47 - Development of an Immoral Woman

[00:00:01] Hi everyone, welcome to The Cult I Left Behind podcast. I'm your host Amanda Briggs and I'm here to tell you my stories of growing up in the IBLP cult with you might know from the Dougher family. And I'm your other host, Kyle Briggs.

[00:00:17] I'm Amanda's husband and I have not heard most of these stories before so stay tuned and we'll all get traumatized together. All right, welcome back to the next episode in our crazy courtship series and now we are on to development of an Immoral Woman.

[00:00:41] Because it's a whole chart in the advanced seminar. I don't even want to expect for this except like if your skirt is too short is that make you an Immoral Woman? Oh, this is so much deeper than that. I was kind of expecting it to be shallow.

[00:01:02] Well, I don't remember this. I never attended the advanced seminar or the basics seminar and I don't remember seeing this chart. I remember some of the concepts being discussed in like cult church sermons and at home during family worship and wisdom search and conversations with wreck

[00:01:27] and crisp and like I don't know if my brothers had this experience. But they were just like as a female, a lot of talks about how unholy I was and I just needed to be better.

[00:01:41] So that you didn't go to the seminar, you were still expected to uphold the teachings that were taught at the seminar. Uh, yeah, but like the parents were supposed to be responsible for teaching the children these things because we were raising the next generation.

[00:02:01] The Joshua generation, if you will. So I some of these phrases in this chart like just don't make sense to me. So we're just going to have to try to figure them out together. But this is like this huge graphic. It's a whole big page.

[00:02:22] It takes the whole page and it's like compile in the middle of all this courtship stuff. Development of an Immoral Woman. Like I looked before and after, I don't see anything about guys. It's just the focus of you know the one in the keys, you know? Yeah.

[00:02:41] And Eve, we all fell or whatever the saying is. So this is this. This is the first time. I try to find the papers I wrote in seminary about this stuff and I have not yet been able to find them. I think I have an external hard drive.

[00:02:59] I wish I could read those. I'm sure they were phenomenal. I will try again as we continue unpacking stuff. So you have a paper copy of it somewhere. Maybe, but that feels like something I would do because I literally think of my papers is like children.

[00:03:20] I have birth. I've birthed that paper. God wait till I have a dissertation to birth. I'm getting a little. Excited slash overwhelmed. I'm not sure which emotion is more prominent at the moment, but as we continue

[00:03:35] to unpack, I will try to locate that external hard drive that I have somewhere and I think it's on that while there are two of them that were pretty fun.

[00:03:44] I was sure I was going to get kicked out of school because I had like a real, he came across like real hard line kind of misogynistic sort of theology professor. And I wrote this paper about like the page hierarchy in real one.

[00:04:00] I can't imagine it was like a manda on a holy vindictive vengeance, but like very holy. Well, like in line and not crossing line, but like very careful that holding a bunch of people. No, I didn't pull my punches.

[00:04:18] And I submitted that paper and was like, I'm getting kicked out of school. I'm getting kicked out of school. And then I got full marks on it and the guy said it should be published. That was like, wait, what? Sounds right.

[00:04:30] I'm so, you know, I just then I wrote another one, just like it, but about more issues of the page hierarchy as it pertains to theology. Okay. It's real fun. So I don't even know how we got into that topic. Oh, burthing papers.

[00:04:50] But yeah, there's nothing in this about men. Just like boom, women. Oh, that's how we got into this. Like evil y'all fall. Yeah. Um, or in evil y'all fell. So we again have a chart with three columns. We have in word motivation, visible responses and related scripture.

[00:05:10] Gotta have that. To cherry pick it to prove the point. Yeah. And there are how many stages are there to the development of an immoral woman? Let me zoom out a little bit here. Should say out of context scripture. Out of context scripture. Oh, they're seven stages.

