Moving On - Children of the Children of God

The Family has so often repeated the claim that they baned sexual contact with minors in 1986, that even though they have never published documentation on this supposed ban it seems to remain unchallenged. I am posting this comment from "Onlooker" with permission because I feel it is a very important point. Others posted great comments in this regard, but I didn't want to cut and paste anothers handiwork, suffice to say the actual policy as published in the BTH after 1986 was only no intercourse that may result in pregnancy until 15 years old. The following is "Onlookers" post:

Saying that all sexual contact between adults & minors was stopped in 1986 is totally ridiculous.

I was at the PI TTC in 1987 when "uncle" Josiah was explaining to us why a 14 yr old teen girl K. was VERY pregnant when the rules at the time were "no sex for seminating & menstruating teens until 15." Incidently I happened to be in the room when a young teen girl was talking to her shepherdess saying that she liked K. but was having a trial that her father was the father of the baby. This man is still a very prominent member of WS even now.

Josiah's explaination was that K. had permission from Berg & Zerby to "share" with the adults in her home since she was living at Mariannes & therefore would not be seen in public & it wouldn't cause persecution which had been the reason that Berg made the rule in the first place.

I think someone already posted the excerpt of the Berg letter on this site. Berg & Zerby had a conversation in the letter saying that there shouldn't be any reason that non seminating or menstruating teens couldn't have sex but once they were menstruating or seminating they should learn to do other things besides full intercourse. He also said that he tells the adult guys in his home not to get their manliness close to the teen girls so as to cause any of them to get pregnant until they are 15 but any other types of loving & fondling is fine. The reasoning for this was that if they got pregnant when they were 15 they wouldn't have the baby till they were almost 17 which would be much more acceptable to "the System"

I remember going to India after the TTC in 1987 because of the Philippine persecution which is why I am so sure what year it was. The teen training handbook came out while I was in India as well as the Mene series which talked about Mene having love up time with the adults in the home. Nothing was ever said about no contact with minors. I do remember a circular coming out sometime after that from Sara which was a BAR pub but as someone else said none of the teens in the home were told the nature of the letter or that policies had now changed so how were we supposed to know? The letter "Make it work" also came out after 1986 for sure. I think it was 1988 or 1989 & I'm sure many of you remember the letter talked about adults having sex with one of the teens getting married on their wedding night to show them how to do it while the other one watches. I was terrified by this & was extremely worried. I remember very clearly (in late 1988) an adult man telling me that when I got married to call him because he would be happy to show me the ropes on my wedding night. If you recall Berg was talking about 15-18 yr olds getting married in that letter so if an adult was supposed to show them the ropes in bed & coach them on their wedding night, that really doesn't sound like no contact with minors. Now they just want to change history & say that it was all minors when at the time it had a very different meaning & age qualification as we all know. I have some DB's somewhere so I'll have to go check out the dates on those letters. If anyone else finds the letters in question pls let me know.

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from cool8pack
Thursday, January 27, 2005 - 07:18
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where is this little shit now....??? anyone know...? post it here....!
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from Remembers
Thursday, January 27, 2005 - 01:51
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Josiah was a BIG EXCEPTION (aka HYPOCRITE) in the eyes of Zerby and co. In the early 90's Josiah carried on a sexual relationship with me & did everything but penetration. This was after the Charter when the rules were finally strict between teen and adult sex. And I was not the only girl around that he "liked to get it on with". There were girls ranging from 15-18 that he was "regulars" with. And it wasn't very secretive either. He had a real facination with breasts and would often fondle girls' breast in public and pull up their shirts. I know that there are a lot of people who remembers this.

I was not attracted to Josiah - he was an old man! But since he was a CRO, and was VERY push, it was hard to push him away. I would do everything to avoid being around when he was drunk (remember this was totally against the Charter - the alchohol limits were slim, but he was an expection to this) and would also avoid "ending up" in dark alone places where he might find me. When I would try to get out of it and quote the rules and remind him that it wasn't allowed, he would use his "I'm leadership, it's ok" explanation. This caused a lot of confusion for me.

Josiah was a horny/dirty old man who couldn't get his hands off any young girl around. I know there are a lot of girls out there who have stories to tell about him.

Then Mary Mom (his wife) found out and got upset. She asked to talk to me (and she can be scarry). Josiah managed to get ahold of me before my "talk" and told me to tell Mary that he had never gone below my waist, and only kissed and fondled my breasts. He said that he had gotten "speacial permission from Mama and Peter to fondle young girls' breasts, cause it was a weakness of his." He just couldn't abstain, so they finally told him if he kept it above the waist he wouldn't get in trouble. Oh my God!!! WTF?!?!! How could WS make someone an exeption to the rules - and say that an old man could play around with young girls?!?!?

He was a pervert and did everything to me but penetrate! Here's this big ass leader telling me to lie to cover his ass.

So I go finally go in to have my talk with Mary, and there's both Mary and Josiah holding hands looking at me with total disdain. Mary cross examined me about my sexual relations with her philadering husband, and I managed to stick to the "only above the waist" line that I had been scarred into giving. During that talk I had never felt so low and forsaken. She rebuked me for being a temptation to Josiah and told me that my past health problems was a direct punishment from God for what I had done. She took it all out on me and Josiah just sat there like a wet fish and let me take all the flack. First he abuses me, then asks me to lie to cover his ass, and then he lets me take all the flack. Jerk!

I felt so low and dirty. Accusing a victim of abuse of being the perpertrator is one of the lowest things a human can do. I sat there in front of two of the biggest leaders around and was meant to feel like the biggest sinner in the world.

Mary reported it to Peter and Maria while I waited to hear back what the punishment was going to be.

The next night Josiah paid me a visit in the middle of the night. He woke me up trying to get into my bed. He was only wearing a shirt (no underware) and had alchohol on his breath. I was shocked! The gull he had! I kicked him out!

The next day both Mary and Josiah informed me that Peter and Mama had decided to not punish us for breaking the rules. The punishment should have been a 6month excommunication (babes status). But since Josiah was an important leader and valuable to the Lords work, he wouldn't be required. And if I went to babes status everyone would find out why, and they didn't want anyone to know what Josiah had done. They said it "could stumble the sheep". I was told I was lucky that it had been with a CRO, otherwise there wouldn't have been an exception to the punishment. I was swarn to never ever voice anything about the event. And I never did - until now.

This always proved to me that the Family is all about double standards for their leadership and "chosen" - just like society that they claim to be so above. They cover up when it suits them, but lets the little sheep hang out to burn. How many single moms have they put out on the street because they seased to be useful? The Family leadership is just as currupt as any other organization or business. How can they claim to be "above the law", "God's chosen", "Perfect society", "A loving place". Oh please - it's the hipochrosy that makes me the most furious!
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From cassy
Thursday, January 27, 2005, 09:26
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Those who posted the above two comments, I would appreciate if you could email me at my profile concerning your experiences with Josiah (Paul Pelequin). I too, was abused by him and would like to discuss something pertaining to this man (however not on this public forum). Thank you. (reply to this comment)

From
Thursday, January 27, 2005, 02:59
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Thanks for writing. You hit a very good point. I didn't have very much time with Josiah but in the brief time that I knew him the things you mentioned happened to me as well. I was very young. Sometimes I wondered if I had imagined those things since no one else every talked about what he did and how he behavied. (reply to this comment)