I really think that like. Being an exmo and really reflecting on your experiences, you get an opportunity to understand consent in a way that doesn’t necessarily come naturally to people. You can see how consent is not perfectly contained in “yes”, and how coercion can actually look like and even feel like love at a glance, if you don’t understand the years and years of intense grooming that went into it.
The thing about brainwashing is that it’s not as overt as it’s often portrayed in movies. It has to be something you actually want to listen to, or you’ll reject it. Generally speaking, while the church does use scare tactics, they’re a little less direct than other sects of christianity. No, the threats are crafted to reach your ears as proactive, positive, encouraging, so following the rules is something you actively want to do. You feel good about yourself for doing so, and receive lots of praise and love. There’s no trait more admirable than obedience.
But following the rules in the church means a lot of different things, and some of those things can be really unpleasant. Things that you would say no to in any other context, but because you have been shown that doing these things makes you a good and strong person, you know that not doing them would make you a bad and weak person. You don’t actually want to do the thing, but you don’t want to face the consequences of not doing it. Which is by definition coerced consent.
I mentioned how I hated having a strange man shove me underwater as a teen, but if I did not attend those temple trips, I would get passive-aggressively guilt tripped and receive none of the praise that the other teens did. I think my dad was in the bishopric at one point and he told me to give a talk in sacrament meeting, and, having insane anxiety, I hated public speaking, and eventually had to tell him I couldn’t do it. He was otherwise really warm and kind to me, but he suddenly turned so cold and disapproving. Even my brother came home from his mission after two weeks, and good god. You’d have thought he murdered someone’s entire family with all the shame that caused.
And then you go on with your life and sometimes you’re taken advantage of, and people look at it and go “You said yes, you have no right to be upset at such a nice person” and it’s so impossible to explain how affection and encouragement can be used to manipulate you into situations where you don’t want to say yes, but you’re afraid of what will happen if you don’t. You’re love bombed when you do things they want you to do, and snubbed and shunned when you don’t. So of course you’re trained to just do whatever they say.
It’s really no wonder that part of the exmo religious trauma, at least for me, is this awful feeling of violation.
