Surprise, Surprise - well, not really.

So it has finally come out that Josh Duggar has been up to all kinds of sexual shenagins that he's been hoping to hide. This should be a surprise to no one. How many time have we seen the most vocal advocates of family values turn out to be guilty of the very things they are condemning others for?

Just a quick update if you haven't read my previous post about this dude. Josh Duggar is the oldest son of the Duggar family featured on the TLC show '19 Kids and Counting'. Until recently, he worked for the Family Research Council as an advocate and lobbyist for 'Family Values' policies in government (translation: he got paid to spread hatred against gay and trans people). He lost his job when it was revealed that he molested as least three girls when he was a teenager.

Now it seems that Josh has been caught up in the whole Ashley Madison scandal. Someone anonymously exposed account information that appears to show that he, until pretty darn recently, had an Ashley Madison account. Oh, by the way, Josh Duggar is married and has four children (I think it's four, I may have lost count). So ya, while he was preaching about family values in public, he was looking for hookups in private. It has also come to light that he may have had an OKCupid too.

Today, Josh published, and then quickly deleted, a statement saying that he cheated on his wife, is addicted to porn and is the biggest hypocrite ever and he is very sorry.

Okay - so first of all, let me just get this out of the way. It is entirely possible that none of this is true. There are people gunning for this guy and it is incredibly easy to set him up in this way. A child could create a fake account and hack their website to put up that statement. It does all seem just a little too perfect.

HOWEVER - even if this is not true, it's apparent from his previous actions that Josh Duggar has a lot of problems - particularly around sex.

This leads me to what I really want to say about this. I do not feel sorry for this guy and I do not excuse anything he has done, but it's not at all difficult to understand why he does these things.

We have seen time and time again, that attempts to subvert, ignore, repress, and condemn people's natural sexual inclinations simply does not work. People are sexual beings. Most of us have an urge to explore our sexuality and to connect with ourselves and others in a sexual way. This is a part of who we are as human beings. It's important for many reasons, not the least of which is that it contributes to us surviving as a species. It is not bad, abnormal, unnatural or sinful to have sexual thoughts and feelings and to want to act on that.

What is bad an unnatural is our culture's belief that sex is inherently evil and dangerous. When we try to keep people from exploring and expressing their natural sexual inclinations, good never results. What results is guilt and shame about things which people have very little control over. Then, sadly, what often also results is acting out in ways that hurt other people. It's quite obvious to me that if someone is denied any reasonable and harmless outlet for understanding and expressing their sexual feelings - ie. if they are not allowed to touch their own bodies or masturbate, if they are not allowed to look at porn or even to search for answers to their questions on the internet, if they are not allowed to ask their parents or anyone else in their life anything about sexuality, if they are not allowed to even look at, never mind touch, another human being in any sort of sexual or even affectionate way unless they are married to that person - something has to give somewhere. What happens is people do what they are naturally inclined to do, and then they LIE ABOUT IT! That's where the damage comes in - it's not from the questions or urges themselves, it's from doing them in a covert and underhanded way. That's what hurts people.

Think about it. If Josh Duggar had not been kept under a rock and actually taught the basics about sex and relationships, if he had not been pressured by his parents not to ever even touch another person until he was engaged to them, had he actually been allowed to do a little bit of questioning and experimenting before he got married and immediately started on a huge family, would any of this have happened? We can't know for sure that he wouldn't have molested those girls. But I have to venture to guess that had he been in a more open environment where he had been offered some information, validation of his feelings, and some sexual outlets - there's a good chance that he wouldn't have done what he did. There's also a high likelihood that if he did, it wouldn't have been covered up to the extent that it was and his sisters would have been able to actually talk about it and get some help.

See it's not the sex that does not the damage, it's the guilt and shame about it.

I have no respect for Josh Duggar but I do have to feel a bad for people like him who grow up feeling ashamed of their sexuality. Sadly, for many of them, this is where that can lead.