Caleb Williams

[HerNameIsBuffy]

It’s so stupid, but this is part of being a “celebrity” and having a show.  The tabloid press comes along with the money and rest of the perks.  They sold out for this.

it sucks for her, but she’s almost 30 and had more chances than most fundies to get out and walk away from the show ... she didn’t have a choice when it started but she does now.

not saying it would be easy but the only reason she has no agency is because she chooses that - she’s not like a Maxwell girl.  All Jana would have to do is express interest in working and branching out and she’d have opportunities rolling in.

 

[SadieJane]

I would love for Jana to get out, and have a diy show. I'd watch the crap out of that.

[jjmennonite]

I don’t read Dugger threads, but I sure read this one, may even reread it.

 I was raised fundy - technically fundy light, since we wore pants, but my parents were the product of some original fundies, complete with head coverings and semi arranged marriages. 

I was molested by my brother-in-law from age 12 to 17. I’m 60. I’m still damaged by my fundy upbringing and childhood sexual trauma. 

I have learned so much from FJ over the years, to help me unpack my childhood abuse and religious beliefs. So much of what I have read in this thread has been validation for me. 

As usual, everything I might say has been said eloquently. 

When I was a teenager, I was drinking, smoking pot and cigarettes, and shoplifting. In my mind, they were all about equal sins. I’m so lucky no predators other than my BIL got to me. I still drink and smoke pot, but I’m not a thief in any way. I had no education about safe sex or safe drinking, just DON’T.

Thanks, all you wonderful people of FJ.

My daughter had an extensive education about safe everything. When she was 16 she was nearly 6’ tall, could have looked 16-25,  and she took the Greyhound to visit a friend 2 hours away. A ‘really old guy, in his 20s or 30s’ tried to chat her up. She asked him how old he was, he was 26. She told him “Well I’m 16 and you’re way too old, so go away!’  I believe she may have been one of the 4/5 women who are not sexually assaulted in their childhood or university days. 

I have a cousin who was approached by a 20 year old son of a family friend, who knocked on their door wanting to date her 15 year old daughter. She told him her daughter was too young, and to go away and come ask again in a few years, if he was still interested. He did, and he was, and they have kids graduating high school now. 

When I was 20, I knew I had been molested, but certainly didn’t realize how damaging it had been. I would never have seen the problem of an older man dating a teen. 40 years later, and I learn more every day, a lot of it here. 

Random, train of thought post. 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

I am so sorry that happened to you @jjmennonite ...and thank you for being brave enough to share something that will undoubtably help someone else feel understood and validated.

((hugs))

[Aine]

On 1/7/2019 at 8:34 PM, Beermeet said:

@Aine Thank you for sharing about your father.  In more recent years I have come to understand and be more sympathetic of men.  Being married for 18 yrs and having a son, knowing men for decades, my kids friends, etc. has opened my eyes.  The way you know you father and see him as the multi-faceted human being he is, is beautiful.  I was an only child with my cousins hours away so, I didn't have much understanding of how boys/men processed life. I didn't know much about their inner selves.  Because men are taught to be a certain way, just like we are. And, it's not healthy for them either.  Right now my husband is mourning the loss of a dear friend and he's broken up but it's hard to tell.  He told me he wished he could just cry and get it over with.  I told him that he can.  That wether he realized it or not, he almost did twice. I mentioned crying in the shower as a good private place.  I talked to him about how boys are taught that and it's not cool. He sorta agreed but said that that's how boys just are from birth.  I said no, you think that because you've heard nothing else from birth.  I saw a light go off. Briefly.  We moved on and about 30 mins later he took an unexpected shower ( we've been married a long time. I know when shower time is! Lol) a long one.  He seemed a litte sad after and I hope he cried.  He at least took a moment after we spoke.  I love that man and he trusts my advice.  While I am happy I helped a bit, how sad is that?  It's a death for goodness sake. 

