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 was often the result of David Berg's own preternatural sexual desires and the sexual liberties he espoused were often justifications of sexual deviancy he himself practiced or wished to commence. Paraphilia that Berg was not, himself, fond of (e.g. masochism) were often unequivocally forbidden.

The leaders of The Family were invariably culled to avoid discord with Berg's positions and their sycophantic acquiescence and endorsement of paraphilia led to widespread sexual abuse.

Nevertheless, sexual deviancy was not the prevailing characteristic of sexuality within the cult so much as categoric sexual liberties. Though misogyny was often found in Berg's positions the promiscuity he espoused was atypical in that it did not converge on polygyny. Berg repeatedly demonstrated the desire to see his sexual partners with others, often opting for voyeurism, and preached promiscuity for males and females.

A notable exception to the sexual liberty preached and practiced within the group was male homosexuality, which was condemned forcefully by Berg.

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