive.  I agree that Emily made some choices that complicate the situation - but she made the choices because Bryan is crazy and abusive.

The fact that the Botkin Sisters can't see that he's not safe to be around scares the snot out of me.

Babblin' Botkins: "Good Girls and Bad Guys": Four Types of Guys - Part Three

In hindsight, writing the posts about how ATI/ATIA/IBLP teaches people to brainwash victims while discussing how the Botkin Sisters mangle any understanding of human sexuality, consent and criminal behavior has been an absolute drag.

On the other hand, I don't live that shit and never have - compared to the poor souls who think this crap is real - and Biblical to boot.

This last section is trigger-laden for sexual abuse survivors - so please, don't read this if that will bother you.  I mean - it's the Botkin Sisters so their views manage to be punitive, half-baked, and trite at the exact same time.  Go pet a kitten or take a nap or whatever you need for good self-care.   We've got your back.

The Botkin Sisters have messily divided the men into three groups (with an assumed fourth group):

• Assumed Group 0:  Men who are attracted to a woman, follow her family's courtship guidelines flawlessly and never by word, action or existence cause a woman to choose to pursue an physical relationship banned by CP/QF.  (The group is assumed - and peopled by imaginary men.)
• Group 1: Men who don't follow the family courtship guidelines instantly and perfectly.
• Group 2: Men who act like a woman they are attracted to has the skill and intelligence to choose if she wants to romantically interact with him.  (This is also known as "normal US dating culture")
• Group 3: Men whose relationship with the woman causes her to freely chose to pursue a physical relationship,  any form of sexual abuse or assault that isn't being raped by a stranger (which the Botkinites term "molesters"), and "creeps".  (It's the worst example of "One of these things is not like the other" we've seen so far.)

Today, we get to meet Group 4: Violent rapists.    Needless to say, I find this division between groups of sexual criminals abhorrent.  I've seen the hurt and pain caused by "non-violent" sexual abuse; non-consensual sexual activity is ugly and hate-filled.  Pretending that abuse by family members or known adults is somehow less harmful than being attacked by a stranger is sick - and telling of how rampant it must be in CP/QF society.

[00:44:21] Ok. Oh, yeah. So the last type of guy. The last and the worst is the violent criminal. And, yes, these men are out there. And so the first thing that we will recommend is that you embrace whatever rules or limitations or boundaries or curfews that your father has given you for your protection. If your father counsels you not to be out after a certain time or not to go to certain places without a bodyguard, you should listen to him. Our dad has made rules for us like this. And um... we follow them. Like, like Anna said earlier this really is our dad's business.

That's absolutely worthless advice. 

 I've had one experience where I was followed by a man I didn't know and was getting seriously bad vibes.   It happened at a local grocery store in the middle of the damned day.   My mom survived a violent stranger sexual assault as a girl - and she was vigilant to keep all of us kids safe.  But she knew that there are no magic bullets in terms of times of day or locations that are always safe or always dangerous.  She took the time to teach us to trust our instincts and to never, ever be afraid of making a scene.

In that situation, I stared directly back at the man and asked him why he was following me.  He didn't reply.  He continued to follow me - so I walked up to Guest Services at the store and asked for a security escort.  They found the biggest male employee in the store and he walked me out to my car.  The other guy vanished.

Next, the Botkin Sisters try an amatuer-hour attempt at Biblical analysis that makes me queasy:

[00:44:56] We also need to know what God's Law requires of us to do in a situation like this. When we need to physically resist or call for help. In Deuteronomy 22, we find the principle that is that a woman's duty to resist violation is that at the very least it needs to start with --- it needs to be expressed in crying out for help. This, this duty goes beyond just saying "no" or telling somenone to stop. Just letting the guy know that you're not ok with what he's doing and that you are not a consenting adult..um... isn't really enough.

The principle in Scripture is that we actually need to call for help. And bring in a third-party to intervene. And according to stories we've heard from women who .....we actually have a number of friends who were attacked and almost violated and they said that this takes a lot of courage and a lot of guts. 'Cause like I was saying earlier a very common response to this sort of situation is just to freeze up. I remember hearing one woman say "You know looking back it doesn't make any sense but the only thing running through my mind was that I didn't want to make a scene. I didn't want to make a ruckus or ...you know... cause a disruptance.(​sic)" Umm. But if we don't cry out or make any move to resist, Scripturally we could be considered accomplices in the crime.

