NATSMA Blog

New from the authors of “It’s Not About the Sex” My Ass

12/12/2017

New from the authors of “It’s Not About the Sex” My Ass
“How to Raise-Cult Bait”

THE LATEST ISSUE OF FREE INQUIRY features a new article by the authors of the popular book “It’s Not About the Sex” My Ass: Confessions of an Ex-Mormon Ex-Polygamist Ex-Wife.

With her inimitable wit and humor, Joanne Hanks reunites with co-author Steve Cuno in “How to Raise Cult-Bait,” an honest look at how she ended up in a polygamist cult after growing up in a happy Mormon home. Then, with no less humor and snark, Joanne sets about exposing ways that cults appeal to the unwary.

As readers have come to expect, “How to Raise Cult-Bait” is at once a delightful and an informative read. You can pick up a copy of Free Inquiry in magazine shops and bookstore magazine sections or subscribe by clicking here.

There’s more “It’s Not About the Sex” My Ass in the new issue of Free Inquiry.

New reviews of “It’s Not About the Sex My Ass”

10/28/2017

243 reader reviews and counting
(Who knew?)

WE’RE GRATEFUL—and not a little amazed—that people are still discovering and writing positive reviews of “It’s Not About the Sex” My Ass: Confessions of an Ex-Mormon, Ex-Polygamist, Ex-Wife. Hard to believe, but it is entering its sixth year of publication. To date just shy of 10,000 copies have been sold and 243 reader reviews posted, 80 percent giving it four or five stars.

You can check out the latest reviews here:

Click here for Amazon reader reviews
Click here for Audible listener reviews
Click here for Apple Store reader reviews
Click here for Barnes & Noble reader reviews

Early readers may recall that even the critics were positive. Click here for the Free Inquiry review and here for the Association for Mormon Letters review.

Cults and micromanagement

9/22/2017

BYU okays fully-leaded Coke

SUPPOSE YOU were an omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving god. Which of the following would you give top priority for 184 years?

1. Reveal cures for dread diseases
2. Tell people not to own slaves
3. Tell people not to consume coffee and tea

If you chose 3, “Tell people not to consume coffee and tea,” you and Mormonism’s god think alike. So heinous are coffee and tea that LDS prophets have oft suggested avoiding caffeinated soft drinks as well. Take, for instance, this wimpy plea from the late Mormon prophet Heber J. Grant:

... I will ask it as a personal, individual favor to me, to let coca-cola [sic] alone. There are plenty of other things you can get at the soda fountains without drinking that which is injurious. The Lord does not want you to use any drug that creates an appetite for itself. (Conference Report, April 1922, p.165)

Thanks to other LDS prophets and apostles echoing the sentiment, students at Mormon-owned Brigham Young University had no choice but to sneak off-campus to purchase the likes of fully-leaded Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and Dr Pepper, and — no exaggeration — smuggle it into their dorm rooms.

They can come out of the closet. God recently told BYU that it’s totes okay to drink Coke et al on campus. In fact, BYU will even sell it you.

The weird thing—okay, one of the many—is that this is even news. The frightening thing—ditto—is that Mormons let their church get away with telling them what they can and cannot consume.

The first item we list in our article “What is a cult?” just happens to be: Absurd intrusion into personal life. Just sayin.

It’s official: JWs banned in Russia

7/18/2017

Don’t mess with the Russian Supreme Court. Photo credit: Reuters/Maxim Shemetov

Are the Jaydubs an extremist organization?
Russia’s Supreme Court seems to think so.

Three months ago, the Russian Justice Ministry deemed the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, aka Jehovah’s Witnesses, an extremist organization and ordered a halt to all the faith’s activities. Speaking of extremist, the ban covered everything. According to an article in The Washington Post:

They ruled that the group's St. Petersburg headquarters and 395 churches could be seized and liquidated. All church activities, including worship and door-to-door evangelizing, were banned. Those who defy the ruling face a fine of several thousand dollars and six to 10 years in prison.

The Jaydubs took their case to the Russian Supreme Court. Religion News Services reports that, 17 hours ago, they lost.

