Read an interview with a victim of the notorious Children of Gd sex cult today and there were two paragraphs that absolutely leapt out at me, particularly in terms of the discourse we've seen this week re: trying to erode children's boundaries in terms of sex: the Washington Post article on exposing children to kink, Wi Spa (especially Laurie Penny's comments) and that Mermaids photo of the 11 year old sitting on their bed with an adult both dolled up.
"But I also think that a group that is led by a sexually deviant predator paedophile, which is how I look at [cult founder] David Berg – not a prophet – is going to attract people who want to harm kids. What I find so hard to believe is how he tricked that many people into thinking it was OK to raise their kids in this environment: being shown sexual imagery and child pornography I wish I’d never seen.”
The relevant points: 1) predators will always spot movements and groups that allow them to continue being predators and append themselves to/encourage those groups and 2) here is yet another circumstance of adults convincing each other it's OK to erode children's boundaries.
"Is she saying that children were offered up sexually, for money, to men?
'Not necessarily offered up. But if you involve people that are attracted to a group that is entirely loose with its children and how their children view sex, then it leaves everything open for abuse. Sex incorporated itself into our lives. Sex was expected. We were raised to believe that this was normal.'"
This line hit me like a gut punch: "if you involve people that are attracted to a group that is entirely loose with its children and how their children view sex, then it leaves everything open for abuse." How is it these lessons have still not been fucking learned?
Link to the full piece is here: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/inside-the-children-of-god-cult-some-girls-had-to-marry-their-dads-fwk33wm2v?shareToken=61a60db48facd758bd70ab08e4fd6a36