God’s Brothel: The Extortion of Sex for Salvation in Contemporary Mormon and Christian Fundamentalist Polygamy
Moore-Emmett, Andrea. 2004. God’s Brothel: The Extortion of Sex for Salvation in Contemporary Mormon and Christian Fundamentalist Polygamy. Pince-Nez Press.
Rating:
6
Summary:
The book consists of two parts. The first 50 pages or so serve as an introduction to the current practice of polygamy, including a brief history of polygamy among Mormons and some references to the cultural practice of polygamy around the world. The second part of the book is made up of stories related by women who were or still are part of a polygamous community in the U.S., Mexico, or Canada.
The background information on polygamy includes some good information, like the fact that many cultures around the world practiced (close to 80%) or still practice (close to 65%) polygamy (p. 39). The background chapter also talks at length about the practice of polygamy among Mormons, the most well-known group of polygamists in the U.S. despite the fact that the main body of Mormons does not technically engage in the practice of polygamy today. Even so, the majority of polygamists in the U.S. today consider themselves “true Mormons” and are, in essence, Mormon fundamentalists who have attempted to return to the roots of Mormon belief and practice.
The author also notes that, while the main body of Mormons does not currently practice polygamy while spouses are living, the practice is canonized in its scripture and is still believed and engaged in by adherents in a convoluted form involving the marrying of one man to multiple women when one of them has passed on (p. 30). Thus, while the primary focus of the book is on those individuals who currently practice polygamy (technically, polygyny), it is important to note that the main body of the Mormon religion is directly tied to this idea. The author also notes that it is not just Mormons who practice polygamy in the U.S., though the other groups (immigrants from cultures where it is practiced and a few conservative Christians) are far smaller in number.
The second part of the book has several fairly clear messages relating to polygamy. The most prominent message the book tries to get across is well-expressed in a quote from one of the women, “Based on her firsthand experiences and observations, there is one message above all others that she wants to convey about living in polygamy: incest, statutory rape, physical, sexual and emotional abuse, deprivation of education and forced marriages of young girls are endemic to all of the polygamist communities and not, as some have proclaimed, no worse than in the general monogamous population or isolated to only a few polygamous groups” (p. 90). In short, polygamy is rife with physical, sexual, psychological, intellectual, and emotional abuse. The book is first and foremost a call to action to curb such abuses, though it is highly likely nothing will be done about it, an unfortunate apathy resulting from the classic “out of sight out of mind” mentality.
A second prominent message the book conveys is that polygamist groups are by no means legal, yet they are for some reason tolerated and even supported by the local, state, and federal government. The support comes from these groups’ abuse of the federal welfare program, which assists single mothers without other sources of income. Of course, these women are only single in the sense that they have not officially married according to state and federal laws. But they have engaged in “spiritual” marriages and basically function as wives to philandering men. Because the men can’t support the wives and children and the women tend to be uneducated and unable to work at anything that will support them, they often end up on welfare. As a result, taxpayers end up supporting polygamy, “Between July 2002 and July 2003, families belonging to the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) living in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona, received more than $3 million in food stamps and cash assistance” (p. 38).
Building on the last point, the author also drives home an argument that women living in polygamous groups are truly nothing short of baby factories, as is illustrated by one particular incident, “In the years that followed, Abby began getting sick… Her diagnosis was a cancerous brain tumor requiring chemotherapy… Because a pregnancy would aggravate her fragile medical condition, the doctor ordered Abby not to have any more children. But polygamist women are to have a child per year so she had three more babies. The last one she delivered while dying—unconscious, without knowing she had given birth” (p. 126). The inordinate number of children these women are forced to have is a horrific crime in and of itself. Add to that fact that taxpayers usually pay for these children, and it’s difficult to see how anything positive comes out of polygamy. In short, there isn’t a clear, positive reason why polygamist groups should be allowed to continue to exist in the U.S. That said, I think the author over-extends this argument a little bit; I’ll touch on this point a bit more below.
