Featherhat

I think I remember someone saying that the "BE Values" were "borrowed" from a Mormon pop campaign, I'm not sure if that has ever been verified or not. But all their stuff on there is seriously ugly and cheap looking. Like you could buy it any place anywhere in the world and it would be considered tacky and cheap by local standards no matter what the local "cheap" rate is. I've seen jewellery that came out of vending machines that was prettier and was almost as cheap looking. They really did expect to have an unrealistically giant mark up because of their name. Now the Kardashians/Duck Dynasty (previously HBBs were about to) etc get away with outrageous mark ups on crappy junk because who they are, but these guys don't have 1/10th of the fame nor marketing minions with 1/10th of an idea of what their fan base might want to buy. And those things were always plastered with logos of the families, not just generic blobs. And exactly no one by a few thousand plyg families can related to "my sisterwife's closet" and a lot of those people, a) hate the Browns and what they are portraying b) can't afford the silly pricing c) can also buy the exact same style in their local stores cheaper and quicker d) hate their sister wives. There is no niche market there. Maybe there might have been for more "wholesome/modest" things but they've really never courted that sector (unlike the Duggars/Bates etc) and it wouldn't fit in well with their current web presence. It's like they think they're still in that brief period in the 90s when domcom was supposed to print money just because you registered a site.

Well Meri's was only "legal Wife's house" because she was legally married to Kody when they bought the plots. That's its only legal significance, all the wives designed their own houses from limited plans and their own/kids/Kody's tastes. Robyn's house now becomes the "legal wife's house" without her having to move across the cul de sac. Meri almost certain retains wife #1 position officially as a way to justify this to herself. Even in the monogamous system she is still unquestionably his first wife, its just that that doesn't generally acknowledge that "spiritual wives" #2 and #3 got passed over so to the state of Nevada Robyn is # . There are some sects that marry everyone in turn and they seem to keep with the order in which they married. Obviously this doesn't mean that in reality wife #7 is the favourite and has "top dog" position ala Abilene Grant or that those involved can't make up their own justifications for "it really is about the power and sex" shenanigans.

Well if Christine was originally correct that they don't kiss before marriage then its a good bet that they ask permission to court to some extent (we know that probably wasn't the case with some of his other wives, or only after the fact). And Kody was a young man hoping to go far in this religion (ie wanted more than one wife) and so had to be respectful etc, and it seems she was well connected esp from a convert family POV. From the footage, it has seemed that Meri wasn't comfortable with more wives but agreed because she did love Kody and had grown up with it as normal. She wasn't expecting Janelle though. That's not unlike a lot of different denominations of any religion though. There are protestants who think drinking and dancing are a sin and protestants who think god doesn't mind about drinking and dancing and even more variations when you go wider. Many Mormon fundamentalist groups treat mainline modern LDS strict rules as "guidelines" or otherwise not as important as other aspects. If the AUB doesn't have a prohibition against alcohol then they aren't going against their rules. I'rs hard to know how much their church factors in their lives at all because they have never discussed it even when their kids attended a church school and they were living in a neighbourhood with many polygamists. Therefore we think its only these assclowns but in reality there *was* a whole community. What's going on now they are in Vegas is even more obscure to untangle. I don't think they hold regular services because Kody looked 100% flailng at basic preaching, but that doesn't mean that they have abandoned that structure, despite Kody clearly doing what he wants. That doesn't seem to be too unusual even in regulated groups like CP if you are an elder man with several wives.

I think Meri is still official wife #1. They've still been sealed the longest and I do think she's being forced to swallow the "it doesn't mean anything, it's just for practical restructuring purposes." The actual favourite with the most power in the group dynamic probably changes in the way CofCinci describes, but I can't see Meri accepting a legal divorce that automatically comes with an official "demotion" in terms of hierarchy, unless she really is on the way out. Where Kody spends most of his time probably hasn't changed too much. It has seemed that that's mostly Robyn and using Meri's as a "retreat" from his other 3 houses with a young and teenage kids. So far we don't know if/when Meri is getting any financial benefit from this "deal", but I wouldn't bet on it, at least not from Kody's POV. He'll have his cake and eat it.

