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RELS 225 2009-03-04: Sexual Deviance. Attendance No Announcements Review of last class Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Why are NRMs accused of sexual deviance?. Review: FLDS. FLDS History: Split from main Mormon church 100 years ago
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RELS 225 2009-03-04: Sexual Deviance • Attendance • No Announcements • Review of last class • Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints • Why are NRMs accused of sexual deviance?
Review: FLDS • FLDS History: Split from main Mormon church 100 years ago • Where: Utah, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, South Dakota, Creston and Bountiful, BC • Warren Jeffs • Leader until November 20, 2007 • April 2008 Raid • March 30, 2008 tip • April 3-10: Texas Rangers in control of YFZ Ranch. • May 29: Texas Supreme Court rules orders children to be returned. • Plural marriage and placement marriage • a man having multiple wives is ordained by God • wives are required to be subordinate to their husbands. • Women are assigned a husband by revelation to the prophet. • Social implications of polygyny • excess males must leave (teen years) • Importing females • genetic disorders • Females marry young before develop an interest in boys their own age. • New unregistered wives can apply for welfare as single mothers. • minimal education
NRMs and Sexual Deviance • Marginal religious groups have historically been accused of sexual deviance • No comprehensive study of this issue has been published • How do gender differences impact the study of NRMs?
Sexual Deviance and the Cults • New religions tend to be “antinomian” • Oneida community (1849-1881) in NY: complex marriage • 1960s sexual revolution counter-culture against sexual repression • 1970s David Berg’s “Children of God” The law of love; flirty fishing • 1980s Osho (Rajneesh): overcome western obsession with sex. • Others are ascetic (Unification; ISKCON)
Dilemmas of Moral Relativity • Religious freedom is guaranteed by law. Who is to say what is “deviant”? • Does it victimize someone? Objectify them? Treat them as a means to an end?
Religious Significance of Sex • Why is sex prominent in cults? • Associated with deepest, most intimate self • Symbolic of relations with the divine • Selflessness: putting others above the individual • Utopian ideals that everything should be shared • Abuses can creep in when larger society’s values are rejected
Child Abuse and the Social Control of NRMs • Anti-cult movement lost the brainwashing card, and turned to the child abuse card. • Are children harmed simply by being raised by people with marginal beliefs? (People’s Temple; Branch Davidians; FLDS) • 1993 raid on Children of God in Argentina • No physical evidence of abuse • Damages awarded to Childreon of God/The Family • COG introduced safeguards to protect children • No question David Berg was responsible for this reputation, and that some children were pressured into sexual activity • By 1987 these practices were disavowed, and by 1995 the movement reformed.
Gender Matters • Gender: a “master status” defining one’s sense of self. • Feminist movement has challenged earlier roles, leading to anomie for women. NRMs often spell out new models of gender. • Aidala 1985: low tolerance among women and men in NRMs for ambiguity in social roles. • Women relinquish some rights to give their men unambiguous roles as well.
Gender Role Diversity in NRMs • Palmer 1994: 3 part typology of sexual ideologies: sex-polarity; sex-complimentarity; sex-unity. • Sex-polar (ISKCON; Rajneesh): one sex is superior; limited relationships • Rajneesh has free love, to detach from sexuality; attracts women wanting empowerment • ISCKON has segregation • Sex-complimentary (Unification; Mormons): marriage is needed to unite two halves. • Sex-unity: (Scientology; Raelians) one’s sex is irrelevant, not part of who you really are. • 3 Common features: • Reject courting phase • Only one or two roles for women • Reducing the load of child care • The women studied choose to find the solution to social anomie in spirituality rather than elsewhere
Two twists on Palmer 1994 • Davidman 1990: Women studied wanted a family • Difference in findings due to mainstream/marginal difference? • Women were responding not to gender ambiguity itself, but the haphazard way sexual experimentation was taking place in society.
But what about the children? • Sexual “deviance” in NRMs is largely the search for “better” expressions of oneself as sexual beings. • But how can “better” be defined? Is it totally relative and subjective?
Homework • For Monday: • “Why Do Some NRMs Become Violent?” • Summarize Comprehending Cults Chapter 7 online • For Wednesday: • Read “The Apocalypse at Jonestown,” chapter 12 in Cults and New Religious Movements: A Reader. • Write online quiz on this reading