TV Corrupts, and Pay TV Corrupts Absolutely

HBO's implicit approval of polygamy with its Big Love program leads a citizen astray--just as so many legitimate businessmen have been led astray by the Sopranos into organized crime. A Detroit woman married to three men at once--and involved in complicated financial scams as well--now faces federal polygamy charges. Yes, polygamy is a federal crime, and don't you forget it. You say it is mere coincidence that this case comes to light after the media splash surrounding the HBO program? Or even that her acts clearly predated the show? You, my friend, misunderstand the power of the media.

Comments

[Tim Cavanaugh]

Woof! With a puss like that, she must have had some pornstar-level skills.

[Handsome Pete]

If Big Love does anything, it to demonstrate just how shitty polygamy is. I wouldn't trade places with the lead male character for anything.

BTW, also worth considering is the Mormon incest/sex with children angle. From personal experience (a 5-year-old child in a Mormon family once told me we should burn her misbehaving cat's penis, just like the turtle in grandpa's pants) I can tell you there is some substance to it and wonder if anyone has heard anything from Mormons about the way they are portrayed show.

[kwais]

"Do you know what the punishment for bigamy is in this country?"

"Two wives"

- the Adams family

[Handsome Pete]

I only wanted "Big Love" to be in itallics. Go figure?

[Mr. F. Le Mur]

Yes, polygamy is a federal crime...
Because Christianity is the de facto State Religion. Although there were earlier laws, the Edmunds-Tucker Act had these statist, unconstitutional accomplishments (Wikipedia):
- Required civil marriage licenses
- Required voters, jurors, and public officials to deny polygamy
- Replaced local judges with federally appointed judges
- Removed local control in school textbook choice
and apparently lost women in Utah the legal right to vote and allowed for State seizure of private property.

[Callipygian Pigeon]

It is not like she is the only woman to come up with the idea of marrying a string of men and taking their money. Her mistake was not cutting a divorce lawyer in on the deal.

[kwais]

I dated a Mormon girl. She was pretty cool, but she was not at all down with threesomes.

I don't think the majority of Mormons are down with poligamy anymore. Unfortunately.

I would really like it if all the people who are up in arms about gay marriage and all were as up in arms about the law against poligamy. To me poligamy seems a lot more reasonable that gay marriage.

[smacky]

Woof! With a puss like that, she must have had some pornstar-level skills.

Yeah, really. Why are all the polygamists in the news always moderately-to-severely unattractive? And why do attractive girls have difficulty finding even one husband? I must be missing something.

[kwais]

Mr F. Lemur,

I wonder if you could confirm something I viewed on the discovery Channel. It stated that the mormons of Utah were the first people that the US Army (I guess ther is something about the name US Army vs continental Army, or whatever) went to war with.

And they lost.

[kwais]

Smacky,
Do you want a husband?
Arent you in a relationship now?

[Eric the .5b]

Why are all the polygamists in the news always moderately-to-severely unattractive?

Is this related to why nudists tend to be people nobody wants to see naked? Because it reminds me of that.

[Sandy]

Smacky--

Attractive women spend a lot of time worrying about making sure they don't give someone "the wrong idea." I'm guessing the polygamists don't.

😉

[smacky]

Eric the .5b,

Some people are just suckers for punishment...of others.

kwais,

Maybe, and yes. I was just complaining because I hear other college-age girls complaining about how there are no good guys around (I agree with them to some extent but not completely), but moreso because they can't even find guys who will ask them out on dates! Apparently, "hooking up" is now the new thing...you either hook up with a guy at a party or social gathering or else you get nothing. Not even dinner or a movie. And then there is a woman like this who managed to snag 3 husbands? I'm not sure there is an ORLY owl in an existence that can convey my sense of betrayal on behalf of females worldwide. 🙂

[kwais]

Smacky,
Odd comment. See, I like the whole dinner and a movie thing and getting to know someone. One thing I learned in while I was stationed in VA beach was that if I liked a girl I had to hook up with her the night I met her, or it was never to be.

So, instead of taking someone to dinner, and getting to know them to decide if you like them, before going further. I had to in effect, take them to bed, and then get to know them. If I didn't sleep with them on the first night they wouldn't ever consider me in a sexual way.

That said, if you have any hottie friends you want to hook me up with. You should hook a brother up. Wait, I'm in Iraq forever, so never mind.

