Spiritual Self-Defense: Fight This Fight

I hate this post with a deep and abiding passion.  The very first paragraph is the only part of the whole damn thing that I find funny (and let me be honest - I often find the Botkin Sisters writings to be unintentionally rip-roaringly funny):

As we all arm ourselves to walk through our still-very-present culture of harassment and exploitation, there are countless things we’ll need to study outside the scope of what this series has touched on: practical issues like how to recognize a predator’s tactics, or how to build our own self-defense strategies and arsenals; legal issues like how and when and to whom to report; spiritual issues regarding things like recovery, true forgiveness, and identity; ecclesiastical issues like what to do when your church won’t help.

Pssst!  I've got a tip, Anna Sofia and Elizabeth!  "I need more time to study" is a plausible argument for why you two didn't understand the legal issues surrounding sexual assault and harassment when you were teenagers.  You could even stretch that argument into the first year or two of your twenties but no later.  See, lots of freshly minted college graduates of age 21-23 enroll in law school and learn  the intricacies of sexual assault and harassment laws in their state.  By the time a person is in their early to mid-thirties, they should be able to explain the laws of sexual assault in their state even if they've never gone to college.

The kicker is that the same argument applies for all of the other "topics beyond our scope" that the Botkin Sisters never bother to follow-up on.   Therapists are great at identifying predatory tactics; they are also fully minted after a Masters or Doctorate degree at a lower age of 26-30.  Spiritual issues are handled by clergy of all stripes who are often fully fledged between 24-30 depending on denomination.  Ecclesiastical issues is a hoot; in my church, that's implying that someone should consult a canonical lawyer - but even those people are as young as 30-35.   In CP/QF land, there's a bias against secular and theological training so pretty much any man who is married and has produced a kid can pronounce his beliefs on the issues around a church.

My very favorite, though, is the refusal to take on a serious discussion of self-defense and which guns to buy.  Believe me, plenty of teenagers have very, very detailed and well-thought out ideas about how to defend themselves in a pinch and what to use. 

Next, the Sisters give a longish rant about why abusers, feminists, Good Christians(TM), and the legal system tell victims not to report abuse.  I've pulled out the sections on feminists and Christians:

On the other side, feminist voices tell us: If you feel that what he did was not consensual, then it was wrong, and if you feel that it would be more empowering to you to resist or report, then go ahead… but it really all comes down to what you personally want right now, and no one should expect you as a woman to have to do something you don’t want to do. This is only worth fighting if you feel like it.

Too many Christian voices tell us: You just need to forgive and turn the other cheek; bringing consequences for sin isn’t loving and isn’t forgiveness; it will really damage the reputation of Christ to have things like this brought to light in the Christian community; you’re a sinner too, so you have no right to point a finger at him. It’s not Christian to fight back.

I think the strawman feminist created by the Botkin Sisters comes from two places.  First, the Botkin Sisters cannot handle the cognitive dissonance that would come from admitting that feminism's push to bring sexual assault, sexual harassment and sexual abuse into the light of day is an exceptionally moral action.  I'm afraid they would die from shock if they agreed right now. 

The second issue is that the Botkin Sisters lack the mental habit of running through all the possible permutations of a situation.   Not all inappropriate sexual behaviors are criminal.  Not all criminal actions are prosecutable.  Not all people can handle one more stressor at a given time.  The Botkin Sisters' impassioned defense of what women are supposed to do reminds me of a quiz I read that discussed the level of Natural Family Planning (NFP) privilege a person enjoyed.  One end of the spectrum was "I can't wait to practice NFP someday when I eventually get married."  The Botkin Sisters sound like that end of privilege "I'd totally report a sexual assault or harassment if I was abused or harassed!".  Good on you - let me know how you feel once you have actually experienced life.    The opposite end of the NFP spectrum was "Even your NFP instructor thinks using NFP is a horrible idea for you!"   And you know what?  That happens with sexual assault or abuse or harassment, too.   What if the abuser is dead?  What if there is no overarching authority available to intervene?  What if you can't identify your assailant? The emphasis that feminism places on doing what feels acceptable to the victim is because often there is no straightforward or simple choice - and feminism focuses on helping the victim heal regardless of if the perpetrator is adequately punished.

I've heard of the "don't damage the reputation of the Church" line of logic for dismissing abuse victims.  The Catholic Church tried it - and that course of action makes everything worse.  The Church is complicit in child abuse and there is no positive way to "spin" that.  The victims are hurt worse while the criminal is protected and allowed to continue attacking people.   The best course of action is whatever protects the innocent and provides consequences to the attacker within the scope of justice.  That line of action creates a church that is reflective of the love of God.

As for the other justifications - you're fucking kidding me, right?  Turning the other cheek occurs within the idea of handling religious persecution - not rape, not molestation, not sexual harassment and not sexual abuse.  The entire Bible - the whole thing - is about how God is one day going to bring a whole lot of hurt down on unrepentant sinners.  That's a whole lot of consequence for sin - so why pretend that sending someone to jail for rape is unchristian?  And let's be honest - I don't believe for a second that the people who want to sweep sexual assault under a rug take the same line when someone breaks into their house, steals their car or sucker-punches them during a dispute.  If these Christians really bought into the belief that 1) consequences are wrong and 2) no sinner can judge anyone else, they would have to be as willing to forgo any interactions with the justice system as the Amish are. (In fairness to the Amish and other non-resistance groups, none of  their beliefs are based in either of these toxic reasonings.)   Since CP/QF groups are all about legal remedies for perceived slights, their sudden expectation of humble piety from sexual assault victims is sick.

Moving on.  The Botkin Sisters manage to mangle retelling Rachel Denhollander's brave action to move forward against Larry Nassar.  The most charitable way I can explain the mauling of  Rachel Denhollander's brave story by the Botkin Sisters is that Anna Sofia and Elizabeth either didn't bother to read the materials they linked in their fourth post or that their reading comprehension is so poor that they are genuinely confused.   If they did competently read Rachel Denhollander's victim impact statement and her op-ed to the NY Times, the Botkin Sisters are guilty of erasing Ms. Denhollander to pursue their own agenda - and that's abusive, too.  To keep myself from throwing my laptop, I'm just going to shoot down the untruths sequentially.

It would be hard to be in a much more vulnerable and powerless position than 15-year-old Rachel during the year that her physician, Larry Nassar, repeatedly sexually abused her on the therapy table, and when people she trusted to help her hushed her instead. But later, as an adult, she was convinced that “a swift and intentional pursuit of God’s justice” was worth attempting again. “I made this choice knowing full well what it was going to cost to get here,” she said, “and with very little hope of ever succeeding. I did it because it was right.” What Rachel did not know is that hundreds of other Nassar victims were waiting, silently, for someone else to go first.

1) No one shushed Rachel Denhollander until she came forward in 2016.  Like many victims of sexual abuse in a medical setting, she thought what he was doing must be wrong on a gut level - but assumed that since he did this a lot and hadn't been stopped she as a 15-year old girl must have been misunderstanding something.   Thankfully, the people she disclosed the abuse to in 2004 were willing to support her when she came forward in 2016.   The tricky bit is that if she had disclosed in 2002 (at age 17) the medical professional she disclosed to would be legally required to report the abuse.  Once she turned 18, medical professionals generally follow the lead of the victim if there is not an open-and-shut case for physical violence.  Rachel Denhollander did nothing wrong by not telling anyone; I only bring that up to explain why there wasn't an report filed by the medical professional she disclosed to.

2) Prior to Nassar's assault of Denhollander in 2000, there had been four separate accusations of sexual misconduct against him by gymnasts or female athletes at MSU.  

3) Allegations of sexual misconduct during therapy sessions continued to be reported to MSU and the US Gymnastics Association between 1998-2016.

Plenty of girls, teenagers and women trying to get someone - anyone - to stop Larry Nassar from raping patients.  For any of the women attacked in Michigan, forced digital penetration is first-degree rape - but MSU and USAG ignored, belittled or patronized the victims and protected Nassar.

My two-cents: Teach your kids about medical consent in an age-appropriate way.  The rough rules of thumb are that kids under the age of 7 need to rely on their parents' decision for medical treatment.  I love my toddler - but he'd be dead if we needed to get assent for medical treatment because he is far too young to understand the importance of medical treatment compared to his dislike of people messing with him.  I do let him express his anger, frustration and rage as loudly as he wants and I acknowledge his feelings when they happen.   Ages 7-13 need to have procedures explained in an age appropriate way and a good faith effort made to secure the kid's assent to the procedure - but parental consent still can override the child, especially at the lower end of the age range. (Like if you are a 12 year old who is refusing to get an MMR...in spite of knowing people who suffered severe disabilities from measles and congenital rubella because you abhor shots.  Thanks, Mom. I love you!)  Age 14 and up has the mental maturity to decide if a treatment is appropriate.   Rachel Denhollander had the legal right to say "Stop" or "I don't want to have this treatment done" when Nassar was assaulting her - but she didn't know that.

Rachel’s courage, conviction, and thoroughly-prepared legal case was enough to break the previously-impenetrable dam;

Why did Ms. Denhollander succeed when so many women and girls had failed before?  It's not because she is a conservative Christian.  It's certainly not because she followed the Botkin Plan for dealing with sexual abuse.  No, Ms. Denhollander succeeded because she is a lawyer.  She attended college and graduated from law school.  Ms. Denhollander knew what materials she could collect to make a strong legal case against Nassar for assaulting her.  Ms. Denhollander walked into the Michigan State Police Department with an entire file of evidence including statements from people who were willing to testify that she disclosed the abuse between 2000-2004, proof of real pelvic floor physical therapy techniques from journals, expert witnesses willing to testify that what Nassar did was NOT therapeutic, and statements from two other women abused by Nassar.   She collected and handed the police department everything they needed to start a criminal case against Nassar - and that lead to contacting MSU and USAG who had multiple "resolved" cases that added new victims to Nassar's crimes. 

Plenty of courageous women, teens and girls had attempted to stop Nassar before; the Botkins' dismissal of those heroes is sick and a sign of the Botkin Sisters' dismissal of unpleasant realities.  Ms. Denhollander brought a brilliant mind, a stellar education, and a mountain of evidence for her case to support the courage and bravery of so many other women.  Those women together took down a monster - and they deserve our recognition of their individual and collective acts of bravery.

Shame on you, Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin.  Shame on you.