I do think in general Christine felt she had a good deal in her faith Before.Robyn. She was the 3rd and last wife for 15 years, she and Janelle made it work between them. She was having the girls, (mostly) and Janelle was having the boys (mostly) at the same time. Meant.to.be! Supposedly the AUB were unlikely to approve another wife based on financial standing, so they finally get a good set up in Lehi...........And suddenly Robyn has wondered in and becomes new tasty flavour of the TLC show. Literally her nightmare. *And* it's proven dawned on fans that is *is* a huge amount about sex and fertility, no matter what they spout.

Seriously. Christine was very upset, on camera. Her last pregnancy (time of attention from Kody) got ruined by a thin, "hot", next wife being courted and Kody was driving for hours to visit her at one point. It was clear from what we saw filmed that Robyn was loving the attention and kissing was probably not the only thing the only way she secured it. Christine is the woman who walked off the set on camera when she found out Kody and Robyn chose her dress together. We learned from other sources it was for 3 days. She's that upset about that non sexual Brown/AUB ritual being destroyed by Robyn she's not going to *encourage* Kody to do anything physical unless she is 100% a doormat and that is not how she has tried to portray herself. She's either trying to convince herself that everything is super fine in happy, shiny plyg world or she has been manipulated into retracting a lot of footage which shows her *at the time* being very critical of Kody/Robyn. But hey she was being totally unreasonable because its not like pregnancy is sometimes when you need someone to give you extra emotional and practical support, no its the best time to also be "multiplying love" in a totally different way to your 3rd wife literally multiplying.

Indeed. If her husband is thinking about using "an unsafe situation" as a basis for full/more custody then its still the case. He could argue that any closer associations with the Browns make it more likely that his girls will end up in polygamous marriages. But seriously, we haven't heard once from David Jessop since this show began. He may just not want to have anything to do with the TV show, he may not want to be on TV with the infamous "Jessop" name associations, he may have something to hide, he may have been ordered not to be involved by his family. We don't know and no one seems to know much about him for sure, including his current views on polygamy. If any court papers had been filed I think someone would have found them by now. It's possible this just came up as a threat or in an argument (from either party) and Robyn used this as a scare tactic to get what she wanted in the same way Kody used "we're about to be arrested" in order to fulfil his apparently long running dream of living in Vegas. Jessop in this saga ranges from "willing to relinquish his parental rights" to "about to sue for full custody" so who the hell knows.

There definitely would be a "Breaking Brown" special for the first one to blow, but I'm just not sure any of them will. Janelle left the family but continued her relationship with Kody. Meri is the most likely choice, but she's put up (and I do think that is the right phrase at the very least) with the situation because she was totally in love with Kody. Now Mariah is out in the world and she's moving on to the next stage of her life, she may not find that having less Kody in it is a bad thing, even if she still remains officially a part of the group in the same way that someone going to mass at Christmas and Easter can still technically think of themselves as a practicing Catholic. They are definitely going to spin this as Meri's idea to save Robyn's kids, but to me there's little doubt it originated with Kody and Robyn somehow. 5 years ago Robyn was in debt up to her eye balls, living in a trailer. Now she has a McMansion, a hobby business that she suggested over more sensible ideas. It's failing but she has it, a 2nd legal marriage and a TV show that is determined to show her POV at all times at the minute. That doesn't happen by accident. Even if it was for "practical"/grifting reasons first and foremost, you can't tell me there isn't a massive emotional component. These women can't stand thinking of the time that Kody spends with the others and make everything a competition. They may believe sealing is important, but they don't assign no difference to legal marriage in their hearts because otherwise he'd have married none of them like some Centennial Parkers do, or offered to marry and divorce them all in turn so they are "equal" in that way.

