Its Not That Complicated

[debrand]

A very lovely online friend sent me It's Not That Complicated by the Botkin sisters. I started a blog just to share my annoyance at the book. Really, the introduction was like nails on a chalk board.

Here are some quotes from the first half of the first chapter(as far as I've gotten) I just have to share this with other people who will understand my annoyance with this book

As we gorge ourselves on sumptuous Hollywood romances, heart-jerking love -songs at the push of a button, and the next romance novel series, the way we see reality changes. our brains turn into pressure-cookers of romantic psycho-drama. We see romance around every corner! A potentially devastating romantic hero in every boy! A beautifully desirable heroine in ourselves!

I copied this exactly as it was written in the book. I love the over the top phrase, "pressure-cookers of romantic psycho-drama." :lol:

Girls used to have a lot more protection and help through these problems than they do today. Fathers and brothers used to provide screening and kept scoundrels at the right end of a Remington.

Just an idea...maybe the girl could be mature enough to tell the boy she isn't romantically interested and if he doesn't leave her alone the police could be called. No need to bring out guns unless she is being threatened. It is not wonder that 30 and 28 year old Anna-Sofia and Elizabeth are unmarried.

"Few girls today have family relationships and communications that close if they even have families in the picture at all

Most women that I know have families. However, in the modern world young people are expected to take on responsibilities for their own selves. Dad doesn't run out with a freaking gun every time a guy makes a pass because he and his wife have taught their daughter how to say no or yes, depending on her own wishes.

Too much romance novel reading will cause young women to ..."We learn to see boys as objects(and to rank them according to their shallowest attributes. Nice hair? Check! Hypnotic eyes? Double check!!)

Perhaps when you are very young or only want a sexual relationship this is true but mature women-and men- generally realize that they need more in a partner. Only in the fundie world where every romantic relationship must end in marriage is this type of adolescent thinking a serious problem. However, not all teengers are so shallow

[DomWackTroll]

It is no wonder that 30 and 28 year old Anna-Sofia and Elizabeth are unmarried.

What is the point of praying over a baby's ovaries if you're not going to let her get married when she's grown? Aren't these two supposed to be becoming "mothers of Israel" or "mothers of tens of thousands" or whatever it is those freaks say? What does a Kelly Bradrick or a Melissa Niednagel say to these two when they run into each other at VF events? Do they shake their heads sadly and sigh (but with a little smile on their lips)? Do the Botkin "girls" run into the bathroom and cry? It's gotta be awkward.

[Mela99]

LOLS. They learn to see boys as objects? That's exactly what they preach girls ARE!

[Anny Nym]

What two Schreckschraubenbunker hags ! So basically the book is "cult speak 101: constantly belittle your minions!" mashed together with the worn-out "it was all daisies and cake, back in the good old times " ?

Does anyone know what they are up to these days, their site hasn´t been updated since Valentine´s Day.

btw, debrand, please take cautions while going through a Botkin product: NEVER use when NOT drunk (I recommend Wodka), always check your blood pressure and have the brain bleach in handy distance :wink-kitty:

[doggie]

they are prime examples of the system not working.

[chaotic life]

I find it hilarious that anyone is even willing to still listen to the two of them. I mean, if they are supposed to be experts on how to be godly daughters and eventually become godly wives, they really missed the mark on that one. I have NO idea how they can speak with anymore authority on what it means to be in love than a priest can tell you how to make love---if he knows how he was doing something wrong in the first place!

I was the ripe old age of 20 when I met DH, 21 when I married him. It had NOTHING to do with the dovey eyes thing. Yes, there was infatuation and attraction but more importantly there was a heart connection that we both knew very quickly. Maturity means that you enter marriage for the right reasons, not by your age. Frankly, locking a girl away does NOT provide maturity. It delays her childhood and says she's not able to know her own heart and her own ability to judge someone's character....which only serves to be a self-fulfilling prophesy not protect a girl. Basically, when you treat a young woman as if she is incapable of making appropriate choices for herself and therefore her father and brothers will decide for her, she is condemned to a marriage with issues far beyond her own poor judgment OR spinsterhood, just like the Botkin girls.

[debrand]

What two Schreckschraubenbunker hags ! So basically the book is "cult speak 101: constantly belittle your minions!" mashed together with the worn-out "it was all daisies and cake, back in the good old times " ?

Does anyone know what they are up to these days, their site hasn´t been updated since Valentine´s Day.

btw, debrand, please take cautions while going through a Botkin product: NEVER use when NOT drunk (I recommend Wodka), always check your blood pressure and have the brain bleach in handy distance :wink-kitty:

Thanks for the advice. Seriously, it is hard to get through the first chapter while sober. :lol:

[miffy]

I refuse to take relationship advice from virgins (who can't drive).

