ELDORADO, Texas — A special master will be chosen to review documents, computers and even family Bibles seized from a Texas ranch owned by a polygamist sect.The special master will vet what is expected to be hundreds of items that might not become evidence for legal or religious reasons.Also, an affidavit quoting a confidential informant says a temple at the ranch contains an area where men had sex for the first time with their new underage wives following polygamous unions.Texas state troopers on Wednesday completed their nearly weeklong search of the grounds controlled by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.The state has taken legal custody of the 416 children found at the ranch.In addition, 139 women voluntarily left the compound and remain with the youngsters.Court documents say teenage girls were required to have sex in the soaring white temple after they were married at the polygamist compound in West Texas.A confidential informant told officials the temple in Eldorado contains a bed where adult males engage in sexual activity with females under the age of 17.An affadavit by a Texas Ranger said agents found a bed in the temple with disturbed linens and what appeared to be a female hair.The temple also contained multiple locked safes, vaults and desk drawers that authorities sought access to. The affidavit unsealed Wednesday mentions a 16-year-old girl who has four children.
Karen,
It wasn’t a sense of powerlessness since it wasn’t forced but you definitely hit the nail on the head with ‘broken trust’. That’s exactly what bothers me about it. That an adult could do something so selfish to an unknowing child to me is abominable. I actually didn’t remember the event for years, but when I did I was old enough to wrap my mind around it within a more mature context.
Perhaps its why I feel so passionately about the subject. I think I’m lucky in a sense that it was a fairly isolated set of events – but if it had perpetuated, who knows how I would have turned out? I escaped relatively unscathed but the experience left me with a greater sense of responsibility to protect children from slimeballs. I’m starting to piece together what constitutes ‘slimeball’ and don’t want to hold any double standards.
And the 21 yr old thing is sort of a hyperbole’d perception I was throwing out there to make a point. I just think from experience that we become sexual at a younger age than legislation would lead us to believe – but it’s probably for the protection of younger kids to avoid pregnancy at an early age.
3E8
“That an adult could do something so selfish to an unknowing child to me is abominable.”
It is abominable. And while I’m not making excuses for your abuser, it most likely happened to him the same way. It happened to me, when I was younger than you. It sounds like you, like I, have broken the chain of abuse. You are to be congratulated for that; it is remarkable, truly. I don’t know if you have children, but if and when you do, you will have to be careful about all kinds of abuse, not just sexual. But since you see yourself as a champion of children, that shouldn’t be hard.
It’s also common that you repressed what happened until a time later in your life when you could deal with it more maturely. There are many stages you go through in the healing process, and you seem to have touched some of them. There are many books out on the process to guide you, if you are interested. I relied heavily on a book called The Courage to Heal; A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis. I don’t know if there has since been a volume published for men, but there is a workbook of the same name for women and men together. It could give you some insight into your feelings and what you’ve been dealing with. Or if you ever need someone to talk to, I could give you my email. Or maybe I’m making too much of this and you’re fine?
3E8,
The change in consenting age has secular roots, and little to do with morality and/or religious morality.
In America, 200 years ago, getting married at an age 12 to a much older adult was perfectly ok. At that age, kids were done school and ready to go out into the world. Since mostly men worked, older men would often marry younger girls.
Since then, a shift in socio-economic shift caused the age of consent to rise to what it is today. As the Industrial Revolution kicked in, competition for jobs led to the creation of job minimum age laws. As a result, young teens couldn’t find real work, and high schools were created to fill the void.
If you think about it that way, you’ll see that the consenting age changed, but the reasoning didn’t. Both 200 years ago and today, we basically say you’re not old enough to give consent to many things until you’re old enough to live on your own.
I find there is an interesting parallel between psychotherapy and religion.
Religion is completely evidence free and psychotherapy isn’t much better. The proof of this is the large number of doctrines all making contradictory claims as to the one right way to do things.
Recovered memory syndrome is one of the worst aspects of psychotherapy to surface. Religiously inspired therapists or police investigators have worked with children to ‘help’ them recall horrific satanic cult abuses. They just keep asking the same detailed questions over and over until the child’s memory comes to agree with the questions.
Therapists with a feminist bent have done a similar thing to adult patients with regression techniques, resulting in false accusations of sexual abuse against parents, teachers and others.
Locally, Michael Kliman, an elementary school teacher was victimized by a combination of such a therapist and an over zealous police officer and prosecutors who ignored the improbability of the remembered offences occurring in a very public hallway as one example.
http://tanadineen.com/MEDIA/VancouverSun2.htm
A friend of mine went looking for help from a California psychotherapist and ended up recovering memories that her father had abused her, in ways that were “unimaginably evil”. She, her parents, her husband and her daughter have all been affected by the negligence and incompetence of that therapist.
