Some more context - in the 1970s the Watchtower, which is the organization in charge of Jehovah’s Witnesses, made it official policy that married people couldn’t do oral or anal. However - those acts also didn’t count as sex, so if your husband fucked another woman in the ass, or had sex with an animal, it wasn’t “adultery” and you couldn’t get divorced, until they changed that policy later.
Keep in mind too that “disfellowshipping” means that no other Jehovah’s Witnesses could talk with you - no contact with family or JW friends, who are probably your only friends because you aren’t supposed to really socialize out of the religion. They just changed that policy (and now they say people are “removed” and you can talk long enough to invite someone to church) because it’s so fucked up that the Australian government took away benefits over it.
Just imagine though. You’re raised in a culture where you’re so sexually repressed that giving your husband a blowjob would put your salvation at stake, you walk in on him fucking an animal and absolutely everyone you’ve ever known and been close to turns on you!
This is from Raymond Franz’s Crisis of Conscious which is free/easy to find online. Written by a guy who was on the “Governing Body” of the cult.
That is cult behavior.
They celebrate the deaths of children who refused blood transfusions as martyrs.
Of the “Four Major Cults” (Mormonism, Seventh Day Adventists, Christian Scientists + JW’s) they’re the most culty. Christian Scientists have more word language games/language control, and will also let children day of medical neglect but they don’t really seem to view that as good just a lack of spiritual strength.
JW’s are seriously discouraged from doing things like going to college or getting a meaningful career. You’re not supposed to really care about worldly things, because the world is supposed to end very soon (they’ve made so many failed predictions they stopped putting a number on it. You can get in serious trouble if they know you look at “apostate” material.
Your whole life is supposed to revolve around the church and being “Jehovah’s friend.”
JW is a cult, that is not really something that is disputed.
it sucks because me and my closest friend lost a buddy we lost contact to over the years to them. its super cult behavior
It is a textbook cult.