Spiritual Self-Defense: Master Your Greatest Enemy - Part Four

We survived the first half of Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin's exposition on how various vices can lead to sexual sin in their blog series "Spiritual Self-Defense".  Personally, I found their logic underwhelming and their childish dismissal of abuse victims disturbing.   Thankfully, there are only four vices left.  Amusingly, the Botkin Sisters invented one vice I've never heard of before - and I'm clueless how that vice is different from another vice they listed.

Fear – the fear of loss, of retribution, of shame, of the unknown; of making a scene, of taking a risk; of rational things, of irrational things. It doesn’t make a difference what it is: Once we fix our fear on something other than God, we are bound and gagged. 

Oh, Anna Sofia and/or Elizabeth - your innocence surrounding fear is sweetly touching.  Believe you me; the world is full of scary, scary situations for people who fear God.   When the very young resident OB told me I had HELLP syndrome, I was absolutely terrified.  Not because my faith faltered; no, I was retroactively fucking terrified that if I hadn't had some random abdominal pains, my husband would have come home from work to find me dead on the couch when I laid down for a nap just before I had a stroke or heart attack.  Or perhaps he would had found me comatose in the time between seizures from eclampsia with a dying or dead baby.  I was well aware that I could bleed to death during the C-section in spite of the best efforts of my amazing care team.  I was even more petrified that my son could die before we got to know him and before he got to live. 

I don't believe God wants us to know fear or pain or suffering or death.  I believe that the people doing God's work that day were the multitude of medical professionals who kept me and my son alive.   I know that my faith helped me survive - if only because praying was something I could do while laying in a hospital bed attached to IVs and deep breathing.   But I was scared - very, very scared - and I don't believe that fear is a sign of a lack of faith.

We’ll need to practice keeping these truths at the forefront of our minds when we’re around other people, and we’ll need to practice speaking up and taking a stand for these truths when it’s scary and makes us unpopular. The more we do this, the more the focus of our fear will be shifted from people to God, and we’ll develop a reputation for being the kind of girl that would get an abuser in deep trouble.

Mmm-k.  This is sadly ironic coming from two women who have been told repeatedly since childhood or infancy that women are incapable of detecting deceit or malice in a potential suitor.  According to the Botkin Family line, Anna Sofia and Elizabeth have been completely sheltered from any bad influences their entire lives.  Who knows if that is true - but I hope for their sake it isn't.  As women in their thirties, Anna Sofia and Elizabeth should be experienced at comparing the actions of people with their words and alleged values.    Anna Sofia and Elizabeth were among the monied royalty of Vision Forum.  That's all good fun - but what does it say about the values of Vision Forum that there was a clear separation between the families with money and the far more common families that struggled to make ends meet?  The Sisters have never spoken out in any way shape or form about economic inequality in CP/QF.  My guess is that the Sisters have never thought about economic fairness at all - but they really should.  After all, that would give them plenty of practice taking a stand for a basic Christian belief that will evoke strong feelings from other monied former Vision Forum folks.  That would probably be quite scary for Anna Sofia or Elizabeth - but they are old hats at this, right?

Selfish ambition – wanting the perks (you name it – favorite-status, admiration, promotion, money, fame, popularity) that would come with being on this person’s good side. There is a kind of covetousness and ambition that women are very prone to when it comes to men, especially when it involves competing with other women.

*blinks*

I've never met a woman who had consensual sex with a guy for the sole purpose of competing with other women.  Like....never. 

I've never met a woman who abused or raped a man for the sole purpose of competing with other women.  Never ever.

And honestly, I've never seen women get particularly competitive with each other around dating.  I think this is because for women outside of CP/QF lifestyles, we have many other options for satisfying our competitive spirit.  There's a plethora of competitive sports for adult women.  Women can compete for employment or academic accomplishment.  The entire blot on Western society known as "Mommy Wars" comes from women (and men) treating child-rearing as a form of competition.  Dating as competition feels rather dull compared to joining a softball team, earning an advanced degree or landing a great job.

That's why I completely believe that Anna Sofia and Elizabeth's target audience IS tempted to look at romantic relationships as a competition.  They've got damned few legitimate avenues to compete with other women so courting a highly attractive suitor may well be counted as a win.

The suggested solutions for being ambitious are off-the-wall....as well as in sentence fragments.

For instance, to start thinking of the other girls as being more important than we are (which would even include seeing their relational lives or marital prospects as more important than ours). To stop seeing ourselves as the main character in the story, and all the other girls as supporting characters (or villains). To consider the souls of the young men around us (including their focus and their purity) more important than the ego boost we could get from them.

Yup.  Imagine living a life where a young woman is more involved in the marital prospects of church acquaintances because she knows she's not the main character in her own life and doesn't want to erode the focus of a young man by showing her interest in him.    That sounds like the beginning of a CP/QF version of "Single White Female" rather than a solid life choice.

Ladies, you are allowed to be the main character in your own life.  Full stop.  Other people do not need you to elevate them to the main character position of your life because they are the main characters in their life.  It's a win-win-win-win for all people to take center stage in their own lives.  If you don't, you risk becoming a passive-aggressive martyr who expects to control other people's lives as repayment for never living their own life.  Hint: passive-aggressive martyr is not an attractive character to play.

The next vice is the mostly made-up idea of "instability of soul".  Every time I read that section, I have a mental image of Geordi LaForge discussing how the Enterprise's engine is becoming unstable - and then an explosion of soul-goo.....

Instability of soul – 2 Pet. 2:14 says that men who have “eyes full of adultery” “entice unstable souls.” The word “unstable” means “unfixed,” “vacillating,” “unsteady.” An unstable girl is one who is not solidly, unshakeably rooted in what God says – she can be drawn or persuaded or manipulated by some other voice telling her “I’m only doing this because I love you so much…” “Did God say it’s a sin to do X? Don’t be such a legalist!” “It’s actually your fault I did Y, because you tempted me…” “If you tell anyone, my life will be ruined, and you’ll have to live with that!”

Man, that whole "CP/QF homeschoolers are smarter than the brainwashed masses"  idea keeps taking a beating every time Anna Sofia or Elizabeth defines a word that native English speakers over the age of 12 should already know. 

Apparently "instability of soul" is also a synonym for "not bright" or "very gullible".  The first three arguments given by "other voices" are easily proven false.

•  "You love me?  Then stop doing _____ because I don't like it."  Problem solved.
• "Don't insult me for holding a boundary with you.  I expect an apology."  Problem solved.
• "Bullshit. You made a choice;  you need to own your actions." Problem solved.

The fourth one is a little more complicated - but only because people often feel guilty when doing a morally right action sets morally right consequences in action against someone they love.  Here are some options to try mentally:

• "If it was ok for you to do ______, it's ok for me to tell people about it."
• If _______ couldn't deal with the consequences of their action being known publicly, they shouldn't have done it in the first place.
• "I can live with that.  I won't let ______'s dislike of consequences dictate my actions"
• "Why do I have to keep a secret to protect _____ from the consequences of their actions?  That's unfair."

To be clear, you may not feel safe saying these things to the other person.  You don't have to; you do not need their permission or blessing to discuss actions that have affected your life.  

Spiritual laxness – when we identify as the Lord’s servants, and yet are not actively seeking out our Master’s will and striving to understand what He wants us to do.

By this definition, everyone is spiritually lax multiple times a day.  I don't have the skill set to seek out God's will while mowing my lawn or shopping for groceries.   I figure God wants me to exercise to keep my body healthy - but does God prefer when I go for a walk, mow the lawn, do water aerobics or swim laps?   What is the correct ratio of "play with the toddler" compared to "complete household chores"?  Before anyone quotes the story of Mary and Martha, remember that there was not a toddler in that story covering his glasses in barbeque sauce while crawling after an unguarded electrical cord.... 😜

But too often, we have adopted a brand of personal faith that expects God (and other people) to do all the work of seeking, buffeting, and striving for us. We may call this “letting go and letting God” – God calls this being wicked and lazy servants.

What is the last example of the Botkin Sisters dealing with any buffeting?  When have either of them strove for anything?  In their free podcasts, the Sisters claim that the second-generation of CP/QF homeschoolers have entire areas of theology to reconquer; remember their argument that they would personally need to look at every example of femininity ever to come up with an comprehensive new Christian form of femininity?  That's time consuming for sure - but they've dropped off producing anything new.  So....how does that fit in striving to change the world?

Good news: We've finished this post.  Bad news: there's still one post left.

Spiritual Self-Defense: Master Your Biggest Enemy - Part Two

The second section in "Master Your Biggest Enemy" by Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin attempts to finally work out the spiritual aspects of Bryan and Emily's story.  Since this series is long and convoluted, I've pulled out the entirety of the original story in case we've forgotten any pertinent details:

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.

Re-reading this synopsis, I'm reminded of the problems with attempting to write a scenario about a situation that you've never experienced.  Or perhaps the problem is a lack of deciding what actually happened between Bryan and Emily.  For people in the non-CP/QF world, the confusing bit is that the idea of consent between adults is totally absent.  I've read that story a billion times and I'm still unsure if what happened between the two of them qualified as rape/criminal sexual conduct or just miserable consensual sex. 

Let's look at the details more closely.  The first five sentences are a mess.  For example, the verb "push" is used twice in five sentences - but obscures the actions performed by Bryan.   Was Bryan threatening Emily physically?  Was Bryan threatening to harm Emily in a serious way in the future if she did not comply?  If he was, he's guilty of rape or criminal sexual assault by force or coercion even if Emily consented later on.  Was Bryan asking Emily to perform a sexual act repeatedly without threats of a serious nature?  Was Bryan threatening to break up with Emily if they didn't have sex? That's legal - although  red-flag towards Bryan's suitability as a boyfriend. What's the difference between "is pushing" and "pushes harder"?  Did Bryan start in an area that is legal and move into illegal territory?

The total lack of a timeline in the paragraph is another issue.  If the paragraph happens in a single, date night  between Bryan and Emily, that's deeply concerning.  On the other hand, this could be a sloppy synopsis of days or weeks or months of Bryan wanting to do more physical interaction while Emily doesn't want to do more - which Bryan accepts for days or weeks or months.

Emily's response to everything is another hot mess.  Emily says no.  According to later portions of posts, Emily says no over and over.  Meanwhile, Bryan keeps asking until Emily eventually changes her mind and says "yes" - albeit reluctantly.  I'm not a fan of reluctant consent - and I don't think the Botkin Sisters are doing anyone any favors by writing up a female example who says "yes" then tells Bryan she was forced afterwards.   Yes, Bryan should have picked up on the fact that Emily didn't seem that into whatever they were doing since they were dating - but unless Emily did or said something that clearly delineated that she revoked her consent - Emily's on very shaky ground for arguing that Bryan forced her. 