[David]

Smacky,

If she looks like that, imagine what monsters her husbands must be?

[natebrau]

What is up with Reason's fascination with polygamy?

One day it's a puritanical diatribe on why the power of the state should be used to restrict it, and on the next day, it's muck-raking on the power of the state doing just that...

The ideological line should be that people are free to live their own lives as they please- and voluntary polygamy (as opposed to, say, the 5-year-old in the comment above) is just none of anyone else's damn business. If the state did not formally sanction marriage (state-issued marriage licenses, etc), and instead, marriage were a religious or civil ceremony controlled by contract law (since a marriage contract is just that), then who cares how many people are involved in that contract?

If anything, from this perspective, the original article actually becomes interesting, since the multiple husbands were not aware that they were multiple husbands, and thus were not voluntarily polygamous.

[kwais]

BTW, in the interest of accuracy let me ammend my previos post to; It seemed that upon showing any interest in the girl, I had to take her to bed that night. If I ignored her, or didn't pay any attention to her, or realize she existed then I had until I showed any interest to make it happen.

Another thing. It seemed more so with good girls that with the ones known as sluts.

I wonder if anyone can explain that one?

Oh, and your Orly owl reference is very amusing.

Any hideous guy or girl can snag someone of the opposite if they have other skills and are in the right place at the right time.

My personal thought on the matter is that the most beautiful person you know has been rejected, and someone is tired of their shit. And the most hideous person you know is the subject of unwanted attention.

[Mr. F. Le Mur]

It stated that the mormons of Utah were the first people that the US Army (I guess ther is something about the name US Army vs continental Army, or whatever) went to war with.

Ya got me - I have no special knowledge of or love for Mormons (or the Army), I just think the gov't should keep its twitching little pointed nose out of personal and religious matters - like marriage, which is both personal and religious.

But this may answer for you:
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/amh/AMH-08.htm

[kwais]

Smacky,
May I add that I seriously doubt you have any trouble snagging someone of the opposite sex?

[smacky]

That said, if you have any hottie friends you want to hook me up with. You should hook a brother up. Wait, I'm in Iraq forever, so never mind.

Actually, if I had known you but a couple of years ago, I would have been able to make this happen - I know of a girl who I think you would like, at least at a superficial level. Unfortunately, I severed our friendship a few years ago because she was just too bitchy for me to put up with after a while.

My personal thought on the matter is that the most beautiful person you know has been rejected, and someone is tired of their shit. And the most hideous person you know is the subject of unwanted attention.

No, nothing that I can think of like this has really happened recently. I read an article in a college newspaper a few months ago about how "hooking up" is the new social norm and that old fashioned dates have gone all but extinct. That's all.

[Karen]

smacky, I saw a Bill Curtis thing on A & E about polygamy. They focused on a town in Utah that's about a third "plygie," to use the insulting name for polygamists. All of them, male and female, were dreadfully ugly. Much of this was that the men all had really horrible mullets with untrimmed beards and the women that corkscrew-curl long hairstyle that generally makes me consider banning home permanent-wave kits. Still, even accounting for the trailer-park taste, they were unusually ugly. Might inbreeding cause this? Dry skin from the climate? Bad genes? The public waits for an answer.

[kwais]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean "person that Smacky knows" I meand "person that anyone knows"

It was a generalization on human behavior, not on your personal friends.

[smacky]

It was a generalization on human behavior, not on your personal friends.

Oh. Thanks for clarifying.

[Sandy]

If this hookup thing is happening among the crowd I hang out with, it's going very badly for me and explains a lot. I had no idea asking somebody out on a date instead of "my place or yours" could equate to a lack of interest. Weird.

[smacky]

If this hookup thing is happening among the crowd I hang out with, it's going very badly for me and explains a lot. I had no idea asking somebody out on a date instead of "my place or yours" could equate to a lack of interest. Weird.

No, no, Sandy, I think you're misunderstanding me (or else mistaking kwais' method of working for status quo).

The girls mentioned in the article I read were complaining that they hadn't been asked out on dates, and instead only faced (at best) prospects of "hooking up". There was some fairly high statistic number of girls who had one or fewer dates throughout their four years of college.

Of course, this was a Catholic college, so maybe the girls had unnecessarily high expectations of chivalry. Likewise, I'm sure (based on experience...this was my alma mater) that a lot of the male prospects were a bunch of spoiled douchebags.

