Cult I was born into finally exposed.

@dj2becker said
And you’re also making many uninformed assumptions about what my family did or didn’t do when they found out.

I am just going on the story you yourself told here. You and I talked extensively and in detail about what your family did and didn’t do when they found out. If you feel the need to tell a different story now, feel free to do so.

@dj2becker said
you have nothing to say about the evil system where the cult leader and perpetrators were able to brainwash the victims and instill so much fear in them that they remained silent for all those years.

I criticized your cult in no uncertain times when you described in detail the psychological abuse it subjected you to. It's not accurate to say I "have nothing to say". You will remember, as well as I do, that I had plenty to say.

@fmf said
This is now a different story about your family than the one you told here on this forum in the past.

How is it different FMF?

@fmf said
I criticized your cult in no uncertain times when you described in detail the psychological abuse it subjected you to. It's not accurate to say I "have nothing to say". You will remember, as well as I do, that I had plenty to say.

I’m talking about this thread. What have you said in this thread about the responsibility of the cult? In the past you were also just using the cult to get a dig at me. Your angle in the past and now has always just been to take just another dig at me and my family. So as far as I’m concerned I’m done taking to you. Over and out.

@dj2becker said
I’m talking about this thread. What have you said in this thread about the responsibility of the cult?

I talked about it on previous threads. On this thread, I have been taking a look at what people should do if a family member or someone they know is raped in a situation like the one described in the article linked to in the OP, in which crimes of rape, sexual abuse and molestation feature among the worst atrocities that went on in the cult. Do you think I have been playing down or ignoring what an atrocity those crimes of sexual violence were and the way they were covered up?

@dj2becker said
In the past you were also just using the cult to get a dig at me. Your angle in the past and now has always just been to take just another dig at me and my family.

If your family ~ to your way of thinking ~ did the right thing by your sister and did the right thing in terms of all the other women and girls who were raped or molested thereafter, then you have no need to be defensive about what they did or didn't do.

@dj2becker said
How is it different FMF?

The story you told before was that your parents knew about the attack on your sister on the night it happened but did not tell anyone, as you put it, out of respect for your sister's wishes. You described it as being a demonstration of "loyalty" to her that was a family/moral obligation that outweighed other considerations.

@fmf said
@BigDoggProblem

I don't know what you mean. Please explain.

"Technically correct" referred to an argument.

@bigdoggproblem said
"Technically correct" referred to an argument.

I see it as both the correct argument and the necessary action. Heartless? Well, it's a grim matter whichever you handle it. Do you have a counterproposal?

@bigdoggproblem said
Couldn't one use this exact same argument against a rape victim who was reticent to confront her accuser?

It may be technically correct, but it's heartless.

Some rapes go unreported because the victims have reasons to believe that the accusations will not be taken seriously, or will not be acted upon. This applies especially within a 'culture of denial' about rape.

@moonbus said
Some rapes go unreported because the victims have reasons to believe that the accusations will not be taken seriously, or will not be acted upon. This applies especially within a 'culture of denial' about rape.

This would be one reason why victims need the support of family and friends who should be more aware of the wider moral implications of keeping the sexual violence secret

@fmf said
I see it as both the correct argument and the necessary action. Heartless? Well, it's a grim matter whichever you handle it. Do you have a counterproposal?

Yes. Law enforcement should prosecute the offenders. Whether the escaped victims help with this or not, no further guilt should be placed on their shoulders.

@bigdoggproblem said
Yes. Law enforcement should prosecute the offenders. Whether the escaped victims help with this or not, no further guilt should be placed on their shoulders.

How do you see the law enforcement managing to prosecute the offenders - or even know about them and their offences - if victims and/or their families do not alert them?

@bigdoggproblem said
Yes. Law enforcement should prosecute the offenders. Whether the escaped victims help with this or not, no further guilt should be placed on their shoulders.

Earlier I put this to you:

If my son comes home from school and tells me he has been sodomized by one of his teachers who then threatened to harm him if he told anyone, is doing nothing the correct action for me, his father, to take if my son is reticent about what happened? And what would then be my moral responsibility and the correct action for me to take if I heard that the teacher had sodomized other school children?"

You use the word "guilt" and talking about "putting in on someone's shoulders"; I will refer to that 'pressure' as "responsibility". In the scenario above, do my son and I have any responsibility for warning others and/or telling law enforcement? If we don't, and if other boys at his school are sodomized by the same teacher, do my son and I bear any responsibility [you can call it "guilt" if you want] for what could have been prevented but happened because we did not act?

@fmf said
Earlier I put this to you:

[b]If my son comes home from school and tells me he has been sodomized by one of his teachers who then threatened to harm him if he told anyone, is doing nothing the correct action for me, his father, to take if my son is reticent about what happened? And what would then be my moral responsibility and the correct action for me to take if I heard that ...[text shortened]... call it "guilt" if you want] for what could have been prevented but happened because we did not act?

To give an example of the extreme end of the spectrum, you might have a psychotic illness in which you held the fixed delusional belief that this was the right way for a teacher to behave. The law would see you as incapable of keeping a child safe from abuse and society would have a responsibility to find appropriate care and safety for your child, looking first within your child's extended family and then to the care system. Obviously the teacher's actions are criminal. If there has been any other crime in this example it will have been committed by the public agencies who might have known in advance that your delusional beliefs made you an unsafe father whose son could be preyed on by a paedophile. They might have been negligent as might any other agency that had known of your beliefs and/or failed to Safeguard your son.

So, if you move from the above to the complex scenario of a cult forcing the beliefs on to its members that child abuse was okay and a part of proper religious ritual you have two problems. Were the non-protective parents simply holding fixed beliefs that left them unable to parent as opposed to complicit in abuse? Was wider society and it's relevant public services in fact negligent of under investigating the possibility of both the abuse and the non-protective parents? In fact if the parents were truly indoctrinated was it the wider society that carries the greater burden of guilt for not acting? The warning signs were probably more apparent than the warning signs that a teacher or a social worker would be expected to pick up on in regular practice.