Truthfully, I'm not entirely sure what's going on with Emily emotionally.  At some point she made a choice to do something sexually with Bryan.  What is missing is how Emily reached a point where she made a choice and then freaked out about the choice she made afterwards.  Emily seems oblivious to the fact that "bad sex" - a consensual encounter that one or both parties regrets afterwards - is not the same as rape or criminal sexual conduct.  From my read, the story is closer to "bad sex" than rape - but it's still a mess. Emily's reaction to blame Bryan for her choice is not a healthy or fun way to live when you don't have the skills to make choices and manage feelings that come after the choice.

Finally, Bryan is an ass based on his reaction to Emily's emotion.  I'm cutting him some major slack because his girlfriend is accusing him of rape - but the whole victim-blaming spiel is deeply disturbing and is a sign that Emily should run away from her relationship with him. 

The saddest bit is that the Botkin Sisters act as if all romantic relationships are adversarial when it comes to sexuality.  In reality, most relationships manage sexual issues just fine.  Partners understand that everyone has different likes, dislikes and boundaries.  If the two people are too discordant, the general outcome is that they break up - not that one person decides to bend their boundaries markedly and then regrets it.

After that long digression, we can move into these added reflections by the Botkin Sisters:

Emily truly did want to do the right thing in her relationship with Bryan. She genuinely believed that the things Bryan continually pressured her to do were wrong, and she really did mean “no” every time she said it. But in each encounter, her resolve crumbled under the pressure of his arguments and pleadings, the fear of hurting or angering him… and honestly, sometimes, the overwhelmingly strong desire for what he offered her. Emily’s no floozy, but her natural desires are simply a lot stronger than her spiritual ones. Does this feel familiar?

Honestly, no, this does not feel familiar to me at all.  I make decisions about what I want to do sexually based on what I want to do sexually.   For me, it's based on if I feel that doing something more sexually fits the relationship based on where the relationship is at on emotional and commitment levels plus what I feel comfortable doing as a person.   My partner's wishes, wants and desires matter exactly as far as letting me know if they are comfortable with doing something.  Outside of that, I expect my partner to be an adult and treat me as one as well.  IOW, if a person starts arguing or pleading with me about a sex act I don't want to do, I am leaving that relationship pronto.

Again, the Botkin Sisters miss a chance to talk about the different degrees of "fear of hurting or angering him".  Bryan is guilty of rape if Emily has a rational reason to think that Bryan is going to cause her physical pain, injury or harm to herself, love ones or personal property if she refuses sex with him.   If Emily's fears are the more germane type where she doesn't want to hurt Bryan's feelings or is afraid that Bryan will be angry enough that he will break up with her, Emily's consent still stands legally.  After all, Bryan didn't sign off all autonomy when he started dating Emily.  He has a right to have feelings and to act on those feelings as long as he doesn't break any laws.

The last problematic issue is that the Botkin Sisters ignore the fact that Emily may have given honest consent - in spite of the nagging ghosts of her fundamentalist upbringing saying she was a floozy - and struggled with her feelings afterwards.   Those ghosts might have hit Emily with a wave of guilt, anxiety and self-loathing after the fact.  Emily deserved help dealing with those feelings preferably from a trained professional.  Instead, she blamed Bryan - which isn't terribly helpful.

So that paragraph tipped the story towards "consensual sex with later regret" - and yet the very next paragraph labels Bryan as a predator...and Emily as a weakling:

We can’t say often enough that Bryan and Bryan alone bears the blame for what Bryan did. Emily’s weaknesses didn’t force Bryan to sin against her, and also didn’t mean that she deserved it. But they did betray her into the hands of a predator when it was fully in her power to escape.

How does a weak woman become strong? Does Emily have any hope of becoming the fearless champion of right that she aches to be… a woman who could actually stand by her words, who could actually walk away from her encounters with Bryan without regrets, who could dare to ask trusted friends for help without fear of Bryan’s fury…? What do you do when you know you don’t have the strength you need?

The first paragraph crystalizes the major flaw with the CP/QF views on morality in sexual encounters.  According to CP/QF logic, procreative sex between married heterosexual adults is licit; everything else is illicit.    Because of that fuzzy logic, the dueling scenarios of rape vs. sex with later regret have the exact same level of moral blame for Bryan.  In CP/QF land, Bryan is always wrong for having sex with Emily premaritally; Emily, on the other hand, is not morally culpable if she was raped.   The scary side-effect of CP/QF morality is that the ONLY way Emily is not culpable is if she was raped.  The Botkin Sisters throw the word "floozy" around quite easily; I'm sure they've got other more descriptive and crude ones available once they've learned that Emily and Bryan had consensual sex. 

The vast majority of Christian churches take a more....well, nuanced....view of human sexuality.  My Catholic schooling was pretty clear on the fact that people should wait for sex until they were married - but an awful lot of my classmates were born well under 40 weeks after their parents married.   As we got older, it became pretty clear that real adults - people who were financially independent of their parents - who were in committed relationships could do more sexually than was viewed as being OK for teenagers because adults can make adult decisions.  Equally importantly, gossiping about adults' sexual matters was more morally abhorrent than having sex.  After all, sex is an expression of love between two adults; gossip is a form of hate.  We also had a church-sanctioned method of repairing our relationship with God if we had premarital sex and felt bad known as the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  The simple existence of that Sacrament tends to mess up the gossip chain anyway because gossiping about someone else's forgiven sin is really, really crass (and probably a sin as well, now that I think about it) and you never know if they've repented or not.

What do you do when you don't know if you have the strength? Guess what?  No one ever feels strong in the middle of a crisis!  Adults simply do what needs to be done. Yeah, having a tough conversation with a boyfriend about ending the relationship because you have different sexual needs or wants is hard.  Applying for jobs and not getting a job over and over is hard.  So is supporting a spouse through a medical crisis.  So is sitting by an incubator with a tiny infant who will die without advanced life support - and the only thing to do is wait for him to grow.  Caring for a person with complicated medical needs is hard.  Saying goodbye when loved ones die is hard, too.  Here's the upside to all of those hard things - doing hard things is the only way to gain wisdom.  I've known people who have chosen to run away from hard situations in life.  That makes me angry at times - but I also have a great deal of pity for those people since they are choosing to live as children instead of adults.

If we’re using music, movies, or novels, to sow to inappropriate fantasies, misplaced longings, or emotional roller-coasters, we must not expect to reap purity, clear-mindedness, emotional self-control, and a strong grip on reality. If we’re sowing to moral confusion by sympathizing with people in those movies, music, or novels doing things we know are wrong, we must not expect to reap moral clarity and resolve in the times when we need it most. If we’re sowing to an affection for the wrong things in men, we must not expect to be more drawn to godliness and holiness than good looks, rakish charm, and edgy humor. And if we’re sowing thoughts and actions from our natural desire for men to notice us, like us, want us… we must not expect to respond really selflessly, righteously, and uncompromisingly when one does. Because God’s laws of sowing and reaping don’t work that way.

*rolls eyes*

That's the most absurd thing I ever heard. 

I grew up hearing about how people defrauded Meijers on a regular basis from my mom who worked in Loss Prevention.  In other words, we had all the information we needed to be super-thieves - and yet I've never stolen anything. 

My favorite Star Trek: Deep Space Nine character was Kai Winn who managed to set up a contract killing before killing a servant for trying to stop her evil plan - and yet I started crying in my yard yesterday when I thought I had hit a rabbit's nest.  (The baby bunny survived unharmed; I rebuilt the cover of the nest as best I could because otherwise the little kit kept trying to hide in the middle of our driveway.)

I've been listening to Shakespeare's plays being rehearsed and performed since I was a toddler.  I was awash in a sea of alcohol, drugs, illicit sex and violence - and yet my life has been so vanilla that I describe my alcohol usage in drinks per year, have dabbled in no illegal drugs, and have only ever fought my twin sister.

My favorite two binge-watching shows are "White Collar" and "Arrested Development" - but I have no interest in becoming a white-collar criminal or joining a passive-aggressive dysfunctional family for that matter.

So, no, I don't think any part of Emily's issues with Bryan come from her love of Christian romance novels or the fact that she listens to contemporary Christian music.

Finally, beware quashing all of desire to have someone be attracted to you sexually...to want to have you as a life partner...to travel through life's good and bad times together if you want to be married to someone who likes you and is sexually attracted to you.   Yeah, it's a terrible idea to get so fixated on marriage that you marry the first guy who seems attracted to you - but it's an equally bad idea to send out the vibe of "I'm not into you romantically" if you want a romance.

Think about it.  If I walked around all the time looking mostly unexcited about teaching, why would anyone offer me a teacher's job?  How is marriage different?

Spiritual Self-Defense: Know What God Requires - Part Three

This series of posts by Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin is disturbing on a few levels. 

• The divine plan they lay out works if a boundary-violation is serious, happens over an intermediate period of time and the attacker does not become violent when confronted.  For all other situations - and thankfully most situations are minor or fleeting - the response becomes overkill...or potentially dangerous.   

• The sisters have taken a large step away from direct victim-blaming (yay!), but instead blame women for any actions they have taken that deviate from the Divine Botkin Response laid out in the series.  

• Their theological skills are underwhelming at best.  

• They've been so steeped in patriarchy that they cannot orient themselves to the idea that women (or children) have rights separate from what is licit for a man to do to another person.

The first three quotes are from the section elucidating how women fail to "Confront Sin at the First Stage".

The failure to confront men’s over-steppings at the beginning is often the first inch that we give. Perhaps we are flattered by a man’s attentions and allow them… or perhaps in discomfort or fear we deflect them in a way that sounds as little like “no” as possible – we turn it into a joke, we laugh, we change the subject, we try to ease out of the situation in a way that won’t make things uncomfortable.

Psst.  Anna Sofia, Elizabeth - let me let you in on a secret.  The vast majority of boundary
violations - especially those that occur within CP/QF lives - can be handled by communication leavened with humor.   There is no overarching uniformly agreed set of standards for platonic relationships between single men and women or courting couples so frequently one party will transgress the other party's deeply held boundaries.   This is not the time to lecturing the other party on their morality.   A simple "I don't ......" followed by a smile or laugh is a normal way of handling this issue.

