I lived in Utah when she was kidnapped. I got to tell you all that I've tried to be compassionate and understanding about her situation for all the time she was held captive but still in the back of my mind I can't help but thinking that was one dumb chick.
I honestly feel that only reason she stayed with that wacko was because of her LDS up bringing.
I wonder if it wasn't for an alert cop, if she still wouldn't be with those two.
I swear to whatever God there might be, indoctrinated Mormons can not think for themselves.
I sort of feel the same monkey, but she was very young when it happened and even though I don't agree with how she believes at all now, I wasn't the one who was raped by a psycho bum for, what was it, 90 days straight? I think she's doing the best she can given what she's gone through and how she was raised.
I've seen it suggested elsewhere that, by the time she had been raped repeatedly, she felt dirty and unworthy and that there was no hope for anything better, so why try.
Given the chastity nights she had no doubt endured prior to her kidnapping, together with her very young and vulnerable age, I think it is quite understandable why she stayed.
Shame and fear are powerful emotions for adults, let alone children. She was only 14 -- and one has only limited maturity and judgment at 14 years old.
I remember myself at 14 -- not much more than a child really. Quite unable at that age to call a spade and spade and realize that my elders didn't have a clue. The ability to exercise critical thinking and good judgment came later.
I don't know that I could have endured what she did and come through it with anything approaching a normal life.
Religion had everything to do with it and Patty Hearst was an adult. (19 when kidnaped)
The wacko that kidnaped her wasn't he some self appointed prophet? And didn't he have his own doctoring to embellish upon that poor girl? Plus the follow the leader mentality she had already been indoctrinated with for 14 years must have contributed to her inability to yell for help or walk away. Maybe not in the beginning but surly after nine months she must of had many occasions to get help.
Believe me when I say I can't even conceive of the horror that poor girl went through.
But in the back of my mind I still can't help to think what if she had not been LDS and not raised on a steady diet of men talk to God and follow the prophet etc., etc., etc.
Could she then had the reasoning power to know her abductor had no real power over her. Played the game, always looking the first chance to escape. Then take it.
You all know the truth - According to Spencer W Kimball that great prophet from Arizona who wrote in his book The Miracle of Forgiveness that any girl that does not die while being raped is at fault for getting raped. The raped victim must repent to her church leaders by going into great detail every little sexual thing done to her daily for 9 months in order to be forgiven.
I wonder if Elizabeth Smart was forced to read the MOF trash.
I also wonder how many times her church leaders got off thinking about her stories and what they would have done to her.
didnt he, ted gunderson(1928-2011) ex-fbi agent, mention that her family(parents? or her father?) might be connected to pedophile ring or some??? in youtube video, anyone saw???
You are a 14-year-old, devout and obedient LDS girl. You have been told by your parents that you must obey males, and particularly males who have the priesthood (regardless of who they are)...and you ARE, in fact, told by a fully adult, male, self-described, LDS prophet that you must have sex with him (and on any regular basis he decides best).
Does it matter who the "prophet" is?
Joseph Smith?
Brian David Mitchell?
Maybe even: Brigham Young?
From the perspective of the 14-year-old girl who has been raised this way, does she have ANY choice other than to obey the prophet?
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/17/2014 09:51PM by tevai.
Elizabeth has straight up said that the "chewed up gum" lessons she received prevented her from getting help in the months after she was first raped. [http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/05/06/elizabeth_smart_abstinence_only_sex_education_hurts_victims_of_rape_and.html]. She mentioned thus was common with abstinence education in Utah schools.
[quote]“I remember in school one time, I had a teacher who was talking about abstinence,” Smart told the panel. “And she said, ‘Imagine you’re a stick of gum. When you engage in sex, that’s like getting chewed. And if you do that lots of times, you’re going to become an old piece of gum, and who is going to want you after that?’ Well, that’s terrible. No one should ever say that. But for me, I thought, ‘I’m that chewed-up piece of gum.’ Nobody re-chews a piece of gum. You throw it away. And that’s how easy it is to feel you no longer have worth. Your life no longer has value.”[/quote]
What impresses me with her is that, when she was in California and still being raped daily, she somehow came up with the emotional wherewithal to trick her kidnappers into returning to Utah. Feeling like a chewed up piece of gum or not, she saved herself by getting to a place where would be spotted and recognized. I suspect those actions have been helpful in her recovery.
Now she's out speaking every week about just how harmful these lessons are. She's got guts. (I do wish, though, that she would rid herself of the RS General Presidency speech patterns. She much to young to sound like a mormon grandmother.)