[00:05:26] To be coming an immoral woman. So the first thing, which I just don't understand here, um, in word motivation, admiration of father, uh, visible responses, appearance versus attitudes. And then related scripture, who's adorning even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit,

[00:05:56] which is in the sight of God of great price from first Peter. I don't understand that because everything else in this list is like bad. But I thought we were supposed to admire. Like, cause you know, father's reminding God basically.

[00:06:12] Maybe you're never supposed to get past level one. Ha ha ha ha. Appearance. That's a moral woman if you're just only at phase one, meek. Oh, okay. I don't know. It doesn't make any sense to me.

[00:06:28] Um, and then the second, the second way you become an immoral woman, the second step is feelings of inferiority, conflicts over appearance. Okay. In this cult where we oppress you horribly. You can't be inferior. We can have that either, but you can do it the same time.

[00:06:52] You're being set up for this one. Yes. Yes. And then the scripture for this one is only by pride, come in. Contention. But with the well advised is wisdom. So you're not supposed to have pride over your appearance. I don't know.

[00:07:15] Gonna be honest, I can't read game James because I don't understand it. It takes me so long to like, what a suit be. What? It's like, she's not English. So the step two is feelings of inferiority.

[00:07:32] So on the path to becoming an immoral woman, it starts with admiration of father and then proceeds to feelings of inferiority. Check, born that way. That's definitely a nurture, not nature. And then three, desire for acceptance by others because we can't have that.

[00:07:55] What you're also tossed into the cult. That's right. And then the visible response is competition for admiration. There's no competition among women in the cult. There was. I mean, there was just a lot of back biting and like fighting over. Backstabbing? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:08:25] I wouldn't say women supported each other. No, and then you get in, we talked about this one earlier, episodes when you get into like working at headquarters. Oh, yeah. So it's just like all this competition. And I was like this too.

[00:08:41] I'm ashamed to admit when I was younger. I was definitely one of the females who was like hard on other females. You know, like, oh, her skirt is too short. You can see her ankles.

[00:08:53] Oh, how and holy are like my sister Andrea bought a yellow t-shirt that actually fit her. Amy and I nearly flipped our shit because it fit her. Andrea was roommates at headquarters with a young woman who's parents insisted that she

[00:09:11] buy her shirts to her three sizes too big. She had to hide her form. Like I remember standing in their apartment at headquarters. Her name was Alicia. And Alicia had to wear clothes that were two or three sizes too big per her parents.

[00:09:31] And she specifically said that my parents want me to wear shirts that are two or three sizes bigger than my size. It's just like so. So that was very normal. I mean, I think I did that. My sister's did that.

[00:09:43] And flipping our shit when Andrea wore a shirt that was actually in her correct size. Kyle, you could tell she had boobs. No, I'm sure. Can't have that. No, absolutely not. So yeah, that's that's not something I'm proud of. I was definitely very judgey.

[00:10:04] And I would say that the best compliment I have ever received as an adult is that people feel very not judged when they interact with me. My best female friends now tell me, but I am their safe place where they can say anything.

[00:10:27] And no, they won't be judged. And like that means the world to me because I know where I started in life and what I was conditioned to be. And it's bullshit. And women should support each other. The world is hard enough on women. So yeah, competition for admiration.

[00:10:49] I remember that unhealthy competition. Yeah, yes. This is the related scripture again for this source. Are they which creep into houses and lead captives, silly women, ladies and with sins, let away with diverse lusts. This is a silly woman. Yes, sorry. This is very faded.

[00:11:15] I'm having trouble reading it. So on your quest to become an immoral woman and immoral woman, make sure you have admiration of father feelings of inferiority and desire for acceptance by others. Then you add to that your need for security. Of course.

[00:11:34] Why don't I have a feeling all of these are things that they condition women to be? And they label it at the end like, oh, you're an immoral woman, even though we just made you one. Uh-huh.

[00:11:48] And so the visible response of me for security is rationalization of impurity. You know, this reminds me of something one time when I was in college. You know, I was like 21 at this point and I wanted to have a relationship with my accent. Rick had said no.

