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 enlarge | Author: Andrea Moore-emmett
Publisher: Pince-Nez Press
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  27 reviews
Sales Rank: 34407
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.4
ISBN: 1930074131
Dewey Decimal Number: 289
EAN: 9781930074132
ASIN: 1930074131
Publication Date: June 1, 2004
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| Customer Reviews:
 God's Brothel, by Andrea Moore-Emmet. May 25, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
God's Brothel: The Extortion of Sex for Salvation in Contemporary Mormon and Christian Fundamentalist Polygamy and the Stories of 18
This book is a must read for anyone who is interested in learning more about the psychological dynamics employed by Fundamentalist, FLDS sect leaders to control the lives of the women they "spiritually" marry. All who wonder about these sects of FLDS clans should read this book. The book reveals the extant of control and mental abuse that is a basic tenet in the mental control of multiple wives and their many children. The men make the wives live in poverty and on welfare and foods stamps as the male leaders absolutely control ownership of all property and the considerable wealth of these communes. The men refer to this practice of getting federal aid as "bleeding the beast", or seditiously attempting to bankrupt the Government of the United States.
Male children become undesirables as they approach adolescence because there are just so many 13 year old "virgins" to go around as teen brides for the elders of these clans. Teenage boys either become homeless ("lost boys") without education or trade except carpentry skills. In many cases, these boys are excommunicated for trivial transgressions like talking to girls or watching television. Within some sects (i.e. the LeBaron clan) teen boys are taken into the desert, shot and buried. Ervil LeBaron even murdered his own daughter, Becky in "Blood Atonement" for questioning his authority.
Women and children are chattel (property), to be dispensed to favored elders as rewards for their fealty to their leader. In many cases, spiritual wives and children are taken from one husband and given to other, more favored male elder. There is no paperwork trail except "Temple Sealing" documents as proof for these exchanges. No marriage license is required. This book discusses the Morman "Doctrine and Covenants-132", written by Joseph Smith in which he (in his unique method of convoluted reasoning) justifies the "taking of virgins" as being justified by the Heavenly Father. However, all LDS church members support these Doctrine and Covenants in the belief that they become polygamists after death to create "spirit babies" which are then transported by Morman families to earth.
The book details the story of (18) women who came from several of the (11) active sects of FLDS, "families". The women in this book were offered shelter in organization called the Tapestry of Polygamy for support and counseling which prepares they and their children for entry into an outside society which is totally foreign to their experience, training and belief systems. Many of these women have to be relocated out of state, and be given new names as protection against being found and severely punished by the "Prophet" for leaving their sect.
The information I wanted to know May 19, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I bought this book to find out what was actually going on in the fundamentalist branches of the LSD Church. I also wanted to know how all this was viewed by the mainstream LSD church. I felt the information was well researched and documented. I learned what I wanted to know in an interesting way. I feel the title "God's Brothel" was probably picked by the editors to sell the book. It sounds sensationalist but it is not.
Every taxpayer who thinks that this subject is about religious freedom and not worth analyzing should read this book. They will find that this appalling story is about abuse of power and abuse of the American system by men who abuse religious power over women and abuse the welfare system to amass wealth which is the other side of the story.
Read it whether you think you're interested or not, because you will be.
God's Brothel: Very informative! May 13, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book gives a small history of polygamy and then chronicles the lives of women who lived it. Short (6-10 page) chapters highlight each woman's experience and it is a very fast read.
I am just finishing the book and my eyes have truly been opened about Polygamy in the U.S. It's sickening what I've learned about these poor innocent children raised in these sects. It's encouraged me to get involved to help stop this madness.
A great supplement to Krakauer's `Under the Banner of Heaven' May 11, 2008
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
This is about Bible-based fundamentalist polygamy. This is a hot topic associated with the current best seller Escape and also Jon Krakauer sensational Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith. Those books convey polygamy is a euphemism for cults that promote child rape and women enslavement.
The author discloses a map showing Mormons and Christian fundamentalist polygamist communities spread all over the U.S. and Mexico. Some members live in major cities besides Salt Lake City such as Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Sacramento. Fundamentalists LDS (Mormons following the original scriptures of Joseph Smith) are fragmented among tens of groups. Those groups split apart to create new groups in other areas. They are lead by self appointed leaders who claim being direct descendents of either Joseph Smith or Jesus.
These self-proclaimed prophets are delusional. They rewrite the history of the world to fit their mad self glorification (pg 157). They have apocalyptic visions of the return of Christ. Some proclaim communicating with beings from other planets (pg 156). Others lead anti-government militia and believe the government controls the weather (pg. 169). A few have been arrested and placed in azylum.
Groups splitting results from rivalries. A rival breaks away from a group to start his own, declares himself a prophet. The splitting gets violent with killings under the guise of religious "blood atonement." Such killings are also aimed at members trying to escape.