*slow claps*
These two hold themselves up as the mature flowering of homeschool education - which insults every homeschooled kid I've ever met.

Deuteronomy 22 is chocked full of obscure laws that no one follows anymore.  The first four verses are about how to deal with roaming livestock and how to set up a lost-and-found.  Verse 8 talks about making sure no one falls off your roof while verse 9 outlaws interplanting crops in vineyards.  Verses 10 and 11 - which are personal favorites of mine - outlaw plowing with a donkey and ox yoked together and wool-linen blends respectively.

After we've disregarded completely Deuteronomy 22:1-12 for obvious reasons, we reach verse 13 that starts outlining how to deal with sexual sins - and we should adhere to those diligently!

Yeah, right.

The strangest bit about the whole thing is that the Botkin Sisters don't even get the summary right.

 For engaged women living in the city who are caught having sex with a man not her betrothed husband, the burden of proof is if she cried out.  There is no discussion of physically resisting; in my opinion that is because the authors themselves understood(ish) the dangers of fighting back if no one is around to back up the woman.

For engaged women in the country, there is no burden of proof because no one would hear them if they screamed.

Is modern life anything like life in a city in ancient Biblical times?  People were living in very close quarters with non-existent privacy or soundproofing.  In a city, there were always people around - and always people listening - and always people ready to get into other people's business.

No, we essentially all live in the country now - and that's why no mainline denomination I know of holds Deuteronomy 22 as applicable at all nowadays.

Plus, the Botkin Sisters seem to have missed the reality of the "fight or flight" response.  "Flight" includes "freeze" as a defensive tactic.  If a predator - including a human predator - hasn't seen you, holding perfectly still in a hiding spot may well keep you safe.   Overriding that response is very, very hard because the body is following an old set of instinctual commands.

Remember, the Botkin Sisters sell women on the idea of being pliant, submissive and unobtrusive - so acting like women should be able to turn that off instantly and go all "female-Rambo" at the drop of a hat is disingenuous.

[00:46:11] And this is where our best weapon against evil comes in. We have to hate it as much as God does. One important byproduct of just really immersing ourself in the Word and in the Law is that it teaches us to love what God loves and to hate what God hates and the ability to hate sin is very important because our strength to resist sin is only going to be as strong as our hatred of the sin and our love of righteousness.

That would work if overriding cultural training combined with fight-or-flight response was a matter of correct, logical thinking. 

Alas - both of these require active practice as well as mental preparation so we've wasted another 30 seconds of our lives.

[00:46:39] And we also believe that if we are serious about resisting evil we should back that up with some resistance training or maybe even some firepower. Taking a self-defense class, maybe organizing one for the young ladies in your church, studying situational awareness, carrying pepper spray or a gun, all of these would be good lawful options. We both carry. And um if you want to take this option we would recommend that you take a gun safety course, get some training. Train and practice often because just having a gun with you isn't any good if you don't know how to use it and you are not comfortable with it.

I've never gotten used to how CP/QF society overreacts to some threats while underreacting to others.  The Botkin Sisters have wandered through sexual crimes - but seem strangely unaware of abuse in families and by people in authority.  Now, the Botkin Sisters have created a safety regime that's appropriate for traveling in remote wilderness areas - have a strong male around! carry pepper spray! be armed! - to be used in middle America. 

Situational awareness / self-defense is phenomenal - but using both of these requires being allowed to control who crosses personal boundaries.  Stay-at-home daughters have no practice in that!  They've been dragged along to massed family gatherings, expected to be the drudge worker at church and practiced being subservient to everyone their entire lives. 

I'm not sold on either guns or pepper spray as a form of defense against other humans.  During an attack, the victim is already at a disadvantage by being surprised without adding tricky weapons to the mix.  Pepper sprays only work at fairly close range - around 10-13 feet -which is far too close to allow an assailant for my tastes.  I've sprayed myself in the face with enough harmless chemicals - hairspray, non-stick cooking spray, WD-30 - to not trust that in an emergency I'll be capable of spraying the assailant and not myself.    My husband and I did carry bear spray when we were in Yellowstone on our honeymoon - but I relied more on my incessant loud talking and the bells I had on my pack than the spray.

Guns increase the risk of death by suicide by far too much for me to feel comfortable dragging a handgun everywhere with me.  Also, my son is nearly crawling and starting to grab at every object he can reach.  I love him too much to risk him dying in a firearm accident.

