1 / 13

RELS 225 2009-03-04: Sexual Deviance

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

norah
Download Presentation

RELS 225 2009-03-04: Sexual Deviance

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. 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?

  2. 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

  3. 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?

  4. 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)

  5. 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?

  6. 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

  7. 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.

  8. 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.

  9. 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

  10. 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.

  11. 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?

  12. 20/20 on the Children of God

  13. 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

More Related