While the church did its best to drag her character through the mud, I still believe her MTC hell occurred. As a sexual abuse victim, the trauma may cause a person to act and think irrationally.
I have seen enough church cover ups to know first hand how the church deals with humiliation. They bury horrific crimes and their responsibilities with tons of hush money.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/11/2020 08:19AM by messygoop.
messygoop Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > ...All is well
She's got over 75 files of transcrips of the taped recordings and may add another hundred and fifty pages to complete Weber County's biggest sex story.
She's bright enough to begin putting these puzzle pieces together. Utah Sex Cult Book, likely on its way I bet.
Elder Berry Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Being abused and gaslighted together are a > powerful cocktail for crazy. Just saying. I've had > a few sips.
What do you mean? The mormon church is doing abuse and gaslighting?
I know what gaslighting means. I just need for you to say yes or no.
First, they assure victims that appropriate measures will be taken so that there will be "consequences" such as church discipline. The leaders keep reassuring the victim that an investigation is going on, even alluding to a possible handling at the stake or even Salt Lake level. More time passes and then nobody knows anything about what the leaders are doing. It is supposed to go away and the victim is told to have patience and maintain their faith. That's how the church deals with it.
I don't have first hand knowledge of a sexual abuse, but I tangled with an incident at Scout Camp.
On the last night of week long Boy Scout Camp, a bunch of scouts from my troop decided to punish a younger scout for tattling on them. They abducted him and gagged him. They took off his shirt and tied him to a tree. About 5am, I was hearing a funny howl. So I woke up the guy I was bunking with and we tracked the howl to see him in a terrible predicament. I had a pretty good idea which scouts had done the deed. I had to wake up the Scoutmasters and they proceeded to try to find out the culprits. Since nobody spoke up (including the victim), the entire troop was punished. We packed up camp and skipped breakfast.
We hiked out of the camp and the entire troop was punished with an impromptu 5 mile hike in absolute silence. The ride home was also in silence. My TBM Mom was told to get Messy to church early the following morning because the bishopric wanted to interview the scouts involved.
The following afternoon (we had a very late Church service at 2pm) the scouts were marched into in the bishop's office with the victim first. I was the last one to be interviewed. The bishop was frustrated (in part because the victim refused to ID the perpetrators). The first thing he told me was that Boys will be Boys and it is normal for kids to prank other kids. In his mind, the issue was closed. I disagreed and tried to explain that this young man was horrendously bullied in the troop (he was bullied at school- in the 1980s schools didn't do a damn thing). The bishop did not liked that I had opposed his perception of the seriousness of the crime (yes, I thought it crossed the boundary of a prank).
So the bishop turned the tables on me. He asked which scout was Senior Patrol Leader. I acknowledged that it was me. So he asked what actions I took to make the victim feel safe. Since I said not much save to walk next to him so other scouts didn't push him to trip him.
The bishop gave his opinion that the victim was the troublemaker. That he was always fibbing and crying wolf for attention. I was told that I had dishonored the position as Senior Leader and that the Scoutmasters would be informed that I would be resigning the position. The matter was closed.
For the next month, I was besieged by random members of the ward who had heard a "rumor" that some scouting misconduct had occurred. Before I could utter anything, the members answered their own question. "I don't believe anything immoral happened at Scout Camp. The Lord wouldn't allow it. Just a bad rumor circulating around the ward."
Many of the comments from the KSL article defend the church and the accused MTC Prez. -A man who has served in various church leadership positions for 30+ years would never do such thing. The alleged victim should go hide under a rock. She only wants money-
You did admirably. What a victim is going to do in response to abuse is unknown. It is often misconstrued as something else that makes them more victimized. It can have the side effect of eventually turning a victim into a perpetrator as a way of addressing mental problems.
I never became a perp but the seeds are always there. The body and mind never forget. It is a vicious cycle and everyone is different in their situations. One thing is certain - the abuse happened and all the drama that cyclones around it always has that kernel of truth.
I am not familiar with the victem's allogations in this case. Did the church leader ask her for consentual sex? Did he expose himself? Did he attempt to physically overpower her? She claims to have been assaulted. I don't know the legal definition of the charges with respect to the allogations. But any sexual advance by him knowingly against her will is wrong, if not criminal.