Totally random side note: Soon after I moved out to the country, a relative of my husband's moved to a solidly middle class bedroom community near here from cow country.  Since that area is more populated (or something), she and her husband wanted her to have a firearm for self-defense.  When they told me that, I laughed so hard I cried.  I grew up in Wyoming, MI - which is a nice enough blue-collar area - but does have a local, home-grown gang presence and some occasional burglaries at empty homes.  Folks in the bedroom community often refer to Wyoming as a "ghetto" - partially from generalized racism, but mostly from good-ol' American classism.  Anyway, I told her that the standard home defense weapon of choice in Wyoming is a baseball bat - and I'd happily buy her a used Louisville Slugger of her choice.   It's multi-use, requires little or no training to use effectively, needs no maintenance, is very cheap, and sends a nice, clear message when you answer the door with it resting on your shoulder. :-)

[00:47:17] Also if you are dealing with or have dealt with criminal behavior, you actually really need to let someone know. There are times when the right thing is to go to your parents, there are times where the right thing is to go to your elders and there are times where the right thing is to go to the police. This speech isn't the speech to address all that, unfortunately. And finally, if a crime is committed against you that you tried to resist, you tried to call out for help, and it didn't work out. You know what? In the Lord's eyes, you are completely 100% innocent. You are not damaged goods. You are not soiled or tarnished. Even if your virginity has been taken away from you, your virtue has not been compromised.

I have no use for the Botkin Sisters as people. They can't bring themselves to say the word "rape" or "sexual assault".  They brought disgusting purity metaphors into the talk - which is horrifying beyond my ability to describe.   They can't even say "It's ok to go directly to the police if you've been hurt" or "here's a toll-free help line".

Cowards.
Here's my adult talk:

If you have been a victim of sexual assault, abuse or incest, you can call 1-800-656-4673 24/7/365 days a year to get in contact with a trained sexual assault counselor who can help you decide what to do next in terms of reporting the crime to the police, getting medical help, and providing a listening ear.   They know the resources in your area and are there to help you.  You can do this if you were hurt today or decades ago.  You can do this if you are a man or a woman.  The line is open to anyone.  It is confidential - unless state law requires them to report the abuse of a minor or vulnerable adult.

If you'd prefer, RAINN has a live chat online  .  For men who survived childhood sexual abuse, 1in6 offers support including a weekly online support group.

For those of us who have not been victims, listen to others.  Speak out against cultural beliefs that minimize the damage of abuse and assault.  Don't be a Botkin.

Babblin' Botkins: "Good Girls and Problem Guys" The Four Types of Guys -Part Two

The first post in this series covered the first two "groups" of "problem guys".  From an outsider's perspective, the only problem with these men is that they showed romantic/sexual interest in an adult woman and responded in a way that was appropriate within the larger American society.

The next two groups include more problematic behaviors - but also demonstrate CP/QF Christianity complete disregard for consent as the main determination of if an event is moral or immoral.

Group Three according to Anna Sophia and Elizabeth Botkin in their podcast "Good Girls and Problem Guys: Taking the Moral High Ground with Men Who Are In Sin

[00:40:53] Ok. We're getting worse and worse as we go. [laughs] The kind of guys we're talking about.

Ok, so next would be dealing with the creep, the seducer, or the molester. And some of us may tend to think that we will never, ever come up against a predator or a pervert because we're really nice girls and we don't move in those kinds of circles. But the fact is guys like that pop up in every circle and the odds are that the most of the girls in this room will have to deal with that at least once at one point in your life. And a lot of us are not prepared for it.

And I think that the main thing that we're not prepared for is where the threat is likely to be coming from. It's true that there are plenty of creeps in the grocery store, on the street, and in the parking lot. And hopefully, [laughs] we're already alert to be watching out for those, but according to some of the research that I've done, the majority of sexual attacks are not perpetrated by strangers out on the street. They are perpetrated by friends, friends of the young lady and happen in her home or apartment.

[00:41:49] And the thing that I think that we can learn from this is that the biggest danger to us isn't streets. It's dangerous relationships. It's not who you already know not to trust, but it's who you do trust. Who you have already let into your trust. It's in who you let your guard down around. And it's more likely to be someone who is very dear and close to you that you don't want to hurt and that you don't want to cut off, but bad things can happen when a girl is not willing to do that.

Let's start with the obvious: "creep", "seducer" and "molester" are three massively different categories.

