The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives dropped on Friday, and some people are saying that it was so viral, so immediately, that it made Hulu crash as a platform. I binged it basically Friday and Saturday. I finished it on Saturday and made my outline for this video, my reaction. I took so many notes. I felt like a crazy person. I was going through comments on social media and saw just how many people were also commenting that they've already binged the entire TV show. And so today, you're getting my fresh reaction from just having binge the TV show. I'm going to talk about the drama, talk about where we pick off with all of the Mom Talk drama that happened a few years ago, and jump into my reaction to The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives TV show.

My reaction would not be complete without a drink from Swig, which is the kind of the OG Utah soda beverage company. I live in Texas, but they have two locations right next to me. So Mormon culture is infiltrating the rest of the country. I also have my pink sugar cookie, which hopefully, between my drink and my sugar cookie, this will give me the energy I need to get through everything we need to talk about today.

I think we need to start with a small recap of the original drama that happened with Mom Talk, because without that context, jumping into the TV show can be a little bit disorienting. Mom Talk started in Utah around 2020. It was basically a lot of Mormon mommies getting together, making silly, funny content, mostly dances. Some of the captions would be related to Mormonism or what it's like to be a young mom or a young wife. And it seems like at the beginning, they just kind of presented this, this cute group of women who were getting together, having fun, and making content with each other.

One of the women who is at the center of this Mom Talk group is named Taylor Frankie Paul, and she is one of the main characters in the new TV show, and she's one of the primary people who was in the original group as well. I say that because there's a surprisingly few number of people from the original Mom Talk who actually are on the TV show, and I think what I'm about to explain will make it clear as to why that is.

In 2020, Taylor Frankie Paul goes on a live stream by herself to basically announce that this group of Mom Talk that everyone had been watching, you know, following, oh, I see this girl in this video, they're all, everyone's following everyone. We find out that this group has been involved in this soft swinging scandal. She says that no one is innocent, and she doesn't name names in the live stream, but all of them have been making content with each other for long, long enough that it's kind of apparent who may or may not be involved, just based on who's been in each other's videos.

Swinging, in my opinion, from the gossip I've heard, is actually pretty prevalent in Mormon culture, especially in Utah, and it's prevalent in ex-Mormon culture as well. All these women are getting married, some, some of them as young as 16, 17, 18, straight into childbirth. A lot of the men getting married around 20, 21, very early marriages. And then when they find themselves in their unhappy, happy marriages, they then basically try to resort to swinging as a way to stay married, which is a very, you know, getting divorced and breaking up a temple marriage is a really big deal within Mormonism. So I think they resort almost to swinging as a way to have their cake and eat it too when they get dissatisfied with this relationship that they started very young and without even really having the opportunity to date anyone, anyone seriously. They just marry the first person that they happen to date seriously.

My husband and I always call swinging "more steps to divorce" because a lot of people want to get divorced. I think within this context of this, you know, mismatch, early, young marriage, but because they take their temple covenant so seriously and divorce is very taboo within Mormonism, I think a lot of people just say, "Well, let's try an open relationship instead of going full divorce," which really is so messy that it almost seems to inevitably and always lead to divorce anyways, just with more heartache.

When Taylor Frankie Paul says "soft swinging," she basically says that it means they didn't go all the way, but they did everything else before that with each other. She also gives details about how there were rules surrounding the swinging, like basically that they have to be in the same room as their spouse or the spouse is watching while this soft swinging is happening. So it sounds like, in the same way that people talk about soaking as a Mormon loophole, they are also kind of engaging in loopholes surrounding open relationships and swinging where they're kind of saying, "Because we don't go all the way, we still feel, you know, we're not as jealous," or they say it's okay because we're not breaking the cardinal rule, which is having true infidelity outside of marriage.

I know it sounds ridiculous to most people, but I think within a Mormon context of following so many rules your whole life, coming up with these loopholes allows you to kind of engage in enough cognitive dissonance that you can enjoy your swinging without feeling like you need to leave the church or even maybe confess to your bishop necessarily.

I watched a couple of YouTube videos to catch myself up on the drama. So if you feel like you want a more in-depth explanation than what I'm going to give now, I suggest watching Bose vs. The Real World. She has a video where she recaps the drama. Jordan and McKay, who are other ex-Mormon YouTubers, they recap the drama. So definitely suggest watching those long-form videos if you feel like you just have to know every detail.

On top of Taylor Frankie Paul, there are two women who are named as kind of the most important characters in the cast of the original Mom Talk. The first is Camille Monday, and the other is Miranda McCarter. And some people say they were involved in the swinging, some people say they weren't. It feels very he said, she said, or maybe just she said, she said, because it seems like all of them to some extent have been involved in some capacity.

After watching The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, I went onto some of their profiles, and people are making comments about basically, "Why aren't you in the show?" or "I'm still on your team." So I think the internet does not forget easily, and people still remember that these women, even though they're not on the TV show, are the ones who were involved in the original scandal surrounding the soft swinging.

Taylor Frankie Paul got divorced from her husband as a result of this swinging scandal, and it sounds like a couple of the other couples involved in the original group also got divorced as a result of this big scandal that she broke. There's also another Reddit post that is titled "The Who's Who of Mom Talk Master Post," basically explaining all the original cast of characters. The only one that gets highlighted in that post that is on the TV show besides Taylor Frankie Paul is Whitney. So Taylor Frankie Paul and Whitney, who we're going to get into their characters or their their personas more in a bit, those are the two women who are in the TV show and were also involved in the original Mom Talk group.

Even though Taylor Frankie Paul got divorced, Whitney did not get divorced based on that original drama. Though it did come out during that time that Whitney's husband had a Tinder account that was active. Because of this live stream and all of the drama that came out around it, this whole incident really catapulted all of these women into even more fame than they had had before, and kind of made it so that Mom Talk became pretty pervasive within the culture. A lot of people were talking about it, making reaction videos to it, and obviously, it was big enough for them to land their own TV show based off of the original drama.

Before I started watching the show, I will say my feelings about The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives was that it was going to be really lame. And, you know, reality TV shows aren't really my thing necessarily already, so I thought that I honestly wouldn't like it, and that I would just make this reaction video because I know people are curious what ex-Mormons or Mormons themselves might have to say about this type of media. But I will say that when I went and watched the show, I binged the whole thing, like I said, and I really legitimately enjoyed it. Not just because it was interesting to watch, but because the part that Mormonism plays in this TV show is way turned up by comparison to what I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be a quite a bit of an undertone of, you know, maybe occasionally mentioned, but there are whole episodes that feel very dominated by what Mormonism does to these women and how it impacts their lives.

As I was watching, I was taking super meticulous notes, and better notes than I've ever taken on any TV show before. And so as I was gathering all of this information, I was really planning on what I wanted to highlight the most from this crazy TV show that highlights so much about Mormon culture and Utah culture.

Cookie is really good. Before this show even went live on Friday, there was already a ton of outrage about it, specifically within the Mormon community. There was a petition started to get it taken down, tons of members taking to social media saying to boycott the show. It wasn't going to be, you know, a good representation, which I thought was so interesting because they hadn't even seen it yet. And in an interview I saw given with one of the cast members, they shared they didn't even know they were going to name it The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. And if you know anything about the history of the Mormon Church, Mormons, basically, the most recent prophet came out and said that Mormon is basically considered a slur and you should ask people not to use it. And so I feel like their choice to include the word Mormon within the TV show is already inflammatory, and I feel like they probably did it on purpose because they know that using the word Mormon is now not acceptable according to, kind of, the rules of the church.

A lot of members said, "I can tell it's not really about Mormon women because it's not named The Secret Lives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint Wives. It's named The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives." And you're, you know, Mormons are very clear about saying that you're supposed to use the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints within the context of talking about the church, and that Mormon is no longer acceptable to use.

As I said, when I first watched the trailer and was kind of watching a lot of the content created around the TV show, I really felt like it was going to be just a reality TV show that doesn't really engage with anything about Mormonism. But as you get into it, there are so many aspects of Mormonism that are covered on the show. They talk openly about garments, baby blessings, temple marriages. They're all were married very young. They talk about how active their parents were or how active they are within the church. There's one portion where, uh, one of the husbands brings out a temple bag, which holds the sacred temple clothing in the temple bag. And so I feel like Mormonism really is so pervasive in this TV show, which is why I would say anyone would enjoy watching it because it's just so interesting to see how Mormonism plays such an active role in the show and also in these women's lives.

And within the first 10 minutes, we see this scene. Oh, the boobies are boob. We're popping the. I was liking. She's wearing those nursing. Yeah, I am shocked at how low, um, garmenting or the breastfeeding garments are. As you can see, they're already being really frank about garments. Even the fact that women have different garments for breastfeeding.