Thank you for this, @Beermeet. I think that despite my personal abuse history by men (not and never my father or paternal grandfather or my Dad's brother's or paternal first cousins- or really anyone on that side so much for me), my 'family family' on my Dad's side, the ones we keep up with are weeded out from my grandmother's less than stellar side, they're big and loving and warm but not perfect. I was raised by my very non-perfect grandparents...I can list their faults but they weren't abuse and even their faults came of love and their insecurities sometimes but the true love in that big crazy side- it's the kind of love that shows true devotion and warmth without creepiness. Although there is a history of some messed up things on my paternal grandmother's side that I have shared before that were exacerbated by being Ministers/Reverends and the power that brought in certain denominations and also that they were missionaries in the Pacific Islands (and incest), and that has shaped our family too even though it never was fully exposed until my grandfather had dementia and believed my grandmother was still being raped by her father and brothers in his illness and was so distressed. The stress to her nearly killed her. Her children, including my father, were shaped by their mother who was a fantastic mother and my forever hero and favorite person. Her tenacity and strength and resilience and resourcefulness to escape her situation? Amazing. But while she hugged every child close and adored them and worried for them and was this strong and fearless Momma-bear that she never had? She never shared parts of her. I got more glimpses than some.

We talk intergenerational trauma a lot on my Mum's side. She is Aboriginal and was part of the Stolen Generations and it's plain to see that intergenerational trauma on my mother's side- generations of parents having their children stolen, and children being raised in homes rife with abuse and never parented. 

But I see it on Dad's side too. When he found out his very "respected" ex-missionary Minister grandfather raped his mother through her childhood and adolescence repeatedly after his grandfather's death? My Dad says that at the age he was and with the temper he had, he would have killed him if he hadn't just died. As it was, he has destroyed a couple of grave stones over the time. 

Both of my grandparents- my Papa not through abuse but because he was a bit less masculine that his own Irish Catholic father expected, and my grandmother with her hidden abuse, they shaped some of the most non-judgmental humans I know. They were non-judgmental. My grandfather's best friend from childhood was gay and my Dad and Aunts were raised with their "two uncles". No matter how devout my grandparents were, love was the only thing that mattered and God made people. I think that my grandmother's sons "knew" before they ever actually knew what happened to them. All wanted the nuclear family church taught them, all wanted to love and not judge, and I think all really believed that women didn't abuse men. They wanted to show their partners the all encompassing support my Papa showed but different times and very different women  

My Dad is complex- but so are many of us. I have never seen my father raise a hand to anyone- child or woman or man. He is devoted and I have no doubt in me that he'd give his life for me with no thought at all. Even when he was under the thumb of abusive women, and he had two children to the main of them too, he still made me feel loved and his ex-wife making him choose between me and her when I was 14 or 15 was what finally ended the marriage. 

He wasn't...and still is working on being 'reliable' but I've never for one second felt that he thought there was single thing wrong with me. I thought everything was wrong with me but didn't say it out ever but he truly truly believes (and I believe he believes this) that I am flawed like all humans but at the same time the most lovable and amazing human (equal to my brothers) that he has ever known. It feels uncomfortable saying that because I don't see it- but I never feel he is lying in his unconditional love for me. He's complex and frustrating but even in his 50s, he grows. 

[Aine]

On 1/8/2019 at 8:34 AM, CarrotCake said:

It has been a while since I posted here because I was really shocked how people reacted to me when I wrote that I felt like we could not judge before we knew the full story. At first I felt really defensive because I was put on one pile with people saying she was asking for it and saying he was innocent so I decided to ignore the thread for a while.

Now that I am back and read everyone's opinion I have changed my viewpoint. I let my own experiences as a teenager guide me too much in my first response. When I was 15 I found myself being very mature and responsible when it comes to sex and I would have been fine with 20-25 year old man. Now that I actually look back taking all your stories into account I am actually realizing I was wrong. Maybe it is the fact that it still feels like being 15 was just last year (even though I am almost 30 now) but when I now look back at being 15 I was not mature at all.

So I am sorry that I offended people with my first answer and you guys made me realize that I was wrong. I still stand by the fact that we have to await trial before we judge Caleb but I feel this way with any crime, however I have changed my mind on the fact that, if he is guilty, there are still ways in which his crime could not be that bad.

@CarrotCake, I'm 6 months shy of 30 too. I still look back at how I felt I was at the time (and I was mostly self-sufficient at the that age besides my high school scholarship paying tuition) and I did love him and it wasn't all bad- he could show love and kindness and humor and many other great qualities. But how I thought of relationships back then, it wasn't healthy and he took advantage of that. I was too young to understand that and how that power dynamic played out and it's still hard to tease it out at times for me. 

But he played on my desire at the time to feel loved and wanted and safe and to make others happy. He might not have had full recognition of that but he did. That relationship left scars on me that took a decade to recognize.