• Seduction is based on mutual consent. There is no sexual assault in seduction.
• Depending on how "creep" is used, a guy could be acting in a way that is potentially threatening - or it could mean he's homeless - or it could mean that the guy is acting in the boundary of US standards of behavior but outside of CP/QF norms. It's not a useful descriptor.
• A molester is a criminal - pure and simple.

Words matter greatly. The Botkin Sisters are trying to explain that violent, stranger rape is rare compared to sexual assaults by acquaintances. That's an important point to make - especially since the Botkins Sisters believe that the young women in the audience are more concerned about being attacked by a stranger.

 The problem is that by choosing to describe the attacker as "friends", she's leaving out sexual assault or abuse by parents, relatives, people in authority and parents of friends. That's the situation that Ms. Torres found herself with Doug Phillips - and that's a particularly hard situation to handle without the added baggage of being trained as a girl to be gentle, non-confrontational, subservient to men and obsessed with physical purity. CP/QF has raised up a generation of young women who are particularly at-risk for assault - and we see the fruits of this in the victims of Josh Duggar, Toby Willis, Doug Phillips, Bill Gothard....the list goes on and on.

The last paragraph sounds good - but it assumes that unmarried daughters have way more control over the people allowed into their lives than they do. 

Cutting off a peer is mainstream American society is painful and awkward at times - but most people have some separation between family, church, school and recreation.  That's an impossible dream in CP/QF land; family is recreation, school and often church.  If a family is serious about protecting their daughter and maintaining that every interaction is based around whole families, then there must be a separation of the two families - no matter how that affects the other members of the family.  In that context, young women will be hard-pressed to minimize the effects that unwanted attention from a young man in the family has on her.

Imagine how much harder that situation is when the unwanted attention is coming from the father of the family.  In a worldview that blames the victim and represses any mention of sexuality, a young woman is facing intense scrutiny over what she did to attract his attention - rather than having her family stand up to the person who is preying on young women.

The situation becomes nearly impossible if the young woman is separated from her family.

[00:42:18] Ok, so let's... let's take a look at how do you... how do you recognize one of these? And it can be tricky. Some of these guys will seem really weird and off-balance, but some will be incredibly polished and well-mannered and respectable. Without becoming suspicious of every guy that comes around, here's just a few definite red flags we can watch out for and that we need to be careful for. I'm going to just list some. Um.

Number one: If he's trying to erode your boundaries.  If he's trying to create sneaky opportunities for physical contact that goes beyond what he knows you're comfortable with with young men.

Another one would be if he acts differently around you than your parents when your parents are not around or if he tries to go behind your parents' back or belittle their authority. If he seems to have a lot more interest in your looks and your charm than your character. These are all things you should watch out for.

This advice is only marginally helpful for interactions with predatory men and nearly useless against well-intentioned young men.

Let's look at the easy group of well-intentioned young men first.

Unless two people have sat down and discussed exactly what their boundaries are, one person is going to accidently "erode" the other person's boundaries because they are not exactly identical.   Even a dictate as clear as "no physical contact" has ragged edges - what about if one of you loses their balance?  Is the instinct to steady the person before they fall "eroding" a boundary?  A lab mate at a company I worked at had a female coworker accidentally pull over a phenol tower onto herself.  The other workers were all men - but everyone rushed to help her remove all her clothes and get into a chemical shower as quickly as possible since the imperative to protect someone's from severe chemical burns over 90% of her body trumped concerns about modesty.

Young people act differently around their parents than they do their peers.  Now, CP/QF types will immediately jump to the conclusion that this is because young people are being corrupted by other immature sin-natures.  That's not generally true - and it's not what I'm talking about.  Young people act more informally and ways that reflect their chosen personality around peers.  This is true about every aged adults as well;  I am more restrained in my language choice and topic choice around people who are substantially younger or older than I am than I am around peers.

Mix in the nervousness people have around impressing their potential love interest's parents with a giant heaping helping of normal sexual attraction and now every young man is going to have the red flags of "acts different by your parents" and "seems more interested in your looks than your character."

For men who are grooming a potential victim, the only useful bit of advice is the part about "creating sneaky opportunities for contact" because those opportunities are often very brief and sudden.  Women and men may not be able to respond to the first time that happened; but if it happens again, being assertive enough to state "Stop.  Don't do that!" can scare off some predators.

The rest is useless; Doug Phillips and Bill Gothard respected the authority of their victims' parents.  They were busy grooming the parents as well as the daughters.