If you're not familiar with garments, garments are specific to the Mormon religion. Essentially, when you go through the temple and do the sacred endowments ceremony, this is something I did when I was Mormon, and I've made lots of different videos about it. It's very secretive. They would say it's very sacred. As part of doing that ceremony, you promise that you will wear this religious underwear day and night for the rest of your life, and that is supposed to be basically all the time. The only exceptions being for showering, sex, and swimming. But a lot of people add a fourth category, which is that when you're exercising and sweating a lot, it's okay for you to take the garments off because, you know, wearing, I'll put a picture here that's very, it makes you so much more hot when you're exercising, so much more sweaty, because you're basically wearing clothing that is a cap sleeve down to your knee. You're wearing that while you're exercising, which is very uncomfortable. And so a lot of women and men will take the garment off specifically just for exercise, and that means that a lot of people use that as a loophole and will just kind of be going to the gym at some point during the day and will use that as an excuse to wear athletic clothes or wear a sports bra and kind of get out of wearing their garments when they're kind of maybe supposed to.

That being said, there's no official garment police, and so a lot of women kind of skirt the rules by not wearing their garments when they don't really feel like it, and maybe just reserving wearing their religious underwear for when they're at the temple or when they're going to church on Sundays.

That clip, though, is just a tiny pinch of all of the times these women discuss this religious underwear throughout this TV show. These were some of my favorite clips of the TV show because it is so refreshing to see women discussing wearing garments so frankly, because they are kind of uncomfortable to wear. And so hearing them have all these conversations about it, in some ways, I enjoy just because it's so rare to see women being frank and open about what it's like on a day-to-day basis to wear garments, specifically in this example, like what it's like to have to wear underwear under your clothing when you are breastfeeding, which is very uncomfortable and very annoying.

As much as everybody wanted to say that none of these women are Mormon and they don't represent the church, I think we all underestimated just how much credit we can give Mormonism for having an impact on these women's lives and how much Mormonism shows up in their lives and impacts them in ways that are so significant that to say that they are not Mormon feels like it's just wildly inaccurate. To say that all of these women have never been Mormon or they don't deserve to call themselves members of this church, to me, I find it very disingenuous and really just inaccurate.

This, this is a ridiculous amount of soda. I do not usually drink Swig, as you all might know if you've watched my videos. I am a coffee drinker, and I think by the end of drinking this, I'm going to have the full-on jitters.

Next, I'm going to summarize the cast of characters that we'll meet throughout the show and give you kind of my hot take, quick opinions on each of them. Uh, before we jump in, this is where we're getting to the spoilers section of the video, so if you don't want spoilers, just know they're coming. Just a quick reminder to like this video and subscribe to my channel if you haven't already. I'm an ex-Mormon myself, and I talk a lot about Mormon culture, what it was like for me growing up as a Mormon, and a lot about Mormon doctrine and kind of what goes into things like the temple or the Book of Mormon. Please drop a quick comment in the chat on which character was your favorite and which character was your least favorite to watch, because boy, I'm sure you have opinions after watching this TV show.

As I mentioned, Camille Monday and Miranda McCarter were part of the original Mom Talk group. They do not appear in this show, and they're not even ever mentioned, from what I can tell, as far as names go. They are completely absent from the cast of characters in the Hulu TV show. I'll also note that I'm hoping to give enough context that even if you didn't watch the TV show, you'll still enjoy hearing about the recap of the drama. And of course, these are just my opinions based off of binging a TV show over the weekend. I don't have all the information because I don't literally know these women, and so take it with a grain of salt. Watch the TV show to get your own opinions. I'll also be showing some small clips, but I highly recommend checking out the TV show in its entirety if you want to get all the drama.

As I introduce these characters, you're going to notice that a lot of them look very similar, and that is very much by design because Mormon women, I think, have a goal to very much achieve a very specific beauty standard, and that usually includes getting all of the same beauty treatments in order to achieve that look. So just keep that top of mind as I show you all the different pictures because they look so similar. I had a hard time keeping track, especially at the beginning of the show, who even was who because I couldn't keep each face separate from the other face.

Basically, throughout the show, set these women up into two separate groups, which they identify as the Saints and the Sinners. So there's the group of women who are more righteous and more involved in the church, and then the women who are identified as Sinners, who break the rules, maybe don't even attend church at all, and who are kind of on the outs when it comes to being Mormon enough to earn the title.

The first person to highlight will of course be Whitney, who becomes the clear villain of the show and seems the most just absolutely thirsty for fame, kind of at any cost. She's just kind of continuously stirring up drama, and then when a lot of the women kind of want to apologize or figure out this interpersonal dynamic issue, there's a point when Taylor Frankie Paul comes and tries to work things out with Whitney, she's just not having any of it. She leaves the group chat at one point, she stops speaking to all of them, and she is kind of presented as, I think the full villain of the show.

You may recognize Whitney's name from the original group of women who were in Mom Talk, and she is the only main character who kind of carries over into the TV show. Her husband also, it was kind of revealed, had a Tinder account that she did not know about. And so after Taylor Frankie Paul did her infamous live stream, Whitney and her husband and her kids, they all went to Hawaii for a few months to kind of escape the drama, which to me, I find absolutely hilarious because what are you even a Mormon influencer if you don't go through a phase of living in Hawaii? Because all of them seem to move out there at some point, and then all of them then move back to Utah after living in Hawaii for some said amount of time.

We also discover on the show that after Whitney leaves the group and is kind of doing her own thing, she wants to start a homestead, which I also found hilarious because are you even a Mormon influencer if you don't want to start a homestead at some point? AKA, head nod, Ballerina Farm. And so when the show starts, Whitney's kind of coming back from Hawaii, and at the conclusion of the show, she's basically pursuing this goal of getting a farm, getting some land, and becoming a homesteader in her words.

Whitney is also famous, not just for the Mom Talk situation, but because of a viral video that she made when her baby was in the ICU with RSV. Essentially, as her baby is in the ICU, she thinks to herself, "Let me make a TikTok video about this." And she explains the situation with the baby, with the baby in the frame, while she does a TikTok dance about how the baby is recovering and getting better. This is, of course, one of those things that the internet will not forget. She obviously looked like she was just a mom that did not, I don't know, who has a kid in the hospital and thinks to themselves, "I should do a TikTok dance about this with them in the frame." I thought they wouldn't talk about it on the TV show. I thought maybe that would be on the list of, you know, we're not going to bring this up on the Hulu show, but they do actually. She's the one that brings up the fact that her friends wouldn't forgive her after this happened, and honestly, it's no surprise that they aren't really willing to forgive her because I find it to be weird as hell that someone would create a video like that, and I don't think she's ever going to live it down, honestly. But I did think that the fact that they brought it up in the TV show was very interesting.

She basically writes it off as she thought it would be a cute video because the baby was getting better and maybe was even cleared to go home soon. She felt like it was a celebratory video, but it obviously did not land in the way that she was hoping it would land. One of the women on the show also revealed that Whitney once told her that the reason she posted the RSV video was for the clout and was for the views. So I, I feel like she, you know, her being a villain on this TV show, I think she earned the title. They also go over how her husband had a Tinder account and how she's choosing to stay with him. Her husband is tearful in some of the scenes, apologizing, and she even says that he's been doing it for their whole marriage. So the fact that they're still together is a little bit mind-boggling to me.

Next, we have Michaela. And Michaela is, she's pretty quiet in the show. Feel like we didn't get to see too much of her. The one crazy thing we learn about her is that she was married at 16 to a man who was 21. This is a Mormon marriage, essentially. It sounds like she got pregnant, and they had more or less of a shotgun wedding, and so she's just set in this marriage. She's very young. In the show, I even looked up if this was legal. Technically, you know, she's 16, her husband or boyfriend at the time was 21. And in Utah, the rule is that in Utah, a minor as young as 14 or 15 can legally agree to have sex with someone under four years older. So if she was 16, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, so I mean, if this thing, I'm just Googling about Utah consent laws, is accurate, this was against the law for her to be with this man who was a full adult, and she was still a child. But apparently, you know, they're still together, they have kids together. I feel it's one of those things that they dropped several times in the show that she was married at 16, and almost like we're just supposed to just gloss over and be like, "Wow, she was so young." But I feel like most people had to be thinking, "Were you, was this illegal? This sounds like it was actually an illegal relationship," and now you're just still married to him, and now you're an adult, so I guess no one's pressing charges.

