Bountiful, BC

[A-1 (imported)]

Jesus,

Perhaps we should write a musical about this phenomenon. We could call it... Polygamy makes a PIG of me...

[JesusA (imported)]

Given the nature of the Eunuch Archive and the people who read and post here, I’m amazed that no one has risen to my bait.

The interview of Debbie Palmer ought to provide ample data for someone to leap on. Here’s a Fundamentalist Mormon wife and mother who talks about the 20 to 30 wives of a husband and master being treated essentially as breeding livestock, with careful records and a Breeding Book being kept so that in-breeding can be avoided among the offspring.

Reporter: WHAT ARE THE LOGISTICS OF INTERCOURSE? HOW DOES IT WORK? DOES SOMEBODY KEEP A BIG CHART AND SAY – OH, BETTY YOUR OVULATING – THURSDAY IS YOUR NIGHT.

Debbie Palmer: I know in the larger families, they do, do that, they have to.

Reporter: REALLY?

Debbie Palmer: Well like I mean in a good size dairy, you have to know when a cows going to come around so she can be serviced properly by the bull, or you don’t have calves and you don’t have your cows freshened properly and if you’ve got very many wives in your family then somebody needs to keep track of that...one of the really horrific things about some of the inbreeding that has happened in the polygamist communities is that most of the men that have been in positions of control that have instigated these marriages are men that have studied breeding stock in animals.”

Reporter: THIS IS ALL BASED ON ANIMAL HUSBANDRY?

Debbie Palmer: Yes it is.

This is immediately followed by a reference to a documentary on the problem of surplus males in such a society. Every livestock breeder for the past 4,000 years has known exactly what to do with surplus males.

While rare, it was known in early Utah for Mormon bishops to have young men castrated to remove them from competition for young women. Brigham Young, in one of his less guarded moments commented when asked about one of these castrations that “the day would Come when thousands would be made Eunuchs in order for them to be saved in the kingdom of God.” (Wilford Woodruff's Diary, June 2, 1857, Vol. 5, pages 54-55)

A couple of years ago I tried baiting one of the Fundamentalist Mormon websites with questions about the surplus male problem using the documentary Polygamy’s Lost Boys as a starting point. We had several rounds of my questions and their evasive answers (e.g., the boys will move into Gentile society and marry many non-Mormon women to bring them to the faith). Finally, I included my Brigham Young quote and got no further response from them. It was great fun!

[amahl_shukup (imported)]

So, what was the answer concerning modern Mormon boys? Are there indeed castrations going on in those remote, out-of-the-way places? Anybody know the answer to that? I wonder if they know they could make a lot of money by selling videotapes of those procedures in the porn industry?