I comment on this thread maybe that I totally am okay with calling him an abuser and rationally I know he was. I'd report as a citizen and mandated reporter now. But because I know him...my emotions make it complicated. But I read my teenage journals and I'm like "holy shit- I earned a paycheck to support myself but my entries about him are like teen-fan fiction or something- except real". I wasn't an adult and I can't go back and experience emotions as an adult. But he was.

[AliceInFundyland]

I have a random final thought.

If you consider your past and you say I have not been sexually assaulted, so I am not in that large percentage of women who has been...

then - do you have an experience that qualifies as an “almost”? I sure do. If not for my coming to my drunken senses and zooming out into the night, I would have had a very regrettable encounter. Honestly, I don’t know if the guy would have stopped or what. I simply left. A stranger found me on the side of the road and returned me to my campus. Then I couldn’t remember what the guy looked like. Disturbing as fuck on a 1500 person campus.

When I think about it now it’s mostly in regards to statistics. How many women have encounters like that in their heads? 

[Lurky]

37 minutes ago, AliceInFundyland said:

If you consider your past and you say I have not been sexually assaulted, so I am not in that large percentage of women who has been...

then - do you have an experience that qualifies as an “almost”?

When I was in uni, I was surprised by the stats that 1 in 5 women had been a victim of sexual abuse, and then I realised that even though I've been a feminist since I learned about feminism, I had been minimising things that happened to me and friends, not counting them as abuse.  For example, I'd been flashed/masturbated at a couple of times, and in very isolated places, but it had been "lucky" I was with a friend, because who knows what would have happened.  One of these was when I was 13 at school, doing stage crew for a play, and when I told the teachers, they thought it was hilarious, and my mum minimised it, so I felt stupid for feeling so shaken.  And I have a visceral memory of not wanting to go somewhere with an older boy when I was little, and years later found out he'd been abusing a friend.  And I've been randomly groped, walking to school and such, but the awful thing was, that felt like something that just happens.  I would never accept someone saying that about other people's experiences, so why did I dismiss all of this?  I still don't say I've been sexually assaulted, but I completely understand how 1 in 5 might be a massive underestimation.

[zee_four]

6 hours ago, Aine said:

Thank you for this, @Beermeet. I think that despite my personal abuse history by men (not and never my father or paternal grandfather or my Dad's brother's or paternal first cousins- or really anyone on that side so much for me), my 'family family' on my Dad's side, the ones we keep up with are weeded out from my grandmother's less than stellar side, they're big and loving and warm but not perfect. I was raised by my very non-perfect grandparents...I can list their faults but they weren't abuse and even their faults came of love and their insecurities sometimes but the true love in that big crazy side- it's the kind of love that shows true devotion and warmth without creepiness. Although there is a history of some messed up things on my paternal grandmother's side that I have shared before that were exacerbated by being Ministers/Reverends and the power that brought in certain denominations and also that they were missionaries in the Pacific Islands (and incest), and that has shaped our family too even though it never was fully exposed until my grandfather had dementia and believed my grandmother was still being raped by her father and brothers in his illness and was so distressed. The stress to her nearly killed her. Her children, including my father, were shaped by their mother who was a fantastic mother and my forever hero and favorite person. Her tenacity and strength and resilience and resourcefulness to escape her situation? Amazing. But while she hugged every child close and adored them and worried for them and was this strong and fearless Momma-bear that she never had? She never shared parts of her. I got more glimpses than some.

We talk intergenerational trauma a lot on my Mum's side. She is Aboriginal and was part of the Stolen Generations and it's plain to see that intergenerational trauma on my mother's side- generations of parents having their children stolen, and children being raised in homes rife with abuse and never parented. 

But I see it on Dad's side too. When he found out his very "respected" ex-missionary Minister grandfather raped his mother through her childhood and adolescence repeatedly after his grandfather's death? My Dad says that at the age he was and with the temper he had, he would have killed him if he hadn't just died. As it was, he has destroyed a couple of grave stones over the time. 

Both of my grandparents- my Papa not through abuse but because he was a bit less masculine that his own Irish Catholic father expected, and my grandmother with her hidden abuse, they shaped some of the most non-judgmental humans I know. They were non-judgmental. My grandfather's best friend from childhood was gay and my Dad and Aunts were raised with their "two uncles". No matter how devout my grandparents were, love was the only thing that mattered and God made people. I think that my grandmother's sons "knew" before they ever actually knew what happened to them. All wanted the nuclear family church taught them, all wanted to love and not judge, and I think all really believed that women didn't abuse men. They wanted to show their partners the all encompassing support my Papa showed but different times and very different women  

My Dad is complex- but so are many of us. I have never seen my father raise a hand to anyone- child or woman or man. He is devoted and I have no doubt in me that he'd give his life for me with no thought at all. Even when he was under the thumb of abusive women, and he had two children to the main of them too, he still made me feel loved and his ex-wife making him choose between me and her when I was 14 or 15 was what finally ended the marriage. 

