'It's Not About the Sex' My Ass

Publisher's Summary

With wit, humor, and style, Joanne Hanks takes you on a wild ride through the insanity of the Mormon-based polygamist cult that was her life for seven years.

Get ready to laugh. Get ready to be outraged. And get ready to see polygamy as no one has ever revealed it before. Joanne tells their crazy story with humor and honesty. You'll share her angst over sharing her husband. You'll meet her "sister wives", a prophet calling himself a "celestial stud service" who seeks divine guidance on threesomes, and apostles who dress in weird robes to curse the White House. You'll fume at gut-wrenching tales of racism, sexual abuse, fraud, and manipulation. And you'll find out why no one remembers when Jesus destroyed the world on March 26, 2000.

"It's Not About The Sex" My Ass is more than an entertaining listen. It's a cautionary tale about the power of delusional thinking and a hopeful tale of one woman and her family who came to their senses and found the courage to leave.

©2012 Joanne Hanks and Steve Cuno (P)2015 Pitchstone Publishing

A Serious Tale Told With Honesty, Wit & Humor

Would you listen to 'It's Not About the Sex' My Ass again? Why?

I will certainly listen again because it is just that interesting and entertaining.

What did you like best about this story?

I most appreciated the author's candor about her own acceptance of religious ideas and practices that many listeners and readers will no doubt think are outlandish. Her descriptions of her gradual acceptance of ever more strange doctrines and the gradual lifting of the veil of belief to reveal the absence of truth at the core of the True and Living Church.

Which character – as performed by Kimberly Ellington – was your favorite?

The story is told in the first person from the author's point of view. The tone is conversational and occasionally reminded me of Julia Sweeney's delightful "Letting Go of God". Ms Hanks' story is not a stand-up comedy routine. It is a serious story about real people in the grip of a strange and potentially dangerous ideology.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It made me sad and then it made me laugh. The greatest benefit I derived from Ms Hanks' story was being reminded that none of us are immune to being bamboozled. As Carl Sagan said "“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” Ms Hanks and her readers are fortunate that she was eventually able to recognize the bamboozle.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

a great book

the book is very enjoyable to listen to. it is an honest autobiography of a self effacing lady told in a non vindictive humorous style.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Funny, insightful, well written with a great narrator

This book is particularly insightful for anyone who grew up Mormon, or are surrounded by members of the LDS church. It is both funny and liberating to hear someone be so open about their experiences and downfalls. It serves as a great expose on religion general.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Interesting first-hand account

There was no big reveal or anything surprisingly shocking here. But, it was an engaging first-hand account of the inner experiences.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Highly Recommended

This book will have you laughing out loud at its hilarious dry wit while at the same time taking you into a sobering and frightening world that becomes a prison of belief for its members. It's a rare treat to both find the humor in life in a dangerous cult while evoking feelings of being trapped in a world of insanity and finally emerging into a healed and happy life. Extraordinary!!!

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Honestly told with all the humor needed to endure.

How refreshing it is to listen to this woman's story told simply and clearly about her complex journey through religious fanaticism.
Most of all I salute her choice of stand-up comedian/ philosopher in her path back to sanity. No spoilers here; but I will say that I'm about to start enjoying this book again right away now that I KNOW recovery was so honestly and completely achieved.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Entertaining and Informative

This was a truly sad story with a tounge-in-cheek approach. It conveyed some fundamental knowledge about Mormons and one example of one of its close derivatives the "True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days", the latter being the main subject of this book and called by the name TLC.

The book demonstrates the results of organized religions that rely on traditions rather than adhere to the Holy Bible. The Mormons assign the label of Apostates to those followers of TLC. This book is primarily the subject it covers. TLC doctrines and teachings include that of 'plural marriage' or polygamy. In this case, men have many wives. The more, the better.

The stories in this book are mostly the personal thoughts and experiences of the author. Joanne Hanks demonstrates a few of the siuations where members are brainwashed resulting in, primarily, ways in which supposedly Holy Christian leaders are reincarnated prominent past Christians wo make up several way to have sucess with many women. Their multiple wives make for husbands to have multiple sex partners. The religious reason for these multiple sex partners is the propagation of humans to fill the earth once all non-congregants are destroyed by God. The authors thus purport that TLC higher-ups use the device of supposed instructions by God to excuse their actions, especially those that involve sex.

2 of 3 people found this review helpful

BORING

Nothing exciting or "juicy" at all! Don't waste your time...I will be returning this one

A fun listen, but I wanted more substance

I enjoyed the snarky way the author told her story of joining a polygamist cult. "Can you believe these crazies?" she seemed to say with the benefit of hindsight. I found her voice appealing. However, I wished for more substance. I would have especially liked more insight into why she went along with joining the cult in the first place.

Good Supplement to Other Works

This book is a fun jaunt into the world of Jim Harmston's polygamous splinter sect, and it is definitely enjoyable! Knowing the background of the religion and the history and culture of mormonism is definitely useful before you get to this book, so I think it's best as a supplement to other, longer texts that address the history and development of fundamental mormonism, particularly "Secrets and Wives: The Hidden World of Mormon Polygamy," by Sanjiv Bhattacharya, and "Under the Banner of Heaven," by Jon Krakauer.