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Also, the church's obsession with referring to girls as 'underaged women.' There is no such thing as an underaged woman. An underaged woman is a child.

Just want to add that the impact on the girls lives went far beyond sex. Sex was a minor thing compared to being secretly married to the community leader as a multiple wife. No dating and marrying someone you want to. No one you can complain to. No one you can talk to. Your life is adrift in a very strange and lonely place. You can't even get pregnant because that would be bad for secrecy. But you have to remain silent and obedient - with no end in sight. Those poor girls.

“If there’s no god, then marriage is just a social construct.” Congratulations. You now understand society.

Man, I love how Fair Mormon is talking about consent, but consent is never taught in the church. The closest thing we get is "dont do it" and "if you do, it's your fault." That's not consent???

If these "sealings" were about creating familial bonds then why didn't Joseph, instead of marrying children, seal them to him as his daughters? Much the same way he referred to some of them before he married them...

The “don’t worry, their husbands said it’s okay” argument SENDS ME

Sam: on a really good point about a serious topic Cat: let me sing you the song of my people

Me: *trying to listen to Tanner discuss really horrible things that men put women through* cat in the background: HEWWO?

The tone of this video is just so astronomically different than the tone in the FairMormon video. Thank you for this fair and honest and human response. It felt completely and utterly dehumanizing to watch the FairMormon video as someone who has left the church.

"Virginity is social currency in Mormonism" Oh my god why have I never thought of it this way before? Thank you for this video.

I’m so disgusted at kwaku saying it was only one child. That’s disgusting. He’s literally lying and gaslighting and turning it around and trying to act like people are twisting it to be pedo when he literally just admitted it was. Does he think people are stupid? Ugh

I got angry when he started using atheism as the reason why any argument against polygamy is invalid. It is always valid to criticize a group that pushes for “protecting the sanctity of marriage” when they themselves have been historically hypocritical of this stance and try to brush it under the rug.

Also, when Marie Antoinette got married at 14, guess how old Louis was? 15!!!

As RFM says, “You don’t have to marry someone to not have sex with them.” The things that Mormonism requires its members to defend is appalling, I’m glad I don’t have to anymore.

“Kwaku really made this series for the wrong audience. The people who dare watch anything associated with the ces letter are not going to buy this.” Jason Derulo

i always love the “well you’re an atheist so you don’t believe in heaven so this doesn’t matter to you” argument as though the entire point wasn’t to critique THEIR VIEW

Thank you for this. My husband and I recently went down the rabbit hole of finding real truth and leaving the church and I am so thankful for critical thinkers like you guys helping me to do the same after being so conditioned to think with my feelings. Sadly, I know there are many people out there who would watch these FairMormon videos and think yeah, that sounds right 😣 We need people like you to help us see the truth.

Apologetics are a part of everyone's deconversion process. That is pretty spot on.

“You can’t polish a turd any more.” - Sam

Fair Mormon's use of mocking lame voices is not a fair and sincere form of addressing a truth claim.

I showed the video to my nevermo friend and he proceeded to go through every single one and have a breakdown over how weird it all is. In his words, "they're like aliens pretending to be human".

"He didn't marry her! Her husband said it was ok for him to marry her!" WUT

This fairmormon video is like watching someone doing a math equation, doing it mostly wrong but through out getting a couple things right and ultimately giving up and making up a completely wrong answer 😂 I cannot stand Kwaku good god

How can there be consent when they are "given unto him?" Ew.

ANY CULT DOCUMENTARY Every time a cult exists for more than 3 years, you can basically guarantee that there's been a lot of sex and sexual manipulation from the cult leader -> young followers

Ah yes, the typical “he didn’t, but if he did it’s ok, but he didn’t, but we have people close to him saying he did, but he didn’t, but...”

It's also interesting that they have turned off comments on all the videos I've looked at.

There is no consent when a "prophet" tells you GOD wants you to marry him.

Omg. I'm laughing so hard. "I'm a virgin" "dont worry, its not lost on us"

Kwaku, basically: "but what if the child consents" I hate it here

The typical mormon immaturity, from grown adults, while discussing sex is off-putting. Why can't mormons just say sex with a straight face? So annoying. I have a kid and my parents are still looking awkward about any kind of sexualality.

I always laugh when the cats start going batshit off screen lol

The cats in the background are really sending me hahahaha

the cat rly said “lemme get in on this LDS roast” y’all shoulda let him SPEAK!!!!