He wasn't...and still is working on being 'reliable' but I've never for one second felt that he thought there was single thing wrong with me. I thought everything was wrong with me but didn't say it out ever but he truly truly believes (and I believe he believes this) that I am flawed like all humans but at the same time the most lovable and amazing human (equal to my brothers) that he has ever known. It feels uncomfortable saying that because I don't see it- but I never feel he is lying in his unconditional love for me. He's complex and frustrating but even in his 50s, he grows. 

Just wanted to say I'm Polynesian/Pacific Islander, my dad is 100% kanaka maoli, Native Hawai'ian, hooray for being indigenous!

[front hugs > duggs]

8 hours ago, AliceInFundyland said:

I have a random final thought.

If you consider your past and you say I have not been sexually assaulted, so I am not in that large percentage of women who has been...

then - do you have an experience that qualifies as an “almost”? I sure do. If not for my coming to my drunken senses and zooming out into the night, I would have had a very regrettable encounter. Honestly, I don’t know if the guy would have stopped or what. I simply left. A stranger found me on the side of the road and returned me to my campus. Then I couldn’t remember what the guy looked like. Disturbing as fuck on a 1500 person campus.

When I think about it now it’s mostly in regards to statistics. How many women have encounters like that in their heads? 

I definitely have an almost or two. And a few men (including an ex boyfriend and my father) have blamed me for the almost(s). Hugs to everyone who has shared their stories and been met with blame or doubt. You are all inspiring for your strength ❤️ 

[danvillebelle]

Just now finished this thread from the beginning of the rape apology shitshow.  I need to brain dump, so bear with me.

To all who spoke so fiercely and eloquently for us victims and survivors - thank you.  One of the biggest reasons I've stuck around FJ is that it is a community who GETS how serious early sexual trauma can fuck up someone's life.  Because no one else in my life other than my husband, my psychiatrist and my former therapist get it (my children do not know about any of my trauma).

To the pieces of shit who defended 15 year old girls having sex with adult men as willing participants.  Fuck you.  Just..FUCK YOU.

When I was 15 I aggressively pursued a man I met who was 20 and in the Army.  We started dating immediately after meeting and a couple of months later I convinced him it was time to have sex.  He was more than willing to oblige me.  He was also more than willing to, in the rest of the 9 month relationship, rape me in various ways - force me to give him oral sex multiple times, rape me with objects, rape me repeatedly so many times in a motel room that I was bleeding and ended up with a urinary tract infection for weeks, and violently rape and nearly suffocate me while I was drugged beyond being able to respond and his friend watched.

At the time, my 15yo self would have swore up, down and sideways that I loved him, loved sex, wanted all that sex.  

But you see, it was rape, BECAUSE I WAS 15 AND HE WAS 20.

I'd been emotionally/sexually abused by early exposure to pornography and multiple molestations.  I'd been fantasizing about having sex since about age 8.  FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO SEEM TO BE TERMINALLY STUPID WHEN IT COMES TO THE TOPIC OF SEX AND CHILDREN, THAT IS NOT NORMAL.  AND A 20YO ACCEPTING THE SEXUAL OVERTURES OF A 15YO IS ILLEGAL.

You, sick fuck rape apologists, are part of the reason I never reported anything.  Because of course, I thought I WANTED everything that happened to me.

Then I remembered the details of the near-death rape, in college.  And I tried to kill myself.

And I ended up with Borderline Personality Disorder (genetics, environment and all the fucked-up shit in my childhood) that made my life so hard to live and nearly killed me again in 2013.  

It wasn't until I ended up with the best therapist in the world, who said to me firmly over and over - "YOUR PARENTS WERE FELONS.  THEY PROVIDED PORNOGRAPHY TO A CHILD.  THEY KNEW YOU WERE BEING RAPED UNDER THE LAW AND DID NOTHING.  THEY COULD HAVE GONE TO PRISON" did I finally, really, truly realize that none of it was my fault.  