The author suggests that the ills of fundamentalist polygamy emanate from Joseph Smith scriptures. She quotes his `Doctrine and Covenants': "And if he have ten virgins..., he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him,... if one... of the ten virgins..., shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed..." Those words engendered communities that both the author and Jon Krakauer compare to the Taliban.
The author covers the history of the Mormon Church and how mainstream Mormons renounced polygamy only under military attacks from the Feds. To this day she indicates that in Utah State and police authorities make efforts to avoid prosecuting polygamy and related crimes (child molesting and rape, etc...). As polygamists referring to Utah authorities say "That prosecution dog don't hunt."
Such communities are disasters for males too. If the average male has 5 wives, this means 80% of the males are ousted to maintain this unnatural 5-to-1 female/male multiple. What happens to the 80% of males? The author states on page 50 "they are driven away... [or] stay to become worker bees ... or they die mysteriously." On page 181, she reiterates how they die mysteriously of car accidents on rural roads with no traffic.
Such societies are disasters for children. They are deprived from descent education, nutrition, and parenting. They are exploited as child labor to work for free for the businesses managed by those communities. The level of child abuse, beating, molestation, pedophilia, sodomy of young boys, and rape is sickening. On pg. 171: "My father began raping me when I was eight years old. My mother sexually abused all of us..." Herpes among very young children related to sexual abuse is common. Girls as young as nine are ordered to marry relatives sometimes in their fifties. They bear children soon after risking their own lives in the process. They never receive adequate medical care. They are taken out of school at a young age to ensure their total economic dependence.
From a genetic standpoint, this lifestyle is insane. The level of in-breeding through inter-marriages is unprecedented in the U.S. The rate of Down syndrome, autism, dwarfism, and deformities in many of those communities is sky high. Down Syndrome is hoped for by expectant parents because such individuals are compliant and bring in larger government benefits (pg. 173). Community leaders attribute those deformities as God's punishments to wives that have not been subservient. They don't know that procreating through incest, uncle and nieces, and brothers and sisters is not good.
The health of women is entirely subjugated to procreation. Women are ordered to produce a child per year regardless of their health condition. Women often have more than 10 children with little means to support any. On page 126, a testimonial describes a woman dying of brain cancer who gave birth against the advice of the doctors. She died during childbirth. Child birth is undertaken without any descent health care support. On page 136: "Brenda's pregnancy ended in miscarriage, and she hemorrhaged for four hours with out any medical attention." Treatment of women amounts to persecution (pg. 163: `Her husband had mutilated her genitals ... with fishing wire.'
From an economic standpoint, those communities are failures. They live in some form of totalitarian communism whereby all economic resources and assets are owned by the Church. The individual laborers (mainly wives and children) keep nothing. Economic subsistence is solely reliant on State and Federal subsidies. Those communities are all adept in extracting the maximum government benefits totaling in the hundreds of millions of dollars. And, they are proud of this feat. They call it "bleeding the beast" as an effort to bring the government down.
The testimonials of the 18 women who survived polygamy are nauseating. This passage comes to mind: `When Laura was four, one of her stepbrothers tied her to a bedpost and attempted to rape her... After I was crying, my father told me he would slap me until I stopped crying, which he proceeded to do... My mother made herself busy in the kitchen so she wouldn't have to watch." Another passage: `on her 16th birthday, her father took her for a ride in his Cadillac because it was time for her "Sexuality Lesson."
The book gives you much more in depth info that I don't come close to cover. This is an important book to read for anyone interested on the subject.
Disturbing, Disgusting, and Unanswered Questions May 9, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I read this book yesterday, and several others over the last few months. They all provided the basic background for polygny in the US, primarily stemming from the roots of Mormonism. Carolyn Jessop's "Escape" was by far the most thorough and informative. The 18 individual stories in this book are very disturbing, and I do applaud these women for finally breaking away. BUT--I still have many unanswered questions and concerns about the women in these situations--both those who left and many others who did not. Many of these 18 women consciously and willingly joined the lifestyles, and even bounced from one bad situation to another before finally leaving.
Overall the motivation of the males is obvious--power and dominance over weaker individuals. The men essentially are given free reign to physically, emotionally, and sexually abuse anyone in their household, and many take full advantage of the opportunities.
The motivations of the females, however, are not clear, and this book did little to help me sort those out--it just made me madder. The maternal instinct is incredibly powerful, but for many of these women it is apparently either not present or not strong enough to combat their personal quest for religious salvation. This book (and none of the others I have read) does not attempt to explain the psychology that contributes to these mothers allowing their children to be abused.
All that said, it is a book worth reading if only to get a better understanding of the scope of the problem, and the kinds of women involved in the lifestyle.
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