This, though, is surprisingly common in my opinion in Mormon relationships. So many women get married at 18, some even get married at 16 or 17 with the permission of their parents. The reason for this age gap is also often because a Mormon boy is expected to serve a two-year Mormon Mission. And so typically, when that man comes home from his Mormon Mission, he is told by his mission president, his parents, his religious leaders, to get married as quickly as possible. And so typically, a lot of those men return from their mission around age 20 or 21 and start dating some of the younger women in their congregation who often are still in high school or just newly starting college. So this age gap between very young women and men who are in their early 20s is not uncommon at all because the Mormon man serves the two-year mission and then comes back and basically is dating the young women who he is associating with within his congregation. However, I do still think it's illegal. So I don't really, I wish they would have jumped into more of how this whole relationship even happened according to the law.

Also, can we just talk about K in this picture? That they, they keep flashing this picture throughout the TV show of her holding the baby, looking like a baby herself. And this photo to me is chilling. And I feel like because she's still married to him, it's almost kind of presented as their cute origin story. And I just saw that picture and every time I just shuddered inside.

We also have Macy, who is identified as one of the Saints. Whitney is considered a Saint within the Hulu show. Michaela is a Saint, and Macy also a Saint. These are basically the women who are the most righteous. Macy is one of the active Mormons, and I will say, I think she's one of my favorite characters. She seems the most authentically friendly and kind and thoughtful towards all the other women in the group. I feel like she's the real girls' girl of the whole situation. She's always sticking up for everyone, she's wanting the best for everyone. She's one of the most Mormon. If I was to rank the Mormon women, Whitney, Michaela, Macy, and Jen, I probably put Jen as the most Mormon, but Macy would be right alongside her. She seems like she's pretty active in the church. When they show videos of her home, she has the big canvas picture of Jesus on her wall, which to me is the true sign of a Mormon is how much Mormon stuff you have in your house. It's never going to be a cross, it's always going to be a picture of Jesus, usually on canvas, and he will always be alive. So that's one of the signs of a Mormon household in my opinion is how prevalent the religion is within the decor of the house. And so she definitely gets points for that.

She did take to TikTok to respond to all of the backlash from members about how she's not Mormon enough or how the TV show is, is not really portraying real Mormon women. This is what she had to say about the backlash: "Are they Mormon or are they not Mormon? I am indeed Mormon. I am also active in the church. I grew up Mormon and been Mormon my entire life, besides maybe a two-year period where I was inactive in college. I attend church every single Sunday. I also have a calling in the church. I also have a temple recommend. So to me, it's funny to see everyone online saying that I'm not Mormon, that none of us are Mormons, and we're using it for show, because that would be false. Am I a perfect Mormon? No. But if you're watching this and you're Mormon, are you too? Are you perfect?"

Our whole response video is about two minutes long. I'll also link it below, but I think she does a good job at explaining that she actually does, you know, go to church every Sunday. Even having a current temple recommend, being able to say you have a current temple recommend is basically the most Mormon thing you can claim because being able to go to the temple is the highest level you can achieve within, kind of, the Mormon, how Mormon you can be. One of the top comments says, "Current temple recommend holder means you're a real Mormon." And I think the whole conversation around who gets to be Mormon, who doesn't get to be Mormon, is a little silly because, like she also says, is any Mormon perfect? I think if anyone makes the church look good in this whole Hulu series, it's definitely Macy because, I mean, I'm ex-Mormon myself, I don't believe in the religion, I think the religion does a lot of damage, but as far as Mormons go, I think she's a great example of someone who's pretty accepting, pretty welcoming, pretty kind, she's a good friend. And so I think that if anyone gets the crown of claiming to be the most Mormon, not just for following the rules, but for truly seeming like a good, kind person, I would give her the crown.

Our final Saint amongst the list of Mormon women is Jen. And as much as I would say Macy gets the Mormon Crown because I think she seems like a legitimately kind and good person, I would say Jen maybe gets the other Mormon Crown because she seems like she's the most, uh, committed to following the rules. Macy, there's a scene where they go to Chip and Dale's, and Macy goes and she does the, the Chip and Dale show with all of the other women who are less committed to the church. Macy also doesn't really seem to wear her garments. And so Macy, I would say, is in her spirit more of a true kind person and a good, kind-hearted Mormon. Jen, in my opinion, is the most Mormon on the show because of how committed she is to following the rules. I would say the average Mormon would watch this TV show and say that Jen gets the most Mormon Crown. I want to give it to Macy because I feel like she has the kindest heart in my opinion, whereas Jen gets the crown for following the most rules. And Mormonism is such a rules-based religion that really, if you're not following the rules, a lot of people do think you shouldn't be able to claim the religion for yourself.

Jen has a husband that graduates BYU during the TV show. They have a graduation party to go to. BYU, you really have to be living a lot of strict rules. I think that that is another indicator of just how Mormon this family is. Jen was not part of the original TikTok drama. When they asked her if she was involved in the swinging, she says, "Nope, I was not involved." Jen was married at 18, and she talks quite a bit in the show about wearing garments and how much she attends the church. I showed in that clip, you saw they were talking about the nursing garments. She's the one that's wearing the nursing garments. And so of all of these women, she seems to be the only one who, throughout the TV show, is more or less almost always wearing her garments. I think there's a few scenes where she's wearing clothing that isn't garment appropriate, but I also think she seems to be engaging in a common behavior with Mormon women where you roll the garments, roll them up so you can wear a shorter skirt, roll them so you can wear a tank top. And so I would say most people would still call even Jen, who has a husband who attends BYU, not that Mormon, because even though she's the most Mormon on the TV show, I still don't think she's reaching that righteousness index that most members would be looking for. She swears on camera, she's wearing immodest clothing, and I think that even she, because of some of the things she does on the show, a lot of members would say that she's not Mormon enough. But to me, I would say she probably still is fully qualifying for a temple recommend. She's still attending church on Sunday. She has a baby blessing in the show that is totally a legit priesthood baby blessing.

One thing I noticed as I was making my outline is that all of the women who are still in their first marriage get to be qualified as the Saints, whereas all of the women who are the Sinners in the group have been divorced or are divorced and remarried. But all of the Saints are still in their first marriage. Whitney stayed with her husband, Jen's husband is at BYU, she was married at 18. Macy's still with her husband. Michaela is still with that man that got her pregnant at. And so all of the Saints are still married in their first marriage, and all of the Sinners are the divorcees, some of which are remarried, which I thought was a distinction that they don't clearly outline on the show, but felt important to note is that the divorce seems to be an aspect of why they're less active in the church, why they're not as righteous.

Let's jump into the Sinners of the group, and I will note that when they make this distinction, is that there is a part of the show where Jen, as I mentioned, is having a baby blessing, and as part of this baby blessing, some of the women are invited to come to the baby blessing. It's this kind of sacred spiritual experience, and so some of the friends on the TV show are invited to the blessing, and then some of the women are not. So four of the women, including Jen, are in the blessing. Four of the women are considered kind of not worthy enough to attend and are uninvited from attending the baby blessing. They basically expressly say that the four that don't get to come are just not quite spiritual enough and they won't take it seriously enough in order to be able to attend. And so when I make this distinction between the Saints and the Sinners, just to be clear, it's also the distinction the women make themselves based off of this baby blessing, who gets to go, who doesn't get to go.

You're already introduced to Taylor Frankie Paul, who was the kind of main character of the original TikTok drama and is now one of the main characters of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. And in the same way that Whitney takes has a lot of screen time and is kind of presented as the villain of the group, Taylor Frankie Paul, I think, comes forward as the imperfect hero of the group, the one with kind of the comeback story. She's very repentant, she's working on herself, she's trying to take this craziness that was her life about the swinging and to start a new life where she's trying to make decisions that are a little bit more concerted, more thought out, and more careful.

In the show, they say that she was married in the temple, but it's pretty clear from her social media posts that she wasn't married in the temple. And so I think it was just a weird way that they edited it together. But anyway, she, she wasn't ever married in the temple in her first marriage. They, she did have a social media post, which I'll put here, where she says that she liked to get sealed in the temple, but by the time of the show of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, she no longer wants to go to the temple at all. She is fully divorced, and she is now with her new boyfriend whose name is Dakota.

Another thing they cover in the TV show is that after Taylor Frankie Paul kind of went on her live stream and broke the news to the world, she a few months later got arrested for domestic violence. And from what the cops camera footage shows, essentially they were intoxicated, or maybe just she was intoxicated, she threw a chair that made a dent in the wall, and one of the chairs also hit her five-year-old daughter. And at the beginning of the show, she's actually going to meetings with a probation officer, and she, it seems like she's trying to get her life back on track.

In the clips where she's meeting with the cops about the chair-throwing incident and when it first happens, she's crying throughout, she seems very distraught. I have really mixed feelings about how to take this because as much as the show paints her as the heroine, and as much as she does in the show seem like she really wants to get better, I feel like this whole domestic violence situation is hard to just put away in the back of your mind.