Of course, this won’t purge Russia of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. History shows that when you try to ban a religion, all you do is drive it underground. Meanwhile, the Jaydubs have a PR opportunity you can bet they’ll exploit. They can call the court’s decision persecution (they’d have a point) and offer it as a sign that they have the truth (they wouldn’t have a point). They might cite Matthew 5:11-12:

Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

Anyway, are Jaydubs extremist? Well, yeah. When you’re a cult, which they are, extremism kind of comes with the territory. A more pertinent question is, Are they dangerous? Given the Jaydubs’ small numbers, nah, they’re no threat. Besides, they tend to be a peaceful lot.

Are they harmful? You could make a strong argument that filling minds with nonsense is harmful. But then you’d have to ban every religion, not just the Jaydubs, and that brings us back to the troublesome fact that banning religion only drives it underground, often strengthening adherents’ resolve.

A better solution might be to get religion out of public education while stepping up instruction in science and critical thinking. Just a thought.

Meet the Mormon Church’s new LIBERAL employee dress code

6/29/2017

This Week’s Shocker:

Mormon Church says female employees
can wear PANTS SUITS

Are you ready for this? The Mormon Church announced that its female employees can wear pants suits to work. If that’s not progress, what is?

As for male employees, they don’t have to stick to wearing only white shirts anymore. They can wear dress shirts with “a little bit of color.” And if it’s really, really hot, they can take off their suit jackets. It isn’t clear whether women can do the same.

LDS Church policy is getting more and more liberal. Clearly, The Second Coming is around the corner.

Praise for new LDS paid maternity leave policy

To give credit where it is due, the Mormon Church also announced it will grant six weeks of paid leave to new moms in its employ. This truly is worthy of praise. Though Federal law requires twelve weeks of maternity leave, it does not require paid maternity leave. And, even if it did, religions are generally exempt from laws that require fair and humane employment practices anyway.

It’s a nice gesture for a church that has historically badgered women into popping out as many babies as they can as fast as they can. Click here to read the story by radio station KUER.

• • •

Survey: Mormons tell their church what it wants to hear

5/10/2017

From the We Never Saw That Coming Department

Results of research conducted by
the Mormon Church reflect
favorably on the Mormon Church

The mainstream Mormon Church recently polled its leaders and actively participating members about the church’s involvement in Utah politics.

Surprise, surprise. Most Mormons think their church should be involved in politics. And most Mormons don’t think the church holds all that much sway compared with other groups.

There are rules for designing surveys in order to arrive at the most reliable information possible. For instance, you don’t let respondents know who the researcher is; you don’t assume respondents are honest with themselves and, therefore, with you; and you don’t assume that what respondents think has anything to do with the facts.

In conducting its “research,” the church managed to bungle all of the above-referenced rules.

If we didn’t know better, we might wonder if the Mormon Church didn’t really want brutal honesty at all.

From The Salt Lake Tribune:

The internal polling data suggest local Mormon leaders and members don't believe the church holds a lot of sway on Utah's Capitol Hill.

In fact, majorities of both stake presidents and bishops ranked the church fourth on the list of six interest groups that influence lawmakers, behind Utah's hospitality and tourism industry, constituents and teachers. Members ranked the faith dead last — behind minorities and news media — in political clout.

America’s best Christian reviews God’s job performance

4/1/2017

America’s Best Christian to God:

“Everything’s been created.
Now you’re basically doing customer
support, and not very diligently.”

It’s time for God’s annual performance review. Who better qualified to conduct it than Mrs. Betty Bowers, America’s Best Christian?

Utah rep proposes (yet another) this-time-we-mean-it anti-polygamy law

3/2/2017

Oh no! Existence of apostate Mormons insults and bothers Utah congressman

As far as we know, “It’s Not About the Sex” My Ass is the only polygamist memoir that satirizes religious polygamy. Which, when you think about it, is a little surprising. The insanity of religious polygamy cries out to be mocked.

But then, so does some Mormons’ opposition to religious polygamy.