In all seriousness I don't understand why anybody would buy a book written by people giving advice about their main life goal, who haven't managed to achieve that goal.

[Just_Jane]

I am excited to read the blog. You are a brave and dedicated soul to take on the challenge of reading the book.

[Mary C Doates]

Debrand, thanks for taking one for the FJ team! I've been tempted to read this, but refuse to give even one cent to the Botkins. Our local library is apparently run by people who are too sane to spend money on a copy.

[VooDooChild]

:roll: These women-children have watched too many Disney movies. What fantasy world are they living in?

[bananacat]

This is the one family where I most suspect actual overt incest (more than the emotional incest that is found in many Patriarchy families). Daddy Botkin will never let these possessions go.

[OnceModestTwiceShy]

I wonder if their cousin Katie was referring to AS and Elizabeth when she cited "Calvinist Sophia Lorens" whose suitors get past the vetting stage with Dad only to find that the lady finds them "meh".

[wtylcf]

Thanks so much for doing the dirty work, Debrand. I'm amazed that their published writing seems actually even worse than their blog prose. Sentence fragments with exclamation marks! And sensationalist anecdotes standing in for any legitimate research! Seem to be in abundance with these two.

As we gorge ourselves on sumptuous Hollywood romances, heart-jerking love -songs at the push of a button, and the next romance novel series, the way we see reality changes. our brains turn into pressure-cookers of romantic psycho-drama. We see romance around every corner! A potentially devastating romantic hero in every boy! A beautifully desirable heroine in ourselves!

Do they think all adult women are completely unable to separate fantasy from reality? Most women I know, myself included, love silly chick flicks and romance novels because it's a bit of fun escapism, and we know that real life, as great as it is, is never going to be as perfect as it's depicted in pop-culture media, where women never want for money, live in mansions and have all the time in the world to indulge in romance with completely gorgeous men. And of course, most women aren't banned by their cult-leader-dictator fathers from reading actual literature because of its salacious content. Literature does not usually include romance of the fairy-tale variety. Heck, even genre fiction, including contemporary romance novels, does not usually claim that the course of true love ever does run smoothly (my apologies to Shakespeare). Ever heard of the website "smart bitches, trashy books?" There is more critical thinking in evidence in any of those trashy book reviews than I've ever encountered on the Botkin's blog.

I think the Botkins are majorly projecting their feelings and experiences onto womankind in general. Since they are only exposed to "appropriate" fluffy PG romances or Disney movies, and because evidently they think all women are exceptionally stupid or something, they believe all other women must consider the Disney-romance model to be a realistic depiction of an adult relationship. They must educate these stupid women that even the saccharine romances that have been deemed appropriate for family entertainment are in fact harmful to the state of one's soul, in that they promote unrealistic expectations for a spouse. But, you know, instead of reading or watching anything that might depict an actually realistic adult relationship in order to broaden one's horizons, the "godly" solution to the crisis of finding a mate is to be found in a remington-gun-toting overprotective family. Great plan, Botkins!

[Minerva]

I refuse to take relationship advice from virgins (who can't drive).

I don't take advice from anyone whose very existence gives me schadenfreude.

[OnceModestTwiceShy]

Thanks so much for doing the dirty work, Debrand. I'm amazed that their published writing seems actually even worse than their blog prose. Sentence fragments with exclamation marks! And sensationalist anecdotes standing in for any legitimate research! Seem to be in abundance with these two.

Do they think all adult women are completely unable to separate fantasy from reality? Most women I know, myself included, love silly chick flicks and romance novels because it's a bit of fun escapism, and we know that real life, as great as it is, is never going to be as perfect as it's depicted in pop-culture media, where women never want for money, live in mansions and have all the time in the world to indulge in romance with completely gorgeous men. And of course, most women aren't banned by their cult-leader-dictator fathers from reading actual literature because of its salacious content. Literature does not usually include romance of the fairy-tale variety. Heck, even genre fiction, including contemporary romance novels, does not usually claim that the course of true love ever does run smoothly (my apologies to Shakespeare). Ever heard of the website "smart bitches, trashy books?" There is more critical thinking in evidence in any of those trashy book reviews than I've ever encountered on the Botkin's blog.

I think the Botkins are majorly projecting their feelings and experiences onto womankind in general. Since they are only exposed to "appropriate" fluffy PG romances or Disney movies, and because evidently they think all women are exceptionally stupid or something, they believe all other women must consider the Disney-romance model to be a realistic depiction of an adult relationship. They must educate these stupid women that even the saccharine romances that have been deemed appropriate for family entertainment are in fact harmful to the state of one's soul, in that they promote unrealistic expectations for a spouse. But, you know, instead of reading or watching anything that might depict an actually realistic adult relationship in order to broaden one's horizons, the "godly" solution to the crisis of finding a mate is to be found in a remington-gun-toting overprotective family. Great plan, Botkins!

