I am so relieved that highly respected cult researchers are finally backing up conclusions I suspected early in my own research:
C-PTSD isn't just about trauma, it's about conditioned reactions and beliefs.
Oppressive high-demand religious institutions condition followers to accept sexual abuse, or be the one to dish it out.
Religious control of sexual bodies doesn't just prime one for abuse. It is itself a form of sexual abuse. It is at least as bad to manipulate a person into having children she doesn't want as it is to traditionally abuse her.
What I say next may be controversial, but this research implies it, and I've suspected this since I joined the kink scene of my own free will first thing after leaving Mormonism: Sexual submissiveness can be a result of being reared in a high-demand religious environment, even if as adults we joyously consent as bottoms outside of the original religious framework. (I also think Dom/sub alignment is partly biological.)
Excerpts:
"This article is foundational because it frames sexual exploitation as structurally embedded in coercive systems, not merely the misconduct of individual leaders."
...
"Cult leaders quickly recognize that controlling the sexual and intimate lives of their followers provides a massive source of power. In Lalich’s analysis, sexual domination is not merely one abuse among many — it is the final stage of objectification within an authoritarian system.
"This exploitation ranges from strict rules regarding marriage and procreation to more overt abuses like arranged marriages and forced sexual activity. By controlling the most intimate aspects of life, the leader ensures there is no private sphere beyond his reach."
...
"One of Lalich’s most important contributions is her direct challenge to the notion of consent within cult environments. Because cults are structured around extreme power imbalances, genuine consent cannot exist. Members are conditioned through fear of expulsion, spiritual threats, peer pressure, and dependency on the leader for identity and belonging."
...“Because of the power imbalance between leader and followers, sexual contact is never truly consensual and is likely to have damaging consequences for the follower.”
...
"Shame, guilt, and self-blame persist long after exit. The leader’s ideology continues to shape the survivor’s internal narrative. Recovery therefore requires dismantling both the sexual trauma and the ideological manipulation that sustained it."
...
"At one post-cult recovery workshop, 40% of women present reported having been sexually abused in their cult (p. 7). Lalich suggests this number likely underestimates the true prevalence based on her own clinical observations. The silence surrounding sexual exploitation, she argues, is itself part of the problem."
–
I believe this is true even in (especially in) sex-negative environments. We pointed this out in the book I just wrote. If sex is shrouded in secrecy and shame, victims are unable to understand what they are going through, and unable to report it.
I've recently commented on Epstein probably not being the first of his kind, that his market for sex victims already existed, and that the sexual abuse of minors and the marginalized as a recreational activity for the rich and powerful likely goes way, way back. And I got a little bit of pushback.
But this is my world, this cult stuff. And if this has been going on in new sex cults like NXIVM, and secretly in old established religions like Catholicism, in Mormonism, in evangelicalism (it is), the why the hell wouldn't the richest, most powerful people in the world have done this going back across time?
Why are we holding dead billionaires to an idealized image? Why are we defending them? Why are we still bending over backwards to suspend disbelief that the worst people in the world in every other regard are somehow pure when it comes to sexual abuse?
Further, I recently watched bible scholar Dan McClellan talk about homosexuality in biblical times. It' a subject I have seen him and others talk about before, and I've read about it. (But I am not an expert on ancient history – I'm just repeating.)
Fact: In Roman society and before, when Leviticus was being written, they didn't have any concept of "sexual orientation" the way we do today. They didn't have the concept of consent. They centered sexual mores around the hierarchy of power. Anyone up on the chain was expected to take the penetrative role; anyone below them was expected to take the receptive role. Anyone who violated these hierarchies was sexually immoral.
Free men with status? Top of the chain. Boys or men of low status? Below that. Women, at the very, very bottom, always. The sin was in penetrating someone who was supposed to, themselves, be in the penetrative role.
The Sodom and Gomorrah story was about a people who had been taught to care for strangers who instead wanted to rape a (male) guest to death. Which violated two mores: Hospitality and the chain of status wrt to the penetrative role. That's why it was perfectly ok for Lot to offer his daughters, and why the gang didn't want girls. They wanted to demonstrate their power by taking on men of station.
What does this mean in this context? It means that sexual domination has long been a part of how power works in human civilizations, at least in these cultures that descend from that place in those times.
We, here today, with our consent norms and our idea of love and equality in relationships, we're the odd ones. We've bucked the norms. (A tremendous accomplishment that took thousands of years.) And those norms still exist. They exist within toxic masculinity, pro-patriarchy religions, and abusive relationships.
It is hard for me to believe that the Epstein Class of today is somehow worse than the Fat Cats of the 1920s, or the aristocracy of the Renaissance, or the lords and monks of the Middle Ages.
We're really not that far descended from Rome. The path to liberation has been carved against these longstanding traditions.
We have only to look at the world billionaires are trying to create, to see what their values and expectations are.