[Sandy]

Ah, whew. I'm an unspoiled douchebag, then. 😉

[bubba]

I don't think that any advocates of polygamy would defend this case.

The offense here is fraud. Polygamy was simply an MO.

[mtc]

' Attractive women spend a lot of time worrying about making sure they don't give someone "the wrong idea." '

Hmmmmm. Sounds right.

Anyway,
The thing that bugs me about the whole "hook-up" bit aside from it being the new standard in courtship (is it? wouldn't know: not enough data points) is just the ridiculous ambiguity of it. I think people prefer the term and indeed the concept because hook-up can mean (as i've heard it used) anything from making out to the real deal. And I always get the sense that its kind of uncouth to inquire about the nature of a hook-up unless it's a very close friend or something. Of course my complaint isn't that this keeps me from the juicy details of other peoples love lives but how someone claiming to have "hooked-up" can sort of hide behind the ambiguity--Either to imply they got more out of it than they really did, or alternately, to not look promiscuous by leaving the question open of how far things went. Yeah I guess it's your god damned bussiness what you wanna say, but I always find something dishonest about people running around bragging about all their hook-ups.

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

Smacky,
May I add that I seriously doubt you have any trouble snagging someone of the opposite sex?

Stop it. Right now. Stop it.

[Jadagul]

We definitely have the whole hooking-up instead of dating thing going on out here where I go to college. You meet someone, you hang out with her, you hook up with her. Relationships tend to start when you run into her again the next night, or next weekend, and do it again; after a few weeks of this, you're going out. This makes it very hard for anyone to figure out what the status of any relationship is.

[smacky]

Rex Rhino,

I think you're on the wrong thread...you probably meant to post on the Rex Rhino/pigfucker thread.

:p

[smacky]

Oops. I was confusing threads myself -- I meant to say the Rex Rhino/ NAMBLA thread...silly me!

(I'm just kidding, in case that wasn't readily apparent by now.)

[Lowdog]

Jadagul et al - is this a new phenomenon? Christ, I don't think I've ever "asked a girl out", at least not since grade school.

Although I've just started a new relationship after being somewhat of a playboy for quite some time. We were out last night and a mutual friend saw us sitting together, holding hands or whatnot. She's like "What's this, are you guys hanging out? I never know what to say." Things like that. She wanted to know if she could tell her husband that she saw us together. I told her it was cool with me if it was cool with my lady. My lady said it was cool, and viola! We are now dating.

Although I already told her last week I was "courting" her, so I think we've been dating for about a week.

But hell's yeah, it's difficult to know where you stand sometimes.

I blame it all on the females. 😉

[John DeWitt]

I wonder if you could confirm something I viewed on the discovery Channel. It stated that the mormons of Utah were the first people that the US Army (I guess ther is something about the name US Army vs continental Army, or whatever) went to war with.

The only armed conflict of that sort I know of was with a couple of county militias and finally the Missouri militia during the Mormon War in 1838.

Mormons got their collective ass kicked after a number of them tried to burn all the non-mormons out of a particular county. Then the property of all the Mormons, guilty and innocent alike, was confiscated for reparations and they were unceremoniously booted out of the state.

[Eric the .5b]

The girls mentioned in the article I read were complaining that they hadn't been asked out on dates, and instead only faced (at best) prospects of "hooking up".

Dangit. I'm now the old, unhip guy who thought "hooking up" actually meant dating, not knockin' boots.

[StoneyBaloney]

The reporter of the article seemed to misuse the word 'polygamy'. Seemed like they meant dishonest bigamy.

I don't think this has anything to do with the husbands agreeing to be apart of a polyanderous marriage.

[Stevo Darkly]

Stupid darn relationship/dating ambiguity. It isn't new, but being the status quo/default state is.

Back sometime when Reagan was president, I was talking to a buddy during a college oil-painting class. (Painting and drawing use a different part of your brain than writing. You can still have a conversation while doing them.)

BARRY: So, have you seen E.T. yet?

ME: Not yet.

BARRY: I saw it with Robin [another classmate, not present that day] last Friday night.

ME: Oh, wow. Are you and Robin going out now?

BARRY: (in the most bewildered and despairing tone I have ever heard) I have absolutely no idea.