[00:12:07] So like I wasn't allowed to speak to him and be me. I wasn't speaking to him. I was in the car with Rick. And we were talking about this situation in issue and like, you know, hey, I'm 21. This is a relationship I would like to explore.

[00:12:22] He was like, no, and he said, I mean, what are you afraid of? Because it was like bad for me to want to be in a relationship for him, probably because of training like this, he associated my desire to be in a relationship with some sort

[00:12:38] of like deep fear I had. Probably this need for security. And for me, it was never about that. It was I loved this person and wanted to explore the possibility of a relationship and building a life with them.

[00:12:53] And like I thought about that so many times over the years. Like why did he ask me what I was afraid of? Like how did that even apply? But I guess he had been taught that step four on the path to becoming an immoral woman was

[00:13:08] an need for security. So I must want security from a man in a relationship and therefore I was already like more than halfway to being an immoral woman. I wonder if if he thought you were trying to circumvent the process and that there

[00:13:24] was this whole courtship process that you should be following and you were, you were just going right around that and being like, hey, I want to date someone so. I mean, I think that was always a problem with them because I didn't design my relationship

[00:13:43] around them and to please and appease them which is what a proper daughter did or a son in the cult did. Yeah, if you have a need for security, you're already four out of seven on the way to immorality. And then guilt. Oh, of course.

[00:14:01] Yeah, if you feel guilt, then your visible response will be arguments and breakups. Does he guilt him? What guilt? Just guilt? Just guilt. Just bitterness. And then the scripture that they use is, reproved not a scorner, less T. H.P.

[00:14:23] Rebuke a wise man and he will love me. I can't like, I don't understand how any of these verses apply to what they're talking about. Like, I shouldn't be surprised but I always am like this thing is no sense at all. And then you're second to last step.

[00:14:43] Like you are so far gone at this point. It's almost like you're almost in hell. Step six of being an immoral woman is fear of more hurt. Fear of more hurt. I'm having trouble with this one because the whole concept of courting was to not get hurt.

[00:15:09] And then set you up on this path of taking somebody for you, vetting them before you, managing the whole thing. And now they're like, you're an immoral woman if you're afraid of being hurt.

[00:15:26] When we're being, you know, we're controlling this whole thing for you and setting you up with someone that you may not choose of your own free will. Good point. And I think it relates to five the guilt and however that relates to arguments and breakups.

[00:15:44] But like you wouldn't have arguments and breakups if you were courting properly. Oh, so then you wouldn't have fear of more hurt because there wouldn't have been hurt to begin with to experience and be afraid of more of it.

[00:15:59] But with fear of more hurt, the visible response is flirtation and unpredictability. Not if you're like they're making excuses to like pigeonhole you into thinking like your step six you're almost there. You hit moral lady. Yeah, basically.

[00:16:22] Basically it's it's really nice having like a man kind of debrief this and call it stupid. Tealing in a way. And then the scripture for this one for the lips of a strange woman dropped as an honeycomb. And her mouth is smoother than oil. What?

[00:16:53] Where did they come up with this stuff? They just like proper throwing dart in the Bible like that's it. That's just a vacation. I don't know how many times growing up by her strange woman. So scared of becoming one.

[00:17:07] Wasn't even sure what it was but she was bad. And you that much. What was what's the story there? What strange women? Yes. Immoral was syvichus probably a prostitute. Cult creating a lot of those. How courted they're definitions. There are a lot of prostitutes in the Bible.

[00:17:37] So I think it was it was you know they were the strange women who were like luring the men away to in more because it was never a guy who was like I want to go into this

[00:17:47] brothel and pay to fuck someone you know like because the guy couldn't have any responsibility for that. It was oh the strange woman learned this poor and a sip man in. She was oh it's somewhere in the Bible.

[00:17:59] She was luring on the corners so like they would literally tell guys to like stay like if a woman's luring she's strange and bad. Don't luring and as a woman we were told like don't luring. Especially not on court. Oh my god.