Taylor Frankie Paul is really sympathetic by the end of the show because she's nine months pregnant. She gives birth by the end of the show to her and Dakota's child. In the show, she's very repentant, and she seems super guilty about what happened, not just with the swinging, but with the domestic violence. But as I was watching it, it felt like for me, it's hard to fully take her seriously really about anything because I think she, it's hard to say if she's just messy and imperfect and kind of living her life and people are watching, or if a lot of this is very calculated. Because going on the live stream and talking about swinging made her super viral, it made her lots of money, they talk about money in the Hulu show too. It also gained her a bigger audience, it also landed her a TV show. And so when they're portraying her and they're making her very sympathetic, it can feel difficult to know what to kind of do with those feelings of sympathy because I think she's being presented as this woman that is kind of having her comeback story, but I also feel like watching the show, you can't take anything just on its face because all of these women are hoping to get very rich and very famous based off of their social media followings. And so it's hard to know, is this authentic, or is this just calculated in order to get more views, more followers, more gossip, more drama?

In the same way I was surprised that they actually brought up the RSV video, I was surprised they also brought up the domestic violence charges and interacting with the cops, and she's talking about it with her friends, she talks about it with her mom. And I was surprised at how frank they are at talking about her choice to do that and the impact it had on her life and the life of her family. Like I said, they talk about it quite a bit, but here's one of the clips from episode one.

"I just want to be able to talk to you without you two spering at each other left and I mean, put hold in the wall like I was like, I was actually a little bit scared for my life there. I peed my pants cuz I was so scared of him in my garage."

As you can see, they're both super upset. Dakota's upset, Taylor Frankie Paul is upset. And Taylor Frankie Paul and Dakota seem to have to deal with the fallout from this entire mess really throughout the rest of the TV show of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. It's kind of the basis, one of the reasons that they have such a rocky beginning. When she gets pregnant with his child, she doesn't want to get married to him, not just because of this, but because of other infidelity. And so when I see this, it's hard to know if she really just has a difficult, messy, crazy life that she's really struggling to get under control, or if she also realizes how much virality is behind some of these moments and that she's capitalizing on the virality. I just, I feel like that's a gray area to me, and I have not made up my opinion. And it's probably because I don't actually know any of these people. I think you can even see based on her face when he says, "You're going to be arrested for domestic violence," that that's the part where I think I feel like I see a little bit of true shock, like she felt like she was going to get a get out of jail free card, get out Scott free, and she's in shock that she's actually the one that's being held accountable here for her part in the whole disagreement between the two of them. Anyways, like I said, it was hard for me to fully embrace her as the heroine based off of this whole interaction that she had in her past.

Next, we have Demi. She is, I think, one of my favorites of the Sinners. I feel like at the beginning, sometimes she comes on like a little strong, like she's maybe trying too hard to be in the spotlight based on the way that they edited her scenes together. But by the end, I feel like she is also, like Macy, one of the people who's really rooting for her friends and trying to speak out against a lot of the things that come as a result of Mormon culture, especially in the way that it impacts women.

Demi also randomly is married to a man who was once the quarterback of BYU. He's quite a bit older than her. Neither of them seem to claim Mormonism at all. She does seem to be raised Mormon, and she's, she was divorced. She's on her second marriage with this man. At one point, when she's getting ready, though, they're chatting, and he says, "Oh, I was thinking you could wear this to the club." He comes out with like a very modest dress as kind of a joke. And he also brings out her temple bag. And I was just, my brain exploded because the fact that even she has a temple bag, she has it at the ready, might mean that they actually are still endowed members of the church. She technically would be under the covenant to wear the garment.

The reason the temple bag matters is that because what's in the temple bag is the secret, sacred, whatever you want to call it, temple endowment clothing. So if she has it, she has it at the ready, she has it in her closet. Most members I know who fully leave the church, they throw that away because they do not want it haunting them because once you leave, you realize how icky it is to have clothing like this in your closet just sitting there. A lot of people throw away the garments, a lot of people throw away their temple clothing, but she has her bag kind of at the ready in her closet, which to me signals she's not as far removed from Mormonism as I would, I would necessarily. So maybe she does still attend the temple, she does still potentially even have a temple recommend, or just an inactive recommend with, with maybe a plan to eventually get the recommend reactivated. They don't really talk about it in depth, but here's the clip where they show the temple bag.

"Well, you were saying that you needed to find something for the club that like flow, that didn't feel too restricted. In my temple bag, we're going to go this, and we're going to put this oh over that."

If you look up pictures of people exiting the temple that are photos produced by the Mormon Church, you'll see they're always holding that bag. So the fact that she has that bag, to me, tells me that maybe the church is closer than we, closer to her life than we fully get a picture of within the whole series shown from Hulu.

I also like Demi because I feel like she is the most kind of outspoken and critical about the systems of the church, and especially how those systems impact the lives of the women of the church, and how a lot of them are kind of set up in order for women to fail or for women to be second-class citizens within their own marriage and within their religion. And so that's another reason I liked Demi was I feel like she kind of says what a lot of us ex-Mormons are thinking when it comes to Mormonism's impact on women.

Next, we have Jesse. And Jesse is another one of the Sinners. She drinks openly on the show. She said she was raised Mormon. She also drinks at a party, so I would say she seems to me like the least Mormon of them all, and kind of the most happy with just breaking any of the rules, not being too concerned about what other people think.

She also, which I think is hilarious, owns a company called JZ Hair. I think is how you say the full name, but they have a billboard in Utah that says "JZ Hair Everywhere." But when you read it, it looks like it says "Jizz Hair Everywhere." And people have made Reddit posts about this billboard, people have made viral TikTok videos, videos about this billboard because it almost seems unreal that someone would make a billboard that says "Jizz Hair Everywhere." And here is her response to that in episode one.

"My name is Jesse. I am a hairdresser and I own a hair salon, hair extension company, and hair school. We..."

Have had a billboard for my company. People are talking about how they think it says "jizz." I can't. Also, how funny is it that she owns a hair extensions company when all of them have the craziest extensions? Extensions are just a huge, uh, aspect of Mormon beauty. If you look at the Google Trends search volume for hair extensions, or I think just extensions, Utah has the number one search volume for the search term. Because I think in the same way, Utah also has the highest search volume for boob job, because those two things are kind of the pinnacle of Mormon Utah girl beauty.

Jesse is also divorced and pretty outspoken about her divorce. She's remarried, and she also is kind of one of the women who is the foil to the Saints, who also talks more about the negative impacts that Mormonism has on the women.

Next, we have Lila. Lea is the only single one in the group. She's recently divorced. In the TV show, she was also married at 18. I think she's kind of another crazy story of how Mormonism has made this woman's life so wild and so unlike most people's lives that would exist outside of Mormonism. She was baptized in the church at 16. Seems to be one of those girls who lives in Utah and has so much exposure to the church and realizes that to have a social group, you kind of have to be Mormon in a lot of parts of Utah. So she's baptized at 16, she gets married at 18, and then divorced at 22. So by the time most people, you know, 22, you can drink at 21. So by the time most people are almost like midway through college, she's been married and divorced. She also shares on the show that she's never had an orgasm, which was is kind of a crazy revelation. And I think she's a good example of how Mormon doctrine can really harm women if they're just trying to be on the straight and narrow path and get married and have babies. Now she's a single mom. She was in what seems to be like it was a bad relationship, and she now has to kind of live with the fallout of trying to follow this doctrine so closely, but yet never had an orgasm, never was kind of the center of her own life. And now she's at 22, a divorced woman who is just now maybe giving herself permission to experience life in the way she chooses. I think that a lot of women, because of the shame and lack of knowledge, I think a lot of women don't even orgasm. I would die. Y-no, I'm dead ass. Never in my life. She's married, divorced, has kids, never. And that's why I love Demi in the in the show, because I feel like often she's kind of saying the caption of what everyone's thinking. She's saying it out loud and kind of giving, you know, if she hadn't said that, maybe she wouldn't have kind of opened the floor for the Mormon women in the room who need to talk about the fact that they also are experiencing that.

This scene is basically where Whitney is asked to promote this vibrator, and as part of it, she's asking these other women if they think she should do it. And I think the reaction of the women really shows how taboo sex and sexuality is in the Mormon culture, because especially for Jen, who is like I said, the most Mormon of them all and the most rule follower of them all, she is super uncomfortable. And you can see from her face that she is almost not even not even wanting to be in the room when they are discussing something like this.

