Duggar daughters and marriage, are we asking the right question?

[Glass Cowcatcher]

When Smuggar was about 16, Jim Bob had an unsuccessful campaign for the US Senate. He blamed his loss on "sin in the camp" while glaring at Josh, who was sporting a shaved head. There was speculation that he had attended a Gothard re-education camp.

No one actually knows exactly what Josh's supposed sin was- there are various rumours ranging from him molesting one or more of his siblings, to fondling a sleeping Holt girl to whom he was supposedly engaged at the time, to a porn addiction, to getting caught playing with himself.

Maybe that's why, (I can't remember what exactly it war from but someone posted it here) they worried that the siblings seeing each other in their pajamas was defrauding.

[Patsy]

What is this "Sin in the camp" that keeps getting mentioned?

It is repeatedly brought up and basically lives on as repeated repeated repeated rumour. If you can dig back to the original story, it's an account from someone who for all we know has never met the Duggars. What is true: the Duggars and the Holts had a falling out, Josh was sent to re-education camp around that time and came back with his head shaved, and cousin Amy said on her facebook that he had been engaged before.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=%22sin+in+the+camp%22+duggar

[Patsy]

oh, hey, others replied already :oops:

IIRC there were two original first comments, and the rest have just been repetitions of what was said in those:

1- he was sent away because of some sort of sexual sin, it was the "sin in the camp" that Jim Bob said was the reason he wasn't elected (also Oprah totally knew about it and she thought he molested his sisters and she tried to send them to college?...)

2- nothing that actually says 'the Duggars', just that someone said they knew someone who was in a massive family, engaged very young (at around 14) but the engagement was broken off and he was sent off to camp

anyone have a better memory of this?

[JenniferJuniper]

You can get a good look at Josh's shaved head at about 2:17 here:

[Visionoyahweh]

Amy said on her facebook that he had been engaged before.

I thought it was common knowledge he was engaged to a Holt girl when they were around age 14. Sad. :cry:

[holothuroidea]

You can get a good look at Josh's shaved head at about 2:17 here:

:o That was Josh!? What the hell happened to him?

Sorry for the newbshock, I'm sure this is old news for everyone but, holy crap, he looks 30 years older now and it's been less than 10 years.

[Mela99]

Engaged before? At 14? Uhm... That's the first time I ever heard of that. I wonder if Anna knew about Joshie's "baggage".

[Mela99]

I just watched the video... I can't get over how different they all look. Hair. Makeup. Dresses. Mullet with her homemade sunflower 'puritan' dress.

:|

[geniebelle6901]

This girl that Josh supposedly touched inappropriately...was she the Holt girl that he was courting? Was she a willing participant or did he actually sexually assault her? If he attempted or actually molested one of his siblings, which one was it? Has Oprah or one of her representatives come forward with any kind of statement at all? Did she actually do an interview that never got aired? If so was it because of the Josh rumors or because she offered a scholarship to one of the girls and they turned her down?

See, too many unanswered questions here, which leads me to believe this "sin in the camp" has been blown way, way, out of proportion or is much more sinister than we can imagine. And, I'll even go so far as to say that it wouldn't surprise me if the "rumors" were deliberately started by the Duggars themselves either as a publicity stunt.

[fluttershies]

IMO the 'sin in the camp' was something porn and/or masturbation related. We all know the Duggars consider any sexual thoughts or actions outside of marriage to be a sin, and judging by Smuggar and J'Anna's frantic handsex post-engagement, Josh must have been super horny by the time he married. Hell, he could have been looking at a picture of a girl in a bikini, not even actual porn. Maybe one of his sisters caught him and ratted on him (we know Ma and Pa Duggar encourage their kids to tattle on each other) which is where the inappropriate behaviour with a sibling rumour came from? Oprah's never said anything and I can't see her not speaking out about sexual abuse if it was abuse.

[Daenerys]

:o That was Josh!? What the hell happened to him?

Sorry for the newbshock, I'm sure this is old news for everyone but, holy crap, he looks 30 years older now and it's been less than 10 years.

Check out his voice at around 4:55... where the hell did that accent go?

[JenniferJuniper]

Check out his voice at around 4:55... where the hell did that accent go?

I've noticed that about nearly all of the kids over the years. It's as though they've received some training on how to minimize their native accents. Maybe a TLC requirement?