Review:
While there is a lot to like about this book, it has some significant problems as well, most of them manifested in the author’s chapters and not the chapters relating the womens’ stories. For instance, the introduction is frenetic; it jumps all over the place without a clear train of thought and was nigh impossible to follow. Its frenetic nature is probably just poor writing. But it doesn’t help, in my opinion, that it was written by the director of an anti-cult organization. Now, don’t get me wrong; I agree with the basic idea of anti-cult groups, that cults seldom do anybody any good. But there is a significant problem with anti-cult groups – they are often non-scientific in their approach. This is apparent in their continued use of the idea of “brainwashing,” a concept that has been thoroughly debunked by numerous social scientists (see the work of David Bromley and Anson Shupe in the 1970s and 1980s). People who join cults are not brainwashed. There is reason to argue that children raised in such groups experience something closer to brainwashing, but it is really an extreme form of the same indoctrination children get in other religious denominations, including Catholicism, mainstream Mormonism, and Islam. If the author wants to argue against “brainwashing” (i.e., religious indoctrination), which she does on page 47, then she really needs to extend the argument to religious indoctrination of any kind. But that is a slippery slope, as other forms of indoctrination exist in our society (e.g., nationalism and even product advertising). The author’s reliance on anti-cult sources and newspaper articles and not on peer-reviewed, social scientific articles gives the impression that this book is biased and one-sided (again, keep in mind that I am sympathetic to the anti-cult agenda, but don’t agree with their tactics or the quasi-scientific ideas and information). In fact, a very well-researched book from 1996 (Polygamous Families in Contemporary Society by Irwin Altman and Joseph Ginat) finds very little abuse in the polygamous enclaves studied in that book. While I think God’s Brothel is an important book for raising awareness about the rampant abuse found in many polygamous enclaves, I am still inclined to believe the real picture isn’t quite as extreme as the one you’d get from reading only this book.
The author also seems to be arguing, if not outrightly then implicitly, that polygamy should be done away with entirely, “Much is said about many women in polygamy being consenting adults who willingly choose to live as plural wives and who are very happy. There can be no consent when girls are born into polygamy and, through isolation and limited education, do not know of any other choices. There can be no consent when women are recruited and go through the conversion process without understanding how mind-control takes place physically and mentally” (p. 40). The author clearly believes that women are forced into this lifestyle and that it is abuse that must be stopped. While the evidence in this book would seem to build a strong case for that position, the author fails to consider the ramifications of such a plan of action. There is a serious risk associated with the regulation of people’s sexual lives. If the government is allowed to regulate how many sexual partners a man has formally (i.e., through limited marriages), what is there to stop the government from regulating other sexual practices (e.g., oral sex, anal sex, etc.)? The author recognizes that others see polygamy as just another sexual alternative that should be legal as long as the participants are adults, of sound mind, and consent (p. 38), but she doesn’t find those argument compelling. I agree that this issue is a bit more complicated than an either or position – ban all polygamy or allow all polygamy – since polygamy as practiced today appears to be rife with abuse. But it is trickier than simply banning the practice. One possible solution would be to force polygamous groups to allow their children to live outside their enclaves in the homes of non-polygamous individuals for at least a year after turning eighteen before they are allowed to return to the enclave. This would function as a check to ensure that these individuals are not indoctrinated and recognize there are other options. I’m sure there would be enough families in the U.S. willing to open their homes to these children to allow a system like that to work. It probably won’t happen, but it is an alternative to the either/or mentality currently in existence.
There is one additional argument the author makes I disagreed with that is worthy of mention here. The author argues that it is relatively easy for women to leave these groups, “Once they began to exercise critical thinking skills, they were able to sort through the dogma, releasing the hold their religion once had on them to allow them to leave” (p. 48). The literature the author has read may give that impression, but leaving is seldom that easy or that simple. Leaving a polygamous or cult group often entails: gaining access to information that results in disillusionment severe enough to warrant consideration of leaving; leaving highly salient relationships (e.g., spouses, close friends, children), the finding of an opportunity to leave, and serendipity in actually realizing one’s plans (see Helen Rose Fuchs Ebaugh 1988 and Janet Jacobs 1984 on leaving religious groups). The author seems to think that just making a decision to leave is enough, but life, even inside fundamentalist polygamous cults, is far more complicated than that.
