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Pretty cool! No frumpers and the women are wearing earings. I can understand that the rock likely keeps the houses cool, but what a weird place to build!

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The cliff houses are a great idea. I'd love to live in one of them

In the photographs you will notice how unique their world is, but one thing in particular that inspired me so much (even though my life is vastly different from theirs) is how happy their children were all around - every house, in every corner of the community, I found kids with an enormous curiosity, either they were doing their homeschool time or playing in total joy.

Lots of people who only take a superfical look at fundies think that they are happy. They've been taught to show only joy. Sometimes, they've been taught that joy is the only acceptable emotion.

Most kids are happy when they play with other kids. That doesn't mean that they aren't being abused.

Except for living in a town placed in a cliff side,I don't think that these people are different than most fundies.

edited because I noticed women in the second link who had on pants.

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Long, loose skirts are in fashion, and Mormonism does seem to put an emphasis on modesty. There's quite a few "trendy modest" sites out there run by Mormons, largely for Mormons.

There were girls wearing pants, I know I saw a few. And in the Denver Post article, Enoch's wives were both wearing pants. Bob Foster's wives were encouraged to find jobs when Bob turned 65.

They don't seem very fundie to me.

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I read the second article and now don't know what to think of this group.

He urged his wives to find careers when he turned 65 and thought he would not have much longer to live. Second wife Susan went to Durango to work in accounting. Fourth wife Carla went to medical school and is now a physician near Salt Lake City. Third wife Karen opted to stay at the rock, where she raises Yorkshire terriers, tends an organic garden and runs a trash transfer station several days a week in La Sal.

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Long, loose skirts are in fashion, and Mormonism does seem to put an emphasis on modesty. There's quite a few "trendy modest" sites out there run by Mormons, largely for Mormons.

There were girls wearing pants, I know I saw a few. And in the Denver Post article, Enoch's wives were both wearing pants. Bob Foster's wives were encouraged to find jobs when Bob turned 65.

They don't seem very fundie to me.

I read the second article after I posted my comment. Maybe they have grown less fundie now that the son is involved. :think: The article also states that not everyone in the group is Mormon or are polygamist.

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I'm all for consensual polyamory, but I don't like this compound. Saying that the kids seem happy is really a poor excuse. What happens to the leftover boys? How happy will they be? And how happy will the girls be if they don't want to share their husbands but can do nothing to stop it? It's also weird that Bob wanted his wived to start working when he turned 65. Aside from the fact that they shouldn't need his permission and they should do it on their own terms instead of his, why were they able to work when he feared he might be too old? I'm concerned that there is a large age gap, which I wouldn't care about in other contexts but in this case it makes me wonder if women are pressured into marrying much older men.

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Very interesting. I'm cautiously inclined to think they're not abusive and the women seem to have a voice and a desire to be there.

I will say that after looking at the pictures, am stuck on the pic of the girl in the plaid shirt. She has the most delicate beauty I've ever seen.

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The cave houses remind me of the dugouts in the remote opal mining town of Coober Pedy. It's a weird place to visit as you can tell it's well-populated but you can't SEE much of the houses. It looks like the surface of the moon or Mars. On both occasions I've visited I've stayed overnight in a huge dormitory dugout, large enough to accommodate 70+ people. The temperature difference is AMAZING, and you can really appreciate why people who live way out in the blistering heat of the desert would dig into the hillside.

http://www.outback-australia-travel-secrets.com/coober-pedy-underground-homes.html

Check out the real estate listings, one page one alone there are at least 5 underground houses with photos: http://www.realestate.com.au/buy/in-coober+pedy,+sa+5723/list-1 CHEAP real estate if you don't mind living 900km from the state capital!

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They've taken in some "refugees" from the FLDS, too (Colorado City's one of the FLDS towns). Foster Sr. has the typical FLDS/Lamb of God kind of end of the world ideas, some of the same language (place of refuge) and the oldschool fundamentalist Mormon ideas about continuing prophecy, but they're definitely a more liberal, less autocratic version of it.