I have finished my final draft of Sexcommunicated!
This is, oddly, within two days of my 25th anniversary of deciding to be done with the LDS Church for good, on Jan 26th 2001.
Natasha Helfer, my client, has lined up a publisher! Her and the publisher will do the final edits. It should be a printed book within a year or two. I will have co-byline.
That's about all the details I'm authorized to release.
Sexcommunicated tells the story of Natasha's life, her journey towards becoming a sex therapist, the splash she made in the Mormon world with her therapy blog in 2012, and the events that led to her excommunication in 2021.
I will keep you updated on publishing news as the manuscript rolls through the process.
TL;DR: My wife is a queer-/kink-/poly-friendly licensed therapist focusing on sex, religious trauma, and transgender care in North Carolina and is accepting new clients.
Jalan practices mental health counseling in Durham--and soon, Charlotte--North Carolina, and telehealth throughout the state.
Her primary focus is sex therapy, and she also works with general mental health concerns (including being trained in EMDR) and a second emphasis in religious trauma. She also has training, though not the specialist certificate, in addictions. She is especially open to queer, kinky, and poly clients (being all of those herself), and is a certified Transgender Care Therapist.
She is not in insurance networks, but will help with out-of-network filing and has limited sliding-scale slots.
So the Lord's church, which taught me as a child that it had such an inspired welfare system that the government had no business taking tax money for social programs and that if only everyone did it the LDS way, we'd have Zion on earth where everyone was fed and happy, the same church which has an estimated $200 billion in investments making it by far the richest religious organization in the US and possibly on earth, is now struggling to feed its own members during the SNAP crisis, and is asking local members to donate more into fast offerings to fill the gap.
But even then, whether you get help, well, depends on the bishop I guess! 🤷
Not hiding this because folks need to see this, but CW for child abuse and the evils of American Christfascism. And speaking ill of the dead, which I will gladly do. I can't speak ill enough of him.
James Dobson is a major reason why this. Even his evangelical friends and radio cohosts thought he was too cruel. I'm glad he died before he could see his creation of Cristofascism come to fruition. He's one of the worst human beings to ever live.
Not content to let trauma-informed culture break the cycle of domestic abuse, he perpetuated child abuse by teaching millions of parents how. He even sold a device for beating children called "The Rod." (As in "spare the rod, spoil the child.") He advocated for what was known as "blanket training," used to break the will of children starting in infancy. The goal was to create a mindless being who would not cry when beaten, who would jump to with a "Yes sir!" on any command.
The core cruelties of white American evangelicalism in 2025 can be traced to many men, but this man was its face and kindly voice on the radio. When I speak of #AbuseCulture, this is what I mean. Dobson is the black hole which emitted its unholy light even as the revelations of science and open culture attempted to eliminate childhood trauma — Dobson raised its banner and pulled millions of Christians in, not just evangelicals, but anyone who trusted a figure promoting "Family Values," parents who would not on their own be able or even willing to enact such cruelties upon their own children, but under Dobson's manipulations, broke the will of their children...
...children who grew up and abused their own children, who are now pastors and sheriffs and senators and ICE thugs who want to make this reality for all of us.
That is the legacy of this horrible, horrible man.
I don't wish eternal hell on anyone, but I wouldn't mind if this particular creature experienced every pain he caused.
LIVEdammit is a mental health support site with stories, tools, free e-course, bookstore & inspiring wearables — for stubborn souls doing the work to stay here, stay human, & stay strong.
I watch a lot of people first-time reacting to my favorite types of music that they've never been exposed to before. Metalheads reacting to punk. Boomers reacting to grunge. GenZ reacting to 90s pop. Rappers reacting to hippie anthems.
But nothing beats white people experiencing Heilung for the first time.
They mirror my own first reaction: stunned shock and spiritual revelation.
It's a moment of instant decolonization by tapping into to some long-locked tribal memory that is OURS, not someone else's. It's decolonizing not by telling us what we can't have, but by showing us what we lost — and how we can bring it back.
Heilung is recreating, as best they can, what our Norse, Germanic, and Celtic ancestors might have practiced, the music they might have sung, the rites they might have honored, the worldview they most likely espoused. All of that died when the Christian invasion erased our cultures over the centuries, and they forced us into a life that is still alien to our natures. Yet with each violent wave they proudly declared we'd been "civilized."
No. We'd only been domesticated and robbed of our birthright of knowing Mother Nature, hearing our own instincts, and sensing the spirits who live everywhere.
Heilung digs deep into a vein, not where there is hidden a satanic Balrog (though our programming might make us worry this music has summoned a demon). Instead we find a resurrection of our own ancestral soul lying dormant within us.
And these YouTubers have this spiritual awakening right on screen.