I live free now.  Free from guilt and shame.  I lived with it for 43 years.  I will happily and joyfully turn 50 this year.  I live every day in joyful recovery and the satisfaction that all my abusers and perpetrators didn't win.  I'm still here.  

There is no legal retribution for me.  My rapist is dead.  If the God I love is just, he's rotting in hell.  

And I will stand up for sexual abuse and rape victims loudly and firmly until the day I die.  

Love you guys.

  

[Rachel333]

The 1 in 5 statistic was originally about women's experiences during college and though I believe they did call it sexual assault, the questionnaire it was based on described situations that would be rape. Here's an article about where that statistic comes from.

When you consider the full definition of sexual assault, which includes groping, and look at a lifetime instead of just the college years, I think the statistic would be far, far higher than 1 in 5. It seems like almost every woman has a story of something that would be considered sexual assault, even if they don't call it that.

[Lisafer]

9 hours ago, Aine said:

 I was too young to understand that and how that power dynamic played out and it's still hard to tease it out at times for me. 

But he played on my desire at the time to feel loved and wanted and safe and to make others happy. He might not have had full recognition of that but he did. That relationship left scars on me that took a decade to recognize.

Ugh that ability of predators to play on that desire. That happened to me. I escaped before actual sex was involved. I was 17-18 years old, and it was a woman about 50, a teacher and mentor of mine, who waited to make her move until I was of legal age and slowly trying to unwind from a web of fundamentalism, emotional hurt, and sexual repression.

What made it worse in hindsight is that I am bisexual, but didn't know it at the time, thanks to my fundie upbringing. I think I found her attractive, and I think she picked up on that and used it. I remember the moment of blinding shock when she was talking to me in a small room, between me and the door, and the conversation turned to sexual things, and I had a gut realization of what she wanted. 

What was worse was the denial. I confronted her about it over the phone, and apparently she didn't say what I heard her say, and she didn't mean what I thought she meant, and I didn't see what I saw. To this day I still replay things in my head when I'm stressed or my OCD is kicking in, and I wonder if I was wrong, even though my gut still tells me that I knew the truth. It messes with your head in a painful way.

[QuiverDance]

You know what I keep thinking about now?  Laura Ingalls and Almanzo Wilder.  

Almanzo was fully ten years older than Laura.  She was only 18 when they married.  Younger when they started "courting."  

I know things were different back then, but the age difference has always bugged me.  

It's difficult to look at things that happened years ago through a modern lens and condemn them, but is that relationship something that modern pedophiles use to excuse their behavior?  

Maybe I'll rethink pushing my daughter to read the little house books. 

4 hours ago, Lisafer said:

Ugh that ability of predators to play on that desire. That happened to me. I escaped before actual sex was involved. I was 17-18 years old, and it was a woman about 50, a teacher and mentor of mine, who waited to make her move until I was of legal age and slowly trying to unwind from a web of fundamentalism, emotional hurt, and sexual repression.

What made it worse in hindsight is that I am bisexual, but didn't know it at the time, thanks to my fundie upbringing. I think I found her attractive, and I think she picked up on that and used it. I remember the moment of blinding shock when she was talking to me in a small room, between me and the door, and the conversation turned to sexual things, and I had a gut realization of what she wanted. 

What was worse was the denial. I confronted her about it over the phone, and apparently she didn't say what I heard her say, and she didn't mean what I thought she meant, and I didn't see what I saw. To this day I still replay things in my head when I'm stressed or my OCD is kicking in, and I wonder if I was wrong, even though my gut still tells me that I knew the truth. It messes with your head in a painful way.

Your gut is always right.

Always.  

4 hours ago, Lisafer said:

Ugh that ability of predators to play on that desire. That happened to me. I escaped before actual sex was involved. I was 17-18 years old, and it was a woman about 50, a teacher and mentor of mine, who waited to make her move until I was of legal age and slowly trying to unwind from a web of fundamentalism, emotional hurt, and sexual repression.

What made it worse in hindsight is that I am bisexual, but didn't know it at the time, thanks to my fundie upbringing. I think I found her attractive, and I think she picked up on that and used it. I remember the moment of blinding shock when she was talking to me in a small room, between me and the door, and the conversation turned to sexual things, and I had a gut realization of what she wanted. 