Whether or not the members of fair Mormon are bad people, their tone in these videos makes them come off as horrid people to me!

Let me get this straight...Kwaku is trying to debunk the CES Letter, which consists of questions the church refuses to answer while not providing any answers himself. So he’s trying to debunk answerless questions? Kwaku...where’s the logic, my dude? If a question has no answer, there’s nothing to debunk.

8:20 LOL "why would joseph smith go to these lengths to make a religion just to abuse his power?!" That's the whole point, beloved.

I have to say, all of the logical fallacies of their arguments aside, nothing in my entire life has made me cringe harder than this studio C kind of voice changing- the people we are arguing against are all cavemen-"comedy" they have chosen to beat to death in every video. Mormon apologetics or not, this format is demeaning their own stance. It makes them look so immature and like they cant cope with counter arguments. I literally feel my body twitch relentlessly from the inside trying to handle the gross way they've chosen to produce these videos.

If it wasn't about sex, why was Joseph sealed only to women? If it was about binding families, why wasn't Emma the first wife to be sealed to Joseph, and why wasn't Joseph sealed to his kids?

Love your channel! I’m new to waking up to the ‘Free World’, you’re videos have helped me realize so much and feel much more comfortable in my new life.

When Sam said "You've never had sex and if you have you cried too much for it to count" I lost it. The shade. I love it

I need you to do more of these so that I can see someone sane review the fair mormon videos without me actually giving them extra views as well.... also you are awesome

“if god doesn’t exist then marriage is just a societal construct!” bruh.............. i’ve got some bad news............

The burn about crying during sex so it doesn't count was hands down my favorite part of the video.

Tanner: "It's a *DOOZY"* Me: ok, I'm ready... I was not ready. I don't even know where to start with this amount of crazy.

As another polyamorous person, it's always nice to hear people point out the distinction between consenting adults engaging in nonmonogamy and creepy predators exploiting their power over vulnerable kids... 'cause, y'know, the first one can be rad and fulfilling, and the second one is infuriating and harmful, always. Also, I know I've undoubtedly said this before, but your cats are precious. "Oh, the humans are talking to the camera! I must talk to the camera too, to share my opinion on how Joseph Smith was kinda The Worst." Man, he had a point for a second with "marriage is a social construct." If only he'd sit and think about it for a minute instead of being facetious and engaging in abuse apologia--like, guess what, kids can't consent, dude. Maybe he should listen to Banksy's great points in this video. (Obviously you make a ton of great points too. I just have to take any chance I can to gush over cats being cute.)

I really think the issue is that people in general tend to have this shear dissociation with the emotional and psychological corruption that human beings in the past had to endure and the complete lack of options they had in that time.

Awesome video, and you’re spot on! Kwaku is the kind of person who has no idea what he’s talking about, but he is extremely confident in himself. This results in him looking like an idiot when people who have critical thinking skills take his arguments apart. Also, they seem to think that debunking the CES Letter is about undermining Jeremy’s credibility (which they utterly failed to do), but frankly, the issues therein are independent of Jeremy’s world view. In other words, even if they were successful in proving that Jeremy was just an angry apostate (they didn’t), they still have to address the issues (which they also utterly fail to do). All they are doing in their new series is building strawmen, gaslighting, and attacking the character of Jeremy and non-Mormons.

First three Mormons, then Saints Unscripted, now Fair Mormons? How many times are they going to change their name?!

"The cats are pissed about pedophelia, I've raised them well. "

Fairmormon is wrong and misleading.

Kwaku was trending on r/cringe

If Joseph Smith had taken a normal human approach to fooling around with loads of women, we could just say "oh he was a flawed person who committed adultery." But he didn't. He used his *religiously-based power* and influence to be "sealed" in a *religious* sense to dozens of women and several teenage girls. That's where the real problem is. The teenage girls would be bad even if it were just plain old adultery, but the fact that he used his *religious authority* to coerce them makes it a hundred times worse.

One of your better vids! Concise and balanced. One IMPORTANT thing you missed when responding to the part about him "marrying older women" is that these women GROOMED the younger women. This was literally the intent Joseph had. He married these older women who acted as grandmotherly figures and mentors for the teenagers. If you read the younger women's journals, you will find that they mention their grooming. At least one of them was approached by an older bride of Joseph's and [attempted] convinced that polygamy was okay. To me, that was the most damning thing I read about the church and it was the moment I knew JS was just like all the other cult leaders and that the religion was all a farce to benefit him and other male leaders.

