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To the girls that were sexually assaulted by Josh Duggar,

I am so sorry that you have had to watch Josh Duggar on your television. I'm sorry that you had to watch him get married while you were terrorized by the thoughts of the ways he hurt you. I'm sorry that you got to watch him have children and remain successful, remain a role model. I'm sorry that you had to live for years in secret over the fact that you were assaulted by someone who young girls dreamed about marrying. I'm sorry that teen girls thought that a man like Josh Duggar would make the perfect husband.

You have been wronged. You have been written off as a teenage mistake, no different than the Steubenville Rapists. You have been swept under the rug so that a family could be successful, could be an example to Christians across the world. You are not being defended by journalists, by people on Facebook, by politicians like Mike Huckabee. You are ignored so that people can sit on their sofas and wax poetic about how lovely the Duggar family is and how they make such wonderful role models to young people across the world. You are not a thought in their mind.

I'm sorry that you had to live with years of trauma. I'm sorry that people aren't thinking about you, aren't considering your feelings like they are Josh Duggars. I'm sorry that you haven't been seen as a person with rights, a person in control of your body. I'm sorry that Josh Duggar sexually assaulted you and faced no legal consequences. And if no one tells you this in the wake of this news, please remember that what he did to you has never been and will never be your fault.

catch you later,

Karleigh

“Now, should we treat women as independent agents, responsible for themselves? Of course. But being responsible has nothing to do with being raped. Women don’t get raped because they were drinking or took drugs. Women do not get raped because they weren’t careful enough. Women get raped because someone raped them.” // Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women