These recaps, which someone posted above are a detailed examination of so much of what is wrong with their relationship. http://jennytrout.com/?p=3208 I do think EL James thinks this is a soulmates story. "Humble" ordinary girl Ana bags fucked up, handsome billionaire and really "gets" him and gets him to look past his "kinky fuckery" (that she loathes but does it to keep him) and "changes" (not really) him and helps him learn to love and become a doting father, all in the space of less than a year. She even tries to drag "fate" and "written in the stars" into it. In interviews she refuses to acknowledge why people might think its about abuse. She thinks her characters are so perfect that she can't even let them be wrong 95% of the time, so there's no real narrative. The epilogue to the last book is pure wish fulfilment, it's treacle-ier than the Potter Epilogue and that thing is a cause of diabetes.

Because like Robert Pattinson before him, he knew it would take him from "working actor" to "gobally known name" and that won out over any objections. Say isn't that like Ana in the books, all objections go by the wayside because he's hot and rich?/sarcasm I have a lot of respect for Charlie Hunnam who apparently said "No way" after reading the script, and this guy isn't generally worried about sexuality on TV because of SOA and having some of the most explicit gay sex on UK broadcast TV ever when he was a very young actor. I admit I did find it funny at first when RPatzz hated on Twilight and a massive majority of the fans simply and totally blanked on it, not excused it but just never acknowledged it existed, but it wasn't amusing in the slightest by the 3rd film. JD has probably sown his own garden of hell since there will be at least 2 sequels, if not part 3 split into 4 (hard to see how they would have the material but I said that about both Mockingjay and Divergent). Dude Christian is abusive. Consensual BDSM play is the exact opposite on purpose. Christian is the worlds worst Dom. If you hated both equally then I sincerely hope you asked to be recast for your own well being. I mean I'm not sad that this terrible book's actors clearly hate it (even if DJ is clearly much superior to EL James Ana) but you just seem like you can't wrap your head around the consensual idea at all and aren't good in the role anyway. By the way you are a convincing serial killer. Think about that.

Apparently usually on TLC shows the family get one sum of money and then its distributed as they see fit seeing as they need these shows as dirt cheap as they can get them. It is widely believed that the adult Duggar kids that aren't Josh don't get anything expect what JimBoob dolls out as allowance, and no one is really sure about Josh's status. Anna from HBB didn't receive any money once she turned 18. It's most likely the same with the polygamy shows. We've barely seen a lot of them since they graduated, if they were getting a personal check from TLC I would imagine they'd have more incentive to show up more often. Maddie may not have gotten any extra money fro TLC but I hope she got something from her parents for agreeing to add some actual socially relevant and interesting issues into this boring mess. Or that all of the kids over 18 do when they are featured. They are the only good thing about the show.

Well the mainline LDS teachings and AUB teachings seem similar and the AUB publicly accepts the LDS as a Mormon organisation, which not all of the fundamentalist sects do. So Maddie preaching at them would be mostly anti polygamy stuff. I wonder if it's just a way of declaring herself publicly monogamist rather than any other reason. She's found a new group of friends who mostly believe what her previous church believes but are anti polygamy. Admittedly I would guess that would be hard for a lot of the adults to swallow, since it dominates all their lives' and is the reason all the women are unhappy and its a big deal for her to tell them that, but doctrinally its not "we're traditional Catholic, how did our daughter decide to become Wiccan". I would imagine/hope that since she's over 18 Maddie was fine that she was discussing it on TV and could have said no way if she wasn't.

I think they are still involved, though maybe not as much as they were. Sorry my quoting is screwed up. [Mod note--I fixed it!--Rhondinella] That seems to be how these women live with polygamy. Deny everything in your mind. On every show TLC and others have done about it the women have admitted they don't like to think about their husband with his other wives, and they basically seem to do their hardest to blank that out in their minds, so they literally do find it hard to acknowledge.

I don't think it's ok for him to trash the part publicly before the movie is even out, I was making a random Twilight connection based on the fact that it's Twilight fanfiction. And yes I do think you can tell, even though its only a broad outline mostly, but there are certain scenes that I noticed were very similar based on the fact that I have only read Twilight and New moon and only some of this book. Only EL James is a much worse writer than even Meyer. And I really got stuck on the "everyone loves Bella/Ana whilst she thinks everyone hates her and then hates everyone for liking her from the beginning" trope it's not restricted to those characters but it's so obnoxious. Dakota Johnson seems to hate the role just as much but apparently she did put more effort into it. So there's that. Maybe the casting dept will regret not casting the desperate for it Damon from Vampire Diaries since they eventually settled for a TV actor anyway. Rumour has it they wanted a big name at first.

