Flirty Fishing: Evangelical Prostitution April 19, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Actualite, Contemporary , trackback
The Children of God were a rather silly American Christian group, born in 1968, that went, however, almost immediately off the rails, rode down the sidings and ended up chugging along in the blackest, grimiest ditches known to human experience. They specialized, for one, in unusual sexual practices. Some of these are too sordid to bear repeating: incest and child abuse were lowlights and for a horrific cautionary tale follow this link. But their most unusual Christian innovation was Flirty Fishing, referred to by an editor over at Wikipedia as ‘evangelistic religious prostitution’.
Flirty Fishing, where to even start? There are two accounts as to when flirty fishing began. The first in True Komix (an official newsletter/comic of the Children) claims that the founder David Berg (the man pictured here with a beard) was out walking with his wife, Maria Berg (aka Karen Zerby), when they saw a poster for dance lessons. At that moment DB was inspired to create his new form of sexual ministry. According, instead to Faith Berg, daughter of David Berg, she was looking to save souls in Libya: while describing though the love of Jesus to a devout Muslim she somehow ended up in bed with the man. Horrified she rang her father who okayed the act: ‘Why, it is exactly the same day we got this prophecy called the flirty fish [sic]… there would be instances in which we would have to portray God’s love in a physical way.’ These stories are not necessarily incompataible, but having read now rather a lot of literature from the Children of God I can say with confidence that this was a group where consistency did not have a premium: either or both may have been made up.
David Berg had said in the late 1960s that anyone over thirty was unreachable in terms of conversion: predictably enough Berg was in his late forties when he came out with that pearl; I guess stolen from Weinberg? However, in the early 1970s (1974?) he began to push FF-ing (the normal CoG abbreviation). Flirty fishing was originally seen as a way to break through to those men who were older than thirty and who belonged to ‘the system’. Berg, who imagined a future in which every aspect of life would be controlled by an evil and unchristian state (the antichrist was en route), figured that sex might be one of the few areas where the state would not intervene successfully. Women (fisherwomen) could then use their bodies (bait) to hook (puns with ‘hooker’ were made and there are some absolutely awful CoG images of women on hooks) unbelieving men (‘fish’, even if older CoG terminology referred to hooked fish as ‘sheep’ confusingly enough). It is perhaps just conceivable that another extreme Protestant group, which took conversion very seriously, might have messed around with something similar. But the ‘fisherwoman’ would have turned icy cold outside the bar, ‘Now I want to talk to you about Jesus, Max: get your hand off my leg!’ The CoG were sex positive, however, (dirtying an honourable term) and so sex became a way to show, in itself, the ‘love’ of a person and the love of Jesus. I’ve limited, btw, the images used here, as many of those sent out were borderline pornographic.
There were five historical phases in the ff-ing revolution. First, David Berg sent out his fishermen and fisherwomen to seduce people into God’s love: as noted above this was apparently in 1974. The most famous were those twenty or so women around him in Tenerife, in the Canaries, where he was then living. In a second period, men were taken out of the formula, as they were not as popular as the fisherwomen: go figure! In a third moment women were encouraged to not only ff with random strangers but also to accept money for the favours given from special clients. A lot of sophism was spent on explaining why this was not prostitution. In a fourth phase fisherwomen were encouraged to join escort agencies and it was explained how the ‘gifts’ of clients could help their commune homes: they were still hoping to minister but reading the CoG literature it seems that money was now as important. ‘You’ve got to catch a few to make the fun pay for itself. So don’t do it for nothing’ as the FFers Handbook winningly put matters. Then, in a final phase (1987?, see footnote)*, ff-ing was banned altogether, apparently because of the AIDS epidemic: a strangely contrary message from God for Berg. But by then he was concentrating on the end of the world that didn’t come in 1993: ‘Dad’ died a year later.