All of which only makes it more difficult for real victims of abuse.
3e8, do you have independent evidence of your abuse, other than your memories? A confession? Witnesses? Your story doesn’t make it clear if someone helped you recover them.
The FLDS are still getting away with abusive polygamy in Bountiful, BC. The first problem is finding witnesses willing to testify, but the government seems unwilling to try because of the constitutional religious freedom defence. Cowards.
Karen,
Thank you for your positive perspective and your kind offer. I think I’m managing pretty well, as you’ll see below I’ve spoken with someone close to me with the same experience. Y’know – reading back to my first post, I feel that a lot has come out and discussing it in this forum has really grounded my perspective a little better.
DDD,
Yes, MANY years later, I confided in someone else who grew up with me in the same neighborhood and before I could finish, he said “It was ___, wasn’t it” and then he described almost exactly what happened to him, location and all by the same individual who did it to me. No telling how many other kids fell victim in that neighborhood.
Nonetheless, you also bring up a valid point. I’ve kind of lost faith in the vague ‘science’ of psychotherapy as well.
i have had the pleasure of working with many fine persons of the mainstream mormon tradition. hopefully this will open their eyes to the damage to their image caused by this sect and will get serious about enforcing the marriage and sex laws of the western states.this outrage has been going on for decades and people turned a blind eye. high time to make clear the law not your particular religious group is supreme.
ok, hundreds of girls, multible brides for old guys. I have as yet seen one word of mention of boys. Not one picture of a boy. Is it possible the worst news is to come?
DD-Are you sure this is a femist adgenda?
DeepDiver-I learned about the “Lost Boys” this morning. Brace yourself for that one.
cry:
I had heard of lost boys in the past and current news but always from other countrys.
Did a quick google and was shocked. Why the HELL has this not been brought to our media attention! This article is 4 years old for crying out loud.
http://www.rickross.com/reference/polygamy/polygamy250.html
Perhaps it’s polygamists’ best kept secret. The old dudes don’t want any competition from the young bucks. They know the young girls will always want the young bucks. It’s a wonder they didn’t sacrifice them?
I see nothing wrong with children having sex once they reach puberty. They are, for one thing, physically ready for it. And since everyone is different, then you can’t make a blanket statement about how “everyone” is not mentally ready.
Thus, I see no argument against teenagers having sex with anyone of any age, so long as it’s consensual.
And yes, I agree, the laws we have are attempting to make laws on morality.
Cry4turtles,
No, I wouldn’t say it was a feminist agenda at all. It seems to me to be more of a consequence of feminists shining lights in dark corners and exposing the extent of male abuse of women and children.
These victims were going to therapists and somewhere along the way someone decided to use regression and hypnosis to ‘help’ bring memories to the surface. They weren’t surprised when they found what they believed would be there.
Psychologists know how unreliable memories are, even without deliberate tampering. They also know how individuals typically place too much trust in the accuracy of their memories. In these cases this was all forgotten, though you can see by the statements issued by the various national associations of psychologist that they won’t soon forget it again.
It wouldn’t surprise me if there were still a few true believing therapists out there. My friend still believes she is a victim. I wonder if it is because she can’t face the damage caused by her being deceived.
I speculate that these particular therapists got the results they were looking for and were too incompetent to look for corroborating evidence. Once one case of false memory synthesis became known, the concept spread, contaminating hundreds of lives.
I haven’t come across anything that gave a reasonable explanation from one of these therapists. Mostly they appear to be in damage control mode where admitting their mistakes would just bring on the law suits.
mushinronjya
The key word is ‘consensual’. Our law makers have the idea that the younger person is not capable of giving consent. It ends up being a grey area.
It aught to be no-one’s concern if the couple is close in age. If the significantly older one is in ‘authority’ that does make a difference.
As this case develops, I think the very notion of “consensual” has to be in the crosshairs of the prosecution.
If you have lived your whole life with restricted knowledge of the outside world, with people teaching you their beliefs as facts, and with extreme pressure for conformity, can you really be said to “consent” to anything?
But, if this is seen as abusive, and criminal, then where do we draw the line? Wouldn’t most churches be guilty of behavior modification through thought-control committed against minors? Are we really even allowing a *free* exercise of religion, if we allow such indoctrination to continue? Maybe all churches should be rated ‘NC-17′.