I have a random vrush on Buscemi stemming from seeing Armageddon at a young age (for some reason), I'd actually see that 50 Shades. His age is more realistic anyway. I did laugh at the trailers where they deliberately didn't show you Jamie Dornan for like half of it, and then they did and he's just Jamie Dornan. Cute and serial killer but not in the least Dom like. Ah well at least they found someone who loathes this book as publically as Robert Pattinson hated Twilight. Except for the fact that he think this book= all BDSM.

Janelle, Kody and Kody's and Janelle's parents were all at one point mainline LDS. It might be a heart breaking their for them to think that one of their kids is "defecting" from "perfect polygamy" on national TV, but it is a religion they know and like at least 80% have similar values to. She isn't becoming a Buddhist or any other religion they have no cultural grasp of, both her parents were born in to that religion and only converted a young adult (same as Maddie is). And its 100% not surprising given that she was the most outspoken against polygamy since the first season and almost all of her college friends are likely to be LDS. In later years depending on how long the show lasts they might be happy that Maddie "only" converted to LDS and didn't drop out entirely. Logan seems well on his way and Mariah might have gotten a wake up call with her parent's divorce.

With Utah decimalising cohabitation in terms of polygamy ie wife plus legal girlfriends, there's real expectation that they'd be convicted about anything other than fraud or abuse. IF this "restructuring" can be traced to straight up manipulation of bankruptcy laws then there are grounds for refusing no matter how much they whine about prosecution. Guess what, if a monogamous person divorced and remarried and get fingered for doing that for tax, bankruptcy or another "manipulate the system" charges they would be in deep doodoo too.

Well looks like the leaking of the wife swap didn't (yet) help ratings any. We'll see if it does any better next week with the lawyer announcement.

No it's not very BDSM related at all in a lot of ways. You can definitely get more kinky scenes in "mainstream" romance novels these days, let alone something like "Sleeping Beauty." I think it just became a "thing" to say how erotic and kinky it was and it just took on a life of its own. I can't help feel many of the people thinking its kinky would keel over if they even read the description of "The Story of O" and whilst "Sleeping Beauty" isn't for everyone. It says "fairytale + sex slave" on the tin and does what it says. This is not in the least BDSM positive. Ana never warms up to it and its presented as something Christian does because he was abused as a teenager. She never enjoys his complete non sex control of her just does what he wants because she doesn't want to loose him and she's a doormat. So thanks for perpetuating that EL James. It's not in the least sex positive at all. As Jenny Trout says Ana slut shames her roommate for having sex a lot and "dreads" her orgasms. It basically is Twilight only instead of angsting over Edward being a vampire being a problem with their insta true love, they're angsting over Edward's previous sexual abuse and how that ruins their insta true love. Ugg, most people who write kinky billionaire sex AUs (and there are 1000s) at least have both of them enjoying it. It doesn't surprise me that it takes 40 minutes to get to the first sex scene, don't they spend more time arguing about her eating more (seriously that's their true fetish) than having sex.