Those who became fisherwomen were often browbeaten into the work, as a glance at the illustration above will show: the thug on the right is Berg, often portrayed in publications with a lion head (really!) or, as here, with that guru beard you just want to twist off. Husbands were also demeaned when they dared to question whether their wives should really be spreading the Word of God thus. There are several images that show fisherwomen on the cross as they have sex: ‘it hurt our pride, crucified our flesh, killed our selfishness and ruined our reputation’ (Phil. 2, 7). There were also some very doubtful attempts to find Flirty Fishers in the Bible: apparently Ruth and Abraham belonged to the club. CoG describe the fisherwomen as an elite, or soldiers and on one occasion they are said to be on a suicide mission. Yet at the same time the women recalling their experiences are expected to speak about how joyful these experiences were: and their wonder at reaching those who would otherwise be lost to God.
Of course, the experiences of these women are impossible to recover now. It is likely that the vast majority were sincere and wished to get through to those they had ‘hooked’. One woman, describing her experiences in an escort agency, at a time when she was still a believer, writes of three men she met in one weekend: an Arab, she read from Corinthians to him; a young man who was desperate from travelling too much and to whom she witnessed; while a third was an American abroad who made love for two hours and then listened, during a post coital cigarette, to some Jesus talk. The same woman describes making love, at an earlier date, to three men simultaneously: ‘Pretty soon we were all in bed together having a great time, but I must admit it was pretty hard to witness and concentrate with so much going on.’
The executive of the group was keen on counting their achievement in ff-ing – ‘God is interested in details and statistics’ – and frequently sent out updates and demanded responses. The forms that fisherwomen had to fill out were extraordinary: it was necessary to note down how many times you went fishing and also whether this resulted in proper sexual contact and also the professional background of those ‘loved’ ‘Gov’t Officials’, ‘Professionals’ etc etc. As to the numbers, one graphic (below, 1988) suggests that a million were witnessed to through ff-ing, a quarter of a million had sex and about half of those were ‘saved’. Three hundred thousand letters were dropped in the post box and about a third of the ff-ers letters received replies: these letters were follow ups after sex in an attempt to hunt down the ‘sheepy’ ones. Several hundred babies were born through ff-ing and these were called ‘Jesus babies’ and became communal children, the real victims of the sect. All kinds of administrative difficulties also came up in counting: could two fisherwomen have sex with the same man (yes); if a fisherwoman has sex with the same man, say, three times then does that count as three or one men? (three); does flirting count on the phone? (Yes) etc etc.
Other knowledge of ffing: drbeachcombing At yahoo DOT com Perhaps from past fisherwomen or their fish.
When I told the uber Catholic Mrs Beach about flirty fishing this evening she shook her head, returned to the dishes with the gnomic phrase: ‘it’s all about boundaries’. That is probably about as close as the twenty-first century will get to the sentence written over Delphi.
*Most sources, including CoG sources talk about Flirty Fishing ending in 1987. However, the graphic immediately above seems enthusiastic and dates to late 1988!
24 April 2014: First up is KMH: There has always been an uneasy relationship between sexuality and Cristianity leading to bizarre sects.Check out the ‘Skoptsy’ who called themselves”‘The People of God” and practiced castration for men and mastectomy for women. Invisible along similar lines: Well, that post about Flirty Fishing was one of the most horrifying things I’ve read in ages! I vaguely remember reading about it when I was in college, but the details (and the illustrations) you provided are so utterly grim… Just another in the procession of randy God Wanna-bes with divine senses of entitlement and flocks of exploited or foolish virgins. Trust the Daily Mail to keep us abreast: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2607873/National-manhunt-Minnesota-minister-52-raped-underage-girls-nearly-decade-telling-Gods-word.html I still shudder at the exploits of rapist Warren Jeffs with his pompadoured harem of little girls in calico “modest dress.” There are also the Evangelical Christian Quiverful households where women know their place: as fruitful wombs to produce some Biblically mandated “quiverful” of (preferably) sons. Families of 9-14 children are commonplace. The girls, of course, need not be educated, other than in the Word of the Lord, because they only exist to take care of men and their needs. And don’t get me started on the “Christian spanking” movement, which advocates beating one’s wife and/or children in a spirit of Biblical chastisement. Special places in Hell… Thanks Invisible and KMH!