IDK how you guys are managing to stay so calm throughout this video. I had to turn it off for a few minutes and just remind myself that my daughter is safe and I’m doing everything I can to prepare her for her future.... And I know that’s really heavy, but i’m so glad you guys are together producing again! 💚💚💚

Let's not forget that Joseph Smith besides being the prophet was also mayor of the isolated town they lived in, commander in chief of one of the largest armed militias in the state, a presidential candidate, and immune to prosecution or extradition for many years due to the nauvoo court continuously interceding on his behalf. Plus many of the young girls he married were converts from Europe, with no ties to America or extended family they could escape to. When he did proposition young American girls, they often did reject him or run away, as Nancy Rigdon did. It's a huge power imbalance

Love this. I would just like to add my bone to pick with "presentism": It is not only absolutely ok to judge historical mores and norms by one's own modern standards, it's absolutely necessary. We are meant to learn from history, that requires passing judgement. It doesn't mean dismissing every individual who would be a product of their time. Take say, Bloodletting: An idiotic and deadly medical practice by any modern standard, but no one is calling every physician that practiced bloodletting Joseph Mengele, because yeah, they were practicing medicine by the accumulated knowledge of their time. We can still say without any doubt that bloodletting is fucking stupid and don't do it

What's so frustrating about this type of apologetics, or at least _one_ thing that is so frustrating, is that they take these serious questions about the narrative the church has taught vs. the history that we can research, and it treats the people that ask them as if they crazy or unhinged. They even editorialize the issue in the CES letter be describing it as having been brought up "flippantly". It makes it feel like they aren't directing these responses to the CES letter to people that are earnestly seeking truth, even perhaps trying to reconcile their faith with what they are learning. Instead, it is treating these issues like a joke, and aiming for an audience that is just looking for excuses to brush aside these issues. At the expense of everyone else.

How come his wife Emma, wasn't the first wife he sealed in the temple? He sealed many wives first, before he sealed to Emma.

Been out of the church for like 7 years now, but seeing their apologetics and mental gymnastics is super painful. Good for you guys to make to the end without losing your minds!

Wow. I haven't watched the fairmormon video yet, but I was definitely expecting them to site more sources or at least point out actual problems with the ces letter. This is pretty bad - all pizzaz and no substance. I feel like Kwaku is going to have a particularly hard time when he figures out it's all made up.

Excellent video. Hearing those two is just 🤮. I’m so happy learning about polygamy is what lead me to the CES letter and I never had to do the polygamy mental gymnastics. As soon as I learned about the underage marriage, the abuse, the lies, I left. There’s no excuse for what Joseph did.

22:50 If polygamy is "fine" then why can't mormons practice it now? Still too weird and not socially acceptable? Lol k.

When you were reading the scripture on Abraham it reminded me of the Handmaid's Tale. Creepy AF. Of course this was about sex!

Yall handled this a lot better than I could've, I would've had to rage quit. I worked way too hard to learn how to write a cohesive, easy-to-follow, logical argument to be able to have a response to such a trash heap of excuses they provided.

When I was sexually abused by a male head of the household I let my Mormon mother about it, just like she had always told me to. She said she was going to talk to the bishop about it. She did, and everything worked out! Psyyyyych! She made me feel like I had blown things out of proportion for attention. I internalized it. It came to a head a year after my abuser went through some repentance phase and confessed to my mother he had abused my sister for years too. I couldn't handle it anymore and completely lost my shit. My mom helped my ex stage a suicide attempt and I has hospitalized for 6 days against my will. So my mom finally talked to the bishop because I made sure to drag her friend into it and she could no longer hide the truth. The bishop suspended my abuser's temple privileges. It worked! He changed after being a total perv for 30 years! Haha no he didn't. He's still super gross. I haven't been in their lives at all since 2016. Yeah, after I got out of the hospital my mom let my abuser call the police again claiming that I was still suicidal and intended on hurting my children. I drove away and never looked back. Anyway, I'm glad I'm not going to the celestial kingdom! It's filled with racist, homophobic, pedophile misogynists. I'll take hell. What do I care if I'm on fire if I have no physical body?