Now that we've gone through the full cast of characters of the Saints and the Sinners, I will say there is only really one person in this TV show that I would say most Mormons would say earned the title of a true Mormon. And that is none of the girls, honestly. Because even Jen is twerking, and even Jen is swearing, and even Jen is wearing immodest clothing. And so the one that they even hold up as the most Mormon amongst them still probably wouldn't pass the the the sniff test of your average Mormon if they were to say, "Does she get to call herself that?" Which I think also underpins this whole conversation about who gets to be Mormon or who doesn't, shows just how judgmental Mormon culture really is. That even a girl like Jen, who is portrayed really as being pretty squeaky clean, is still not, uh, what I would think most Mormons would say qualifies as a true Mormon.

In my opinion, the only person in this TV show who earns the title of Mormon TM, or a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is Whitney's mom. Whitney's mom is on screen a few times. The longest conversation is when Whitney comes to her mom to ask about what her thoughts are about her promoting the vibrator brand. Whitney's mom, you can see, is legitimately wearing garments on screen. You can see there's a little white, uh, white line along her her clothing line. And also, just everything about her is is exactly what I would expect from a more kind of traditional, conservative Mormon.

This is her. Episode two. I, I had just had another baby. She was a toddler. Cut me some slack. You should have taught me how you had the baby. My mom was raised in the church, and her mom didn't talk to her about it. We just never did talk about it. I think even just her reaction, the mom's reaction to Whitney bringing up the whole, uh, promotion conversation, you can, you know, she immediately says no. She says, you know, this is private. You shouldn't be talking about this. And kind of treats it in the same way that I think most mainstream members would, which is to say that this is super taboo. You are being inappropriate, almost even by bringing it up. The shock on her mom's face shows that. I, I think that this woman is the only one that I saw depicted in the whole TV show that most members would say, "She gets to call herself Mormon."

The other portion is when Jen is having her husband's BYU graduation party, and they show her husband's parents, who also look very Mormon, but are never even on camera and never talking on camera. And probably honestly, didn't even agree to be on camera or, you know, have have lines or or talk on camera. They're just kind of shown standing in the background. And I think that that shows that they also were probably hesitant to take part in what obviously turned out to be a fairly controversial TV show.

I think though, what I did like about this portrayal of Whitney's mom is that she does seem more accepting than I think some members would be. At the end, she basically says, you know, if you, if you make the choice to promote this thing, that's your choice. And she seems like she's committed to still being loving, even if, you know, her daughter is doing something she doesn't approve of. And so I think that that was positive, because at least we get to see someone, a parent, who's saying, "Hey, I don't see eye to eye with you on this, but you're an adult, and I'm kind of going to let you make your decision."

I went to check on Whitney's Instagram, and she does actually go through with posting her picture with the the product. Uh, and so obviously she chose to take the money, and also that it was a choice that she was comfortable with making as part of being an influencer.

I think watching this TV show also made me realize just the extent to which everyone thinks they're going to be portrayed as the the hero or the bad. I, I mean, watching Whitney get filmed, she's ecstatic to be on camera. And, you know, if you go now into her comment section, you can tell no one really left the show liking her that much. And I think it just shows that when you maybe are on a reality TV show, I think a lot of people think they're going to be the awesome one that everyone globs on to and is rooting for. And especially depending on how it gets edited or how the people are portrayed or what they choose to say about the people, you know, that that isn't always the case. And so I, I feel like when I watch reality TV shows, I leave hating Whitney. But I also hate that the feeling knowing that the producers didn't want me to like Whitney from the beginning, and so they edited it so that I wouldn't like Whitney. Not to say I think Whitney is a good person or likable, but just that you can tell by how they've put the clips together and how they've told the narrative that I'm not supposed to like Whitney. I'm supposed to have sympathy for Jen, and I'm supposed to think of Taylor as the comeback queen.

After the show aired, Dakota also shared this reel, which is him sharing a similar sentiment with which was him kind of thinking, "Oh, I'm going to look so good on this TV show as the loving boyfriend." When really, the edit makes him look almost narcissistically abusive towards Taylor in the way that he's really wanting them to get married. He's following her around, he's not letting her hang out with her friends alone. So he probably thought he looked really caring, when in reality, the way it gets edited together makes us really dislike him and worry that Taylor is in a really bad relationship.

To share from my own experience too, I've been pitched myself to be in TV shows about four times now, and every time they tell me the premise of how they're going to film the TV show, I always say no. Because it's very clear they've set it up so that drama happens from day one. For my primary example, they wanted me to join a TV show with my husband where they are basically saying they they want you to question if your relationship is really compatible. And they want the people in the TV show who are married to go on dates with other people to test their compatibility with other people and see if they're really meant to be with their spouse who they're already married to.

I'll say, I totally get that, you know, some people who get married in these high-demand religions aren't compatible. Obviously, "Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" shows that. But the idea that I would go on camera so that my husband and I can go on dates with different people when we have two kids and we're in love, it, it seems like so contrived to create drama. And their whole goal is to just get as many many people crying and screaming on camera as possible. And so when I think about how people have approached me with casting, which is usually to make people look bad, especially coming from Mormonism, look behind the times, look overly traditional, look like a wallflower, look repressed, they're obviously setting up the whole show to make you look like you're kind of at a disadvantage in some way and to exploit that disadvantage as much as possible. So I think a lot of times reality TV feels very exploitative. And I also feel like it's very, it, it's meant to manipulate our emotions to feel a certain way towards certain characters. So I don't always love watching a reality TV show for that reason.

I also feel like once you add a camera to any setting, suddenly it's not authentic anymore. We've all, we've all seen influencers filming themselves crying, you know, "Oh, I just, my husband's, you know, I just found out my husband's cheating on me. Ah." You know, typically most people when they're really crying, the furthest thing from their mind is creating content for an audience. But obviously, we, we see tears online quite a bit. And even when I was on Jen's TikTok page, she talks about how they're planning on moving and she's crying in the video. And one of the top comments is, you know, the idea that you're setting up a tripod before crying, you're setting up your phone to record, you're hitting record, you're stepping back, you're checking the lighting, you're getting ready, and then you're crying. It's so contrived that it feels like you have to question everything else about their content. Everything shown on reality TV, it just feels like you can't really take any lessons learned about any of these people necessarily, because it feels like the way it's being edited is not always going to be completely true to the real story, and definitely not true to the story that person would probably want to be told about themselves.

Next, I'm going to share my primary takeaways and most important moments from the show. Before we jump in, just a quick reminder to like this video, subscribe to my my channel if you watch the show, share your favorite characters below, and if you agree or disagree with my analysis. Also, a reminder that all my content is always available early and ad-free on Patreon.

My biggest disappointment with this show, and I feel like the biggest rug pull, is that they really never explain what happened with the swinging situation. If you go online and look at articles about this TV show, everyone calls them "The Swinging Mormon Mommies." And when you know, starting the show, I fully expected we were going to get a deep dive into the who's who, the what's what, who got divorced, who was with who. And we don't really get any of that. They, they kind of just gloss over it in the the first episode. They reference it and they ask some of the women, "Hey, were you involved?" And a lot of the women say they, like I've said, aren't even part of the original Mom Talk group, and that they joined after the drama. And so to me, I feel like this show was kind of promised as the tell-all or the explanation on what really happened. But when you get into it, you realize it's mostly supposed to follow the aftermath of what happened. And that, I think, a lot of the women and men who were involved in the early Mom Talk days have fully said, "We're not going to be a part of this anymore. We don't want our image to be associated with this."

Here's one clip of where they are discussing it though. "With all the soft swinging, what does that mean? Do you guys know like what they all did?" "I think it's just everything but sex, like swapping in front of each other, standing next to each other type stuff." "I just love also that it's like, okay, we can do everything but sex, so it's fine." "It's like, no, you're sucking someone's dick, so sorry, Jess." So obviously they're talking about it, but there's no names, no names named.

In this scene, all of the women are hanging out in a group together, and they're all trying to kind of get to the bottom of what happened with this swinging situation. But it's clear none of them were involved. And these are all the main characters of the show. So like I said, my disappointment, we never get an actual proper explanation as to what happened. It's basically just kind of like, "Hey, remember when that made us famous? Now let's just be famous and have our TV show instead of really getting into it and talking about it." So like I said, a bit of a rug pull, because I feel like they teased the whole "Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" like they were going to actually talk about it, and they do not.

How the media portrays Mormonism, which is so funny to me, because they have the, the videos or the, they have a pan, they pan over the temple, they pan over chapels, but they also mix it in with stained glass, uh, a stained glass image of Jesus, which I've never seen stained glass Jesus in a Mormon church. Only temples usually have stained glass, and those that stained glass is almost never Jesus. So I don't even know where they're getting that. They also have many crosses. So they'll pan over a cross, they'll pan over a, a building with a cross, and it's just funny because if you know Mormons, you know they don't really like crosses that much, especially historically. They're kind of coming around to it now. But they also kept showing this book, this, um, book, and it said "The Parallel Bible" on the side, but they never show a Book of Mormon. I don't know if that's because of copyright issues, they didn't want to show the Book of Mormon. I know Heather Gay wasn't allowed to sell certain merch with the word Mormon on it because of the the Mormon Church's trademark on the word. And so it feels like they keep infusing weird, like general Christian, uh, even Catholicism into the the the series of kind of b-roll over Mormonism, because Mormons don't read "The Parallel Bible." They read the King James version of the Bible. They don't have stained glass Jesus in their chapels, and they don't have crosses on the top of their chapels either. So it felt a little bit misrepresentative when I was watching kind of the intro scenes.

