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Josh Duggar is not a hypocrite.  Call him what you want (Puffer Fish Face, though it does not roll off the tongue, works just fine), but spare the “hypocrite.”   He has asked the world to recognize him as a hypocrite for strategic reasons and entirely in his own self-interest.  We must not play into his strategy.

The right-wing hypocrite narrative that Duggar has embraced is as follows: male leader peddles “family values” marketed as sex only within man-woman marriage, rejection of contraception (at least for other people’s families—many of our right-wing heroes have only a few children, in spite of their insistence of a direct line to the Almighty), crusades against abortion, and pompous shaming of single mothers and non-resident (read, black) fathers.  Male leader engages in sex outside of marriage, sometimes with a co-worker (Newt), sometimes with a male escort (cue the Schadenfreude Oom-pah Band), occasionally with a female stripper, porn star, or fellow airport traveler.  He holds a press conference and apologizes to his wife, who stands expressionless beside him in pearls (Someone could make a fortune renting out adultery press conference jewelry for Washington wives). He finds Jesus soon after (maybe Jesus lives in the wardrobe with the blue suit and pearls?).  

Hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite! We scold, loving every minute.

Never mind that we don’t espouse many of the “values” that the disgraced public figure was peddling.  We shout hypocrite, and in most cases we’re right. 

But not with Josh Duggar.

These are the principles that made the Duggar Family rich:

Male headship, meaning complete domination over wife and any children;  A wife may not deny her husband anything- including sex.  Before marriage, discussions of sex are as follows:  NO. After marriage, discussions of sex are slightly longer: wife must “give” it. No questions asked. A wife may not criticize her husband.  If he strays, she must look inward at the ways she has failed to please and gently guide him. No matter how badly a husband treats his wife, she must stay.

Females are responsible for protecting males from temptation.  They must cover themselves, avert their eyes, and steer clear.   In the Duggar household, mother and sisters used the code word “nike” to signal that the men and boys must look down at their shoes rather than look at a tempting woman walking by.  

Husbands control daughters, including how they dress and style their hair and whom they marry.  Fathers orchestrate or supervise a “courtship,” fleeting chaperoned meetings with a family-approved like-minded man to whom a father passes ownership of his daughter.

Children are homeschooled; girls have no expectation of college, a career, or any destiny apart from producing as many children as god gives them, submitting to a husband as soon as she leaves her parents’ household.  Children are closed off from the outside world: no internet, no music apart from hymns, (could lead to dancing!), and no exposure to ideas or information of which their fathers disapprove.  Girls are not prepared for any sort of independence, and are taught that their broodmare destiny is the only way to please god.  Girls raise their younger siblings, becoming mothers before they even become women.  In the Duggars’ case, these girls bore the burden of their parents’ procreative exhibitionism.

Most importantly, this stuff sells.  These are the values that won the Duggar family a lucrative cable TV franchise.  

               They shock the conscience of any 21st century American.  They should make us hold our daughters tighter, praise their science fair projects more effusively, and sock a little extra money into their college accounts. Laid bare, without the patina of reality show quaintness, the Duggar way of life is something we would not wish on anyone.

And we are criticizing Josh Duggar for being bad at it.  

In fact, he is a living testament to their values.  From early in life, he was conditioned to believe sex is dirty and secret, and performed forbidden acts under cover of night.  From the cradle, he was taught that women are male property and cannot say no to any male desire.  So he took what he was told was his, in the form of sexual access to children.

From the time he grew old enough to wield authority over even his mother (Christian Patriarchy women are forbidden to educate boys after a certain age because it would be unseemly to exercise authority over a man), he knew that no woman could criticize him.  He knew he lived in a rarified sphere of headship and ownership.   So he took a job as a full-time scold, peddling his self-interested principles as god’s will.  

From the altar, he was taught his wife could never question him, never leave him, nor ever even fully blame him for his violations of their vows.  

Most of all, he was taught that male failings could be laid squarely at the feet of women and blamed on the sick society from which homeschooled Duggar kids are shielded:  a world of sexualized images, loose women, and broken families.  So when he got caught he claimed porn addiction, praying for help in overcoming the poison that the internet had bled into his pure veins.

Josh Duggar’s Ashley Madison romp is not hypocritical.  It is a perfect expression of all Duggar family values at once: He sought out sex that was dirty, secret, and forbidden. He “bought” a female commodity and treated her so roughly he scared her; he took advantage of a marriage in which his wife has no power and no voice; he wielded his absolute power to the detriment of his children’s best interests.   And he blamed us.  He blamed us, the purveyors of porn, temptation, internet frolics. He sanctified his parents’ sickness and committed himself to returning to it, secreting himself away in a Christian work camp where he will pray but not receive counseling.  

Nothing could be more Duggar than that.

And we, the mainstream society above which the Duggars claim to hold themselves; we, the American public who watched these people abuse their children on national television and called them quaint; who turned our eyes away from their message of disdain for half of humanity and called them out only when they started to attack LGBT people (and they deserved our wrath for that), call them hypocrites.  They got rich off of our voyeurism.