Give It Time wrote: ↑Mon Oct 23, 2017 5:17 am
alas wrote: ↑Sun Oct 22, 2017 9:15 pm
Rob4Hope wrote: ↑Sun Oct 22, 2017 7:54 pm
The way JS treated Emma makes me angry. The way the church has portrayed and lied about their relationship, even making it into this fantasy loving relationship makes me MORE ANGRY.
I heard Grant Palmer explain some history from Section 132 about Emma's understanding of the phrase she would be destroyed. She, according to Grant, was afraid for her life. In the context of some of the statements above, JS was not only a predator, he threatened the life of his legal wife. This is an evil man.
And the LDS church believes God commanded JS to do all of this?
Its abuse and a cult of denial. Everyone in power keeps Joseph's "dirty little secret". How revolting!
You know, I wrote what I did about Joseph purposely sleeping with women that Emma loved just kind of off the top of my head, only realizing it kind of as I was writing about predators. But then I got thinking. I worked professionally with domestic I violence victims, had several who were at times afraid for their lives, had been beaten so bad they were hospitalized, broken bones, bla bla bla. After a while, one gets jaded, like my brother who is an emergency room doctor, and talks about blood and gore like people talk about lunch. Anyway, I have heard it all, seen much of it as I was called to the hospital twice to be with clients who had been badly beaten. Anyway, in my time working with domestic violence, the women got so nothing the man could do could hurt them anymore, they were just sort of numb. But part of domestic violence is the abuser proving that he can still get his victim to react with pain because the pain she feels is his proof that she cares about him and how he treats her. It is sort of like proof she loves him when she reacts with hurt. So, this is why things escalate. The abuser is like an addict who needs bigger and bigger hits, and his partner's emotional pain is the proof she cares for him.
So, in all the numb women I saw who were sort of past feeling anything, there were a few who talked about what was the thing he did that hurt the most. And that biggest emotional betrayal was sleeping with her best friend. It not only was him treating her like dirt, but he got her best friend to betray her trust also. Double whammy. Worst thing an abuser could do was get her best friend in on abusing her by sleeping with the best friend.
And Joseph did that with most if not all of the women Emma got close to. It was like telling her that no one would be loyal and she could not trust anyone. It was a huge power trip for him.
It sort of blows my mind how he isolated her by sleeping with her friends.
This is the first time I've come across this, also. I think you've really hit on something. I've been told the first thing an abuser does is isolate his victim. Interesting to see it's actually an ongoing process. You are right about the abuser causing the hurt, because it's proof the person cares. My ex had a sadistic bent. He used to laugh at news stories where people got hurt. He also told me the reason people are mean is because "they are so happy". A viewpoint that, to me, that indicates sadism. However, bringing in the more benign interpretation you give, I think is valid. My ex used to smile when he saw he had cut me in some way or another. I do believe the seeing that I cared was part of it. Sick, but part of it.
You are all blowing my mind with some of this personal stuff. Blowing my mind, not in a bad way, but in a mind-opening way!
There is a pattern here. And it jumped generations and has caused all kinds of backlash, polarization, and problems galore.
Earlier in this thread I mentioned my opinion that some of the ultra conservative apostles who clamped down on the idea of "pleasure for pleasure's sake" as being evil, were raised, almost exclusively by their mothers who were forced into polygamous marriage and treated as "less than" by their GA righteous polygamous husband. Its my opinion that some of these women vowed in their hearts they were NOT going to imbue the same detestable system onto their sons as they themselves were being forced to live in. So they went to work, raising young sons who were taught that self control trumped all else, self denial was required for all passions, especially those involving pleasure, etc. And low and behold, nepotism brought some of these young sons into the ranks of leadership, and the pendulum of virtue swung with lightening speed to the other extreme.
On one side you have JS shagging everyone he could and being abusive, even threatening in couched terms to kill his wife if she didn't let him do what he wanted. And on the other side, you have someone like Mark E. Peterson telling people in a stake conference that he has never seen his wife's naked body.
http://mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/vie ... &sk=t&sd=a
I don't know for sure if this statement about Peterson is true, but I have read the Dialogue article on contraception, and have looked up statements by Joseph Fielding Smith--and I am pretty sure that these guys had an adverse opinion about sexual pleasure.
The extremes make sense to me, when I look at them in the context of the conflict between liberal hedonistic polygamous ideals, and the damage and subsequent retrenchment to stop the progress of that system through virtuous teachings to counter the trend by those hurt.