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"The four eldest Duggar daughters of 19 Kids and Counting fame \u2014 that&amp;#039;s Jana, Jessa, Jill and Jinger \u2014 have a new book out this week, called Growing Up Duggar. Inside, they&amp;#039;re writing about their &amp;quot;darkest secrets,&amp;quot; which do run deeper than the one time one sister glared at another because she&amp;#039;d broken the curling iron. There are passages covering jealousy, anger issues and even a discussion of Duggar mom Michelle&amp;#039;s past eating disorder. The girls write that, &amp;quot;you may think that kids like the Duggars, who are homeschooled and don&amp;#039;t watch TV or read secular magazines, are immune from feelings like that, but we&amp;#039;re not! We&amp;#039;ve experienced some of those same negative feelings about the girl in the mirror that you may be feeling right now or have felt in the past.&amp;quot; Numerous portions of the book are also dedicated to modesty, that tricky, tricky subject. Say the girls: &amp;quot;We do not dress modestly because we are ashamed of the body God has given us; quite the contrary. We realize that our body is a special gift from God and that He intends for it to be shared only with our future husband... We avoid low-cut, cleavage-showing, gaping, or bare-shouldered tops; and when needed, we wear an undershirt. We try to make it a habit to always cover the top of our shirt with our hand when we bend over. We don&amp;#039;t want to play the peekaboo game with our neckline.&amp;quot; But it doesn&amp;#039;t stop there. Like Arkansas&amp;#039; very own morality police, they&amp;#039;re also on the look out for ladies (perhaps words like &amp;quot;jezebel&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;harlot&amp;quot; were edited out in early drafts) who aren&amp;#039;t subscribing to a similar dress code. Sure, they don&amp;#039;t arrest people, but the family have a special code word for these provocative women, which is &amp;quot;Nike.&amp;quot; Really, there&amp;#039;s a code word:  &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s a signal to the boys, and even to Dad, that they should nonchalantly drop their eyes and look down at their shoes as we walk past her... It&amp;#039;s meant to help keep the guys&amp;#039; eyes from seeing things they shouldn&amp;#039;t be seeing. By using the single-word signal, the warning can be given quietly and discreetly.&amp;quot;  This feels wrong for all sorts of reasons. It&amp;#039;s disconcertingly judgemental, and the narrative that men, even good Quiverfull men, are perennial victims of their crazed sex drives is far too common in contemporary religious-based lifestyle literature. (The Duggars mention it again when remembering Michelle&amp;#039;s past as a cheerleader before finding God and Jim Bob: &amp;quot;She had no idea that dancing around in a short skirt in front of a bunch of boys was causing many of them to think sensual thoughts about her,&amp;quot; the book reads.) Just keep it in your pants, people, if that&amp;#039;s what you believe the Lord wants. It&amp;#039;s not that hard; if a hint of calf muscle or cleavage can excite a man past the point of self-control then, sure it&amp;#039;s sort of flattering, but mostly the man is lacking in self-control. It&amp;#039;s almost as if the girls don&amp;#039;t think too highly of their menfolk. Furthermore, the book is refreshingly candid \u2014 by Duggar standards \u2014 about the girls&amp;#039; sexuality. They discuss their &amp;quot;natural physical desire toward men,&amp;quot; which they also thank God for because, well, let&amp;#039;s not even delve into the family&amp;#039;s views on homosexuality. Unfortunately, they write that those desires &amp;quot;can also be one of the biggest sources of temptation and struggles,&amp;quot; if they&amp;#039;re not appropriately managed. So the girls avoid alone time with guys before entering a courtship, because acting on &amp;quot;sensual thoughts&amp;quot; before he puts a ring on it would put them in grave &amp;quot;moral danger.&amp;quot; And this will probably not come as a surprise, but there&amp;#039;s no mention of a code word the Duggar men use so the girls can drop their eyes when a shirtless hottie or guy in tight pants walks past. (Unless that&amp;#039;s coming when eldest sons Josh, John-David, and Joseph write their own book.) A man&amp;#039;s hormones are a cross for the whole family to bear, but a woman&amp;#039;s appear to a solitary burden. And that&amp;#039;s one thing about Growing Up Duggar that seems a little sad.  Follow Alex on Twitter. Photo credit: courtesy of Growing Up Duggar "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/news/a21626/duggar-girls-book-quotes/>