What was worse was the denial. I confronted her about it over the phone, and apparently she didn't say what I heard her say, and she didn't mean what I thought she meant, and I didn't see what I saw. To this day I still replay things in my head when I'm stressed or my OCD is kicking in, and I wonder if I was wrong, even though my gut still tells me that I knew the truth. It messes with your head in a painful way.

Your gut is always right.

Always.  

It's hard for me to think about this now, but my first "love" was 25. We met when I was 17 almost 18. We were together for 8 years.  I know as an adult that he fully manipulated me to stay with him when I wanted to go.  Played on my susceptibility to guilt manipulation.  He knew my family dynamic well and how well that worked on me.  I felt guilty for YEARS for finally dumping him and "ruining his life."  It's only now that I see how screwed up it was that he and I were together to begin with.  I should have been dating boys my own age and felt like I couldn't because I was so screwed up over having had sex with him, thinking that meant I needed to marry him, etc.  I blame Catholicism.

 

[HerNameIsBuffy]

1 minute ago, QuiverDance said:

You know what I keep thinking about now?  Laura Ingalls and Almanzo Wilder.  

Almanzo was fully ten years older than Laura.  She was only 18 when they married.  Younger when they started "courting."  

I know things were different back then, but the age difference has always bugged me.  

It's difficult to look at things that happened years ago through a modern lens and condemn them, but is that relationship something that modern pedophiles use to excuse their behavior?  

Maybe I'll rethink pushing my daughter to read the little house books. 

I just explained to my daughter that things were different back then rather than banning the books in our house,  but that’s a judgement call.

my parents had an age gap and circumstances not only would I have never allowed for my kids but they’d have hit the roof if any of us had tried a similar relationship. 

That doesn’t make my dad a monster - it means they realize things were different then and also...maybe it wasn’t the best choice for either of them as it didn’t end well.

expectations were different sexually, romantically, and socially and society has evolved as we understand more about human development.

that doesn’t give anyone an excuse to disregard appropriate boundaries now.

[nokidsmom]

5 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

my parents had an age gap and circumstances not only would I have never allowed for my kids but they’d have hit the roof if any of us had tried a similar relationship. 

My parents also had an age gap.    It came to my attention recently from relatives, that some family was bothered by it at the time, though I wasn't aware of anything that was untoward.    Just the age difference.    But they would have hit the roof as well if myself or my sibling got into a similar thing.  

 

 

[formergothardite]

26 minutes ago, QuiverDance said:

Maybe I'll rethink pushing my daughter to read the little house books. 

Before you push her to read it, make sure she is ready to understand and discuss the racism in the books. I had grand plans of snuggling with my daughter when she was small and reading them aloud.  I had totally not remembered all the really awful stuff said about Native Americans!  I was remembering churning butter and getting leaches on Nellie and all of a sudden there is all this racist stuff. I realize it is a product of the times and I still adore the books but I had to wait till she was older and we could stop and discuss things. The part about her going to stay with the crazy family when she was teaching was way darker than I remembered. 

[Lisafer]

22 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

I just explained to my daughter that things were different back then rather than banning the books in our house,  but that’s a judgement call.

Just worked through the first Little House book, reading it aloud to my oldest with lots of commentary and explanation of the flawed worldviews. I read every word aloud, except for one appalling song that Pa sang that I had to skip. 

It was still 1000% better than that fucking Elsie Dinsmore. 

[QuiverDance]

4 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

Before you push her to read it, make sure she is ready to understand and discuss the racism in the books. I had grand plans of snuggling with my daughter when she was small and reading them aloud.  I had totally not remembered all the really awful stuff said about Native Americans!  I was remembering churning butter and getting leaches on Nellie and all of a sudden there is all this racist stuff. I realize it is a product of the times and I still adore the books but I had to wait till she was older and we could stop and discuss things. The part about her going to stay with the crazy family when she was teaching was way darker than I remembered. 

This is a very good point.  Ma's character in many ways does not hold up well to time.

[formergothardite]

5 minutes ago, QuiverDance said:

This is a very good point.  Ma's character in many ways does not hold up well to time.

I don't know if you have read Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography, but if you love the Little House books I highly recommend it. For me I found it interesting that Ma comes off as so much nice in Laura's original writings while Pa comes off as being worse. Looking at it from an adult perspective now I'm not sure how Ma didn't go insane. Pa was constantly uprooting their lives to dash after another dream he had. He made terrible life choices. 

[nausicaa]

15 hours ago, AliceInFundyland said:

I have a random final thought.

