Duggar Daughters Talk Sex, Courtship, and Fear of Ungodly Men

[cbayer]

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/7766/duggar_daughters_talk_sex__courtship__and_fear_of_ungodly_men/

April 16, 2014


Jana, Jill, Jessa, and Jinger take their readers on a tour of evangelical courtship culture.

Myev Rees
Myev Rees is a doctoral student in American Religions at Northwestern University. She studies the history and culture of American evangelicalism, religion and Media, and is currently researching the intersection of religion and reality television. Myev received an MA in Comparative Religion from Miami University of Ohio where she worked on research related to megachurches, constructions of religious celebrity, and religious self-help literature. She received her BA in Philosophy from Barnard College, Columbia University.

Growing up Duggar: Its All About Relationships is the third book in the reality TV family's publishing arsenal, but it's the first book written by the Duggar daughters, Jana, Jill, Jessa, and Jinger.

In the runup to the eighth season of 19 Kids and Counting!, which debuted on April 1st, the young Duggar women launched an ambitious publicity campaign. Interviewers seem to have been particularly fascinated by Jessa Duggar’s announcement last year that she had entered into a “courtship” with fellow conservative evangelical Ben Seewald. Second eldest daughter Jill (22), announced on March 31, that she too was being courted by a young man, Derick Dillard—the couple announced their engagement on April 9th and proposal was, of course, caught by TLC’s cameras.

The Duggar daughters are doing their darndest to make “courtship” culture cool. Whether or not they are succeeding is open to debate, but they are certainly doing a good job of publicizing this conservative evangelical alternative to dating—along with its gendered underpinnings.

Indeed, most coverage has focused on the Duggar’s stance on courtship, dating, sex, and gender. Although Jessa and Jill are not the first Duggar children to court and marry, they are the first daughters—and as their father Jim Bob remarked during the season premiere, “that’s a whole new ball game.”

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[muriel_volestrangler]

1. They should fear the 'godly' men their parents associate with more

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/1218124004

[Blue Owl]

2. Jim Bob's full-time job: Purity Balls

n/t

[Goblinmonger]

3. Those "angelic" girls came to my town to support Santorum

when he was running for President in the state primary. Several of my students told me that those innocent, god-fearing girls told my students that they were going to hell because they were supporting Obama. Probably at least a dozen students were told that.

Spread that Christian love, you little shits.

[rurallib]

4. "Jinger"? - they fucking ran out of names

[Rob H.]

5. What's up with religioconservatives giving their kids names that begin with the same first letter?

I saw that a lot in Mormon families when I lived in Idaho, too. At the rate the Duggars are going, they'll have to start giving their kids names like Jamboree, Juniper, and Jambalaya pretty soon.

[Squinch]

6. Little Jekyll, and Jaberwocky, and Jellydonut agree with you. It's a dumb idea.

[A HERETIC I AM]

11. WWJD?

What would Jellydonut do?

Who wants Jelly Donuts?

[Squinch]

12. THANK YOU! You have given me a guiding ethic! What would Jellydonut do???

I'm kind of glad you didn't say What Would Jekyll Do?

That gets untidy.

[A HERETIC I AM]

13. Jekyll obviously has only one course of action;

Hyde.

[Squinch]

14. LOL! So bad it's good!

[struggle4progress]

7. "Now we've got all these kids, how can we use them to make some money?"

[trotsky]

8. Do you doubt the sincerity of their religious faith?

Perhaps they just want to share their lives as Christians with the rest of us. Seems that unless you know they aren't expressing their faith, you are judging them unfairly and in a very prejudiced manner.

[struggle4progress]

9. I remain somehow cynical about the educational possibilities of reality TV

[trotsky]

10. It's a public stage on which to share their faith.

Generally in reality TV situations the participants themselves may be quite sincere. The producers of the program, that's another story.