[Handmaiden of Dog]

:o That was Josh!? What the hell happened to him?

Sorry for the newbshock, I'm sure this is old news for everyone but, holy crap, he looks 30 years older now and it's been less than 10 years.

That was around 7 years ago. Not only has he aged terribly, it is a shock to see how much older Michelle looks now. I've always thought she was holding up well but look at how young she was then-- and that was while she was pregnant with #15! She could pass for someone in her 20's. These days not so much. If she experiences what I went through, once she hits menopause...BAM...it's all over. I didn't have much in the way of wrinkles premenopause, but one year after and not only are there new ones every morning (it seems like) but also (gulp) jowls. Ack. Just kill me now.

[DifferentGurl]

I just can't believe that JimBob blamed "the sin in the camp" for the lost of the election. I'm sure no one had heard of it until after the election was over.

Seriously, blaming your son for you losing the election. That sounds kinda wrong, doesn't it? I'm sure he lost because people thought he wouldn't be good in Congress.

[JenniferJuniper]

I just can't believe that JimBob blamed "the sin in the camp" for the lost of the election. I'm sure no one had heard of it until after the election was over.

Seriously, blaming your son for you losing the election. That sounds kinda wrong, doesn't it? I'm sure he lost because people thought he wouldn't be good in Congress.

I don't think Boob's political losses were exactly around the same time Josh ended up with a bald head. The special spanned between just before Jackson's birth and his first year, so that puts it in the '04 - '05 time period. I think his State Senate loss was in '06.

However, their pal Jim Holt, father of Josh's alleged intended, lost his US Senate bid in '04 and that would fit. So if Josh committed a sin in any camp that led to him being sheared like a sheep as part of his punishment, it was probably in the Holt camp.

[lilith]

I've always thought the sin in the camp was in the Holt campaign too.

And that it lead to a cooling of relationships between the two families and the end of the presumptive courtship between Josh and the Holt daughter. I don't think they were formally engaged, more like they had some sort of understanding for when they were a bit older.

I too believe the "sin" was porn and/ or masturbation, nothing unusual for a teenage boy.

[JenniferJuniper]

I've always thought the sin in the camp was in the Holt campaign too.

And that it lead to a cooling of relationships between the two families and the end of the presumptive courtship between Josh and the Holt daughter. I don't think they were formally engaged, more like they had some sort of understanding for when they were a bit older.

I too believe the "sin" was porn and/ or masturbation, nothing unusual for a teenage boy.

I refuse to buy the Oprah story or the rumors about molestation without much more substantial support. Internet rumors are just too damn easy to spread.

However, that was one seriously shaved head so something must have happened. If it was connected to "sin" in the Holt campaign, how would porn and masturbation be involved? I can see the Duggars severely punishing a son after finding a stash of porn, but what then would be the Holt connection?

And do Gothards really punish teenage boys that severely for something as normal for teenage boys as masturbation? I can't believe it doesn't happen regularly and would imagine parents would want to keep any related discipline private. That shaved head was a message to others outside the family that he was being punished for whatever it was he did.

My guess would be that whatever it was, it involved another person not in the family. But, hell, for all we know it could have been something as simple as a stolen kiss.

[Coconut Flan]

Just a question, but don't all the attendees at the beginning ALERT Academy get the head shaved thing as in pretend boot camp? Perhaps the Duggars believed the Gothard ALERT is a good program ad and sent Josh because he was the right age and thus the rumor mill was set on fire?

I remember reading someone on TWoP who had a reference that the sin in the camp was either an internet fabrication or nothing to do with Josh. I can't remember the details.

Or it could be that Josh got into something and was sent off to ALERT for re-education.

[JenniferJuniper]

Just a question, but don't all the attendees at the beginning ALERT Academy get the head shaved thing as in pretend boot camp? Perhaps the Duggars believed the Gothard ALERT is a good program ad and sent Josh because he was the right age and thus the rumor mill was set on fire?

I remember reading someone on TWoP who had a reference that the sin in the camp was either an internet fabrication or nothing to do with Josh. I can't remember the details.

Or it could be that Josh got into something and was sent off to ALERT for re-education.

The ALERT thing is very possible, but we've never seen any of the other boys with haircuts quite so severe - he was practically bald - so I lean towards punishment of some sort. But we really have no way of knowing what he would have been punished for, and these people are nuts.