While I clearly disagree with some of the points the author makes, I have to admit this book moved me – the stories are compelling insights into what is apparently a sick and depraved underworld. Here are a couple of excerpts that will illustrate just how sick this sub-culture is:
p. 72 “The last straw for Rowenna came with two incidents occurring within the group. She was witness to the four-day, nonstop physical torture and brutalization of a women carried out by the woman’s husband in order to “humble” her. The next incident was the arrival in her mail of an anonymously-sent envelope containing pornographic photos taken by a leader of the church of himself and one of his wives.”
p. 132 “After one of her daughters attempted suicide, Cora learned that Daniel had raped the daughter. “That was the end of it for me,” she says. “[I went on] a fact-finding mission, and I learned Daniel had been a rapist for more than 30 years.”"
p. 163 “Years later, Sylvia searched for and made contact with her friend and discovered the story. “Her husband had mutilated her genitals by giving her a clitoridectomy with fishing wire.”"
p. 171 “In addition to the physical abuse, sexual abuse was a daily part of childhood. Sherrie remembers being molested by a man in the FLDS church who was a family friend and by both of her parents. “My father began raping me when I was eight years old. My mother sexually abused all of us, taking us one at a time in her room and telling us it was for medical reasons.”"
It is pretty clear from the stories that many polygamous groups are basically havens for serial rapists, pedophiles, murderers, and spouse abusers. Not only do they condone such behavior, they advocate and even aggrandize it. The book paints a picture of how women are used as a commodity by the men in these groups, how the men use manipulation and women’s trust to empower themselves in what must seem to be a god-like state of patriarchal majesty (see pp. 17 and 58). By moving to rural locations and doing their best to avoid confrontations with people who would stand up for the women in these groups, these men have basically created sub-cultures that are permissive of all sorts of abuse, claiming to answer only to god. If it were not for these abuse havens, these men would be locked up and removed from society, where they belong!
Despite the facade many of these women put on for outsiders, I think the author is right to say that almost all of the women who participate in these polygamous groups are miserable, “… the letters and diaries of the women in polygamy in the early years of the church suggest that they were not happy and that their seeking employment stemmed not from unusual flexibility and opportunities offered by polygamy, but from the poverty, self-martyrdom and unfulfilling marital unions that characterized polygamy” (p. 24; see also p. 180). The women in these groups are subjected to a life of abuse and suffering, and through indoctrination and manipulation, they put up with it. It really is a travesty.
While I noted above that I’m a little wary of this purely negative picture of polygamy, I have to admit the book gave me a couple of ideas I thought were worth including in this review. First, I think it is in society’s best interest that the businesses owned by abusive polygamous groups be boycotted. The author provides a list of businesses owned by the Kingston group in Utah, including: the Washakie Ranch, Amusement Games, A-1 Disposal, Standard Restaurant Equipment Company, Family Stores True Value, East Side Market, Best Distributing, Spiffy Ice, Little Red School House, the Co-op Mine in Huntington and AAA Security (p. 85). If you have it within your power, boycott these groups. Second, and this is probably a bit out of character for me, but the thought came to me and, after entertaining it for a few minutes, I realized I kind of liked it. Rather than set up informal “Fight Clubs” all over Utah to vent the pent-up frustration of not being able to really enjoy yourself (thanks to Mormonism’s pervasive presence), I think groups of vigilantes should give these men a little “frontier style justice.” They should scout out the locations of these abusive cretins then swoop in at night, pull them out of their homes, and beat the shit out of them. It may not be right, but why not? Okay, that’s probably a little out of line… but it would be fun!
Overall, the book is clearly worth reading, even though it is framed within a brainwashing, anti-cult framework that does not rely on some of the more measured social scientific literature that has really gone to great lengths to analyze cults. The stories are shocking and eye-opening and hopefully will help lead more people to get involved in doing something about the rampant abuse in these enclaves. This is recommended reading for anyone with an interest in Mormonism or cults.