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In Reply to: Re: Important discrepancy posted by Correction on June 02, 2005 at 12:26:53:
The woman who trained me (shepherdess) did not use sex as in FFing. She talked to me about God wanting me to have sex with a king if it were necessary for the good of the Family. She talked about "all things are lawful" and "to the pure all things are pure", both of which meant sex outside of marriage is OK.
This "shepherdess" was not married to the shepherd. He was single and so was she. You might just call her the senior sister, but she was in charge of my training and all the women in the colony. She had a mate who was the shepherd at another colony. How do I know he was her mate? She told me they were betrothed, and she had slept with him.
Looking back on it now, I wonder why she thought it was necessary to share these ideas with a babe like myself. I "suspect" she may have decided to share these ideas--which she no doubt picked up in Burlington--because she thought I'd be open to them. I was, sort of. I didn't hide the fact that I had had a fair amount of casual sex. I also didn't hide the fact that I wanted to be celibate for a while, because I didn't think my past behavior was a good thing.
When I moved onto another colony, I talked about these ideas openly once. I said something to the effect that "because all things are pure to the pure, I could turn tricks on the street to raise money for my airfare to Europe." Well, to my surprise, one of the senior brothers took me aside and told me that I was now a "new creature in Christ" and the idea of prostituting myself was unseemly. It truly surprised me to hear someone challenge the doctrine of all-things-pure means free love.
Then I moved to another colony where the shepherd's wife was not around because she was at another colony giving birth to their first child. That shepherd called me up to his room one evening. He was laying on his back completely nude under a sheet and obviously had an erection. He talked to me about making a sacrifice to minister to a brother in need by giving him a backrub. I wasn't attracted to the guy and said, "I don't have the faith for this." (I'm not attracted to people with partners.) He said, "OK", and let me go.
Seems like I got the benefit of the Burlington mindset. I think I was exposed to this side of TF because the leadership I ran into had been exposed to these ideas and perceived me as open. I was also in some colonies where the sexual ethics were traditionally Christian, and the leadership were people of integrity.
This is why I think there are people in TFI today who have had very little exposure to its ugly underbelly, while many others have had to pass through the fires of Family hell.