[Maude]

I refuse to buy the Oprah story or the rumors about molestation without much more substantial support. Internet rumors are just too damn easy to spread.

However, that was one seriously shaved head so something must have happened. If it was connected to "sin" in the Holt campaign, how would porn and masturbation be involved? I can see the Duggars severely punishing a son after finding a stash of porn, but what then would be the Holt connection?

And do Gothards really punish teenage boys that severely for something as normal for teenage boys as masturbation? I can't believe it doesn't happen regularly and would imagine parents would want to keep any related discipline private. That shaved head was a message to others outside the family that he was being punished for whatever it was he did.

My guess would be that whatever it was, it involved another person not in the family. But, hell, for all we know it could have been something as simple as a stolen kiss.

That's a possibility. Maybe he and one of the Holt girls held hands or shared a kiss or something. Unless someone writes a tell-all book, I doubt we'll ever know.

[Inky]

Well, thank you all for explaining it for me. I kept seeing that phrase pop up. And that video! They have really changed their appearance over time.

[nutella addict]

I thought that JB was helping Mr. Holt with his campaign or something like that - that one was helping the other, anyhow, and that's how Josh's supposed sin got blamed. I also heard that they wanted to support separate candidates and that's why they had a falling out. I'm not sure how much I believe any of the rumours, but his head was very shaved, it's been discussed to death, and seeing what Josh is like outside of the TTH, with pretty much a complete lack of self-control, I suspect he was caught masturbating or watching/looking at "porn" - or even the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated - and that's why he was encouraged to marry so young. That and they needed it for the show.

I'm not at all sure that we'll see any courtships in the near future, unless they can come up with one and try it for a desperate bid to keep the show going...maybe they're hoping that M3 will be announced and arrive in time to get another season?

Then again, I haven't watched this season at all, because the show has gotten so very boring/painful to watch and I always hated the TLC layout where the vast majority of the episode is spent on reviewing/previewing the rest of it around the commercial breaks. Also because I haven't gotten quite that desperate when it comes to TV, yet. [Although, I am slowly running out of documentaries, MIOBI was cancelled, Doctor Who/Sherlock/QI/Merlin are on hiatus or at least I can't watch them from here, and I fell behind on Glee and didn't get around to catching up before the finale...so maybe soon.]

[xReems]

Regarding Josh and the supposed "sin in the camp", here's a summary of it:

-The Duggars were very buddy buddy with the Holts and even appeared in one of their earlier documentaries but then suddenly disappeared and viewers never heard of them again. Enter Gil and Kelly...

-Supposedly, in one of their earlier documentaries or an interview, when JB was asked about his political career, he said "sin in the camp" as his reasoning and turned to Smuggar while he said it. My guess is that the rumor mill started from there since JB turned to Smug after stating "sin in the camp."

-The rumors have been anything from pornography to molestation. I can believe masturbation and pornography but I just can't believe Smuggar, no matter how crappy of a human being he is, would molest his sisters or one of the Holts girl he was betrothed to. Remember, this is an ATI family; a serious sin to them could involve Smugs and the girl he was betrothed to hugging or a kiss on the cheek. What's nothing too serious for us is extremely serious for them, so they took drastic action and sent Smuggar to Gothard's reeducation camps. We can google and look at IBLP's website as much as we want but Gothard will never claim any of his camps are "reeducation camps" to maintain a "good" image.

If you think about it, Josh is extremely lazy and we've clearly seen that from his Instagram updates. I'm pretty sure JB and Michelle felt that they could still handle everything at home without Smuggar, since he wasn't a huge helper around the house. The Duggar girls, on the other hand, are the reasons why the house runs "smoothly", in their eyes. Remember when Josh brought his sisters down to Florida to help with wedding prep? He told the cameras that they were on a tight deadline since his parents needed the girls back. In other words, Boob and Mullet can't handle raising THEIR children without their older daughters. If they lose one to marriage, that's more responsibility on Mullet and clearly, she has absolutely no time to raise her children *sarcasm*. The guys actively look for their future wife, while the girls are suppose to sit around until daddy comes to them with a potential courtship. Ultimately, it's up to JB to decide whether the guy is worthy enough to begin a courtship with one of his daughters. Since he has the final say, he's going to use every excuse in the book he can to keep his daughters around so the parents have more time trying for #21 over and over again while they do the parenting to the younger ones.