On the flip side, there's a difference between fear of breaking social norms and fear of violence.  If the main reason a woman is telling someone to stop doing something is that she doesn't want to hurt their feelings, seem rude, interrupt them, or accidently teach a man, that's a great time to try acting a bit more assertive and seeing that the world doesn't end. 

 If the reason you are afraid is that you fear that the other person will move from a non-violent offender to an attacker, deflection and de-escalation are morally acceptable.  Remember the story of Abigail, Nabal and David that the Botkin Sisters love so much?  Abigail never reproved David for breaking about 10 Biblical laws when he wanted Nabal to throw David a huge party instead of caring for his workers.  No, Abigail realized that David was an extremely unstable and violent man so she offered him everything he wanted and flattered him to protect her household.

Sometimes the problem is that we don’t realize what a man did was even wrong. Perhaps we haven’t been taught anything about boundaries. Or, something very gratifying to our flesh, such as flattery, may not bother us, if we don’t know what God says about it (Prov. 26:28, Prov. 29:5). A physical overstepping-of-bounds from someone we’re attracted to may not repulse us in the same way as the advances of an old lecher, if we’re not steeped in God’s teaching on fornication, adultery, and “youthful lusts.” And romantic or sexual pressure being presented as “godly” from someone we look up to may not register as “lust” or “extortion” unless we have developed a healthy hate for those things which God also hates.  

Ok.  This paragraph is a mish-mash of  confused ideas even under the CP/QF understanding of licit sexual activities.  Remember in Anna Sofia/Elizabeth's world, licit sexuality is anything that happens that is approved by their father during courtship or by their husband after marriage.   "Flattery" isn't a sin - even with the strange mandates of CP/QF theology.  Under the mainstream understanding of consent as the method of determining whether a sexual activity is licit, the paragraph is a hot mess. The two illicit examples of being hit on by an old man who you have not shown interest in and the blanket idea of  'sexual pressure' are surrounded by legitimate sexual activities in which both parties consent.

Since this series is about helping young women navigate the world, how does using really vague terms like "romantic pressure" or "sexual pressure" help anyone?  There's a world of difference between a couple in which one party wants to move a bit faster sexually but respects their partner's desire to wait and a relationship where one party is being actively pressured repeatedly with threats to overcome their lack of consent.  Labeling both as equally sinful and stating that the only acceptable response is to say "You are sinning!" make women less likely to speak up when a boundary is crossed rather than empowering young women.

And don’t think you have to figure it out alone – where the rubber of specific situations meets the road of general biblical principles, most of us will still have a lot of questions, and we should not hesitate to ask a parent or trusted counselor, “Is it OK for a guy to…” or “How do you think I should handle…”

Anna Sofia/Elizabeth and their parental censors didn't blink an eye at including a model sentence that states "Is it OK for a guy to..." instead of "What boundaries should I have in regards to sexuality?"

No.  No.  No.

I'd be freaked out if a daughter of mine (or a female student) wanted a list of activities that were ok for men to do to her regardless of her feelings.  I'd be equally freaked out if my son asked me that question - but I doubt sons in CP/QF families frame sexuality in terms of what women are allowed to do to them; that shakes the foundation of the sexual double-standard in play.

Anna Sofia and Elizabeth disconcertingly switch between encouraging young women to stand-up to abusive authority figures and reinforcing that young women need to rely on authority figures to tell them what activities are legitimate.  Oh, the sisters attempt to separate the two groups by pretending that the Bible gives bright, clear guidelines on sexual activities that girls can understand - but that's completely untrue.  The Bible discusses the licitness of marital sexuality for heterosexual couples, the illicitness of same-sex intercourse, sex with temple prostitutes, besiality, and using withdrawal methods to deprive a woman of a child who would support her in her old age.  It has confusing rules involving unmarried women living in another man's home similar to the molestation accusations surrounding Doug Phillips - and states that polygamy a legitimate solution to that situation.  There's plenty of bad advice in the Bible surrounding human sexuality - and plenty of verses that can be used to make a man's behavior legitimate as long as a woman has been taught that the only thing she needs for consent to be licit is the approval of the Bible and a male authority figure.

That's the situation that makes asking a parent or authority figure for advice dangerous; abusive parents flock to abusive pastors who attract abusive or enabling congregants.  The lucky girls are the ones who have access to someone who cares about the girl's rights, desires and needs; the unlucky girls are surrounded by toxic people.

The next paragraph ends the section on "Stop Giving Opportunity" to the abuser:

Sometimes making distance between ourselves and an abuser takes physically fighting a man off. Sometimes it takes firepower. And sometimes it simply takes the moral strength to end a relationship with someone we love. But we need to take seriously the opportunity to stop men from sinning against us and God – for their good as well as ours.

Um...kay. 

Just for clarity, the law doesn't allow life-threatening force in the absence of direct threat to life, health or property.  Don't pull a gun on a single guy at a store who says that you are an attractive young woman and he'd like to go on a date.  (I'm being tongue-in-cheek - but the Botkin Sisters are seemingly incapable of sussing out different levels of response to sin.)

Here are the tricky bits.

The response of fleeing when threatened means that women lose control to most resources in the world.  Let's say I am taking a college class and I find a classmate's attempts to ask me out bothersome after telling him to stop.  Avoiding the classmate means I lose access to the lectures, labs, practice rooms, public speakers and study groups while the person who is behaving badly keeps control of all of them.   The Botkin Sisters routinely sneer at Weinstein victims who had the audacity to remain in his productions after being sexually harassed or assaulted - but not everyone has the luxury of living an upper-middle class lifestyle in their thirties paid for by their parents. If the women left, they were destroying their careers in a very difficult and competitive field.   Women have to make choices on how strongly they defend their bodies based on the economic conditions the women face in the worst-case scenarios of how the situation plays out.  That's not fair and it's certainly not right that abusers exploit that reality - but the Botkin Sisters denial of said reality is even less helpful.

All of the examples the Botkin Sisters imagine leave out the fact that abuse can be intermittent - so much so that the standard cycle of abuse includes a recurrent honeymoon period where the victim's boundaries are respected at least a little bit.    This ebb-and-flow cycle messes with the victim's view of the situation because the person who is harming them stops harming them for a finite period of time.  The victim becomes re-invested in the relationship because they hope that the abuser has finally changed this time.   It changes the victim's narrative from "This situation right now is wrong and harmful to me" to "That situation was harmful, but it is over now."

Recognizing this common cycle is important to understand how horrifying toxic the rest of this post is.  The rest of the post includes casual cruelty towards women (and in the Botkin world, all victims are women) who respond to abuse in any way that is different from the Divine Botkin Response.   The first example derides women who didn't scream during a date-rape situation:

However, many women also refrain from screaming during date-rape situations because they simply think that would seem ridiculous and over-the-top… and then press charges afterward because they do believe what happened was a crime. The desire to not want to make a scene is common, but if we believe rape is a crime, we must treat it as such at every stage, and be preparing ourselves to respond as aggressively and decisively as if we saw another woman being assaulted or raped.

The Botkin sisters swear left and right that being raped is not the fault of the victim (which is good), but they haven't thought through what that means.   In this situation, they've just blamed the rape victim for not screaming for help because the women are afraid of breaking societal norms.  The hypocrisy of the Botkin Sisters blows my mind since they've shamed women for breaking norms only held by the Botkin Family in "It's (Not) That Complicated" as well as teaching young women to submit mindlessly to males!  Any CP/QF woman who tries to stop an attacker risks being pilloried for being "unpure" or "tempting men" or being "outside of authority".  Added to the completely human reaction of shock, disbelief and confusion that comes from a boundary violation, it's amazing that any CP/QF woman has ever managed to defend herself from an attacker let alone report it after the fact.

This also ignores a real fact in self-defense: sometimes capitulation to one crime prevents severe body harm or murder.   Compare this to another crime that involves boundary violation - a mugging.  Do self-defense coaches tell men that they are morally required to scream for help and physically fight back against someone who wants their wallet?  Hell, no!  You hand the robber your wallet; better to lose money than be physically harmed in any way shape or form.  Does handing your wallet over under the threat of harm make the male victim more culpable in some way?  Hell, no!    Date-rape is no different.  Women assume that the man they are dating or courting won't rape them; that's the expectation of society.  If a woman is attacked by her partner, she's already realizing that there was a different side to him that she hadn't seen before - so how is she supposed to assess what will happen if she screams or resists him?

The bit about defending self as strongly as an outside victim is a red-herring.  The presence of a new bystander changes the likelihood of bad things happening to the attacker since there are now two witnesses to the attack.  Likewise, assuming there is only one attacker, a bystander who intervenes changes the balance of power to the side of the victim since there is now two people to fight off the attacker.  The simple existence of a neutral bystander increases the likelihood the attacker will flee - so comparing the morality of defense of another person to the morality of self-defense when alone is asinine.

The next bit is horrible for its blase condemnation of young victims of abuse with an anemic explanation that God doesn't hate people who are ignorant as much as he hates people who abuse authority.

What if we didn’t realize that something forced on us was wrong until years later? What if trauma blocked an old memory from our minds until recently? What if we long ago suffered a crime we knew was wrong, but had been taught that it was truly more biblical and loving to tell no one? Does God hold us guilty for staying silent in ignorance? And have we missed our window for crying out if we didn’t do it immediately?

Many of us were truly ignorant of God’s requirements at the time of an incident, and while that doesn’t change how God designed His system of justice to work, or the steps He requires of us, it does affect how He views our failure to take those steps.

Idiots.  I'm so sick of their half-assed attempts at Biblical interpretation; it's like they have an abridged set of Bible verses but have never read the actual books....

The Bible is very clear that women are responsible for obeying the Law starting at age 12 and men at age 13.  This is stated clearly and repeatedly in the book of Deuteronomy that the Botkin Sisters adore as the arbiter of sexual activity - so why do they ignore that here?  Holding children to a standard that is higher than the Bibical one is cruel - and an example of the extra-Biblical nonsense that the Botkin Family claims to abhor.   To be clear - the Bible does not blame children under the age of adulthood for failure to obey rules including anything involving sexuality.

Taking a step into reality - the idea that children or people who cannot consent are to blame for sexual assault or abuse is abhorrent and has been as long as I've been alive.   People who have been abused don't need the wishy-washy assurance that God doesn't hate them in spite of their failure to follow the Botkin Response magical steps; God made it clear in Matthew 18:6  that it is better for an abuser to drown themselves than to harm a child's innocent faith in God (and humanity by association).

