awesome tree I found
hello! astrology is saying this fall is not my fall and it’s feeling that way but hopefully I can prove it wrong. I’m starting by wearing big clothes (pants weather wow also why is it so cold) and getting into things that seem mindless but are kind of interesting, like #momtok1. Also important to note I’m pumping out a fair amount of these right now but it’s because grad school hasn’t started yet! Once it does I will probably not be able to write as much, but I thank you guys for continuing to read :)
poopoooppoop
just kidding okay let’s get real okay hyping myself up.
So I tried to watch the show The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives (love the rhyme), but I couldn’t do it. I usually enjoy reality tv, but I could actually feel my brain melting into my spinal cord with this one. However, I’ve done a fair amount of research to make sure I understand the general vibe, why the show was made and why people devoured it!
Okay, let’s start off with the title: The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives2. First off, “mormon” isn’t really used anymore inside of the church (The Church of Latter Day Saints, aka LDS) because of the implication (because of the implication!!!! referencing funny blue guy here) of mormon = polygamy, which the church has wanted to get away from recently. In having this title, the show is directly tying itself to the LDS, which they did not like!
Their statement did not directly reference the show because they didn’t want LDSs who didn’t know about it to stream it! I definitely agree with them that the heuristic of a mormon in my mind/outside the church is not aligned at all with how the women on the show dress and act. The main reason the church doesn’t want people to watch is because of how the show portrays the LDS’ acceptance of abuse and patriarchal values in a way that doesn’t align with how the church wants to represent itself to the public. But yeah, important to know the backlash before the backstory here.
So how did the show get started? Taylor Frankie Paul is a mormon content creator on Tiktok. She, along with three other mormon moms (Whitney, Mayci, and Mikayla) created #momtok, essentially a hype house for mormon moms where they do tiktok dances and showcase their daily lives. The group expanded over time to include Miranda, Mckenna, Camille, Layla, Demi, Jen and Jessi3. In May 2022, Taylor posted a tiktok saying she was getting a divorce from her husband. Rumors of Taylor’s infidelity sprung up, so much so that Taylor felt she needed to address it on tiktok live (lol). She said she didn’t cheat because her marriage was open (not mormon!) and they were both involved in “soft swinging” (no sex but everything else) along with two other couples in #momtok (she didn’t mention specific names at the time). Later, she DID name her best friend Miranda and her husband as the reason the Pauls started soft swinging, as one night the husbands dared Taylor and Miranda to make out, which turned into the couples swapping partners. From there, they continued to swap and also included another couple (Mckenna and her husband).
Taylor says (after an unknown amount of time) that Miranda’s husband comes up to her at the gym and tells her he has feelings for her. Taylor then tells her husband and Mckenna, and Mckenna immediately goes and tells Miranda her husband is in love with Taylor. Okay, so essentially everyone in the swinging group at this point knows. The three couples arrange a meeting to clear the air, but Taylor gets really drunk (not mormon!) and goes to a friend’s house. Mckenna’s husband (the one NOT in love with Taylor) follows her there and they have SEX! OMG! This broke the rules of the swinging group (sex + not with the others), and Taylor and her husband’s marriage is #over.
This information completely blows up #momtok, and causes Hulu to want to produce a reality show around the women! However, Miranda, Camille and Mckenna refuse to be on the show if Taylor is on it, and Hulu recognizes Taylor’s importance to the show. As a result, they bring in other members of #momtok who were NOT a part of the swinging group. Got it? I know it’s a lot. Because of this, the swinging scandal acts purely as a catalyst for the show, and isn’t really talked about during the season.
One more thing before getting into the show I want to talk about is the soda craze they have. Swig is essentially Utah’s version of Starbucks but for soda instead of coffee (mormons cannot have caffeine). Basically every day the moms go to a Swig store and get 44oz INSANE soda drinks and I am so interested in how they taste. Here’s an example of the menu:
they all have a base of either Dr Pepper, Coke or Mountain Dew HAH pretty cheap compared to coffee though!
OKAY FINALLY! I’m not doing a recap of the show, 1 because I didn’t watch it and 2 because there’s not really a plot. I’m going to delve into each of the (main) women and their storylines a bit + cultural stuff.
If you guys do not care about this part, you can skip down to the culture section :)
Let’s start off with our main gal, Taylor. She has a new boyfriend named Dakota who is 100% fame hungry! He wants to get married in temple (meaning directly through LDS) because religion “saved him” (recently sober substance abuser).
One quick note I want to make here is about the different “levels” of mormonism that exist (de facto). Dakota is talking about the highest level, essentially tying your marriage to the church (ex Jen). The next level is marrying outside of LDS, but still upholding all mormon values/practices (ex Whitney). Then there are “jack” mormons, who identity with the faith but in a more cultural sense, aka don’t really follow the rules (ex Taylor). Finally, there are non mormons that converted to the church (ex Layla).
