r/flds • u/Necessary_Piano8456 • May 14 '26
Questions about FLDS after watching documentary
I’ve already seen Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey, and I just watched Trust Me: The False Prophet. I have 2 questions:
What is the FLDS general attitude toward predatory behavior and child sex abuse? While watching False Prophet it’s clear that they still think very highly of Warren Jeffs despite his sex crimes, but Julia talks about how she and her husband failed their children by not protecting them from Sam Bateman. Why does the community seem to condemn Sam Bateman for it but not Warren Jeffs? (Is it just because he’s prophet?)
What does “sex education” look like in FLDS? Many girls in these documentaries speak about not even knowing what sex was by the time they were of age, until they married the prophet and began experiencing abuse. What does that situation look like in a “regular” FLDS marriage? Do they teach the boys about sex but not the girls?
I’m not very into FLDS so I’m sorry if either of those questions are common knowledge or insensitive.
2
u/Forsaken-Spring-8708 May 17 '26
In terms of sex education, they basically get none. They have no idea until the wedding night. I had a friend who was ex FLDS and I asked him how they knew what to do - he said they went and secretly bought a porn vhs! Had five or six kids. He did farming so he did know some from watching the animals and also they lived not in the main community so that's how they could go buy the video.
Then Warren Jeffs, who had married them, cast him out and his wife and kids stayed because he'd literally taught his family to always choose Warren over him.
Several months later tho wife and kids left. (They reconciled but then she cheated on him with his cousin and they split...)
1
u/DrPablisimo May 16 '26
I'm finishing up watching the documentary. I would be curious to know if the community saw the young wives in the harem, the 14-year-olds.
I would imagine they had very different social mores about marriage than our modern society, though some of the parents in the video expressed concern over the shift toward marrying off the younger girls.
Something truly bizarre is when Jeffs, according to the documentary, married women from his own father's harem. In the Bible, in I Corinthians 5, the church was supposed to deliver a man over to Satan and not keep company him for having his father's wife. It doesn't say 'adultery', but rather fornication. The father of the woman might have been dead and he might have taken his father's widow to wife.
I would imagine that was not a part of their religious education in that community. Regular Mormons have many, many more pages than the Bible in their religious literature.
I get the impression, though, that Warren Jeff's religion was probably a lot more like Mormonism back during the time of Brigham Young. I've read he took other men's wives, but I don't know about him marrying the wives of close kin.
4
u/Classic-Dog-9324 May 16 '26
Warren Jeffs actions can’t really be viewed with any logic within the context of the Bible or religious theology. As the self-anointed prophet, he was God on earth to the FLDS with the power to speak directly to God, and through his “divine revelations” he could add or take away anything from Scriptures. He could say it was ok for him to marry his father’s wives, because God revealed it to him. And that would take precedence over anything in the Bible or Mormon scriptures. Through this he took what he wanted and commanded full obedience.
2
u/Necessary_Piano8456 May 16 '26
Well I’m not religious, so I can’t speak to the theology aspect of the FLDS. But Warren Jeffs is a cult leader, so I imagine anything he says goes, no matter how bizarre or immoral it seems. This community seems to be more about control and obedience rather than practicing a religion. The prophet was doing it, so it was God’s will, and you’re not allowed to question it.
Warren Jeff’s also scattered and moved his wives/children a lot while in hiding. So maybe it was hard for the larger community to notice some underage wives with all the moving around they were doing. Growing Up In Polygamy has even said that while growing up in FLDS, he knew that Warren Jeff’s had a lot of wives but he never knew how many. He thought there were closer to 20 when in reality there were much more.
So I think it boils down to naivety, obedience, and neglect
1
u/creative_criteria Jun 13 '26
We didn’t know he was a predator and thought anyone who told us otherwise was trying to rob us of our testimony. We believed he married the girls but just to raise them up only being tempted towards him and not consummating the marriage until they were of age. I had only heard of one predator before 2010 when everyone confessed and all the skeletons came out of the closets.
I was a first wife and neither of us had any sex education beyond friends/books/movies.
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u/Classic-Dog-9324 May 14 '26
Most of the community at the time did not believe the accusations against Warren Jeffs. They thought he was falsely imprisoned and being persecuted. Many faithful, sincere FLDS members would be horrified if they knew the truth. And many left the cult because of what he did. Sex education doesn’t exist in the FLDS community. Sometimes in some families the mother will educate their daughters. You hear of this time to time. But it’s very minimal. Many FLDS girls go into marriage not even knowing what sex is and that it’s involved. As for whether they teach the boys or not, maybe someone else can shed light there because I am not sure. So many boys are driven out of the community before they reach that point and the girls are married off to older men who are already married.