Grandpa has suggested that he would really enjoy seeing videos of Family women and girls dancing sexy like the goddesses of his dreams. “Glorifying God in the dance,” he says, should be done very tastefully and beautifully, like the naked art of old masters and artists, not pornography. Of course, my mother and the other women enthusiastically agree, eager to prove how yielded they are to God. The men like the idea, too, as they’ll get to watch the videos as well.
My mother knows she is a good dancer and loves to show it off. She is not just doing a simple dance and rubbing a see-through scarf against her body. She wants real choreography and begins picking out different-colored scarves to create costumes for our production of The Asian Angels Volume Two. I appeared in my first Asian Angels video when I was three, a video compilation of Family women living in Asia doing sexy dances.
Most of the women seem excited, but I hear some complaining that they don’t know how to dance like that, and they will feel silly. They are told, “Do it for the Lord and for our prophet, Moses David. Remember you are not your own; you belong to God. Any embarrassment is just your pride. Pray against it.”
Mary and I and a few other little girls, daughters of some of the other families visiting for the GAF, are told to pick out scarves, too. I love scarves and dressing up. Sometimes I wear my long Christmas singing dress and my mother’s purple feather boa and a see-through scarf over my head and pretend to be a princess.
To give it an artistic setting, my father wants to record us dancing under the pine trees by the beach near where we are hosting the GAF.
“We are going to do a dance of forest fairies,” my mother explains. “I’ll be fairy queen in the middle, and you girls dance around me.”
I jump up and down. I want to be a fairy dancing in the woods. It’s like a princess.
My father is there with his camera, ready to film us.
When we are instructed to remove all our clothes, I’m embarrassed to take off my panties, but my mother helps me and ties the see-through white scarf around my waist. She has us practice dancing a few times to get it right. “Hold hands and dance around me in a circle, first one way then change direction,” she says. “Now raise your hands up to Heaven like you’re praising Jesus.”
Finally, someone hits play on the boom box, cued to a popular Family song, “Mountain Children,” and my father starts filming. Five of us little girls, naked under our see-through scarfs, hold hands and circle my mother while she dances in the middle, rubbing her scarf on her naked body. One of the adults off to the side motions to us to change direction and poses.
I try to copy my mother with my scarf, but I feel clumsy and unsure. The sharp twigs poking through the pine needles hurt my bare feet; this isn’t as fun as I was told it would be. After a few more takes, us little girls are finished; the adult women will take turns making videos dancing by themselves. I dress and run back to where Patrick and the boys are playing tag. Why don’t they have to dance?
Whenever we have a GAF or a LAF, one of the adults puts all of us kids to bed while the other adults have dance and “sharing” nights. My sister, Mary, and I are still too young to go to these adult “dance” nights, but my brothers are old enough, according to Grandpa in the Child Brides Mo Letter, and are invited to join this time. “Boys get semen and girls get their periods. If God didn’t intend them to start having sex then, they wouldn’t be able to procreate at that age.” He then expanded this in The Devil Hates Sex—But God Loves It!, saying, “There is nothing in the world at all wrong with sex as long as it’s practiced in love, whatever it is or whoever it’s with, no matter who or what age or what relative or what manner. . . . When Paul said ‘All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient’ (1 COR 6:12), he was as good as saying, ‘I can indulge in any kind of sex I want to, but I’ve got to watch out for the System because it’s against the law!’ (Mama Maria: At least not let ’em find out if you do it!). . . . We are free in privacy, and that’s about all, and we mightn’t be free if they discovered what we do in private! . . . There are no relationship restrictions or age limitations in his law of love.”
Grandpa said that for hundreds of years, when a boy reached puberty, it was common for his father to take him to a prostitute to give him some experience, even in Victorian England. I never hear a word of complaint from my brothers; quite the opposite.
When Hobo was ten, he went to Australia for a few months with the top Family leaders over all of the Pacific area who were trained at Grandpa’s house. He came back telling his brothers about how he was having sex with adult women there. This activity was obviously blessed by the top leadership and the Homes would follow suit. My brothers were invited to join the adults on the next sharing night. The boys were asked which auntie they wanted to have sexy time with, and then they went into different rooms and did what the boy wanted—full sex or just cuddling.
The next night, back at the Farm, we gather for our regular guitar-led Inspiration, singing rousing, emotional Family songs of dedication to get us in the Spirit. I am sitting on Uncle Jeff’s lap; it feels solid and secure. On my father’s lap, I try to sit perfectly still, afraid to get a slap or a pinch. He can lash out at any minute, and I am never quite sure what will set him off. But Uncle Jeff never spanks us, so I’m not afraid to wiggle.
After Inspiration, I see Uncle Jeff speaking with my mother. She smiles and asks if I want to go spend some time with Uncle Jeff. I nod happily. I feel warm and comfortable in his arms.
Uncle Jeff takes me to his room and lays me on the bed beside him. He takes my hand and puts it over his crotch, showing me how to stroke it up and down. When it bulges, he unzips his pants, and his penis pops up. I remember how my father’s penis popped up that time when my mother invited me to the loft. I sit up, surprised.
“Don’t worry. Do you want to touch it?” He takes my hand and places it on his bare penis, directing me to grip it. My hand is too small to reach all the way around it.
My mind is in shock. This isn’t anything like the little-boy penises I am used to seeing on Patrick and my brothers. Uncle Jeff shows me how to grip it more firmly and stroke up and down to an even rhythm, then puts his hand over mine to stroke faster and faster until his body gets all tight. He makes a strange grunting sound, and white stuff spurts out all over my hand and his tummy.
Gross, I think, but say nothing, staring at my hands, which are covered in that white sticky stuff. It smells strange and metallic.
He takes me to the tiny bathroom and holds me up at the sink so I can wash my hands. The single neon bulb reflects the sickly light green of the walls, as I scrub and scrub my hands. I wash them three times before he sets me down, but they still feel dirty.