The only reference to the Book of Mormon is that each of the Hulu episodes is called "The Book of..." So we have "The Book of Taylor," "The Book of Belonging," "The Book of Saints and Sinners," "The Book of Truth," etc. So it feels like they're kind of trying to play with the whole Book of Mormon idea without ever coming out and just talking about the Book of Mormon. And I, I really don't know why that is, but it feels like they made an attempt with the episode titles.

I also feel like they did a good job at highlighting the outcome of a religion that's so based on rule-following. And I've experienced this so much growing up Mormon, and I'm so glad that they are portraying it in the same way that I experienced it, because it feels very true to my lived experience, which is that when Mormons are talking about how Mormon everyone is, they use all of the silly little pet rules that are kind of meaningless in in the moral landscape of good and bad. Does she drink coffee? Does she drink alcohol? Does she have just one set of piercings instead of a lot of piercings? Does she wear her garments enough? Does she attend church enough? All of these things, which are very checklist. You know, it feels like everyone's always citing their Mormon resume when they're talking about, "Does she do this? Does she do that?" When, you know, you'd think if it was a religion that was a true religion based in Jesus Christ's teachings, it would be so much more conversation about, "Are is she loving? Is she kind? Is she compassionate? Are they thoughtful? Do they lead by example?" You know, these are the things that are morally what I think should make up the landscape of if someone is a good person or not. But in my experience, most of the time when people are discussing if someone is truly Mormon, the question is, "Do they watch R-rated movies? How many piercings?" You know, these very mundane, silly little rules that, you know, if you drink coffee, you're not really creating that much harm in the world by comparison to tons of gossiping and backstabbing. Drinking coffee actually seems like a pretty neutral choice. But they're using coffee as a yardstick by which to measure how Mormon someone really is. And I think it shows how Mormonism's focus on these little rules really creates a hyper-judgmental culture, which we see on the show.

I also think Jesus, obviously, preached a lot about love and acceptance. He would go and drink wine with the wine bibbers. He would make friends with prostitutes and basically was preaching, "Hey, we should love everyone." It seems like that was kind of one of Jesus's main messages. And yet, we see in the story of Jen uninviting these people from her baby shower, that love and acceptance is actually conditional upon how well you do at keeping the rules.

Jen has a baby blessing, and these are common within the Mormon religion. Whenever a baby is blessed, the men, who are the only ones who are allowed to hold the priesthood, put their hands on the baby's head and basically speak a blessing, which would be something like, "Here's what your future will be like. God will look over you." It is kind of, I think, a sweet idea. In the same way some people are baptized as babies, Mormons just bless babies when they're when they're first newborns. I think "uninviting the Sinners" is very apt for what I experienced as a member of the church. You know, when my siblings got married, I was not allowed to go to their weddings because I wasn't worthy enough to enter the temple. And there's a lot of spiritual gatekeeping where, as much as we're supposed to take the sacrament and repent and be accepted by, you know, Jesus and and have forgiveness, there's still all of these rules and regulations as to who can participate in what sacred and religious ceremonies and when. And that gatekeeping really, I think, is the opposite in many ways of what a lot of people would say were Jesus Christ's teachings, which I think shows it's not really about Christ or Christianity or goodness or virtue or even being kind to each other, but it's just based off of following these very nitty-gritty rules and who can be good enough to join the in-group and who deserves to be on the out-group.

In the show, Jen does say that the reason they're not invited is because because her husband doesn't want them to come. And initially, she does invite them, but the husband says that she needs to take back the invitation. But she seems to me to be fairly on board with it. I think it's a question mark as to how much Zach is kind of controlling her choices. She seemed comfortable with them being able to come initially, and then he says, "Because he's not good enough friends with the Sinners' husbands, they're not invited to this baby blessing." Uh, I feel like it seems to me to be that just these women are are not kind of passing the test of who's the most Mormon.

I also find it ironic because as much as Jen says she is one of the Mormon ones, here's a little montage that I thought they, they really did her dirty with this edit. Because I am a conservative Mormon, I do follow all those rules. That edit where she says, "I do follow all that rules," while she's twerking, is, uh, is quite ironic to me. And as much as it maybe seems like I'm throwing shade, I feel like I have no issues. I, I, I drink coffee, I drink alcohol, I dance however I want, I dress however I want. And I would very much want all of the women who are part of this "Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" to feel like they could do the same. It's obvious that a lot of them do want to kind of make these choices that are having fun, having more control over their bodies, not wearing religious underwear all the time, wearing clothing that makes them feel sexy. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. And I think the hypocrisy and kind of the cognitive dissonance comes from wanting to do make the choices that make you happy, wanting to have fun, wanting to take cute pictures for your husband, wanting to dance however you want, but also wanting to have the baby blessing and have it be the the Mormon version of what a baby blessing is supposed to be. And it's just, I feel like people can't kind of live in both worlds without having some hypocrisy. And I wouldn't say that that means we should throw shade at them necessarily. I actually, it's more like I think this, this the feeling I get is a feeling of pity and sadness that they have these rules pushed on them that they clearly aren't, you know, these rules aren't making them happy necessarily. They kind of want to make the choices that they choose from themselves, but they also kind of want to be a part of their religious community, take part in these these observances of religious tradition and doctrine, like wearing garments, like having a baby blessing. And so in the world of "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives," it's a very dissonant world where you kind of can't live in both. And if you try, like I think Jen is trying to live in both, a lot of people will call you a hypocrite and a lot of people say you're not really Mormon. When I feel like it's actually kind of sad that you can't just let one of the two worlds go. You, you're trying so hard to live in both, and that's where I think people get in some sticky situations.

My only other note is that the reason that some of the women don't get invited to the baby blessing is because at the BYU graduation, Jesse and her husband bring a flask of alcohol, and they are drinking it at the at Zach's parents' house, I, I assume that's where they are. And so that to me is disrespectful. It's giving teenagers sneaking liquor out of their parents' liquor cabinet. And, you know, anyone that needs to be sneaky with alcohol in someone else's home, it's like, can't you just wait? You know, in a few hours, you can go get grab drinks after the party. But doing it at someone else's house, I think especially because they do it so flagrantly, they're, they're not really trying to be discreet. They've kind of brought it on themselves a bit to be less trusted with the baby blessing.

I feel like where it went wrong for me is that all of the women who aren't Mormon enough got uninvited from the baby blessing. And there was maybe also just never a frank conversation like, "Hey, you brought alcohol to my husband's parents' house." So I, I feel like this is also a sticky situation because I think sometimes Jesse, in both the Chippendale situation and in the booze at the hot tub situation, is almost kind of forcing the hand of the of Jen, who's the active Mormon, and it feels kind of unfair because she deals with the blow blowback, and Jesse is the one that's kind of like dropping the bomb and making these things happen.

Other religious hypocrisy that we see in the show, uh, there's a scene where they go get facials or they get Botox, um, and they talk about how laughing gas is kind of okay, but coffee isn't. And even enjoying that they get to kind of have this high experience, even though, you know, obviously doing drugs is against the rules. Whitney, who is one of the Saints, also says that she has done ketamine, which is obviously a drug. Uh, and so between the Botox and the laughing gas and the ketamine, it feels like this is just more cognitive dissonance, where it's not really about, you know, not doing anything to your body or not partaking of anything. It's just that as long as it's not on the list of the Word of Wisdom, which is the Mormon health code, as long as it's not coffee, we can drink as much soda as we want. As long as it's not alcohol, we can try ketamine if it's prescribed by a doctor. As long as the the esthetician is given me the laughing gas and I'm not taking taking drugs at home, I'm also in the clear. And so there's a lot of loopholes that we see the women engage with, which is very similar to how I've seen Mormons kind of work their way through these sticky situations where they want to engage in the behavior while still keeping their righteousness card.

