What if, at least for some of the believers, these assumptions do not apply?

The new TLC show “Sister Wives” is a fabulous conformation of the radical power of particularity within university.  Sister Wives is about a polygamous step-family with four wives, one husband and sixteen children in total. The wives are able to embrace polygamy as a “faith” practice as they explain on the NBC interview, while maintaining openness to alternatives for their children, and thus for us all. On the show, the language embraced by the sister wives is “lifestyle.”

There is magic in members of the Fundamentalist Mormon Church calling their faith based choices a “lifestyle.”  A lifestyle is optional and personal, the opposite of forced religious practice, the opposite of conventional thinking on fundamentalism.

This show, amongst many things is a coming out party in ways large and small and I never miss a good coming out party. When Christina, the stay home wife, goes to the hospital to have her sixth baby, the family is exuberant.  The other babies in this family were all born at home, because the family feared the treatment they would receive at the hospital.  Here they tell the doctor right away. The doctor, a young woman, replies “I have never done a delivery with a polygamist before – I have a lot of polygamist ancestors.” This is exactly what an awkward guest would say at a coming out party, a version of the classic “I have a gay cousin.”

After the birth, the entire family stomps to the hospital. Janelle, the working wife, says while the audience watches her hold the new baby, Truely, “I guess all the children are sort of like my children, it is like me expecting another child without the work.” In relation to Christina’s baby, she has the subject position of a “man.” She gets a baby without the “work.” Does she mean the work of childbirth, or does she mean the daily grind of taking care of a baby? If she means the second, the meaning, is enhanced, because as a mother who works long hours, arguably she is not the primary caretaker of her biological children either.  In a previous segment the wives mention that the children think of Jenella as the fun mom – she is the one who takes them to the movies and lets them eat ice cream for dinner. This role is also traditionally occupied by the father (in a soft patriarchy), who is the fun parent and not the disciplinarian.  Plural marriage is indeed providing Jenella with an “alternative lifestyle,” to the one enjoyed by man-woman couples, where the woman serves as the primary caretaker. Janelle is my favorite.  If was a polygamist, I would be her.

Stay home wife, Christine is my second favorite.  As a little girl she dreamed of being a third wife!  She wanted the other wives and not the husband. As a young woman she only wanted to date married men.   Is her platonic love for women hiding queerness stirring beneath the surface?

I don’t know.

I cannot imagine living with other women or men so intimately, raising their babies, sharing their meals and not wanting to share their beds; but that is me and my predilections.  The women in this show are asking us to see them as making a credible choice for the love  of God, for the love of each other, for the love of their children, perhaps even for the love of Kody, their surfer-haired husband.  In return they are giving us a paradigm for universalist religion that is rich and deep, dripping with tolerance (if not welcoming) of the other, while living a life saturated with meaning that comes from the practice of faith every moment of your day and not just on insert-your-day-of-rest-here.

Sadly the same cannot be said for Kody who says the following, when Meri, the baron wife (also the radical one), asks him to acknowledge her feelings of  jealousy, by considering how it might feel if she took a another lover.  Kody says “it is not something I am comfortable imaging. The vulgarity of you with another man sickens me.  It is against man and nature.”  Here I was, about to ask him to sign my legalize group marriage petition!  (I harbor the hope that the sister wives would sign it)

I am not sure what to do with this absolutely unmovable double standard – besides to point out that Meri was willing to move it, even if just a millimeter, by requiring him to imagine a different (aka egalitarian) world.  Meri (perhaps radical because she is baron), is also the radical one – not only does she question the double standard, but she also questions “where the lines in who we can love,” when discussing her relationship to the other children.  Like Janelle, Meri is also living a deeper sort of alternative lifestyle. She wanted to have eight children, and she got 16, and birthed only one of them.

These cases are certainly uncommon as of yet– and still, somewhat clustered, they do exist. Is this some kind of insane backlash against the greater sexual liberties young women tend to enjoy? Or is this effort to “protect the children” a misguided attempt of a radically transforming society to reassert its priorities – an effort that occurs each time a new technology increases the potential voice of those who have thus far remained relatively silent (and in this case invisible). Charging young women with felonies for exercising their right to send naked pictures of themselves to young men is beyond madness. Why would a society, or even some of its members, decide that this act is deserving of the social condemnation of a felony? What is all that important about controlling our cunts?

Young women model and compete in beauty pageants while wearing bikini’s. The adult world is making a killing by exploiting their young sexualized bodies. But – holy fuck, a  young woman is trying to actually use her own body for her own pleasure, now that’s really abhorrent behavior – she ought to be locked up! One of the brilliant policemen responsible for this is quoted dispensing the following gems of wisdom, “Once it’s on a cell phone, that cell phone can be put on the Internet where everyone in the world can get access to that juvenile picture. You don’t realize what you are doing until it’s already done.” George Seranko, Captain of Police Greensburg PA

What exactly is she doing? – and so what if someone gets access to this picture? If the person receiving a private photo decides to send it to the entire grade – that’s what we have privacy torts for. Sending naked pictures that were intended for your eyes only is the textbook privacy tort. But my guess is that the policeman is not worrying about this girl’s personal embarrassment (After all what is more embarrassing than being a listed sex offender?); he is worried that a scary pedophile will get hold of the pictures. Why would that be such a terror? Much like in the case of adult actors who can pass for children or digitally produced child pornography – no children are hurt in the production. Perhaps you can argue that this girl will be hurt if her nude pictures are all over the World Wide Web (but so would an 18 year old) – let her sue the bastard who released them. That way she will actually get some compensation for the hurt she has experienced.

Also, it seems that so far only women have been charged with sending photos – while according to survey data young men and women are pretty much as likely to send nude pictures on line – clearly young men enjoying their sexuality is not as much of a problem for the prosecutors as young women doing the same.

To teenagers, next time you want to send naked pictures of yourself; be sure to promptly delete them – because apparently your sexuality is criminalized when used for your own pleasure, but not for the financial gain of adults. Scaring teenage girls (and boys) with felony charges will not place the sexuality of women (old and young) back into the control of patriarchy. Go forth! Take nude pictures of yourself (and videos!) early and often – because it’s fun, and because the only violation going on her is  the egregious abuse of prosecutorial discretion

While there is absolutely nothing that one can actually do: I am still a fan of naming those adults (at least a few of them) who are behind this particular variety of exploiting the bodies of young women.

From Greensburg, PA (Where six such cases are pending)

George Seranko, Captain of Police: 724-834-3800

John Peck, District Attorney: jpeck@co.westmoreland.pa.us: 724.830.3949