Take, for instance, Utah Representative Mike Noel, a Republican (what else?) from Kanab (pop. 4312), who is pushing a this-time-we-really-mean-it bill aiming to make polygamy a felony. Why? ’Cause themthar plygs is callin theyselfs Mormons and Latter-day Saints, and that ohhh-fends him, that’s why.

Above: Utah State Representative Mike Noel, R, Kanab, Utah. To be clear, Noel is the one in the hat, not the part of the horse behind the saddle.

Noel whines:

“They've hijacked my religion and I actually resent that. The fact that individuals come up there and testify they are FLDS Mormons insults me and bothers me. They are an apostate group and they are no part of my religion.”

Yeah, so?

Earth to Noel: The Bill of Rights protects neither your religion from hijacking nor you from insult and bother. It does, however, protect a right to speak up, even for apostates who are no part of your religion.

Noel is beating a hypocritical horse. A little over 100 years ago, the church on whose behalf he takes offense actively defended polygamy as God-mandated and a guaranteed First Amendment right. Moreover, the horse is quite dead. Polygamy is already illegal in Utah and throughout the United States. Yet it is effectively decriminalized, which one more law is unlikely to change. Law enforcement, as it should, tends to go after plygs when they break other laws, such as domestic abuse, extortion, and welfare fraud.

Make no mistake: We think religious polygamy is a bad thing. We stop short, however, of calling for its criminalization. Loath as we are to admit it, we kind of think the Mormons had a leg to stand on when they invoked the First Amendment back in the late 19th century.

Click here to read more about Noel and his bill in The Salt Lake Tribune.

THANK YOU, readers, for your positive reviews

1/26/2017

Over 150 reviews and counting!

We are grateful for every review. Even the negative ones, since—yes, this is a boast—their sparsity only calls attention to the 90 percent that are positive. We’re aware of well over 150 reviews, but most (138 of them, to be exact) appear on Amazon. (JAN 27 UPDATE: Now it’s 139 on Amazon.)

The latest five-star* review comes from fellow ex-polygamist wife Stephany Spencer. There can be no higher compliment than from someone who has been through it:

I don't usually do book reviews, for lack of time. But this book was so good I listened to it straight through, on Audible, and also bought the book! I am an Ex-FLDS, Escapee of Joel LeBaron's cult, and a recovering Mormon. So I found the story, humor, and satire extra super, given that I could relate to it all firsthand!

Still so rebbed up from this excellent and well-written book, to help come down from my high after having listened to it straight through non-stop, I had to write a bit about how I think it is one of the best books I've ever listened to -- a classic. The narrator, also, couldn't have been better! I only wish I had words and time to give it the best review any expert writer could.

It not only is a true view of what polygamy and Mormon cults are all about, but gives some good advice, too, on how to avoid one -- or how to get out of one if you find yourself in one.

You can read Stephany’s entire review by clicking here. Or, read all of the Amazon reviews by clicking here.

*ADDENDUM: This post originally said Stephany gave us only four stars. We appreciate her pointing out the error. We also appreciate the stars.

SCOTUS declines to review Sister Wives case

1/23/2017

SCOTUS to Kody Brown and Sister Wives:
Your polygamous marriage ain’t no marriage

Today the Supreme Court of the United States declined to indulge Kody Brown in whining about the illegal status of polygamous marriage. (You can read about it in The Salt Lake Tribune by clicking here.)

It’s just as well.

SCOTUS says NO.

At the “Least of our Worries” end of the spectrum

Deeming multiple spouses legally married would create nightmares in sorting out things like healthcare benefits, social security distribution, legal access, divorce proceedings, liability, custody, inheritance, and more.

At the “Most of Our Worries” end

Polygamy, especially religious polygamy, is not a simple matter of allowing consenting adults do as they please. People raised in religious polygamist cults are not so much consenting adults as brainwashed and intimidated adults. It follows that children raised in religious polygamist cults are de facto abuse victims, even if no one lays a hand on them during their years of minority. Given cults’ adeptness at hiding abuse from authorities, that’s a big If.

We stop short of recommending prosecution of polygamy for its own sake. But to give polygamy legal sanction would be to further remove potential abuse from scrutiny. That would be tragic.