The last section is about how important it is for victims to report what happened to them to some authority figure.  The Botkin Sisters begin this section with a detailed examination of how following this step will ruin the victim's life:

Going to the authorities, whether employers, parents, church officers, or the police, is often the last thing that a woman wants to do after suffering something traumatizing, humiliating, or painful. And on top of the horror of re-living the incident all over again, is the likelihood that she won’t even be listened to or believed. One of the saddest realities of our times is how often truth-tellers are met with the accusation that they are exaggerating or lying, which can lead to yet another volley of abuse against them. The cost of telling can be very high, and we can’t imagine anything giving a woman the strength to do it except the knowledge that God is the final judge, Who will execute justice on authorities for their oppression of the innocent.

*raises one eyebrow*

I don't agree with encouraging false hope - but holy shit, there's no need to tell victims that no one ever will believe them. Victims deserve to know that the first people they decide to tell will support them - and there are services available to help them.  In my geographic area, the YWCA run a 24/7/365 crisis helpline with access to trained nurses who will listen to victims and help them decide what the next step the victims want to take.  Other areas have that as well and RAINN can help connect people if they call 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).  If nothing else, the person on the other end of the phone at RAINN will believe you - and listen to the story you need to tell.

I'm a parent and I've been a teacher.  The kindest and most important thing an authority figure can do when someone discloses abuse is to listen and believe their story.  Yes, there are different rules that come into play when the legal system is involved or when a person is to be disciplined for a crime - but even if the person who discloses the abuse cannot meet that level of evidence, they still deserve to be listened to compassionately and to be protected from the abuser to the best of the person's ability.  Too often authority figures do nothing to protect the victim if the abuser cannot be found guilty in a court of law - but the bar to help a victim by finding new housing, providing therapy, adjusting a schedule or providing physical separation from the accuser should be much, much lower than the bar to send a person to jail.

Don't be a Botkin; don't pick apart what the victim did  "right" or "wrong".  It's none of your damn business and rankly unchristian to boot.

Lastly, the Botkins decide to let us know that you can report people to authorities in a way that the Botkins will look down on you:

When we take the principles and goals of real justice to heart, it makes a big difference in how we choose to break our silence. Will we seek attention and self-aggrandizement? Will we pursue a path of personal vengeance, simply trying to inflict pain and humiliation on the one who hurt us? Will we wait for dozens of other victims to come forward first? Or will we swiftly go to those who can actually bring the offender to account in pursuit of real justice?

So....damned if you do and damned if you don't.  Nice.

If you make a fuss, you are seeking attention selfishly.  If you don't make a fuss, you are failing other victims.  If the attacker feels bad, you did it wrong.   If you emulate "Kill Bill", you did it wrong, too, because everyone knows that katana attacks are only allowed to prevent a rape.   (Personally, after reading this, I'm a whole lot more partial to a knife-wielding protagonist; may as well get the satisfaction of blood vengeance if you're going to be pilloried for doing everything wrong.)

Don't be a Botkin; be a human being.  The world thanks you for it.

Spiritual Self-Defense - Know What God Requires - Commentary One

I graduated from a small Catholic college that required all undergraduate students to take a single "theology" class during their attendance at the college.  I placed theology in quotes because the college was about respecting students' beliefs so there were a wide range of options from traditional theology classes to philosophy classes to comparative religion classes and even work-study classes that did volunteering in communities. 

I appreciated the plethora of options, but I was a Biology major with a Chemistry minor who was earning a Secondary Education teaching certificate which is essentially a second major while working part-time off-campus.   In other words, I wanted the simplest course I could take so I signed up for "Intro to Christian Spirituality"  and figured 12 years of Catholic schooling would carry me through the course without too much extra work.  I was right - but I did manage to learn some new things along the way. 

One day, the professor introduced the topic of theodicy which is a fancy term for theologians who attempt to explain why God allows evil to happen - or a related topic of why God allows bad things to happen to good people.  Bluntly, this is a loaded topic for anyone who has lost a family member so I was pretty checked out - but I'll never forget the professor's words of warning at the start.

He started by saying that theodicy is a great topic for academic arguments between theologians - but never, ever bring up any of those arguments in the real world when doing pastoral care...or just being a human. 

I wish the Botkin Sisters applied that piece of wisdom to the blog post I'm reviewing tonight. 

I am not a theologian - and no amount of training could convert me into one; my brain doesn't work like that.  With that caveat, I think that Anna Sofia and/or Elizabeth Botkin could get away with an academic, deeply researched treatise about ideal responses to sexual aggression in the Bible.  They'd need to bone up on how to support ideas from the Bible and need to show some basic understanding of the literary forms in the Bible, but the real benefit of academic research is that nearly any topic can be delved into without doing harm to other people.  Read the Bible, play "Concordance Chance", learn some ancient Hebrew, reference a few commentaries, figure out which formatting the journal wants and poof!  The Botkin Sisters can act out their fascination with the actions of women facing sexual aggression in the Bible without doing harm to any of their readers.

The second paragraph in this post shows a major flaw in their argument that the Bible has a neatly defined plan of response for women facing attackers:

As we explained in Part 1, 100% of the guilt of the abuser’s crime rests on the abuser, no matter what the victim does or doesn’t do. There is nothing a victim can do to “deserve” abuse, and if she fails to stop a crime being committed against her, it’s never “her fault.” However, while God promises that the sin of our abusers will not go unpunished (Num. 32:23, Isa. 13:11, Prov. 11:21), He has also given us specific instructions for becoming a type of woman and developing a type of strength that can make us devastating to this kind of man. But that first requires knowing how to draw the lines.

Notice that the Bible states unambiguously multiple times that sins will be punished.  The verses in Numbers, Isaiah and Proverbs - along with lots of other ones - make it clear that people may get away with sin on Earth, but God will punish sin eventually.   That's super clear - so where are the clear, clear verses that sum up God's "specific instructions" to women? 

Interesting fact: those verses don't exist.  The Bible has plenty of cases of sexual harassment and assault in it - and there's no single way that people responded.

I'm glad the Botkin Sisters have moved away from direct victim-blaming (yay!).  Notice, though, that there is still an indirect condemnation of women who don't follow the allegedly Biblical way of resisting sexual harassment and assault.  A woman versed in the Botkin Method is "devastating" to abusers.  First, what the hell does that mean?  I've worked hard over the years to be able to be intimidating as hell when I need to be - but I've never managed to devastate someone due to inappropriate behavior.  Second, women who haven't followed the Botkin Method have managed to devastate  some pretty big names in CP/QF land.  Bill Gothard and Doug Phillips both managed to lose their entire ministry thanks to women who discarded all of the Botkin Method steps - and, man, those women managed to prevent them from hurting others while also taking all of the trappings of power and fame from them.  Lastly, what does it mean for women who come away from a sexual abuse situation and feel devastated themselves?  The world has some seriously messed up people who hurt others while being strangely resistant to punishment themselves. 

Branding a family-level defense strategy as Godly is dodgy enough; don't worsen the insult by promising that the attacker will feel bad - or lose everything they value - if women follow three easy steps....

The next paragraph shows how unprepared CP/QF young women are to think.  (I was going to say "think independently" - but a few of these statements make me wonder if the girls are supposed to get rid of their brains at puberty,)

After all, are we sure what this man did was wrong? What if he’s a mature Christian who has studied his Bible and is assuring us that this is OK? What if he was in a position of authority over us – doesn’t God say we’re supposed to submit to authority? And besides, what are we going to do? Slap him? Call the police? Would telling someone else be gossip? If this gets out, how will it reflect on the church? Is that really what Jesus would do?

I discussed this idea in the last post - but people can stop actions for reasons other than morality.  My given name is Melinda.  A common nickname for Melinda is Mindy - and I shut anyone down who calls me Mindy.   There's nothing immoral about a Melinda being called Mindy - and many, many other Melindas like being called Mindy.  But this Melinda abhors being called Mindy and I have every right to expect that people call me Melinda or Mel. 

Here's another example: I am not a hugger.  I hug close family members.  I hug some friends if I haven't seen them in a long time.  I will hug people who are struggling with grief if they want a hug.  Rarely, someone who is not in one of those three categories hugs me before I have a chance to stiff-arm them.   There's nothing morally wrong with hugging someone and there's nothing wrong with me stating my categorical preference to not be hugged by people I don't want to be hugged by.

A far more important question is "Am I comfortable with what happened between me and so-and-so?"   I get it; CP/QF girls have been socialized to ignore every thought, feeling, drive, talent, ambition, whim, wish or desire that starts within them if it doesn't conform to what their father or husband wants.  I get that - but gut feelings are a quick and surprisingly accurate way to determine when someone is behaving in a potentially problematic way.

As for the rest - yikes.

Mature Christian Authorities can lie.  See Bill Gothard and Doug Phillips for details on how they did that.

The Bible is full of admonitions to obey authorities.  It's equally full of  people who defied authorities and lived in God's Blessings.  See Rebecca, Jacob/Israel, Leah, and most of Jacob's sons for details.  Want New Testament examples?  What percentage of the time does Jesus tell the Apostles to stop arguing about personal ranking and get back to work?  How many times does Paul and a companion return separately from missions?   So...I think it's a wash at best......

I don't recommend slapping as a form of defense..  It makes a lot of noise, but will anger an assailant without incapacitating them.  Think of movements that produce a lot of force like punching, stomping, head-butting or elbowing or actions that cause a lot of pain and damage to the face like scratching, eye-gouging or biting.

Call the police if someone is putting your health (including mental) or life at risk.  If you are not sure, you can always call the non-emergency line and discuss with an officer if the interaction is worth filing a police report.  (For people who are worried about "overreacting" - women are still working on getting fair treatment for sexual crimes so you don't need to worry about accidentally ruining someone's life.  The system is still tipped greatly in favor of protecting attackers over accusers - so if an officer tells you that you can make a report, do it.  That means something bad happened to you.)

Jesus.  Gossipping is the exchange of negative information about another person for the sole purpose of amusing other people.   Neither discussing an event that happened that hurt/scared/or confused you nor reporting a crime is gossip.

I'm Catholic - so let me tell you that crimes will out.  Whatever crime is potentially being covered up to "not reflect badly on the Church" will come out eventually - plus the added scandal and crime of covering a crime up.   Handling a crime that occurs within a church community by reporting the crime to the police and assisting in the investigation is much better PR than ignoring victims, moving perpetrators to different churches and creating new victims....