Yeah, Fanny Alger in a barn with Joseph... they were just doing a book of Mormon study.

Calling out Kwaku is my sexuality

"Fairmormon is wrong and misleading". I fucking love you guys!🤣

Thank you both. I left the church a month ago. My wife and I are getting a divorce due to my change of faith. You hit the nail on the head when you said that they don’t have an identity outside of the church therefore they cannot consider critical questions about their faith. She was raised LDS, I was not. For me, it was very easy to leave after a multitude of issues. For her, she cannot see a life outside of the church. It’s very sad. Thank you for doing what you’re doing.

They keep saying there was no record of him having sex, but why would they make record of it? If it was happening, it would be a secret. Smh my head

Very well done. If a TBM watches Kwaku's video and then this rebuttal, they will be in absolute shambles. Because there is no moral way to defend Joseph's sexual exploitation of women.

"Spiritual seed" and "Sealing" are the weirdest euphemisms I've ever heard.

Whenever I have this discussion and the "polygamy wasn't about sex" delusion comes up, I just read from D&C 132. Doesn't this section CONFIRM that it was only about sex? Am I missing something? Edit: you touched on this in the video. Apologies for the premature comment

We’re gonna talk about ppl defending J smith *grabs popcorn*

This was painful, and it just kept getting more painful. It’s a wonder how Mormons don’t have a constant need for chiropractic after that amount of mental gymnastics.

Watching Sam GO OFF about worthy causes is so cathartic to me. ~17:00 was 👌

The turning to the camera to say something he thinks is funny is so cheesy and annoying.

Thank you. I needed to be held and you did that. I have found this week hard and triggering and as I cried my way through your video, I remembered why it's not only ok and normal to be angry, it's necessary for healing.

I'm intrigued by Sam's shirt. Wish I could read the writing 🤣

Thank you for dissecting that thing so I didn't have to watch it. You're doing a wonderful service for your fellow exmos.

"keep sane at BYU" I'm in that boat, thanks for the video!

“It didn’t happen but if it did here’s why it was fine” -every fucking predator

20:20 Waco on Netflix is good as well. David Koresh did the same thing.

The cat is like, “you fuckin’ tell ‘em!”

For readers who want to know if Joseph Smith had sex with any females other than his wife Emma, this is from LDS historian Todd Compton's book "In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives Of Joseph Smith": "Because Reorganized Latter Day Saints claimed that Joseph Smith was not really married polygamously in the full (i.e., sexual) sense of the term, Utah Mormons (including Smith’s wives) affirmed repeatedly that he had physical sexual relations with them-despite the Victorian conventions in nineteenth-century American culture which ordinarily would have prevented any mention of sexuality. For instance, Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner stated that she knew of children born to Smith’s plural wives: “I know he had six wives and I have known some of them from childhood up. I know he had three children. They told me. I think two are living today but they are not known as his children as they go by other names.” Melissa Lott Willes testified that she had been Smith’s wife “in very deed.” Emily Partridge Young said she “roomed” with Joseph the night following her marriage to him, and said that she had “carnal intercourse” with him. Other early witnesses also affirmed this. Benjamin Johnson wrote “On the 15th of May … the Prophet again Came and at my hosue [house] ocupied the Same Room & Bed with my Sister that the month previous he had ocupied with the Daughter of the Later Bishop Partridge as his wife.” According to Joseph Bates Noble, Smith told him he had spent a night with Louisa Beaman. When Angus Cannon, a Salt Lake City stake president, visited Joseph Smith III in 1905, the RLDS president asked rhetorically if these women were his father’s wives, then “how was it that there was no issue from them.” Cannon replied: All I knew was that which Lucy Walker herself contends. They were so nervous and lived in such constant fear that they could not conceive. He made light of my reply. He said, “I am informed that Eliza Snow was a virgin at the time of her death.” I in turn said, “Brother Heber C. Kimball, I am informed, asked her the question if she was not a virgin although married to Joseph Smith and afterwards to Brigham Young, when she replied in a private gathering, ‘I thought you knew Joseph Smith better than that.'” Cannon then mentioned that Sylvia Sessions Lyon, a plural wife of Smith, had had a child by him, Josephine Lyon Fisher. Josephine left an affidavit stating that her mother, Sylvia, when on her deathbed, told her that she (Josephine) was the daughter of Joseph Smith. In addition, posterity (i.e., sexuality) was an important theological element in Smith’s Abrahamic-promise justification for polygamy. Since there is a great deal of evidence that Joseph Smith had sexual relations with his wives, one wonders why he did not have more polygamous children. However, some of his children apparently grew up under other names, as Mary Lightner suggested. Furthermore, he may not have had numerous posterity because he was not able to visit his wives regularly, both because he was often hiding from the law and because Emma, his first wife, watched him carefully. In addition, polygamy was illegal. On top of these pressures, he soon had many wives, which made it more difficult to visit all of them frequently and regularly. Since polygamists generally had favorite wives, Smith probably neglected some of his. Finally, some of his wives were married to other men in polyandrous relationships, so such wives would probably have had children by their “first husbands,” with whom they were cohabiting regularly, not by Joseph. All of these factors would have combined to limit the number of his children. However, it is clear that some of his plural wives did have children by him, if we can rely on the statements of George A. Smith, Josephine Fisher, and Elizabeth Lightner."

