Jill & Jessa: Counting On has been renewed, against the better judgment of humanity and also against the wishes of numerous advertisers,
TLC had some of the Duggars sit down and discuss a few things, including which Duggar couple most loves PDA.
The answer was basically unanimous:
Jill and Derick Dillard, say the siblings.
These two just cannot seem to keep their hands off of each other.
Of course, now that their family is growing, that may change.
More time with children means less time to hold hands and steal little kisses as you chase after youngsters or carry a baby around.
(And, generally, it means more exhaustion at the end of the day, so that once the kids are asleep, you want to sleep, too)
Though all of the siblings seem to enjoy a little PDA — only once they’re married, of course, because they live under Jim-Bob Duggar’s tyrannical rules — they all point the finger at Jill and Derick for being especially inseparable.
There are a few reasons for the very strict courtship rules that the Duggars and similar fundamentalist groups have in place.
First and foremost, they believe in “purity culture,” in which people but especially women are somehow “tainted” by non-marital sexuality.
There’s a lot of that sort of thinking within mainstream culture, which is why sex ed is so notoriously terrible in school and why so many fathers seem to think that they need to intimidate their daughters’ boyfriends.
It’s all very gross and patriarchal.
There’s more to it, of course.
There always is with something this insidious.
Courtship rules like the ones that the Duggars have basically guarantee that, thanks to human biology, most children who grow up with it will spend their teen years in a state of increasingly intense sexual frustration.
(Remember, the Duggars forbid masturbation and viciously punish their children for it, so it’s not like there’s a relief valve in place)
The result of that sexual frustration?
An eagerness to get married and continue their parents’ tradition of pumping out babies and espousing horrible beliefs.
Most parents want their children to have their own lives and develop their own ideas.
To the Duggars, that idea is horrifying.
By forcing their children to be so far removed from actual society that they’ll feel that they can’t fit in, they isolate them and make them rely upon living as their parents taught them.
The courting rules and the very young marriages that follow are a big part of that.
Sexually repressed young people are, of course, going to be extra excited (if also extra clueless).
So it’s no surprised that Jill and Derick can’t keep their hands off of each other.
(And, honestly, we didn’t really need the Duggar kids singling out this couple to know that they were PDA’s biggest fans)
As sweet as their affection for each other is, it’s sad.
We can’t help but think of the kinds of lives that these two — and all of their siblings — could have led if they’d grown up in normal, non-abusive homes and had the chance to date and fall in and out of love.
If they’d had a chance to be their own people, really.