But sometimes one has to wonder about the claims involving sex in mormon church culture. If the guy were ninety years old and very overweight, then perhaps any sexual advance by him would be seen as unwanted. If the guy were young and very attractive, then perhaps some level of sexual advances by him might be seen as acceptable, at least until she first says "no". Should having a leadership position in the church (as they both did to varying degrees) be relevant? In my mind, I lost interest in all Mormon women quite a while ago because too many of them have conflicting values about sex and they tend to handle those conflicts in ways that range from irresponsible, to completely psycho. Most non-member women have much less conflict about their sexuality and they tend to take more responsibility about what they want or don't want and about what they did and didn't do. Generally outside of the church, a person of either sex can ask for sex and there is no conflict as long as the other person respects the answer. It's not that simple in Mormon culture. Someone at a child's level of sexual maturity may be in their twenties and still feel assaulted at the mere honest showing of sexual interest in them by someone else.
In Mormonism, any sex outside of marriage is taught by the church to be wrong and thus, the person in their twenties with the sexual maturity of a child. Everyone is a brother or a sister in Mormonism. Mormonism does not teach either how to respect healthy boundries, nor how to set healthy boundries for others. Everything about you is everyone else's business. This is a dangerous mix of values. Maybe she would have said yes to his advances if he weren't such a hypocrit and her supervisor. But the fact that he didn't respect reasonable boundries if that is the case, means that he was wrong and maybe even committed a crime if he didn't accept a "no" answer or if he proceeded quickly in to something (like if he exposed himself) before she had an opportunity to say no. I think that this woman very well may be a victem in more than one way. First, he apparently violates her boundaries. Then she has to look like a total prude publicly, to demand justice after he violates her boundaries. She should be be able to have sex with whoever she wants and to say "no" to just him if that's what she wants to do. He should reconsider his own hypocracy before seeking sex outside of the church rules while acting as a church leader and also as her "supervisor". She has a right to protect herself from his psychological disease (pathological hypocracy and risk-taking) without looking publicly like the problem might be with her. If he actually did what she claims he did and if he denied it (whatever that is), then he is a conflicted person (someone to avoid). If she is exaggerating or embellishing the story because she is conflicted, then she is someone to avoid. If he asked an honest question and she gave an honest answer and if that's all that happened, there should be no story here. But somewhere I am sure there were boundry violations and hypocracy involved. After-all, we're talking about church members here. The story isn't often about what happened as much as the lies about what happened. Even outside of the church, it's the lies that make these situations a story of interest. I really don't think that anyone really cared about Bill Clintin's affair with Monica Lewinsky (even Hillary). But the lies made it in to a real world wide event.
If we're going to look at things in a healthy way, we can't just say that sex is bad and others who seek sex or that handle sexual advances in certain ways are either good or bad. It's when a person expresses their sexual interests or advances towards someone else in in-appropriate ways or at in-appropriate times, that makes it bad. Or perhaps it's the way a person handles such an action made toward them that makes it bad. For a married MTC President and especially with one of his female MTC missionaries, there is generally no appropriate time or way for him to make that kind of advance. None of us was there to witness what actually happened. But the interpretation about the mission president's behavior would be up to her to interpret if it involves her. No mission president, no matter what, should do what he did and then lie about it later. That behavior is pretty messed up. The point of my post was to say that too many Mormons don't operate within any reasonable standards of decency when sex is involved. There is too often, severe hypocracy and significant boundry violations involved. Even most non-members would consider that kind of psycho behavior unacceptable. It's not the person's sex drive that makes them wrong, but how irresponsibly they express it. So please do elaborate about why that post is egregious and terrible without shaming others for being human beings and without saying that the church's practice of sexual repression and lying doesn't promote the in-appropriate behavior. But that is still no excuse for his behavior if he really did what she claims he did.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/12/2020 08:55PM by azsteve.
Its not about sex that is why your post is so bad. I won't even try to get into your head to speak your language of mansplaining being the victim of abuse because that is just hitting my head against a wall and retriggering myself in the effort.