What would Jesus do?  Well, the Jesus in the Gospel of John is essentially the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels written for John Wayne so I guess he'd get a posse together and ride the offender out of town.    Or shoot them.  Or tip their tables over. 

My last quote for this post makes me wonder about the Botkin Sisters sense of irony or lack thereof:

If our knowledge of the Scriptures primarily consists of some vague or misapplied concepts about forgiving, overlooking offenses, covering sin, obeying authorities, not gossiping, and having a gentle and quiet spirit, we are not ready to fight this battle.

I am drawing a complete and total blank on Scripture verses that recommend covering sin.  Oh, don't get me wrong; people try to cover sin up all_the_time especially in the refreshingly human Old Testament - but it generally ends badly.

As for the rest, well, most of humanity understands the difference between the normal rubs and wrongs of people living together and egregious offenses that threaten health and safety.

Let's look at the differences:

Forgiveness -

• Good idea: your sister "borrows" your new shirt without asking for the third time, returns it unharmed, but is genuinely contrite when she realizes you were planning on wearing it and couldn't.
• Bad idea: Bryan in the first post who responded to your distress at a previous sexual activity by telling you that you can't complain because of the way you dressed.  (Remember, run away from the Bryans of the world.)

Overlooking offenses -

• Good idea: You work with Jack, an attractive single man.  Jack says that he finds you very attractive and asks you out on a date.  You decline because you want to follow the courtship motto.  Jack is disappointed, but goes back to your previous working relationship.
• Bad idea: Same set up, but Jack asks you out the next day.  And the next.  And twice the day after that.  You start dreading coming to work because avoiding Jack is exhausting.

Obeying authorities

• Good idea: Your boss tells you that you need to put together 30 copies of the 500 page year-end report for the company - and you hate photocopying.
• Bad idea:  Your boss tells you that you need to put together 30 copies of the 500 page year-end report for the company - and you hate photocopying - but she'll assign it to someone else if you go on a date with her.

Not gossiping

• Good idea: You recognize the new youth minister.  He went to prom with your best friend 5 years ago and threw up from nerves. 
• Bad idea: You recognize the new youth minister.  He took off from your last church in another state when there were some accusations about inappropriate behavior at a weekend camping trip.  

Meek and gentle spirit

• Good idea: you are goosed at work by a three-year old.  
• Bad idea: you are goosed at work by a coworker, boss or client.

Oddly enough, the title of the Botkin Sisters' second book applies here: It's NOT That Complicated!

Spiritual Self-Defense: Part One - Commentary Three

When I read a new Botkin Sisters post, I always get the same three thoughts. 

The first thought is "On which planet do these women live?"  I generally have this reaction from their revisionist histories (feminism is really a plot by Marxists to subsume the American way!) or when they make a sudden, breathless declaration that they think they've realized something that no one else has ever (paintings from the Romantic period ignore historical realities!).

My second thought is "You've really bought into this, haven't you?" in response to their wishy-washy efforts to justify their beliefs.  My personal favorite is the podcast "What It Means to Honor Our Parents" where each kid at some point attempts to explain that the word "honor" really means "obey"...but the results are atrocious because the two words aren't synonyms in English.  A close second is Anna Sophia and Elizabeth's adoration of comparing and contrasting the stories of Abigail and Bathsheba in the Bible - but they always miss the fact that the woman who bore David's eventual heir Solomon was....Bathsheba.

The third thought is often the most disturbing because "You really believed that?" comes from those glimpses into the culture in which they were raised.  The first quote I'd like to discuss comes in the middle of a paragraph that breathlessly proclaims that people are learning about the extent of abuse for the first time ever!  That's hardly true - but I'm sure it's the first time the Botkin Sisters have been unsheltered enough to hear about it.  The paragraph continues with this gem:

This is not just a threat that lurks far away, in dodgy places where we never go – it’s all around us. And it doesn’t just threaten “bad girls,” “immodest” women, or black sheep who have stepped outside of some sort of “umbrella of protection” – strong Christian women face this evil, even in their own homes and churches.

Seriously?  This is NOT new information in wider US culture.  Women have been working at dismantling victim-blaming during rape by strangers since before the 1970's as well as the fact that sexual abuse occurs in families.  By the mid-1980's when my personal memories started, people were well aware that childhood sexual abuse could occur from outside authority figures (i.e., teachers, priests, coaches) and activists were trying to raise awareness of rape by acquaintances.  The 1990's brought widespread understanding of sexual harassment in the workplace and a huge breakthrough in awareness of consent (thanks in part to media sources).

I'm always a bit boggled when the Botkin Sisters excitedly explain that they've realized something that larger society figured out 40 years ago or more.   But once they've done it once, they decide to double-down by declaring that no-one's been trying to teach women how to prevent sexual harassment and assault either!

The culture of victim-blaming has been a major culprit in keeping the culture of abuse alive, first by taking the responsibility off of the abuser and keeping his crimes from being taken seriously – but also by creating a fear of honest discussion about whether there is anything we potential victims could or should do to fight against abuse.

I completely agree with them prior to the dash in the quote.  One reason that victim-blaming lives on is that it allows attackers to avoid responsibility for their crimes.  The problem is that the Botkin Sisters miss the second reason - and it's the reason they were more than willing to believe that rape or harassment only happened to "bad" women.  Blaming the victim allows other people to feel safer.  After all, if bad things only happen to bad people, then good people will never suffer.

Like victim-blaming, advocates working to empower women to avoid, stop or report abuse, attacks or harassment have been busy since at least the 1980's.     I remember talking about "good" and "bad" touches in elementary school.  We discussed rape and sexual abuse in junior high - along with the immorality of victim blaming - and again several times in high school.  I can't remember a time where adult women weren't teaching teens and young women basic safety techniques.

• Be aware of your surroundings.  
• Trust your instincts and don't be afraid of hurting someone's feelings if you are feeling uneasy.
• If you feel afraid, return to a safe place and seek help.
• If you think you are being followed, make it clear that you see the person who is following you - it often discourages attackers who are looking for someone who is unaware.   
• Take advantage of offers to be escorted to cars after dark.  
• If people are nearby who can help, don't let feelings of embarrassment keep you from screaming for help.   
• If you have to fight, fight as dirty as you can- bite, scratch, eye-gouge and kick as well as punch. 
• If you are alone, do whatever you think will keep you alive and as safe as possible.  This might mean not fighting an attacker because survival matters more than avoiding rape. 
• Keep an eye on friends at parties - doubly so if people are drinking alcohol.  
• Know the signs of abuse in relationships.  You always have the right to leave a relationship if your partner is abusive.

I won't pretend I know what Geoffrey and Victoria Botkin - or Doug Phillips - were teaching the Botkin Sisters, but my parents were busy teaching us that we had plenty of options if we were ever in a frightening situation - and that they would have our back no matter what happened.

Eventually, Anna Sofia and Elizabeth flounder into the most obvious question about why they are focusing on the victim rather than the attacker:

Absolutely the main problem we’re dealing with is the abuse and the abusers – not the things that victims do or don’t do. So why are we not focusing this series on those evils? Why not just tell abusers to stop abusing? Why “add burdens” to possible victims by talking to them about things they could or should do?

Because even victims have been given authority and power by God for responding to evil, and He wants us to use it. And because we each have the power to do a lot more damage to this abuse stronghold than we realize.

Mmm-kay.  Did that convince anyone?  Show of hands, please.

I feel like I write scads of obvious crap on this blog - and here's we go again:  The most effective way to prevent crime is to stop the criminal from doing the crime.

This is why high school health classes have added discussions about consent to curriculum.  In 2000, I got around 3 hours of training on "No means No!" during freshmen orientation.  The benefits of these discussions is two-fold.  People who are of more aggressive personalities are reminded that consent matters - and that non-consensual sexual activity is a crime.  At the same time, everyone is shown one way of stating their desire to stop a sexual activity from happening.

I won't pretend that this is a cure-all - but man, it's a whole lot better than only training women to a rigid form of self-defense....

Let's be honest about why Anna Sofia and Elizabeth can't tell abusers to stop.  The two of them are in the second least powerful group of people in CP/QF society through no fault of their own.  Near as I can figure, CP/QF has a rigid power structure that places married men at the top followed by single men, married women, single women and children at the bottom. 

The Botkin Sisters are stuck lecturing other single women and children about their responsibilities when being attacked because they don't have any standing over any men...or most women, really.

I need to point out again how creepy and skeevy and wrong it is for the Botkin Sisters to create a series of responsibilities for other people WHILE facing abuse or attack.   I don't understand how they reached adulthood without developing the sense of compassion or common sense that the vast majority of people have - because most people would never write the first post in this series let alone the remaining five.

The next quote is so very strange on a few levels:

Whether we’re still dreading our first bad encounter; we’re in the middle of an uncomfortable relationship; our bodies, hearts, and consciences are wracked over past incidents; or we’re just a bystander agonizing over whether to keep quiet about something we know about… these are spiritual as well as physical battles, and they require spiritual as well as physical strength and preparation.

Um... three of the four examples have no physical strength or preparation required.  Angst about future incidents (which may never happen), negative feelings about past events and decisions about information involving a third-party have no physical component.

I'd like to reiterate that hand-wringing about potential future issues is a waste of time and energy.  I believe there is great benefit to learning about situational awareness and how to defend yourself if you need to - but those are empowering skills just like learning CPR and First Aid makes people feel more confident about helping injured or hurt people.    Anxiety is paralyzing - and normalizing it does not help Anna Sofia and Elizabeth's readers.  A far better choice is to believe that you are capable of handling situations as they come.

What we will be focusing on is one specific sliver of the topic: The spiritual side of the battle the average young adult woman faces as she encounters challenges with male friends, boyfriends, employers, workmates, etc. – challenges in which she does have a degree of agency and control, and where her own preparedness can make all the difference.

Hoo-boy. 

Well, I guess my minor issue is that people always have a degree of agency as long as they are conscious and not severely incapacitated by pain or paralysis.   Likewise, people generally have some degree of control over their action albeit sometimes the amount of control can be extremely curtailed.

My larger point is by what standing do Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin have for discussing the spiritual (or physical or economic or socio-governmental or whatever buzzword they like today) battle that women face with friends, lovers, employers and coworkers?  By their own admission, they keep male friends at a distance emotionally through keeping conversations academic, religious and impersonal.  There has never been a publicized courtship for either Anna Sofia or Elizabeth - and based on "So Much More" I feel safe assuming that neither woman would be left alone with their potential spouse until after they were married - and that's hardly a safeguard against domestic abuse including spousal rape.   The work experience of the two of them is so limited that they don't realize that for most teenage or young women the workplace involves three groups of men, not two: supervisors, coworkers and clients/customers.

