Dobson, Epstein & a culture of abuse
One cultivated it, and the other flourished in it.
A Note From Megan | Publication Date: February 16th, 2026
Before I really get into this Note, I want to start off by saying I am constantly amazed by the folks who are able to provide sharp critical commentary on current events.
There are some people I follow who create incredible, timely content. They’re dissecting and teaching in almost real time, it seems.
I’m not that person. In fact, I think when it comes to cultural critique, my brain is floating at least three months behind everyone else’s.
It often takes me a while to synthesize my thoughts, and I try not to say too much on a topic until my thoughts are at least relatively (if not fully) baked.
When it comes to Epstein, it has felt somewhat paralyzing to even think about dipping my toes into the waters of social commentary, simply because of the breadth and depth of atrocity that’s present.
However, what I do feel pretty confident about in this moment in time is lending some analysis to the culture of abuse that Dobson helped cultivate and that Epstein flourished inside of.
That’s really what this Note is about.
I first learned that Dobson was in the Epstein files when an Instagram post by D.L. Mayfield came across my feed. (D.L. Mayfield is my go-to source for all things critical analysis on Dobson.)
So far, the only substantiated link between the two men is that Epstein shared a blog post of Dobson’s with a young woman (girl?) who was struggling in her relationship with her father.
And to be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if the link between the two men had been much more substantial than this. But I do believe this vague link is still notable.
Since it came to light, there has been some interesting commentary being published across the interwebs. In fact, one of my friends shared this Substack article with me just last week.
This writer’s Substack is thoughtful and thorough on the Dobson/Epstein connection, so I’d recommend giving it a read. My angle is a little different.
I’ll be focusing on the default assumption that sexual assault is not happening, or that it is rare, or that it is a fluke and aberration.
In the rest of this Note, I’m going to talk about how that assumption gets reinforced in patriarchal church culture, how it trains communities to downplay red flags, and why it creates such an easy environment for perpetrators to operate inside.
Because once you see how pervasive and unchecked sexual violence is, it changes what you listen for. You stop assuming it “isn’t happening here.”
A little background.
My first job after graduating with my Master’s in Social Work was working in a group practice that primarily worked with crime victims. Mostly these were victims of domestic violence and/or sexual assault.
I was brought on board because I had specialized in Play Therapy and childhood sexual abuse during my time in graduate school.
Once you work with one child after another who has been violated in unspeakable ways, it’s easy to start developing something called “mean world syndrome”—essentially seeing a perpetrator around every corner.
Ever since that job, my radar has continued to be sensitive to red flags of sexual abuse or sexually coercive behaviors, although I think I’ve been able to overcome my mean world syndrome at this point.
So when I read the line in Dobson’s article where the person seeking advice said, “I have a great deal of resentment and anger toward my father, for what he did to me and my mother when I was a child,” my radar went off immediately.
This is not to jump to judgment or conclusions about what happened with the father. However, that kind of language deserves further exploration before diving into a lengthy advice column which assumes he merely didn’t meet the mother’s and daughter’s emotional needs.
But Dobson didn’t engage in further exploration. Though he’s (shockingly enough) a trained psychologist who specializes in family relationships, the daughter’s description of what was bothering her didn’t raise a single red flag for him?
He didn’t stop to consider “what he did” meant.
And he didn’t inquire into whether this father was actually safe to be around.
He just moved straight into advice that assumes we’re talking about emotional neglect, not something criminal or coercive—which it may not have been, but we don’t know that for sure.
And it’s exactly that—the fact that Dobson just barreled right along into his “advice” where the most concerning part of all this really lies, in my opinion.
Unfortunately, this obliviousness serves as merely one example of the broader culture of oblivion so many perpetrators thrive in.
Advice that asks a harmed daughter to prioritize her father’s feelings has a dangerous impact. It mutes alarm bells that might prompt further inquiry into the father’s behavior.
Patriarchal culture often treats men as the default credible narrators of reality.
Their intentions are assumed to be good, and their words are granted weight, even when the impact on other people is severe.
Women and children rarely get that same benefit.
And this credibility gap gets even wider for women and kids who are *BIPOC, disabled, undocumented, queer, trans, poor, or otherwise already treated as ‘unreliable’ in public life.
You can see it in the little translations people make, often without even realizing they’re doing it. For example: women’s anger will get interpreted as “bitterness,” confusion gets labeled “drama,” and trauma gets reduced to “being stuck.”
If the effects of abuse continue to linger, the focus will often shift to, “She just needs to forgive.”
You can almost count on this dynamic showing up in patriarchal environments—both religious and non-religious.
* Black, Indigenous, Person of Color
Unfortunately, perpetrators are well-versed in how this dynamic works, and they use it to their advantage.
They count on people reaching for alternate explanations when a woman says something happened.
They count on adults hearing “miscommunication” when a child is trying to hint at harm.
And in patriarchal churches, they often have an extra layer of cover because the community is built to protect the reputations of men with influence.
These are men who teach. Men who lead. Men who have “a calling.” Men who are considered “good.” Men whose downfall would disrupt the status quo.
Over time, that’s how harm gets handled as a “feelings problem,” and it’s how violence gets summarized as “a tough time.” It’s how assault becomes “regret,” and coercion becomes “temptation.”
And the focal point gets redirected toward damage control, instead of staying with the simple question of what happened and what needs to be done to create safety for the person who was harmed.
This is where the Epstein connection starts to make sense to me.
Epstein leveraged more than just money, or connections, or “how to work a room.”
He leveraged a broader cultural dynamic that protects powerful men by default and asks everyone else to provide an impossible level of proof before they’re taken seriously.
He leveraged the same reflex that shows up when a woman tells the truth and people immediately start scanning for an alternative explanation.
He also leveraged the same reflex that shows up when a child is clearly trying to hint at harm and adults decide it must be “drama,” or “confusion,” or “a misunderstanding,” because that story feels more palatable than the truth.
And he leveraged the fact that, in a patriarchal culture, it often costs people less to minimize harm than it costs them to confront it.
In other words, Epstein capitalized on something the church is often already rehearsed in: protecting the story of a powerful man, protecting the comfort of the community around him, and subtly pushing the consequences onto the people with the least credibility.
Dobson and Epstein probably didn’t know each other in real life. And Epstein may not have cared about Dobson’s work beyond finding a blog post that conveniently served his agenda in that moment.
But the connection between them still matters because they were operating inside the same patriarchal system.
Dobson spent decades reinforcing a world where patriarchal culture assumes men are credible and treats women and children as questionable.
He helped normalize the reflex to explain away red flags, to translate harm into “hurt feelings,” and to treat a survivor’s ongoing pain as a spiritual problem.
Epstein did not have to invent anything new. All he had to do was slide into a ready-made culture that already knew how to protect powerful men and dismiss people with less credibility.
He simply used that cover, and he capitalized on it (literally).
So when people wonder how abuse like this can go unchecked for years, I come back to this: it rarely depends on one uniquely evil man.
It depends on a culture that is already practiced at minimizing harm, defending “good men,” and moving the consequences onto women and children.
And this was exactly the culture Dobson actively helped cultivate.