Sex, Power, and Control Inside Modern Cults
Published By admin
Lindsay Allan is a legal scholar studying the state’s duty to protect victims of sexual abuse in cults. Her work examines how governments gain knowledge of systematic harm yet fail to act, especially in patriarchal religious systems, focusing on grooming, coerced consent, and institutional responsibility in law, policy, and practice.
Dr. Amos N. Guiora is Professor of Law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah, and a former Israel Defence Forces JAG officer. He researches institutional complicity, bystanders, and enablers in sexual abuse and extremism, including FLDS, and advocates for criminal liability for enabling harms worldwide today.
Michelle Stewart is a cult survivor, activist, and author of Judas Girl, who grew up in multiple closed religious communities, including Hutterite and Bruderhof offshoots. She writes and speaks about quiet cults, psychological abuse, recovery, education as liberation, and the subtle ways patriarchal control and financial dependency entrench coercive systems.
Irina Tsukerman is a human rights and national security attorney, president of Scarab Rising, and analyst of authoritarian movements and ideological extremism. She examines how law balances religious freedom and association against fraud, confinement, exploitation, and abuse, highlighting consent under duress and difficulties prosecuting closed, cultic or cult-adjacent communities worldwide.
In this roundtable, Scott Douglas Jacobsen speaks with Amos Guiora, Lindsay Allan, Michelle Stewart, and Irina Tsukerman about modern cults as systems of coercive control. They examine sexual abuse, financial dependency, and psychological grooming in groups like FLDS, NXIVM, and “quiet cults.” The conversation foregrounds women’s disproportionate victimization, the blurring of consent under fear and indoctrination, and the role of enablers and indifferent governments. The panel also explores who is vulnerable to recruitment and how early critical thinking education, public awareness, and survivor testimony can help people recognize red flags, leave abusive communities, and rebuild autonomy, dignity, and legal accountability.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Let’s begin. Today we’re here with Amos Guiora, Lindsay Allen, Michelle Stewart, and Irina Tsukerman. We’re going to be talking about cults—some people who have been in them, some who are studying aspects of them, some who have spoken about the legal implications, prosecution, and how we define these things, and others who focus on foundational work on enablers and communities. These are coercive communal efforts to keep the cult together. There are many factors to consider here. My first question is: when you think of a cult and you think of a charismatic leader, what figures come to mind? What movements come to mind?
Read more https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/modern-cults-sex-power-control-enablers-sjbn/
Content retrieved from: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/modern-cults-sex-power-control-enablers-sjbn/.