[00:18:17] So yeah like there was never anything like the man never had a choice in you know walking into a problem it was the strange woman who learned him in because her mouth is smoother than oil and the lips are as drops of an honeycomb and honeycomb.

[00:18:40] So so it was always the woman's fault. The strange woman's fault. Yeah. And she was definitely a prostitute. Well it can't be the guy's fault. Never. He had no choice in the matter. Who's just a pool with a whim? What is to a by the strange woman?

[00:18:56] So guessing you guys never did like cult fundraiser like standing on the floor and doing garal washes. That would be latering. I feel like we have to do like a whole other episode of like fundraising or like money in the cult. Oh gosh.

[00:19:19] All right are you ready for how you know you're just like dead gone? Like you are definitely an immoral woman. You have reached the final developmental milestone of an immoral woman. I'm expecting it to be something very stupid like hatred.

[00:19:37] Thought I was going to be like you have boobs. Sorry like you've checked all the boxes. Well that was kind of under like that was no that was way back. That would have fallen under number two feelings of inferiority conflicts over appearance. Oh yeah.

[00:19:59] Yeah hatred hatred so the visible responses are revenge and justification. Women are out to get you. Did you know that guy? I don't mean it. They're all moitering on the streets. I'm waiting to get you with a hatred revenge that they're going to justify it. Cause they're immoral.

[00:20:25] I feel like this is a vicious cycle. Like they're just creating immoral women that are going to come out there like shank you in the middle of the night. They were told they were all these bad things. They were like oh my god. I'm all of these things.

[00:20:41] I'm all the truth. I was like how to be in everyone's secret bench. There's the set up and so bad. Not where I expected this to go. Like I thought there would be some things that you would actually have to like do to like achieve

[00:21:09] being in a moral world. I just existed like both. That was enough. Apparently apparently I thought you would have to like actually misstep or something, but no that's not required. I'm just realizing what's sitting to you feedback. What I'm saying. Yeah there was nothing in here.

[00:21:33] There was no like choice in here which you like fucked up. A series of bad decisions. Turned you into an immoral woman. There was just no. You followed called teaching. Say you were a part of the cult so there go. There go. You're an immoral woman.

[00:21:52] This is tragic. That is horrible. Do you want to hear the scripture associated with the hatred? I'm sure it is not related at all. Well it's having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin. But giling unstable souls and heart they have exercise with covetous practices.

[00:22:16] Curst children. Having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin. Begiling unstable souls and heart they have exercised with covetous practices. Curst children. So it's about hatred and adultery? I guess. They're just... Well their eyes cannot cease from sin. And again it's all their fault.

[00:22:45] There'll be giling unstable souls. So there's no way to connect these things. They just... And then curse children. Just like thrown in there at the end. That's the first act. I don't know them. Versa has nothing to do with this. So there you go.

[00:23:05] If you want to become like a fully fledged certified immoral woman, it is quite simple. If you're in the cult just you know exist. If you are not in the cult that make sure you focus on admiration of father, feelings of inferiority,

[00:23:27] desire for acceptance by others, need for security, guilt, fear of more hurt and hatred. It's very simple. Simple. Formulate. I can't say that. Women are doomed in the cult. That's all there is to it. Yep. Well that was fun. Yep. Well it was fun.

[00:23:51] I hope people enjoyed how horrible that was. That's a... But I mean that's reviewing... That's like literally out of the advance of it. Yeah, I mean that's reviewing cult material. Doesn't make any sense, it's a setup. It's the sham from the get go. I just speechless. Yeah.

[00:24:16] They got nothing. All right well that's how to become an immoral woman in the cult or not. But basically just exists and uh... Have basic human needs like a desire for security. Maslow's firearchy is evil now. We can't have that. Oh, all right well we will continue more

[00:24:40] shinate again next week. We'll be back on Monday. Thanks for listening to another episode of the cult I left behind. Until next time, don't join a cult. If you enjoyed this podcast please like, share and subscribe and we will catch you on the next episode.