It's pretty obvious that another winner of the "fanfic with serial numbers filed off" game (and that is literally all that was done) Cassandra Claire basically wrote a self insert as well. It's not always a bad thing. "Write what you know" etc and personal perspectives can obviously be very engaging. There are tons of authors who admit in inerviews that so and so is them or this was heavily inspired by events in their real lives. It just becomes an issue if the work is a) *heavily* based on someone else's fantasy self insert and b) more to the point, flat out terribly, horribly written (IMO). OTOH it's also fallacy to assume that because a writer has written has written Protagonist A in such a way that they espouse the writer's political/social/religious view point and I've heard a few authors rant about that sometimes automatic assumption as well. End of the day No Way Ana doesn't have an email or even laptop as college student. Broekn makes more sense, especially or me as mine is currently on its last legs and is only 2 years old. She's a frickin English major with an insane focus on classic heroes and heroines, no way she hasn't taken advantage of ebooks by now to download dozens of books she supposedly loves for free or carry hundreds of books in her pocket at once. By 2005 my high school had almost made it mandatory for the 16-18 year olds to complete all essays by computer, which lead to them offering major discounts on one particular brand and that was 10 years ago. I think it was when I was about 8 that we had the first IT lessons that included email and the start of social networking (Bebo anyone?) And I'm older slightly older than Ana given book publication dates. IF Ana is actually charming then its not what I've seen in the trailers, but I hope she's better than book Ana, because being worse takes us to a much worse place. In the end I agree with Jenny Trout's reviews (which I spent all today reading). It's abuse. Ana has no effing idea what consent actually is, she really loathes Christian's version BDSM but does it because her gutter self esteem and the hot guy manipulate her into it. Bonus she's 200 years historically displaced. I've just read her "deflowering" and it could come straight out of a "Regency Romance" with a "rake" and the Lord's daughter who never knew that "down there" felt so awesome. Newsflash. A woman who is a virgin in her 20s knows about sex, has had orgasms and at least has an idea what they might like from seeing sex on the internet or even just in movies. I think 13 year olds have more sexuality than Ana or at least I did when I was 13. And I didn't have sex until I was 17. 21 and you haven't ever thought about "down there?" BS. Even more BS that you turn into the best CG has ever had in 2 chapters. It's not just that she's somehow "aware" that she's being forced into something she is ever more scared and confused about but carries on anyway, but the continued infantilising of a college graduate who is of age physically but seems pre pubescent in her thinking about sex that's an issue. This books is everything sane, consensual BDSM isn't

Oh yeah the email thing was insane. I would not have completed about 85% of my uni courses without having access to an official email account. Hasn't that been mandatory since before 2000 at least?

I got 3 chapters in and thought I couldn't carry on, flipped to a couple of "hot" sex scenes and thought that I'd read better sex in other fanfic, let alone better published kink stuff and didn't bother getting. I have read some of the snark caps though and yeah, there is a change as you get further and further into the book, and can get sado masochistic via inability to stop reading/writing the recap.

I have at times been a member of a good BDSM community. And whilst a lot of people expect an influx of enthusiastic movie/book fans, most don't expect them to last 6 months let alone the year, because what was presented in the book (I only read about half the first one) is the antithesis of a mutually fulfilling relationship on any level, let alone with a sub community which generally acknowledges consent more than any other. Private kinks are one thing, straight out abuse is something else, and the books do "go there". This isn't even 2d rate Snape porn Fanfic, featuring Dumbledore, Harry and/or/Draco. It's written much worse than that. Even though its supposed to be professionally edited. It will probably make more than enough money to film the "trilogy" such as it is (probably could have been one movie) but will the novelty will off sooner than expected, I hope so. If you are interested in spanking/BDSM or many other taboos there are way more accurate avenues than thinking this is the highlight.

Re the last part, yes. I think a lot of their actual fans are on average older women and people who felt that they were a "family values" group but just a different type of family and none of those are going to be happy with the narrative of a man divorcing his older wife for his younger one no matter how they spin it. And the "restructuring" comment isn't going to help. It's not as terrible as when the "they're such a loving family" thing imploded in the most nuclear fashion possible for the HBBs but there are only very limited ways to spin this neutrally. And yes the honeymoon is highly suspicious, especially with Meri pointed off on her own vacations with friends. Seems a very much "divorced wife goes on girls reunion and therapy session whilst hubby marries the trophy" dynamic to me. And were Janelle and Christine stuck with the babysitting?

Flip I've just been reading some of the history of Christine's family. She's right to be paranoid but not about outsiders. Her grandparent's and parents generation have multiple kinslayings, incestuous marriages and sexual abuse on a large scale. And this is the "PR friendly" group, not FLDS. If they didn't preach paranoia about the rest of the world, no one would stay around.