My last point for Part One is that preparation is wonderful, but it never promises a good outcome.  Learning CPR is admirable and beginning CPR on a non-responsive person is a good deed - but the person may still die.  Asserting the right to have a harassment-free workplace may cause the situation to worsen over the short-term - and may require legal intervention to resolve.  Being mentally (or spiritually) ready to resist an attacker doesn't prevent all attack from happening.

It's never the victim's fault.  It's not her fault if she was completely prepared - and her preparations didn't work..  It was not his fault if he was completely unprepared - because he never thought it would happen to him.  The only person at fault is the attacker. 

Pretending that excellent preparation will completely prevent sexual harassment, assault or abuse is a form of whistling in the dark at best - and is likely to hurt victims.

Spiritual Self-Defense: Part One - Commentary Two

It's rare - but so satisfying for me - when I find a CP/QF quote that encapsulates the major flaws within the mindset.   Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin served one up on a platter for me in their blog series "Spiritual Self-Defense".   The very first paragraph  of the series serves up several in a row:

We’ve all experienced that moment of panic, that sense of paralysis, after a man just said something or did something to us that crossed the line. We’ve all faced the crisis of, “Was what he just did OK?” …followed by the next crisis of “What should I do? Should I be smooth and pretend this didn’t happen, or should I do something that will feel very awkward, hard, rude, and uncomfortable for everyone? Should I roll with this, or fight it? Do I have a responsibility to do something? Didn’t Jesus turn the other cheek? What would God want me to do?” And probably the most terrifying moment of all: When we realize the strength we need and thought we had simply isn’t there.

Notice how the woman in this thought experiment has no volition in this situation.  The two things that matter are what the man did and a list of acceptable actions for men to do to women.  The woman's feelings, thoughts, and beliefs are overlooked entirely.   I suppose this will mark me as a raging out-of-control feminist, but the important question for me would be "Am I comfortable with what just happened?"  The rest of the paragraph is a mess - but most of the mess arises from the woman's failure to decide how she feels about what happened.   The paragraph pairs extremely divergent choices, skips the most common intermediate course of action, ignores any complications and devolves into a theological mess before encouraging self-blame.

Let's hit the theology first.  The "turn the other cheek" doctrine is generally applied to persecution due to religious beliefs.   Sexual harassment and assault does not fit in that category.  I think that God gave us brains and the power to use them - so we do what God wants when we respond in the way we feel is appropriate.

Let me sketch this out in real life. 

When I was a cashier at a busy grocery store, I was doing my job at a lane when someone goosed me.

The first - nearly instant - decision I made was that I DID NOT LIKE THAT.   I didn't need to think about whether what the person did was right or wrong; I just needed to be clear that I - myself - did not like it at all.

The second decision was knowing my options for response.  Here's a list of possible options:

1. No response.  This would be most acceptable for me if I felt that any resistant response on my part would place me or someone else in danger.  I rejected this response because I was a well-liked worker in a busy grocery store and was certain that a resistant response on my part would bring more help/support from co-workers and shoppers.
2. Verbal reprimand.  Lots of options available here ranging from "Knock it off" through a profanity laced dressing-down.    This was going to be my response if I felt physically threatened because a torrent of profanity would bring scads of attention my way.
3. Physical attack.  I keep this in reserve for times when I am physically at risk and cannot get help otherwise.  On the other hand, this was the end of a long shift; I was hot, tired, hungry and getting goosed shoved me into the enraged category.  When I swung around to confront the person who goosed me, I was mentally ready and had my arm drawn back to deliver a left-handed uppercut to the jaw.
4. De-escalation.  There was the possibility that I'd turn around and realize that the person who goosed me was holding a weapon - or was very drunk and aggressive - or set off my "dangerous person" alarm in some way.  In that case, I'd do whatever I needed to do to get them the hell away from me.  I'd smile, flirt or seem pleased in someway - because this is NOT a hill for me to die on.

From the options, I whipped around in my lane ready to give the person who goosed me a tongue-lashing they'd never forget and possibly deck them. 

Much to my surprise, there was no one there.  There was a woman unloading her cart too far away to have goosed me and no one else I could see anywhere around. 

I was confused as all get out.  Then, I felt a tug on my pocket and a little voice cried out "birdy!"  I looked down at a little snippet of a kid who was hanging onto my pocket.

I had been goosed by a 3 year old who had tried to grab the stuffed bird I kept on my keyring...and missed.

I busted out laughing and explained to the cashier behind me and the guest in my lane that I had just been goosed by a future bird watcher...maybe even a goose researcher!

The Botkin Sisters make it seem like the two available options are to respond positively to the breech of a boundary or be ready to fight to the death and involve the police.   "Rolling with it" or "being smooth" are not good choices if a person wants the behavior to stop.  On the other hand, there's a far wider range of responses for minor issues - which have been far more common in my life.  Looking back on various moments when I was in situations where something untoward happened, my standard reactions ran a much smaller continuum from a neutral response to glaring at the person to saying firmly "Don't do that!"

Here are some examples:

A boss (who is pretty bad at his job all around) tells a story involving a jargon term for vagina.  My response was to look at him as if he were nuts, then disengage from the conversation.  I add this to my detailed list of "issues with boss" - but it's never repeated again so I don't go any further in terms of seeking union representation or reporting him to HR.

Some co-workers are telling some pretty raunchy stories in the break room when I came in for break.  I change the topic of conversation by asking what they think of the new scheduling system; they hate it and tell me why in great detail.

A older man crashes into me outside of a historical exhibit making contact mostly with my breasts.  I'm about to say something sharp when I realize he's pale and shaking while wearing a "Korean War" hat.  The fort nearby had just fired a cannon - and he's having a fight-or-flight reaction.  I talk to him quietly about what a nice summer day in Mackinac it is and encourage him to have a seat on a nearby bench.  In a few minutes, he's extremely apologetic - and I tell him that he's got nothing to apologize for at all.

I'm waiting for a city bus when a guy I've never seen before starts complimenting me on how pretty I am.  I'm a little skeeved out - but there's no people around for backup and I need to get on this bus to make an appointment.   I say, "Thank you, but I'm engaged" and proceed to create an entire imaginary fiance.  The guy backs off when I explain how much I like ImaginaryBoy and how excited I am about our wedding.

I'm making out with a boyfriend.  He moves a hand to a part of my body where I don't want it.  I gently move his hand to a location I am ok with.  Problem_solved.

What concerns me is that the Botkin sisters don't seem to realize that there's a huge range of boundary violations - and an equally huge range of responses.   I think this happened because they have such limited life experiences.  My experiences involve three separate jobs, one vacation with a female friend, taking public transportation alone and romantic relationships - experiences the Botkin sisters have never, ever had.  The truly toxic issue is that the Botkin Sisters have been taught they should expect boundary violations and that the only way to deal is to never go anywhere without a male chaperone.  That is a terrible message to teach young women!  My parents taught us that we had the right to speak up if we didn't like something someone else did - and that as we got older we would get better and better at responding to the situations.   The advantage of my parents' teachings is that we were prepared for both strangers or acquaintances to transgress boundaries  - but we also knew we could respond if the person was a boss, teacher, relative or religious leader.

Here's one last point/theme.  The Botkin Sisters provide lots of condemnation about evil outsiders by name (like Larry Nassar) - but they stay strangely silent about Doug Phillips.  He was the leader of their cult who was accused of molesting his kids' nanny.  The entire Botkin Family was good buddies with Phillips.  It was a win-win situation.  The Botkin Sisters gave him a set of attractive role models for young women along with profit from their first book; in return, they received income from speaking fees and went on vacations with the Phillips clan. 

Remember that the Botkin Sisters have remained completely silent about Phillips' misdeeds - and the benefits their family has received from association with Phillips as we move through the blog series.

Dominion Orientated Femininity: Part Six

Whoo-hoo!  THIS is the end of the review on the Botkin Sisters' podcast "Dominion Orientated Femininity".

I have received three (3) honest-to-God benefits from this podcast.  Benefit one: I am quite confident with the listen-and-type mode of my transcription software.  Benefit two: the Botkin Sisters have covered a few of the more pernicious idiotic ideas in stay-at-home daughterhood for me to discuss.  Benefit three: I learned how to spell "femininity" which is one of those words that I never use and cannot remember what vowels go where.  Ironically, I have similar problems with the word"amateur" and the prefix "pseudo" and I use both of those frequently.

The Botkin Sisters adore point number 9; it's one of the centerpoints of the stay-at-home daughter movement as well as emotional purity.  In spite of that, they get off the topic as fast as they can.  Presumably because after watching various young women from "Return of the Daughters" get married, the Sisters realized that point nine sounds good - but is confusing as hell in practice:

Number nine is a dominion woman is doing her husband good during these years of her life. In Proverbs 31 it says the Proverbs 31 woman is doing her husband good and not evil all the days of her life and it's interesting to me that it doesn't say she does him good and not evil as soon as she married to him. But it actually says she's doing him good and not evil all the days of her life. That means now. That means today we can be doing our husbands good even if we don't know who they are. And one of the ways we can be doing that is to be diligently amassing the skills and the character and the knowledge that our husbands are going to need to have behind them to help them in the dominion task they have ahead of them.

Alrighty then.  I'm going to take the sisters at the word. 

Anna Sofia, Elizabeth, please give me two specific examples of skills and knowledge that your future husbands need from you - and explain in detail how those skills are different from the general soft skills (like communication or problem-solving) and household management/child rearing skills that all CP/QF daughters are expected to bring to a marriage.

I'm in no hurry; I want this to be done thoughtfully. 

*pulls out current crochet project and gets to work while they hem and haw*

That's the tricky bit, isn't it?  Girls (and their parents) can't read the future to be sure that the "skills" they are picking up at home are the ones that their husbands need.  Anna Sofia and Elizabeth love to boast about their skill set which are heavy on amateur film and written media production along with worldview - but how likely is it that a man needs that from his wife? 