Here's the scene when they are in the hot tub with the drinks, and I want you to look at how Jen is watching her husband's face. "If Zach's parents find out, this could be really bad. Jesse drinking is disrespectful, and it almost feels like she's spitting in my face." It's the reason it stood out to me how Jen is looking at Zach's face is that you get the sense, and we'll talk about this in a bit with the Chi-Andale incident, the reason that I feel like she's so uncomfortable is not just not necessarily because she actually does care about the alcohol. She's watching her husband's face because, as we see later in the season, he's quite controlling and quite judgmental. And that energy that he has of judgment and control often lands squarely on Jen's shoulders. And so I feel like even though she might have wanted to invite her friends to the baby blessing, she has to uninvite them because of how this all played out in her husband's eyes. And so that's another reason why I wouldn't just say Jen is an awful character because she's Mormon, boo Mormons. I actually feel like this is a dynamic that we see played out quite a bit, where she's trying to be actually more accepting and saying, "Okay, you guys do you. I'm going to do me." But her husband's impact and his judgment whenever these situations arise make her feel like she's a lot more in a tight spot than she would be if she was kind of just making decisions on her own.

It also cracked me up how much they are swearing in this show. Even the the Saints swear quite a bit. And it's funny because especially Whitney will use the full name of the church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She doesn't really seem to want to say Mormon, especially at the beginning, but she also at the same time is swearing throughout the whole all of the different episodes. And on the topic of Whitney, I would say she earns the award for the most hypocritical of them all, the one who is the most willing to say, "I'm the real Mormon." You know, she gets invited to the baby shower. She is also though, to me, the most judgmental. And I think that's one of the reasons she becomes one of the villains of the episode.

In episode three, they leave a bottle of champagne. I guess her realtor leaves a bottle of champagne, and her and her Mormon husband both drink out of the the champagne. They drink champagne for the first time. They also spend a lot of time talking about garments and who wears them, who doesn't. It's clear that Jen is the only one who's kind of wearing them regularly. They have a moment where they get, they're having like a girls' weekend in Park City, and Jen realizes that she forgot her garments. And, you know, there's been a lot said about garments in Mormon General Conference, which is the big meeting where all the leaders speak. And I would say a a really devout Mormon would say, "I need to drive back home to get my garments." Because as a really devout active member, a lot of them view them as something that you should never be a part away from. You know, I heard stories growing up about people getting in car accidents and the the, you know, anywhere that the garment was touching was totally fine, but their arms were injured or their their bottoms of their legs on their calves were injured, injured. And basically, it's viewed as a legitimate protector against evil and against real physical danger. And so when she forgets her garments, I would think a really devout member would probably go and go home to to just go back to pick them up. But instead, she says that she's fine for the whole weekend, and she, she just, I guess I'm, I think we're supposed to guess that she just borrows underwear.

Here's that scene. "Sh, what? Not my Gars. Oh, everyone, I have some information. The Garment Queen forgot her garment." And you can tell it's kind of a big deal that she forgot her garments, even just with how they all react during that scene where they're talking about it. The all the women are like, "Oh, what are you going to do?" Later on, one of them says, "Can you DoorDash garments?" And I think that proves my point about how much people are hesitant to be like caught without wearing garments. When if I was her, I mean, I don't know if she's wearing garments in the scene. If I was a Mormon, I would have taken my garments off, washed them in the sink, air-dried them, and then put them back as quick on as quickly as possible.

I bring up the garments clip to show that I think everyone, all Mormons seem to have their own little pet sin that they say is completely okay. Whether it's, you know, for my husband's family, it was eating out on Sunday. It was totally fine. My family though, that was not okay. Maybe your pet sin is dancing however you want in a suggestive way. Maybe your pet sin is drinking coffee. Maybe your pet is having a drink of alcohol from time to time, or whatever it may be. Everyone seems to have their own little thing that, you know, "Oh, well, it's okay if I don't wear garments today because I wear them some of the time." Or, "It's okay if I don't wear garments because I'm going out to a nice dinner, so it's just for this one event." You know, whatever the loophole is, or the pet sin, Mormonism really encourages, I think, especially for people who are trying to be in it, but maybe are not able to to put up with all the rules anymore, to choose their one vice and then to just use that vice to kind of access that part of themselves that wants to just take a break from Mormonism, but isn't ready to lose the community that they, they'll lose if they choose to stop being a part of the religion entirely.

Next, I wanted to highlight the theme of women as property in the church. And I've made a video about being kind of raised to be a trad wife, basically something called Personal Progress, which basically is literally teaching you how to be a mommy and a good wife someday. Check out that video after this one. Also, in a Mormon temple, when you're married, which almost all of these women are temple married, or one of their previous marriages was a temple marriage, you used to, they recently got rid of it, but you used to have to bow your head and promise to obey your husband. And the husband never makes the same promise. He promises to obey God, and you promise as a woman to obey your husband. And so I think women, and women can't have the priesthood, women are told that their primary role is as a child bearer and as wife, and the husband is the one that goes and gets a job and is out in the world. And I think that all of these doctrines really make it so that women often end up kind of being their husband's property in many ways, in that they are supposed to obey them, they are supposed to be child bearers for them, clean their laundry, that kind of a thing.

And this all comes to a head in episode six, where the women all go on a trip to Vegas. On this trip to Vegas, we see two of the men go with the women on the girls' trip. And most of the husbands or boyfriends stay at home. Most of them just say, "You know, have a good time. I hope you enjoy yourself." But both Dakota and Zach, who are already shaping up to be the most possessive men on the show, choose to go on the girls' trip with their wives. And it, you know, even it's said through these conversations that this is kind of evidence that these men are controlling and aren't really able to let go and just let their wives or girlfriends go off and have a good time.

I will say, Taylor Frankie Paul is about eight and a half months pregnant for this trip. And so I kind of get why Dakota wanted to come purely from the perspective of, "Hey, you're about to give birth. I'd like to be with you in case there's an emergency." But it does feel like his kind of interest in following her around and keeping tabs on her is more than just, "I'm concerned that you're so far along in your pregnancy," and more about, "Hey, I'm worried about infidelity here and I don't trust you to be alone."

This is kind of another reason I didn't love Jesse in the show. Jesse is the one that brings the alcohol to the house and kind of forces Jen's hand with this whole baby blessing situation. We once again see Jesse set up this meet and greet where they go to Chi-Andale's and she gets this special package where they go and meet the dancers and they're oiling up the the male strippers. And even before they get there, Jen basically says, "I don't really want to be involved in this, but I'm kind of along for the ride and hopefully I can just kind of be off to the side." I honestly felt so bad for her when they are showing her at this meet and greet with the dancers. She looks miserable. I, I kind of feel like she seems trapped to me because if this had happened to me, I would have just, you know, left. If you really don't want to go and do something, if you're personally uncomfortable with it, it seems like she kind of gets drawn along with the gravity of the situation.

The irony is that while Jen is out with her friends, her husband is gambling for the night. And it's like, gambling is definitely against the Mormon rules. It's not okay. My family never gambled. There are quotes from prophets about how gambling is not okay. So it's super ironic that he is gambling while they're in Vegas, because you'd think that he would know that's not allowed. Uh, but he's out gambling, and while he's gambling, he finds out that Jen is at this Chi-Andale situation. And to me, this was the moment of the show that made me both the most sad, and I felt like was the most true to my experience and the experiences I've seen of other people in Mormonism, which is that he completely loses it on her. And he sends her this text, which I'll put off to the side. There's the this frame that someone was able to grab of him basically just reaming her out and calling her names. And then later in the show, she reveals that he said she had low character and he doesn't want to be married to her anymore, and he can't believe that she would do this, and even that maybe he doesn't love her anymore. And so crazy considering when we as the audience have seen that she didn't want to go, she looks uncomfortable the whole time, and now he is questioning her character when as the audience we can tell that this is something that is kind of somewhat happening to her and not something that she's like, "Hey, let's go to the strip club and touch all the men, and it's going to be so fun, and oo, let's keep it a secret." But she, she, she didn't want it to begin with. And the way that he so quickly gets mad at her and says that he doesn't even want to be married to her anymore, when she's born two of his children and put him through college, is wild, truly wild.

I think it's important to note that there's a difference in compliance in a marriage and respect in a marriage. I, I mean, if, if we switch the genders and if I put myself in that situation, if my, if my husband was going to go to a strip club, I don't think I'd be comfortable with that either. But I think that the conversation, if I found out that he was at one, you know, would be much different. It wouldn't be straight to, "You're cheating on me." It would be, "What? How are you there? What's going on? Are you leaving soon? Are you enjoying yourself?" Like, what's kind of more more of a question of what's going on and how did this happen, versus, "I don't love you anymore and I don't want to be married to you anymore." I don't think they really address this in the show, but I, I think if someone puts up a boundary and says, "Hey, I don't know if I'd really want you to go to a strip club," I don't think that means that someone is so jealous that they can't be trusted. But I think that the the context in which that conversation happens is really important. If it's just like, "F you, I'm going to do whatever I want and I'm going to accuse you of being jealous and that you are out of control if you have any, you know, questions for me," that's not the best. But I think that if someone wants to say, "Hey, can we talk through why this makes me uncomfortable," that then that is a different conversation. And to me, the way we see Zach totally blow up on this woman who has done nothing wrong is, I think, and if you go on comments about this whole interaction, all of the people are saying, "This is the stereotypical controlling Mormon man," and we are seeing it play out in real time in reality TV. And I, I do completely agree with that, because I think I've had experiences with men. I don't think all Mormon men are like this. You know, we see Macy's husband, who says, "Go enjoy yourself, have a good time," and she stays at Chi-Andale's the whole time. He's not jealous, per se. They, they talk through it first, and they figure it out. And so we do see an example of an active Mormon man who is not that way. But I think that the amount of men who are this way, the jealous, like, "I'm going to divorce you if you cross me" kind of way, is is much higher than, uh, should it should be in the church.