If you consider your past and you say I have not been sexually assaulted, so I am not in that large percentage of women who has been...

then - do you have an experience that qualifies as an “almost”? I sure do. If not for my coming to my drunken senses and zooming out into the night, I would have had a very regrettable encounter. Honestly, I don’t know if the guy would have stopped or what. I simply left. A stranger found me on the side of the road and returned me to my campus. Then I couldn’t remember what the guy looked like. Disturbing as fuck on a 1500 person campus.

When I think about it now it’s mostly in regards to statistics. How many women have encounters like that in their heads? 

I've been insanely lucky in that I was never molested as a child and never raped as an adult. (I actually try not to think about it too much, because it starts to give me anxiety that my number has to come up.)

I'm also a super tall, aloof, somewhat intimidating adult who rarely drinks and hasn't done drugs other than pot a couple of times and commuted to college from home. And still I have several stories of being groped in clubs/at parties, men shouting threatening things to me on the street, men following me in public, a grown man who was obviously hitting on me when I was only thirteen, a huge drunk guy in a swimming pool at a party either trying to pull my bikini bottoms off or just falling on me and catching his hands there (he was so wasted it was hard to tell). I really can't imagine there are many women who don't have some story. 

[Playagirl]

21 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

I don't know if you have read Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography, but if you love the Little House books I highly recommend it. For me I found it interesting that Ma comes off as so much nice in Laura's original writings while Pa comes off as being worse. Looking at it from an adult perspective now I'm not sure how Ma didn't go insane. Pa was constantly uprooting their lives to dash after another dream he had. He made terrible life choices. 

I read Pioneer Girl last year and I agree with this. Pa seemed to be extraordinarily selfish in constantly uprooting his family and dragging them across the country. Their level of poverty was also much worse than I ever realized while reading the series.

[Carm_88]

15 hours ago, AliceInFundyland said:

When I think about it now it’s mostly in regards to statistics. How many women have encounters like that in their heads? 

I think my biggest almost was being in a bar with a group of friends having sailors buying us shots after shots and drinks after drinks. We were drunk off our ass and they were trying to get our already drunk asses onto their boat. One of my friends sobered up quickly when she realized that they were asking what our plan was after the bar. The bouncers sensed our distress as she tried to keep us altogether and kicked them out. We were all getting freaked out and walked quickly out of the bar. The sober friend later said that they were in the alley waiting for us, but we waited until closing time to leave, and disappeared into a crowd of guys. 

Looking back on it now terrifies me, so much could have gone wrong. 

[justoneoftwo]

9 minutes ago, Playagirl said:

I read Pioneer Girl last year and I agree with this. Pa seemed to be extraordinarily selfish in constantly uprooting his family and dragging them across the country. Their level of poverty was also much worse than I ever realized while reading the series.

I thought he was selfish in the original, I hate to think how much worse it was.

[BachelorToTheRapture]

1 hour ago, QuiverDance said:

You know what I keep thinking about now?  Laura Ingalls and Almanzo Wilder.  

Almanzo was fully ten years older than Laura.  She was only 18 when they married.  Younger when they started "courting."  

I know things were different back then, but the age difference has always bugged me.  

It's difficult to look at things that happened years ago through a modern lens and condemn them, but is that relationship something that modern pedophiles use to excuse their behavior?  

Maybe I'll rethink pushing my daughter to read the little house books. 

Your gut is always right.

Always.  

Your gut is always right.

Always.  

It's hard for me to think about this now, but my first "love" was 25. We met when I was 17 almost 18. We were together for 8 years.  I know as an adult that he fully manipulated me to stay with him when I wanted to go.  Played on my susceptibility to guilt manipulation.  He knew my family dynamic well and how well that worked on me.  I felt guilty for YEARS for finally dumping him and "ruining his life."  It's only now that I see how screwed up it was that he and I were together to begin with.  I should have been dating boys my own age and felt like I couldn't because I was so screwed up over having had sex with him, thinking that meant I needed to marry him, etc.  I blame Catholicism.

 

I remember thinking it was odd that he talked to her dad and not her, that she seemed so unsure, but accepted it because he saved her from a bad situation, that he was an adult and she truly was not when they were first together. She even mentions that she thought of him as Pa's friend at first. But when I was a kid I thought it was okay because she eventually came around and loved him. Now I dont think that's okay at all, and would never consider reading or recommending these books to a child unless the kid and I were both ready for a LOT of commentary about how things are different now.