My husband needed a wife who could understand cows, help manage the emotional labor of a family and help him communicate his needs clearly.  That sounds straightforward - but I've chased cows in amazingly undignified ways while wearing horrifyingly clashing outfits.  I delivered a calf in a professional dress and sandals.  I spent a few hours at night in achingly cold, windy conditions midwinter helping rescue steers who had fallen into a manure pit - but really I was there to make sure someone kept an eye on my husband's grandfather who was in his mid-80's.  I was concerned that if he fell somewhere no one would notice he was missing until he was hypothermic - and that's kills elderly people in climates like Michigan.  I can spend hours at a bedside in a hospital with ill or elderly people while bringing lunch or dinner for the immediate family members.  I'm raising a son who came with a whole satchel of unexpected medical needs - and I don't mind saying I did a damn good job managing all of that.   I'm getting better and better at knowing when my husband needs someone to comfort him - and when he needs someone to give him a swift kick in the ass.  I listen avidly to his newfound fascination with refrigeration and air-conditioning units - and I silently thank God that I took enough chemistry and physics to understand what he's talking about just like I thanked God that my biology background made understanding cow biology fairly straightforward.

A lot of us have fairly high standards for our husbands. But how high are our standards for ourselves? If we have a list of requirements that's a mile long for our husbands, we better have a list that's two miles long for ourselves. So I think we need to ask ourselves why would a man like the kind we would like to marry want to marry a woman like us? And the correct answer isn't "Well, because I'm a woman. I'm a young woman and I like children and I can cook and what more would a man want?" The thing is a man who is fighting the important battles is going to need a little more than that. He's going to need a wife who can be a wise counselor to him. He's going to need a wife who can help sharpen him as iron sharpens iron.

.
Hell, no.

If you are a CP/QF unmarried woman, your list for a future husband should be twice as long as your list for yourself because YOU ARE SIGNING A BLANK CHECK.   You have minimal marketable skills, marginal education, a belief that divorce is impossible regardless of spousal behavior and potentially one child every 1-2 years from the date of your marriage until you are 40.   As a woman in that society, you are in a dependent position - so you better be damn sure that you are marrying someone who is kind, loving and a phenomenal provider.

The Botkin Sisters' privilege as middle children in a relatively small, well-spaced quiverfull family is showing again.  Women who space their babies at least 2-3 years apart with a family size of under 9 may have some time to be a wise counselor to their husbands.  That spacing allows a decent chunk of time for a woman to recover from pregnancy, childbirth, lactation and the sheer work of keeping a newborn alive before starting the cycle over again.  Less than two years apart - and especially under 18 months apart - and women are under extreme metabolic stress.  For me, pregnancy was a mix of mood swings, moderate nausea, exhaustion and hip pain.  Lactating got rid of the hip pain and exhaustion, had fewer mood swings and less nausea - but kept an equally sensitive sense of smell with feeling like I was planning my life around pumping sessions.  Having my son as a newborn was harder because he was medically complicated - but I was so exhausted that I spent most of the time in a vaguely upbeat mental fog. Life had compacted down to two goals: keep son alive and sleep.   I started to feel like pre-pregnancy self around 9 months after my son was born; the thought of being pregnant before that is daunting.

Anna Sofia/Elizabeth jumps into a rare real life example:

My favorite example of this is my mother. I love watching my mother's relationship with my father. In addition to being a loving mother and a wonderful cook and a wonderful housekeeper, she is a wise counselor. She's a delightful companion. She's a very stimulating conversationalist. She's constantly reading and always has fascinating things to tell my father that he can put into his speeches and into his teaching that he does. She models all of the things that Dad has always wanted his family to be known for: dominion focus, ingenuity, creativity, courage, a pioneer spirit, entrepreneurialism, love of learning. This is why my father's heart can safely trust in her. She delights him with her company and her conversation. She sustains him with her strength. She stimulates him and sharpens him with her wisdom. She emboldens him with her praise. She boisters him with her constant cheerfulness in spite of whatever's going on. She comforts him with her love and she heartens him with her courage. Wives like this are a source of constant good to their husbands so we need to be working today - diligently - to become this kind of woman.

*waves*

Hi, Victoria Botkin!  I'm glad you had some say or influence in raising your daughters.  Honestly, your husband and daughters talk a lot about how much Geoffrey Botkin has taught the girls - but so little about what you did.

Let's see.  Victoria Botkin according to her daughter is the mother, cook, and housekeeper desired by all CP/QF men (ignore the fact that the speaker or her sister were deriding young women who thought cooking, cleaning and rearing children were the main goals of marriage ten seconds ago) - plus her husband finds her amusing.  A "pioneer spirit" feels like a coded way of saying that Victoria can do a lot of things that Geoffrey can't be bothered to do for the family.  "Entrepreneurialism"  strikes me as a nice way of saying that Victoria parlayed her homeschooling experience into a small amount of income for the family.  Since Geoffrey has always been more interested in playing at being a kingmaker and prophet than earning income, the words "ingenuity" and "creativity" make me think that she's had to beg, borrow, scrimp, save and go without to get enough room, board and clothing for herself and her family.

Notice the conspicuous absence of examples of how Victoria acts as iron to sharpen Geoffrey by opposing him in any way.   Nope - Geoffrey doesn't need any of that kind of thing.  Now, the girls' future husbands will  probably need some sharp iron times until they get with the Botkin program....

Another thing we can do to be doing our husbands good is to be developing a selfless instead of selfish view of marriage. It's not about making us happy. It's about serving God. It's about helping our husbands to take dominion. And so instead of filling our minds with these rosy romantic ideas of how our husbands are going to meet our needs, we need to be thinking about how we can meet their needs so we're not going to be needy discontent complaining wives.

That sounds like a miserable marriage in the making.  Nothing is about making anyone happy!  Families exist to take dominion for GOD! 

Being married takes a lot of work from time to time - but a couple should have fun times, too.  A healthy couple does things for each other that makes their partner happy just because they can.

Don't get into a marriage that is miserable.

Last up: a rousing finish that somehow manages to combine a reminder of the soon-to-be-coming collapse of society with a quick reminder that Jesus told his disciples to stick close to home and care exclusively for their families:

Ok. Now here's our final point here. Number ten: a dominion woman understands the times. I explained some of the problems we're facing in our generation at the beginning of the speech. And a lot of you young ladies are probably thinking, "Well, what am I gonna do about it? Well, what can I do?" And part of the reason girls do escape through the different avenues - romance novels, films, images, or just our own sinful imaginations - is because they have no idea what they can be doing. And one of the principles that our father taught us when we were younger is that we needed to be looking for the needs of the moment actively looking for the needs of the moment there are so many things that young women can do if they have their eyes open. And the first place to be looking is in your own family. Be looking around your families for the needs. How can you be helping your mother? How can you be helping your father? Have you gone to him and asked him. "Daddy, how can I help you?" Have you done this with your mother? Have you looked at your siblings? Have you looked at ways that you can be supporting them and ways that you can be helping them? And then beyond your family, your church communities are there young ladies in the church that need encouragement that need someone to talk to? Are there mothers in the church that need help because they have so many children. There are so many needs. We just need to open our eyes and see them.

Wait.  What do you mean Jesus didn't tell his disciples to stay at home and help our nuclear families exclusively?   How did I miss that in my hours of daily Bible reading?

I can't count preaching to my friends at church as following Jesus either? Even if I explain in great detail how their choices in dress and interactions with young men are sinful?

*wails in anguish*  Oh, God!  Why do you make this so hard?

I will give them props for helping out young mothers in a church because society tells women that they are supposed to care for their homes and children effortlessly.  Jesus, though, wouldn't want them to work exclusively with church members.  He was really big on reaching out to the margins of society - which in CP/QF land means unwed mothers and divorced parents.

Ooh.  What if they took a really big step and helped out elderly women who were not members of their church too?   Man, that could be life-changing - and their lives need changing badly!

I want to leave you with hope. Please do not underestimate the importance of what you're doing in your home. It really is making a difference. The world really is a different place because of stay-at-home daughters. And I want to get you excited about this. You may not know it but there's a battle raging around you and you are in the thick of it right where you are. It's tempting for us to think that the interesting and important things are happening somewhere else but actually they're happening on the home front. They're happening in homes and in families. I can't think of another battleground that's thicker than the one that you have in your home right now. Because the state of a nation is always determined by the state of the home.

Normally, I'd write this off as overwrought frippery - but then the Duggar family's casual statement about how they know a lot of families where sexual abuse is happening haunts me.   I'm afraid that some or many of the young women listening in the audience of that podcast do live in a battleground where they are under siege by abusive family members.

This is exciting, too. You... you may think that the stay-at-home daughter movement is a little hole in the wall movement that nobody knows about, but actually that's not true anymore. Elizabeth and I got into a feminist forum one time, a very well known feminist forum, and guess what they were talking about? They were talking about us. They were talking about you. And you know why? Because they are afraid. Because they see you as a threat. And they understand that the stay-at-home mommy movement while it's important women can stay at home for selfish reasons and for reasons of convenience but the daughters who are choosing to stay at home and serve the families are up to something. And they're scared. So you can be excited about that. We're not a invisible movement any more. People know about us. This is an exciting time to be alive. The future is changing and there are great opportunities that come with that. And I wanna leave you all with a quote by Abigail Adams. Abigail Adams was writing to her son John which was during the Revolutionary War which were very turbulent difficult times kind of like the ones that we're facing now and she said, "`These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. It's not in the still, calm of life or in the repose of a pacific station that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties.

I think this is a reference to the time the Botkin Sisters got smacked down on Rachel Held Evans website - but I'm not sure.

Either way, the Botkin Sisters have badly misread larger society's feelings about stay-at-home daughters.  We're not afraid of you; we are terrified for you.   Look, it is no loss to me if a tiny fractional subset of young women choose to forgo all educational or vocational training past high school to play at being an unpaid maid, sous chef, and teacher's assistant until a guy shows up to marry you.  With a bit of luck - or conscientious planning by your parents - most SAHDs will transition to wives and mothers who will have access to a man's income and be in charge of their homes.  Sure, the former SAHDs are at higher risk of poverty simply due to their lack of ability to raise any income for their families, but at least they have some control over their lives.  The women I worry most about are "volunteering" as family maids, chefs, and parapros as well as underpaid family business workers while waiting to get married in their thirties or beyond.  The implicit promise is that in exchange for giving up education, career and romance, a SAHD will receive a glorious marriage and abundant children - not be the lowest authority person in her family of origin forever.

And leave Abigail Adams out of this.  She was a full-on feminist in her time; she'd find the idea of  women abdicating education, career and romance abhorrent.