Everything You Need To Know About The Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives
It's mainly ONE thing
*Post publication note: Thank you to close reader Zillah for pointing out that 1978 was not actually when the Mormon church first allowed Black members, but rather, when they lifted the ban on Black priesthood and the ban on Black women entering the temple. Here are two great resources if you’d like to learn more about the church’s relationship with Blackness and racism. And thank you again Zillah!
I presume that many of you (like me!) were excited to dig into the new Hulu series created on the heels of the Mormon momfluencer swinging scandal. This is, after all, a newsletter built on the back of momfluencer analysis!
And the Mormon momfluencer swinging scandal WAS quite the scandal. In 2022, a group of young, classically social-media-attractive, Mormon momfluencers with varying degrees of hair extensions gained fame first through their #MomTok dance content. And later through one of the most well known MomTokkers, Frankie Taylor Paul, posting a TikTok in which she outs some in the group as [soft] swingers, which, as far as I can tell, means hookups but not sex? This would’ve been a scandal within any group of momfluencers, but the fact that the women involved are MORMON was really what made the incident go from viral to super viral.
In the trailer of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, MomTok member Mayci Neely says, “We are trying to change the stigma of the gender roles in the Mormon culture,” and Hulu sites the “international” swinging scandal in the first line of the show’s description, but after diligently watching all 8 episodes, I learned nothing about the swinging scandal I couldn’t deduce through a quick google. I also can’t figure out how a few Mormon #bossbabes are disrupting the culture of a religion which employs a glorified “don’t ask, tell tell” policy for its queer members, only allowed Black members in order to increase church membership (in 1978!!!*), and which had this to say about the Equal Rights Amendment, (which failed to pass largely because of an organized opposition movement led by conservative Christians):
ERA as a blanket attempt to help women could indeed bring them far more restraints and repressions. We fear it will even stifle many God-given feminine instincts. It would strike at the family, humankind’s basic institution. ERA would bring ambiguity and possibly invite extensive litigation. Passage of ERA, some legal authorities contend, could nullify many accumulated benefits to women in present statutes. We recognize men and women as equally important before the Lord, but with differences biologically, emotionally, and in other ways.
(Italics mine because HEAVEN FORBID our “God-given feminine instincts” to bear and raise children be hampered by the utter buzzkill of equal pay, reproductive justice, and legal recourse against sexist discrimination being protected by the constitution!)
The church also says this about the “joys” of womanhood: “We have enough popularity; we need more purity.” Totally.
This is not to say that purity culture, reproductive justice, women’s oppression, and the toxicity of the gender binary don’t come up in The Secret Lives. It’s just that the average viewer might very well miss them in the haze of stereotypical reality show glitz and glam. And as an amateur Mormon scholar by way of momfluencer studies, none of the Mormon “secrets” felt particularly revelatory.
I knew about garments, Mormon underwear that’s supposed to remind the wearer of their commitment to God, and which one member of #MomTok references whenever possible. I knew that Mormons aren’t big on sex ed (one of the MomTokkers has her first child at age 16). I knew that Mormons favor traditional gender roles, which makes it a bit “tricky” for one breadwinner’s husband to deal with his toxic masculinity.
I knew that when one MomTokker gets offered several thousand dollars to promote a sex toy it’d be a WHOLE THING. And yes obviously the gals attending a Chippendale show in Vegas would be the CRISIS of the series. See above note about “tricky” husbands and their “tricky” issues with control and emotional abuse.
Again and again, we’re told that MomTok is all about female empowerment and shaking up Mormon norms. The group is separated into “sinners” and “saints,” a conceit which makes me so tired I can barely finish typing this sentence. And the most outspoken “sinner,” Demi, opines frequently about Jen’s husband’s narcissism and decries the misogyny in the Mormon church. But she doesn’t explicitly break ties with that church? Or specifically renounce the LDS church’s historical (and current) bigotry and oppression when it comes to abortion, queerness, and gender? We’re told (again and again and again) that the “whole point” of MomTok is for sisterhood and to pave the way for a new generation of Mormon women. But theirs is not a new path; it’s well-trodden #girlboss white feminism. The women’s radical behavior amounts to critiquing shitty husbands and utilizing social media performances of femininity to succeed as capitalists.
Lest you think this thread of Mormon “feminism” is a big part of the show, I must assure you, it is not. Instead, the “we’re Mormon but we’re DIFFERENT” avowals feel like the result of heavy-handed prompting from producers who know that many viewers are curious about Mormonism and gender, and they’re obligated to give those viewers SOMETHING. Even if that something takes up maybe a total of 15 minutes spread between 8 hours of television.
This is my long winded way of saying that The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives feels like a slightly more Mormon version of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City rather than an illuminating peek behind the (famously opaque) Mormon curtain. There are girls’ trips at “cute” AirBNBs. There’s backstabbing. There are multiple altercations about who said what to whom and when. There are lots and lots of outfit changes. There’s SO MUCH hair. And in case you forgot you were watching a big cultural deep dive, Hulu spends probably a solid hour (maybe more!) of the series setting panoramic views of the LDS temple and framed pictures of Jesus to thumping reality show background music. You know, because it’s reality tv, but it’s Mormon reality tv.
So listen, if you’re into the Real Housewives franchise, you’ll love this series. But if you’re curious about one of the country’s most powerful, influential, and RICH (as of 2023, the church had amassed $265 BILLION dollars), fundamentalist patriarch religions, here are some great resources.
John Krakauer’s Under The Banner Of Heaven
Alyssa Grenfell’s How to Leave The Mormon Church (see also her Insta reel on the Mormon dog whistles in the Secret Lives, her theory on why Mormon influencers make so much money, and um this).
- ’s newsletter, .
Jamie Loftus’s recent podcast two-parter on Mormon influencers.
The documentary, Keep Sweet: Pray And Obey.
Stay tuned for my conversation about all things Real Wives with
on the coming out next week. We just recorded it and it was a MEATY convo.