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The home community is interesting, not something I would choose for myself (rock over my head would have me imagining cave in, even though it would probably be highly unlikely)

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Dangit, Mister Foster, I'd be a perfect addition to your community, but I grew up cussing like an NCO.

Seriously, they don't look like a bad lot. Except for the religious part, it's a situation I could be happy in. Well, provided they'd put up with a childfree sister-wife.

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Meh. I'll withhold judgement for awhile. It seems like people are free to come and go. That's certainly a positive. The leader seems to have the standard kooky ideas - god talks to him and the world will end any minute. That doesn't usually go in a good direction.

There's talk of women in jeans but all the women pictured were wearing long skirts. It's unclear how much the community interferes with female clothing choices.

The little blurb about Enoch being "selfless" because he works all day then reads to his kids and plays with them a bit. I didnt get that. How's that different from a typical dad. I think typical dads do more than that actually. Besides providing for kids you bring into the world is a bare minimum requirement.

I suppose it's a step up from flds though. And it gives fleeing flds-ers a place to run to.

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They use the fact that one of the first wives chose a second wife for her husband as proof that these women love this lifestyle or something. I think it's a way to subconsciously control a situation that they don't REALLY like (whether they will even admit that to themselves or not). I mean, hey, if I had to share my husband I know I would at LEAST like to choose the woman I share so much of my life with.

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They use the fact that one of the first wives chose a second wife for her husband as proof that these women love this lifestyle or something. I think it's a way to subconsciously control a situation that they don't REALLY like (whether they will even admit that to themselves or not). I mean, hey, if I had to share my husband I know I would at LEAST like to choose the woman I share so much of my life with.

Yeah. The whole article has a weird feel to it. It's like those old ads where they tried to show a certain brand of cigarette wasn't so bad for you. "Try Polygamy-lite, the polygamous cult that's actually good for you.". I don't know. Their cliff homes are cool and all. Beyond that I'm not very impressed.

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Underneath the modern surface, there is still a man who thinks God talks to him. That's a setup for a power imbalance. How do you disagree with a guy who says he talks to God?

This place was at the center of a custody battle a few years back. Anazella Swapp (daughter of polygamist cult leader Addam Swapp) moved to Rockland with her daughter. The child's father didn't want his daughter raised to be a broodmare and a sister wife, so he fought for full custody and lost.

ETA: I find it strange that everyone in the photos is really attractive and photogenic.

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I don't know, after all if they are not all poly, then there's a chance that not everything is abusive. Like all patriarchal models, some women will feel at ease in it. Apparently you can also come and go as you wish, you can divorce too. So it's permissive enough IMO. There's a risk of abuse in any community, even in non-poly situations, but from the info provided it does not seem like there's a systemic organization abusing women.

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The little blurb about Enoch being "selfless" because he works all day then reads to his kids and plays with them a bit. I didnt get that. How's that different from a typical dad. I think typical dads do more than that actually. Besides providing for kids you bring into the world is a bare minimum requirement.

Yeah, in general I just really hate this attitude that expectations for fathers as so dismally low that anything they do deserves a cookie and a medal. When I was 17, my parents separated. For a class at a community college, I had to read an essay called "My Husband's Nine Wives", written by a woman in a polygynous marriage who was trying to make her family seem great. She said it was a fantastic arrangement because her kids got to have dinner with their father once a week. And I kind of felt sorry for those kids because I had a standing dinner "date" with my own date every Monday, and my parents weren't even married! And we officially spent time together once per week, but we also frequently did things informally throughout the week. So if this author wants to convince me that her arrangement is so great, she should have shown how her husband was a better father than a divorced one.

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On the other hand, for someone coming out of a Kingston clan family, or the FLDS, it might look like paradise.

I mean, I don't think polygamy is inherently any worse than monogamy; what's bad is the authoritarian, gender-divided, religion. But there's still a big gap between individual groups in terms of freedom of choice.

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