Category:Sexuality

"The Family of Love" is often described as a "sex cult", and sex was a disproportionately large part of life within the group. This heightened sexuality was an enviroment that fostered a likewise disproportionate rate of the occurance of paraphilia within The Family.

The encouragement of paraphilia by the leaders of The Family led to widespread sexual abuse. However, sexual deviancy was not the prevailing characteristic of sexuality within the group so much as categoric sexual liberties. A notable exception to the sexual liberty preached and practiced within the group was male homosexuality, which was condemned forcefully by David Berg.

Sex with non-members was eventually banned, around 1987, under threat of excommunication. This was mainly due to the AIDS scare.