Have any cults existed without sexual manipulation?

[Sitnam]

Whether it’s a recruitment technique like the Children of God’s Flirty Fishing, a community bonding exercise in Rajneeshpuram, or a means to punish and reward in the the polygamist practicing LDS, Nxivm or Scientology sex seems like a go-to method of controlling people.

Does a sexual component somehow have to be involved in a cult? Are there any where controlling sexuality in anyway wasn’t a part of keeping the masses in line?

[Hampshire]

The Heaven’s Gate cult was not a sexual one, thought sex was a “human” trait that got in the way of them getting to the next “level” and several members even went through with voluntary castration.

Actually, re-reading your post the Heaven’s Gate cult DID use sexuality to control it’s members. Only they didn’t exploit it but rather demonized it.

[Ulfreida]

Has there existed a human society anywhere, ever, without sexual manipulation?

[kanicbird]

@Ulfreida

Has there existed a human society anywhere, ever, without sexual manipulation?

That’s what I was thinking too.

[Telemark]

The Shakers - Wikipedia?

[Atamasama]

@Telemark

The Shakers - Wikipedia?

Shakers believe in celibacy as a core tenet, and while not castrating people like Heaven’s Gate, if forbidding sex is considered sexual manipulation then the Shakers are not an exception.

[ZipperJJ]

Amway?

[Smapti]

The Mickey Mouse Club?

[Mangosteen]

I stayed with the Love Family for a few months back in the 70’s. Their main “home” was in Seattle, but I was at their Hilo Branch.

The long term male members were all hooked up with the long term female members. I never saw any sexual manipulation. Young single females would come and go, but I never saw anything untoward. They flipped large houses to support themselves, so we all lived in pretty close quarters.

[dtilque]

@Smapti

The Mickey Mouse Club?

Well, maybe. But at least some viewers, (as Dave Barry observed) noticed that some parts of the older girls’ T-shirts were closer to the camera than the rest.

Should have looked it up. Here’s the exact quote:

Another important television show of the era was The Mickey Mouse Club, which made enormous cultural contributions, by which we mean: Annette Funicello. Annette had a major impact on many of us male Baby Boomers, especially the part where she came marching out wearing a T-shirt with her name printed on it, and some of the letters were considerably closer to the camera than others. If you get our drift.

[Thudlow_Boink]

@Smapti

The Mickey Mouse Club?

“Annette had ears—I lusted in my heart” -John Fogerty

[MortSahlFan]

I’ve always been fascinated by cults, and when I hear about a new one, or one from the past I never heard of, I always ask myself, “Ok, where’s the sexual manipulation?” - but it seems like sexual manipulation is everywhere in places of power, and even places with very little power. The local priest, rabbi, imam, etc…

[Sitnam]

@Mangosteen

I stayed with the Love Family for a few months back in the 70’s. Their main “home” was in Seattle, but I was at their Hilo Branch.

The long term male members were all hooked up with the long term female members. I never saw any sexual manipulation. Young single females would come and go, but I never saw anything untoward. They flipped large houses to support themselves, so we all lived in pretty close quarters.

Interesting.

Wiki says:

The Love Family evolved from being a highly concentrated communal society with a shared economy, to what some non-members[who?] call a cult with their own laws and ways. The greater community in time became a social network of autonomous households that interact through a shared culture that they have continued to create together, without the robes and peer-enforced order. Presently, those that continue to claim membership in what remains of the Family are concentrated in homes and lots on the shore of the Columbia River (Lake Roosevelt), where they own the China Bend Winery, just below Canada.

Would you call it a cult?

[Sitnam]

@Ulfreida

Has there existed a human society anywhere, ever, without sexual manipulation?

Heh, maybe. Is the term ‘Sex Cult’ redundant then? Are sexual mores, no matter where they come from, some level of manipulation?

[Jophiel]

@Sitnam

Heh, maybe. Is the term ‘Sex Cult’ redundant then? Are sexual mores, no matter where they come from, some level of manipulation?

I think there’s a difference between luring people in with the (implied?) promise of sex, much less situations where sex is blatantly used to manipulate (blackmail photos, threats to expose “what you did”) and other groups that just have opinions about sex (“premarital sex is a sin”). Sex is a large enough part of the human experience that I assume most lifestyle groups would have some opinions on it but not everyone uses it as part of their toolkit to gain/retain members, perhaps against their will.

[zimaane]

The Peoples Temple (the cult involved in the Jonestown, Guyana mass suicide) did not really have a sexual control element, to my limited knowledge.

[Czarcasm]

@zimaane

The Peoples Temple (the cult involved in the Jonestown, Guyana mass suicide) did not really have a sexual control element, to my limited knowledge.

From this Psychology Today article:(spoilered because of grossness)

Both men and women were routinely beaten, coerced into having sex with Jones in private and with other people in public. Husbands and wives were forbidden to have sex with each other, but were forced to join other members in watching their spouses being sexually humiliated and abused. In order to prove that he wasn’t a racist, a white man was coerced into having oral sex in front of a gathering of members with a black woman who was having her period. Another man was made to remove all his clothes, bend over and spread his legs before the congregation while being examined for signs of venereal disease. A woman had to strip in front of the group so that Jones could poke fun at her overweight body before telling her to submerge herself in a pool of ice-cold water. Another woman was made to squat in front of 100 members and defecate into a fruit can. Children were tortured with electric shocks, viciously beaten, punished by being kept in the bottom of a jungle well, forced to have hot peppers stuffed up their rectums, and made to eat their own vomit.

[zimaane]

OK, I stand corrected.

[yabob]

@Jophiel

I think there’s a difference between luring people in with the (implied?) promise of sex, much less situations where sex is blatantly used to manipulate (blackmail photos, threats to expose “what you did”) and other groups that just have opinions about sex (“premarital sex is a sin”). Sex is a large enough part of the human experience that I assume most lifestyle groups would have some opinions on it but not everyone uses it as part of their toolkit to gain/retain members, perhaps against their will.

I think we have to take this approach to find any examples at all. We should also include “manipulate” for the large number of cults which include coercive sexual misconduct on the part of the leaders, whatever the stated rules of the cult.

Given that, how about Eckankar? That may fail the “sexual misconduct” test - there seems to be conflicting information out there. The basic beliefs seem to be silent on the subject of sex (while being batshit crazy in other areas).

[xnylder]

Ironically, the Raëliansmight fit this bill. While the cult certainly attracts new members with sex (there used to be gatherings of scantily-clad cult members handing out flyers in downtown Montreal), they don’t seem to have issues with forced or coerced sex. At least, not that have been revealed to the public. Their liberal opinions on sex education and homosexuality appear to have been ahead of their time. When they were condemned, it was for fraud (concerning funding for a ludicrous human cloning scheme).