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In Reply to: Peruvian Francis or Grant Montgomery? posted by Oldtimer on April 03, 2004 at 18:23:20:
I have read allegations by Exers who know him personally that Grant Montgomery has a history of involvement with adolescent girls. I have seen nothing by way of a specific accusation from a victim, however, concerning Grant Montgomery. There have been specific accusations from victims regarding Peruvian Francis. If there is truth to the allegation that Montgomery has a history of inappropriate involvement with adolescent girls, it might explain why he's inclined to protect Peruvian Francis and continue sponsoring him through FCF.
What I mean by inappropriate involvement with adolescent girls is the impression given by the allegations about Montgomery. He seems to like girls who are "just barely legal." So we're not talking about girls in the 12-15 year-old range, which is the age group Francis allegedly prefers, and an age group that is clearly in the illegal category. With Montgomery, it may be more like 16-19 year olds.
While it might be technically legal for an older, middle-aged man to become sexually involved with a young woman of 18 or 19, I think it is highly exploitative for older men of position and power in TF to target young women of this age group. It's that FGAs mating with SGAs thing that TF leadership condones and promotes. If you know much about developmental psychology, this practice is really not in the best interests of SGAs. When it comes to developing the intellectual and emotional capacity to make sound, well-informed choices for oneself, most experts agree that adolescence extends to 21 (at least) or 24.
The majority of FGAs were in that very vulnerable age range of 16-24 when we joined the Family. In many cases, our parents warned us about the dangers of that choice, but we lacked the experience and ability to discern the red flags. It's also possible that those of us who experienced the most difficulty getting out of TF were those of us who were mated and produced offspring during late adolescence (16-24). The whole push of arranged marriages during TSC was really a case of older adults (David & Jane Berg) exploiting the vulnerabilities of late adolescence to increase the strength and complexity of our cult involvement.
Family leaders currently encourage FGA males to target young women this age group. Technically, this is not child abuse. Practically speaking, it is extremely exploitative. We're talking about vulnerable young women who have very few job skills and are almost as economically dependent on older adults as 12-year-olds.