You're totally spot-on.

I had a phase when I loved romance novels, sappy love songs, and romantic comedies and constructed totally unrealistic scenarios in my head about my future marriage. I was also about 12. Then I went to high school and college, dated, got my heart broken once or twice, figured out what I wanted, and eventually emerged by age 24 as a really rather unromantic, practical lady in terms of relationships. I'm unswayed by good looks, superficial charm, "game", etc. and I love to get a blender or a new backpack rather than jewelry for Valentine's Day. :D And this way I've managed to find a truly compatible partner. If I were as cloistered and brainwashed as a Robotkin, maybe I never would have gotten the 12-year-old swoony phase.

[loulou]

I refuse to take relationship advice from virgins (who can't drive).

In all seriousness I don't understand why anybody would buy a book written by people giving advice about their main life goal, who haven't managed to achieve that goal.

THIS.

Even on some fundie forums I've visited through the last few years, there have been comments wondering why AS and E aren't married yet.

Thanks for reading the book and reporting back for us!!

[wtylcf]

I refuse to take relationship advice from virgins (who can't drive)..

I know it's probably wrong on so many levels, but I kind of wish "you're a virgin! Who can't drive!" was an insult in common usage. Especially directed at non-virgins when they are currently driving. I mean, can you imagine the conflict resolution potential?

Spouse: "But YOU said that you packed the plastic cups for the picnic in the carry bag!"

Me: "But I told you that I packed them in YOUR carry bag and then you took them out again thinking I'd re-pack them AGAIN in my own carry bag? That doesn't make any sense!"

Spouse: "You never listen to me!"

Me: "Well...you're a virgin! who can't drive!"

(we dissolve into giggles, thus ending the argument over whose responsibility it was to pack the plastic cups.)

(end non sequitur)

[Anise]

"Devastating romantic hero"? "Nice hair"? "Hypnotic eyes"?

Why do they write in 1850s cliches? Do they have to resort to cliches because they can't write from any experience?

[Marian the Librarian]

The situation for these two grows sadder with each passing year. The only "pressure-cooker of romantic psycho-drama" they know is the one they've been trapped into by their father. Relationship advice? No, thank you.

[miffy]

I know it's probably wrong on so many levels, but I kind of wish "you're a virgin! Who can't drive!" was an insult in common usage. Especially directed at non-virgins when they are currently driving. I mean, can you imagine the conflict resolution potential?

Spouse: "But YOU said that you packed the plastic cups for the picnic in the carry bag!"

Me: "But I told you that I packed them in YOUR carry bag and then you took them out again thinking I'd re-pack them AGAIN in my own carry bag? That doesn't make any sense!"

Spouse: "You never listen to me!"

Me: "Well...you're a virgin! who can't drive!"

(we dissolve into giggles, thus ending the argument over whose responsibility it was to pack the plastic cups.)

(end non sequitur)

My BFFL and I use it. We also say whatever and do the W sign, just not in public.

[miffy]

THIS.

Even on some fundie forums I've visited through the last few years, there have been comments wondering why AS and E aren't married yet.

Thanks for reading the book and reporting back for us!!

Honestly it's no different to me writing a witty book about surviving a PHD, when I haven't even finished a bachelors degree.

I hate the pearls, but at least Debi's preparing to be a helpmeet book is written from experience.

[Trynn]

I always get confused when people ask me for relationship advice... I've never had one, why are you asking me?

I might be a virgin, but at least I can drive.

[ThisOlGirl]

Fathers and brothers used to provide screening and kept scoundrels at the right end of a Remington.

I've known a few scoundrels in my time, and while they weren't relationship material, they sure were fun! AS&E should give it a whirl sometime.

I can't believe they used the word scoundrel. Please tell me the word "dastardly" is used somewhere in the book as well.

[Peas n carrots]

What is the point of praying over a baby's ovaries if you're not going to let her get married when she's grown? Aren't these two supposed to be becoming "mothers of Israel" or "mothers of tens of thousands" or whatever it is those freaks say? What does a Kelly Bradrick or a Melissa Niednagel say to these two when they run into each other at VF events? Do they shake their heads sadly and sigh (but with a little smile on their lips)? Do the Botkin "girls" run into the bathroom and cry? It's gotta be awkward.

TBH, the way Kelly is looking the days (worn out) she might be a bit jealous of their spinsterhood. I'm not convinced marriage is preferable to spinsterhood in this culture.