Here is the clip of Jen on the phone with her husband when this all goes down. "Can you just stop for a second and just like think of me as a person and my character?" "Okay, what's going on?" "I thought he was cool with you being here." "I mean, I'm in trouble. He doesn't want to be married to me if I do stuff like this." "And then he says, 'I don't want to be married to you if you do stuff like this.'" "I mean, she's obviously straight to tears. And you saw the screenshots of her face when this is all going down. It's obvious that he is being incredibly unfair. Crazy too, to me, that they even address in the show that Jen's social media is paying for his college. It's going to pay for his medical school. It's paying for their kids. What she's doing by being involved with this group is a way, the way that she's basically making an income for the family. She says in the show that she's the breadwinner. And so I feel like she's really in an awful situation where her livelihood is somewhat dependent on making content with these women and kind of running with Mom Talk at this point. But then also, she is being told by her husband that she's not a good person because she's friends with these awful women who are doing these awful, awful things. Meanwhile, he's gambling.

To recap, basically, he totally blows up on her. He, uh, kind of stops texting her. Apparently, they're up all night texting each other. She leaves in an Uber at 2 a.m. to try to go meet up with him and make amends. He's been gambling all night. And when the girls, the other women, finally hear back from Jen, she kind of says, "Everything's fine. We totally worked it out." And it feels like the genie, though, is out of the bottle. And I feel like Jen's marriage is very emblematic to me of many Mormon marriages, where it's they're trying so hard to be perfect and have the perfect family and put on the perfect smiles and have the perfectly dressed kids and everything's perfect all the time. And yet, when the rubber hits the road, we see how these doctrines, how getting married at 18 to someone you don't know that well, uh, and then you are covenanting to obey him, how that might sometimes work against you in your life that you've chosen.

Later in the next episode, the women kind of reconnect and talk with Jen about this. And this conversation, which is mostly led by Demi, is my favorite conversation that takes place in the whole TV series. Because I feel like the way that they're being so honest and raw and talking about Mormonism's impact on women, this conversation is, I, I would watch the entire TV show just to kind of get to this conversation because I feel like it was such an important conversation that I feel like I needed to hear as a Mormon woman, and that I think a lot of Mormon women need to hear.

Here's a quick clip. "I clearly see it wasn't until I started vocalizing my, until I started providing, until I had kids, that I realized, oh shoot, like, I do have a voice and I do need to speak up. And it's bringing out this narcissistic side of him because he feels like he doesn't have control. And so that's just everything we're working for. Do you think it's okay for your kids to learn this behavior? Do you want Nora being treated this way? Do you want Luka to treat a woman this way?" Because I think the saddest part of that whole conversation was when Jen basically says, "Oh, if I leave..."

Him and get remarried. It'll just be the same with some other man. And it's so interesting to see the other divorced women in the group basically share you're dating or married to a man that's so similar to men that we were married to and now we're in actually healthy relationships or better relationships than we were.

And I feel like I also see that sentiment echoed a lot because divorce is so taboo and kind of basically like a failure of your whole life, uh, within the church. And I think for her to say it'll be the same if I, if I get remarried, it's, it's kind of one of those lies that I think is taught about awful relationships and about awful marriages, that all men are this way. When obviously a lot of the women in the group are saying, actually, not all men are this way. And the women who are divorced, who are the sinners, are able to say, hey, we're, we got out of these hyper-religious, traditional marriages, and things have actually gotten a lot better for us. And so, I, like I said, I feel like that conversation with all of them is just so, was so important. And I, I, it's a conversation that I wish could be played over and over again. Sometimes in the show, it feels like you have to wade through some of the more boring, stereotypical reality TV show scenes to get to the meat of the conversation, which is what I felt like that whole scene was about.

I think this all culminates to talking about the impact of what it means to marry young. With every woman on the show, we see how getting married very young, 16, 17, 18, 19, very young, how that impacts the rest of these women's lives. Their brains are not developed. They're making major life choices. Many of them got pregnant either right before getting married or immediately after getting married. And how it really sets them on this path. You know, I've seen people say these women act like teenagers. It's because a lot of them were teenagers just a few years ago. And a lot of them haven't been able to go to college. A lot of them haven't been able to have, you know, their their early adulthood be exploring the world and exploring themselves. A lot of them went from living at home as children to being married and raising children. And so I think that this TV show is a great testament to the impact that getting married at 18 or younger has on the lives of women and that it sets them on a path that is very hard to remove yourself from.

So much that even if you're in a relationship with a man like Zach, who is clearly controlling her, she seems very anxious about any move he makes, any opinion he has. She's defaulting to kind of listening to him. And she's not going to leave that relationship, or at least she hasn't from what you can tell on social media, because of the expectations that have been placed on her by her religion, maybe to, because she really of herself doesn't want to. But I think a lot of women in a broader sense stay in relationships that are really bad for them because of the lies that are told by this religious culture. And also, I feel like watching so many of them, especially someone like Whitney, you see them being mothers. And I, I don't know that all of them love to be mothers. They kind of had motherhood thrust upon them once they got married at 18 or younger. And when you choose to have children that young, it's, it's not a, it's more of a decision that seems to happen to you in my opinion. You're not even legally allowed to drink, but you can carry multiple children by the time you're 21. And I think for a lot of these moms, I feel like when you see them maybe interfacing or interacting with their children, you have to wonder if they're really even happy being moms. I've met a lot of Mormon women who had a lot of children and didn't actually really enjoy being mothers that much because it didn't really particularly suit them. And maybe in life where they weren't spoon-fed the idea of motherhood as a divine calling, they wouldn't have had so many children, or they would have waited till they had better financial security or a better relationship to have those children.

And so we see Taylor Frankie Paul, who is getting married very young at 18 and then having a ton of issues in her marriage with opening the relationship. We see the other women who are already divorced. We see Lila, who has never seemingly been fulfilled sexually, who's been married and divorced by 22. And this doctrine of women as wives and women as childbearers as their role, really honestly stunts these women's lives in really significant ways. And that is why I liked this TV show because I think it really illustrates how awful of an impact the doctrine of getting married as quickly as possible and having as many babies as possible has on the lives of real women who then have to live with those choices that their religion thrust upon them for the rest of their lives.

A few other things I loved about this show. I feel like it did a good job at bringing some normalcy to topics like sex and sexuality, talking about aging and how to accept or change your body and how to cope with aging. Even, uh, talk, a lot of them had boob jobs. I think it did a good job at commenting on what it's like to be a woman who has childbirth in their past and is is trying to still feel hot and sexy. Not that these women are perfect examples of coping with that necessarily, but just that their willingness to be open and honest about it is very refreshing. And just at least seeing someone be honest about how they're dealing with the process of aging, I found to be enjoying to watch as someone who's had kids and is aging.

In episode one, they talk about how Mormonism kind of expects you to go from being a completely asexual being to kind of being a porn star for your husband. I appreciated how much they talk about the beauty standards that they are all trying to fulfill, whether it's the boob jobs, the extensions, the mommy makeovers, the Botox. I felt like that was an important conversation. I also think the show ends on a really good cliffhanger where we feel like we're going to finally get a little bit more information about the issue that's keeping Dakota and Taylor Frankie Paul from having a close enough relationship where they really trust each other and they've kind of left infidelity in the past. And so we, we left on a really big cliffhanger. I feel like that was a sign we're going to get a season two.

A reminder to like this video and subscribe to my channel. I, as I shared at the top of the hour, I feel like I probably took too many notes and this video is too long. I know it's too long, but it's hard to not talk about everything, like, you know, and just get it all out there because I feel like as I was watching, there was so many things coming up for me that I wanted to talk about. Let me know what you think of my analysis in the comments below. I'm sure some stuff that I didn't even get to talk about that would deserve to be in the video. So if there's anything you feel like I didn't highlight that you feel like still needs to be added into the conversation, comment it below. And as always, I will see you all next week.

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ExMormon Reacts To Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives S1

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