🧵
[added thread emoj]
[Blanket Caveat: This turned into a long thread, so I'll just say, I don't caveat a whole lot, I don't explain many of my terms or how I've arrived at the assumptions and claims that I make, and I probably don't properly connect all the dots. This topic could be a paper, and would be, if I did all that. I just wanted to get the broad strokes down.]
And I know neopaganism is a thing, and I've practiced it both solo and with others, but Heilung really puts in the work, the research, the energy, the spectacle, to make it feel real what it might have been like to sit around a fire where the elders were preparing for a raid, acting out a divine scene, or appealing to the harvest spirits, knowing you're at the mercy of inhuman powers far beyond your control and understanding.
There are many paths out of authoritarian Christianity. And those paths have shifted over the centuries. Time was, your only other option wasn't atheism, it was deism, an enlightenment version of god as a scientist-creator who abandoned the universe after creating it. Now it's atheism, and from there you may end up at suburban paganism-lite, or a secular philosophy. Or you can look to various world religions.
Every one of these routes is some form of colonized or colonizing.
But Heilung is decolonized.
There is nothing about the culture Heilung displays on screen that is stolen from some entirely different People. (Obviously they had trade with and raided one another and nearby regions, but they didn't systemically colonize the way The Roman Empire and later Roman Christianity did.) Heilung gives us something that is 100% ours.
Their name means "Healing," and I could write a thesis on why that is true for me.
It takes me beyond deconstructing, into reconstructing, a space I'm less comfortable with.
"Community is first of all a quality of the heart...#Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own. The question, therefore, is not ‘How can we make community?’ but, ‘How can we develop & nurture giving hearts?" Henri Nouwen
The complexity of balancing the value of nurturing & giving hearts to build community with the dangers of undue influence, exploitation & mind control, (esp for a #exmormon high demand religion survivor) is a challenge to say the least. #socialpsychology
Throw in the alt right movements exploitation of Twitter & you start to see how invitations to make others' interests more important' can feel like a red flag. 🚩
That absence of checking in with one's own needs, suppressing your own discomfort, is part of the conditioning of abusive & controlling people and groups.
Public spaces, esp. online, have increased in division & polarization. Tribalism is the norm. Seeking connection, support & community, without the battle-hardened reactivity found so easily online can be exhausting. I've done enough facilitating to know what is needed. I've attempted moderating such spaces.
But as a therapist, recovering from years under the thumb of one of the most patriarchal religions,
(Understanding Compliance in Patriarchal Religions: Mormon Women and the Latter Day Saints Church as a Case Study https://search.app/yGQDHLzfoLYb9iKW9 )
So far, friendships with other #therapists or #socialworkers has provided the kind of paradigm to begin building the rejuvenating spaces I know we all need. Yet so often, we'd rather have that break not reviewing 'the work.' & we feel more self-conscious to tell our truths, holding ourselves to some superhuman standard; as though our profession requires no sign of human weakness. We hear the reassurances among our peers, that of course your humanity is welcome. But too often the 'job' isn't left at home & instead of friendship, counseling by one or more begins. This only reinforces an environment of high-masking. #Masking is tiring, & solitude is often preferable. Thankfully, I do have a small circle of consistently renewing connections in my life. But I miss the larger groups of discourse that happened in grad school.
The respectful dialogue, even in the face of vulnerable intersectional positionalities, was wonderful! We got close our first year because it was in 2020 & we saw each other's faces on Zoom for hours each week. We also had side chats that offered comic relief & encouragement. I loved being in the student association as an evening cohort representative. Hosting #support groups, attending #advocacy mtgs during the pandemic increased my #connection & sense of #community. Yet, as anyone who has attended & graduated knows, the number of cohort members you stay involved & connected to dwindles.
Outside of #therapists spaces, #actuallyautistic & #neurodivergent spaces comes closer to the accepting, welcoming, nurturing environment I think is a current need & priority. Unfortunately, my #religioustrauma can interfere when language feels tribal for 'neurotypical people' vs 'neurodivergent people.'
Divisive, tribalistic or polarized language, regardless of how benign the intent, hits my 🚩 red flag alarm. ⏰️ I have only ever found the understanding of this extra sensitivity in feeling at home in groups with #deconstruction communities. This is finally leading up to the very real loss I feel watching the upcoming likelihood of the #TikTokban
Is it full of brain rot? In many feeds, yes. And also, it's where I found people with all intersections of #socialjustice#neurodiversity#religiousdeconstruction#cultsurvivors#lgbtqia allies & #mentalhealth#advocacy
I've been casually tracking the troubled teen industry for many years because the Mormon Church is deeply connected (and directly ran its own programs like YES until they got too much blood on their hands). My attention was first called to this issue via religious trauma forums decades ago. I've been meaning to watch this series and will bump it up in my queue.
Anyway, this guy can suck it, whining about defamation while torturing kids for cash. Oooo, he got "anxiety." Fuck him and his ilk. If he wanted anyone to care about his tender feelings, he should have cared better for his fellow human beings. CHILDREN.