Unwelcome?

I have been chastised by a reader for mis-attributing the
opening quotation in my memoir of September 2, "On Puberty". It was
Harry McAfee, the father of Kim, a Conrad Birdie fan, who remarked "I
didn't know what puberty was till I was almost past it", and not
Albert Peterson, Birdie's agent.]
http://bms.westport.k12.ct.us/mccormick/cast%20of%20characters.htm

A PERSONAL NOTE: For those following my personal journey, there is a
scholarly article that discusses at some length the move to sexual
extremism to the extent of abuse that caused Mom, Mom's Friend, and
many others to leave the COG: Robert McFarland, "The Children of God,
Journal of Psychohistory 21 (4) Spring 1994,
http://www.vote.org/ramsey/cults.htm
The dissidents refused to countenance abuse, bullying,
intergenerational sex, incest or nonconsensual sex. Those principles
and the unwaivable rights they represent, remain part of my credo.
Young people are entitled to explore and to experiment and to
experience sexual joy, but only on their own terms and at their own
initiative. This series of memoirs is testimony to that credo.

Since writing these memoirs, I have read Miriam Williams's
autobiographical memoir of her 15 years in the COG, "Heaven's Harlots"
(Eagle Brook 1999). Her observations of the COG are largely consistent
with mine, although far more authoritative since I experienced only
the aftermath of COG membership, and all of what I learned was from
disaffected former members. Miriam's perspective of allowing children
to observe adult sex, and to play their own sex games, is highly
negative (p. 221) and the risk of her children being exposed to
exhibitionists and pedophiles within the COG leadership caused her to
quit the cult (pp. 232-235). Her remarks on oral sex are consistent
with mine, as is her hostility to other, kinkier, kinds (p. 110). She
writes extensively of wife sharing (beginning on p. 77) and nakedness
(p. 145). I commend her book to you.

Miriam's experiences were far different from mine, but they are
reasonably consistent with what I have heard from Mom, Mom's Friend
and other ex-COG members. Her book is very unsettling, and in the
light of it (and in the view of increasing job and social pressures
here) this is probably the last memoir I shall
write.

God bless you all.