[Jadagul]

Lowdog: don't know whether it's new, although my mother seems to think so (I try to get her to stop giving me dating advice; it doesn't really work). I do know that our newspaper's sex columnist wrote an article on it last semester. I was just confirming the existence of the hookup-centric culture, not trying to make any commentary on whether this is new. Although it would be nice if we came up with a method that had a bit less gray area.

Stevo, that story is awesome. And so true. Another of my friends started dating a guy about a week ago. Or at least, it became official a week ago. Her explanation was that, as far as she was concerned, they weren't dating until he asked her out. But the relationship would be retroactive: once he asked her out, they would have been dating since the first time they hooked up.

[Lowdog]

Jadagul/Stevo - bwahahah! That's totally how it is!

I'm 32, and like I said, I don't think I've ever asked a girl out. It's always been a situation where you just start hanging out and sleeping together, and then you're ipso facto dating (there I go using Latin that I chide people for sometimes, and not totally sure I'm using it correctly, lol).

Honestly, I've never minded it too much, because as long as you're getting some action, things can't be too bad. It just sucks when she gets pissed at you for talking to another girl and you didn't even know you were supposed to be exclusive, or when you think you're actually dating and you see her get some other dude's phone number, or shit along those lines.

Damn, us bald monkeys are strange.

[VikingMoose]

Jadagul - sounds kinda like an unnamed northeastern liberal arts college i went back around 1990! (3:39 and 4:48 posts)

But Mr. Darkly and I had similar luck in that the prob. of a strikeout --> 1... - i apparently went to a college where all people did was hook up, too! or get into silly PC arguments. or drive their Saabs around. and drink. i just didn't happen to experience the hooking up 🙂

"But the relationship would be retroactive: once he asked her out, they would have been dating since the first time they hooked up."

damn that's wild! - the first time i heard that was from a classmate who planned out, on a large calendar, exactly how she'd be spontaneous for the upcoming week! hilarious! that's awesome!

where are you in school? is it nearing finals time? ha - pomona. cool. a good friend's wife went there. loved it. FINALS - kick ass!

good luck! and keep us posted on them!

cheers,
VM

[Brian24]

I read basically the same article when I was at U.Va. 15 years ago. I think it's just that every generation thinks it's the first one to discover that relationships are more often born from drunken hookups than from uncomfortable first dates.

[VM]

brian U Va. beautiful campus, IIRC - you a Serp/ member of "Serp"?

[kwais]

As far as what constitutes "hooking up" I would say that some appendage has to get wet. Exactly which one and in what manner, doesn't really matter, the level of intimacy is the same. I think.

I found that once that "hook up" line was crossed, then I could ask someone out.

It was different for me on the west coast. There were the "bad girls" who you would just hook up with. And there were the "good girls" who you had to court and date and stuff.

The thing on the east coast of having to hook up first, was a little confusing for me. It was a lot simpler once I got used to it.

Then I started dating a west coast girl(a state dept. girl I met in Baghdad). We broke up and I hooked up with another girl. And the girl who had broke up with me got upset. I was all confused again.

[kwais]

Smacky
The girls mentioned in the article I read were complaining that they hadn't been asked out on dates, and instead only faced (at best) prospects of "hooking up". There was some fairly high statistic number of girls who had one or fewer dates throughout their four years of college.

A lot of the girls I met on the east coast would complain about the lack of gentelmen. But they wouldn't give gentelmen the time of day. I come to this conclusion because I tried the gentlemanly approach first.

[kwais]

Stop it. Right now. Stop it.

Comment by: Thomas Paine's Goiter at May 4, 2006 03:27 PM
---------------------

what, what did I say wrong? Is there some sexual godwin thing here?

[The Real Bill]

I'm 36, and since junior high it's always been about hooking up. Dating is what you do if and when you start celebrating anniversaries.

As far as knowing where the relationship stands, try this: Ask them! How hard is that? If you've already had sex, how can asking "Are we exclusive?" be that difficult? I've always referred to it as The Talk. Without that little conversation, there is no exclusivity. It's basically a verbal contract. If they say no, feel free to "date" their friends. ; >

[Ken Hagler]

The girls mentioned in the article I read were complaining that they hadn't been asked out on dates, and instead only faced (at best) prospects of "hooking up".

Perhaps they should try doing the asking...