Alright, so Taylor and Dakota’s relationship seems fine until the end of the first episode, in which police body cam footage is shown of Taylor outside of her house crying, clearly drunk and getting arrested. The next episode picks up 11 MONTHS LATER! The reason Taylor was arrested is because her and Dakota have a pretty toxic/abusive marriage, and they were throwing things at each other and yelling when Taylor threw a metal stool and accidentally hit her kid. Jesus christ! She explains that she’s now on probation, and the incident is never spoken of again?! Her and Dakota are still together! And she’s pregnant out of wedlock (not mormon)! Except it’s an ectopic pregnancy, meaning the baby is growing outside the uterus, which usually results in a miscarriage. Does the show go into the trauma of this at all? No! Taylor also seems very weirdly factual/non-emotional about it.
Taylor is one of the main reasons people watch this show, imo. She makes so many bad decisions it’s akin to watching a car crash: you can’t look away!
If Taylor is the protagonist (at least for the first few eps, then it becomes more of a true ensemble show), then Whitney is for sure the villain. She is also pregnant during this season, basically about to pop, and is married to a guy named Conner (who changes his hair/general appearance an insane number of times throughout the show). Whitney’s main storylines, besides being a bitch to everyone, are her pregnancy and Conner being on Tinder for their whole marriage. Conner says he never cheated, and that he was only on Tinder because he had a porn addiction 😭. Sure bud, whatever you say. The first episode sees Whitney moving back from Hawaii and telling the other moms the reason she left (Conner’s “addiction”). The other moms don’t really gaf lol. A defining moment of the show is when Whitney bakes her positive (peed on) pregnancy stick into a cake to announce to her parents she is pregnant. She makes her parents eat the cake and they are pretty shocked by what’s inside!
Jen is the most devout of #momtok, mostly because of her husband Zac Affleck. I’m including the last name because he is second cousins with Ben and Casey Affleck! She’s the only mom who actually wears “mormon” attire (not strapless dresses and club fits). Zac is really terrible and quite abusive towards Jen, and is a gambling addict. Great guy wow! Because of the gambling, Jen is paying his way through medical school. Jen please stand up please.
Mayci, The Nice One who wants everyone to get along, sees the abusive behavior among Dakota and Zac in particular and sits Taylor and Jen down to talk to them about it. She tells them to leave their husbands (#yes), and is the only mom besides Demi who is still somewhat friends with Whitney post-show.
Mikayla’s story is downright terrifying: married at 16 to a 21 year old! They are still together :))))) He is not in jail because of Utah’s Romeo and Juliet law, wherein a 16/17 year old can consent to sex with someone up to 10 years older than them. This is pretty much normalized on the show.
Jessi and Demi are somewhat minor characters, with Demi being a bit more progressive (ex talking about using sex toys #notmormon).
Layla converted to the church on her own after getting divorced (she’s currently 23, so she got married very young). She has two kids with her ex but states she’s never had an orgasm before, throws a divorce party and gets a tattoo (not mormon!) as a sign of rebellion. Leading into the culture section, she is VERY focused on her appearance, as she believes looking more attractive/“perfect” will lead her to find a new husband and have more kids. Because of this, she had 6 cosmetic procedures within four months directly before the show filmed.
CULTURE
Mormon culture upholds perfectionism in a dangerous way. You can never be too thin/pretty/young = all of these women have plastic surgery/botox and look very similar to one another (genuinely really hard to tell a lot of them apart). Perfection also relates to lifestyle, as in, the presentation of a great marriage and family life is very important (aka the abusive nature of a fair amount of these husbands is swept under the rug by the church).
However, a lot of the show seems to center around the taking down of this patriarchal perspective, having the women talk about being the breadwinners for the family and get power (financial and social) from this in their religion that is usually restricted to their husbands. The moms also discuss how they were pushed to marry young and that they want more social freedoms. At the same time, they are seen upholding practices that essentially cast them aside, such as at Whitney’s baby shower, where only the men can bless the baby because only the men have the power of God. Jessi also gets a labiaplasty to “revirginize” herself, so there’s that.
On their social medias, while the moms may see themselves as modernizing mormon womanhood, they are essentially a propaganda machine similar to tradwife content. I don’t think any of these moms has this perspective, as they were raised in a religion whose followers are trained to spread the word of God, even just through the way they choose to live their lives. The #momtok dances and perfect family content create a false sense of community and easy living that permeates the cultural membrane, similarly to Liz Lemon’s induction into the rich divorced women’s group when she has PTO for sexual harassment.
In my view, infamy is just as good as evangelicalism. People, especially women, are engaging in discourse about mormonism online, drawing more awareness to its way of life in a way the church itself may not like, but does get more folks to read their philosophies and engage in their culture. It’s almost taboo, as intoxicating for many women as true crime but much more ethical. Fuck a majority of true crime content!
I feel like I have much more to say but don’t know how to say it. If anyone wants to talk about this with me feel free cause I find it so interesting! Okay bye 🍓🌪️
I am not really on tiktok anymore but used it for research this time
every time I see this title I think of the Secret Life of Pets that I watched in theaters with a kid I was babysitting and wanting to throw sharp objects @ the screen whenever I heard Kevin Hart’s voice
these last two were last minute additions to the show, as they are mormon mom influencers but not really friends with the rest of #momtok pre-filming. this was done to fill the hole Miranda, Mckenna and Camille left when they refused to be on the show.