[00:43:11] If you're starting to sense he's a danger or if he's not someone that ... or if you're starting to realize what his intentions are [laughs] then you need to take quick and decisive action. And this would include telling someone like your parents who are in a position to help not just your girlfriends or something. Maybe rebuking him openly. But definitely getting totally away from him.

[00:43:33] You remember when Joseph was being stalked and propositioned by Potiphar's wife, he verbally refused the first time then he just ran away and would not [laughs] not come near her again. But he didn't keep having that conversation over and over.

My feeling is that Anna Sophia or Elizabeth unconsciously realizes how impossible this advice is for the young women in the audience to follow. 

This is a society that values emotional and physical purity in women above everything else.  To tell her parents, a girl would have to admit that she was in a situation that may end up lessening her value because her emotional/physical purity was "damaged".

This is a society that values submission to male elders - even to the point of reassigning "protecting purity" from the traditional domain of mothers and other older women to men.  Reporting against a male peer's behavior is awkward enough; accusing a married man or  a spiritual leader is a gross violation of those expectations.

The Botkin Sisters know that this action will rebound badly against the young woman; why else would they have chosen the story of Joseph and Potiphar's Wife?   Joseph does the right thing in that he restricts their contact to talking and runs away when she physically accosts him..  The outcome is that Potiphar's Wife accuses him of attempted rape and Joseph is jailed..   The Botkin Sisters are saying "Do the right thing - but don't ask us how bad the consequences will be for you, please."

The last quote makes reasonable sense when discussing consensual relationships where neither person wants to transgress the sexual mores in their society.  When dealing with a predator....not so much.

[00:43:50] And then finally be aware that even the most scandalous interactions don't usually start off on a scandalous foot. They start out with one little tiny boundary crossing at time and you need to be firm and uncompromising in the very first moments at the very beginning. Don't go along with a conversation that you shouldn't be having. Don't let people talk to you into things that you know you shouldn't do. Don't let people sway you or wear you down. Resisting evil is something we probably need to be doing every day not just like one time in our lives. [laughs]

I believe that all people - men, women, and children - need to learn the skills to recognize and stop sexual abusers.  The problem is that the Botkin Sisters are not teaching any of the actual skills while putting far too much burden on the victims to stop their abusers.

Babblin' Botkins: "Good Girls and Problem Guys" The Four Types of Guys -Part One

At long last, I've finally had enough free time to start transcribing the free podcasts on the Botkin Sisters website.  I'm starting with Good Girls and Problem Guys: Taking the Moral High Road with Men who are in sin.

Because this is a transcribed talk, I had to make some decisions about where to place punctuation and divide topics into paragraphs.  (IOW, blame me for errors in that department.)  I've chosen to include filler word like "um" and "like" as well as times that the speaker laughed because I believe unplanned verbal reactions like those can be telling of the speaker's emotional state.  I've included time-stamps in case anyone finds errors in the transcription - and please let me know if you do!

After trying a variety of tricks, I've realized that I cannot reliably differentiate Anna Sophia's voice from Elizabeth's voice.  The audio recording of the talk is good - but they are sisters who have very similar vocal characteristics. Plus, there's no reason Anna or Elizabeth to identify themselves in the talk because the talk is being given at some sort of conference in front of a multi-age audience.  Their audience could tell very clearly who was talking by looking up at the speaker in front of them.

I'm not certain when or where this conference occurred - but I suspect it occurred within 6 months of Vision Founder leader Doug Phillips being accused of grooming and assaulting his children's nanny.  The Botkin Sisters reference a disturbing or shocking revelation that happened recently that they expect other members of Vision Forum to be aware of.

Needless to say, the Botkin Sisters spend most of the talk rehashing the book "It's (Not) That Complicated" but deviate from the text to add more victim-blaming.  If you are triggered by dumb-ass Biblical interpretation being used to victim-blame, please stop reading and go do something pleasant.  It's not worth the stress; let the rest of us handle these ding-bats.

At 37(ish) minutes into a 50-odd minute talk, Elizabeth gets around to explaining the "Four Types" of guys that girls need to be prepared for.

Type One - by the Botkin Sisters:
"

[00:37:30] "Anna and I are going to quickly give you some practical thoughts on preparing to deal with four different kinds of guy. These thoughts are not Scripture, not canon. It's not ex cathedra. This is just some big sisterly advice based on some things we've learned from our experiences of the last ten years. So, the first type of boy, and probably the one we all deal with the most is the nice boy who just doesn't have very good boundaries or maybe is just not very emotionally self-controlled and tends to be a little too emotionally intense in his relationships.