The fact is, every cult-like every totalistic system, including industrial civilization-must find a way to subordinate sexual longing and expression to the overlord’s goals. Could it be that the word “sex” is used this way because the techno-industrial project prevents us from accepting sexuality as a normal, healthy part of life?

Could it be that the word “sex,” in this situation, merely acts as an intensifier? As in, “That poor idiot didn’t join just any cult, she joined a sex cult!” In other words, she must be twice as screwed up, twice as nuts, as the average cultist. To assure us that we would never fall for something that’s so clearly a hoax. The word “cult,” when used to evoke lurid associations rather than signify a specific set of coercive patterns, tends to create distance-between us (the rational, moral core of society) and them (those crazy cultists). But perhaps, in so doing, they reveal more about our culture than they do about the cult. Headline writers don’t need to know what a “sex cult” is to exploit our voyeuristic impulses, our voracious lust for accounts of what others do in bed. What happens when you read the words “sex cult”? How do you respond? Do you quicken, then recoil? Do you read on, at once fascinated and repulsed by the gory details of how those people find pleasure, in their wacky, twisted world? Or is it a fiction, meant to grab eyeballs?

Is it a cult whose male leader, possibly with the help of female lieutenants, coerces or forces female followers into sexual relationships? A cult whose members engage in sexual practices considered strange by the mainstream? A cult that uses sex to win and keep allies, and recruit new members?

No one-not even Wikipedia, or the Urban Dictionary*, or -seems to know what it means.

If you google the term “sex cult,” you’ll find plenty of supposed examples-including, most notably, NXIVM, the Rajneeshees (profiled in Wild, Wild Country), and the Children of God.

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