Seems like presentism doesn’t apply to the inerrant word of god... shouldn’t it be chill at any point in history if it was prophecy??

I LOVE the kitty choir providing background music!! Also the worst part is watching apologists spew bullshit with a smug look on their faces like they're spitting straight facts

The point you make at 22:00 is what I’ve been thinking about a LOT the past couple of days. I’ve wondered if I could through to my parents/siblings by asking them “what if I joined a religion that told me what underwear to wear, had “sacred” rituals that I wasn’t allowed to talk about, forced me to pay 10% of my income to be a fully fledged member, and told me what I was allowed to eat and drink? But it makes me feel good and it does good things for the world.” I’m sure it wouldn’t actually get through to them, but God how I wish it would.

As an exmo, I went to go watch the fairmormon videos out of curiosity, thinking they would be aimed at someone who is questioning the church and has concerns brought up in the CES letter, and that they would treat these valid concerns with some level of respect and understanding. I literally could not believe how wrong I was! The disingenuousness and mocking tone of these videos was disgusting! Thank you for making this video💗

For anybody who wants to know if sex was a major reason, if not the only reason Joseph Smith instituted polygamy, this is from the introduction of LDS historian Todd Compton's book "In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith": "In the group of Smith’s well-documented wives, eleven (33 percent) were 14 to 20 years old when they married him. Nine wives (27 percent) were twenty-one to thirty years old. Eight wives (24 percent) were in Smith’s own peer group, ages thirty-one to forty. In the group aged forty-one to fifty, there is a substantial drop off: two wives, or 6 percent, and three (9 percent) in the group fifty-one to sixty. "The teenage representation is the largest, though the twenty-year and thirty-year groups are comparable, which contradicts the Mormon folk wisdom that sees the beginnings of polygamy as an attempt to care for older, unattached women. These data suggest that sexual attraction was an important part of the motivation for Smith’s polygamy. In fact, the command to multiply and replenish the earth was part of the polygamy theology, so non-sexual marriage was generally not in the polygamous program, as Smith taught it."

I agree with William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft's view on marriage as a socioeconomic institution. I don't have anything against consenting adults having a ceremony and saying they're married, but marriage is as an institution was created to control women.

the part about where Lincoln was a homophobe is funny because he was documented to sleep with his male body guard many times.

I think it was the latest sunstone podcast (love LHP!) they actually had a doctor that took care of pregnancies with a long metalic instrument!

I literally laughed out loud when you said he probably thinks it goes through the belly button. 🤣

For all of the perceived flaws they pointed out about the CES LETTER. Their own argument is filled with flaws. Awesome job on this video Tanner and Samantha. And btw Kwaku yelling I'M A VIRGIN enthusiastically at the end is like in high school when one of my friends in front of a bunch students randomly shouted I MASTERBATE which got most of us laughing I was the only mormon there who laughed though😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

I literally screamed at my phone when I saw FairMormon had Kwaku in their content, like of all the choices

The set situation alone is soooo interesting Sam and Tan (gave ya nicknames) are in regular clothes in a bedroom with candles and plants and it’s friendly and conversational ... Those clowns are behind a desk, in suits, with their little haircuts and printed notes - they are imitating a news set to attempt to look AUTHORITATIVE but not personal or helpful

I just came from one of their videos. The difference is huge. You are both calm, collected, well-researched, logical, and respectful. Thank you ❤