Flirty Fishing FFing is a form of evangelistic religious prostitution practiced by female members of the cult Children of God, currently known as Family International TFI , [1] [2] from around to According to some sources, hundreds of thousands of men were "fished" before the practice was discontinued. The term is derived from Matthew from the New Testament , in which Jesus tells two fishermen that he will make them "fishers of men".
The targeted men were called "fish". The cult published several documents with exact instructions. Flirty Fishing was defined as using sex appeal for proselytizing. If masturbation , oral , or penetrative sex ensued, this was termed as "loving sexually", [5] and also counted as a "deep witness", meaning that the "bait" earned more brownie points within the group than by mere flirting.
Berg noted that Flirty Fishing did not necessarily entail intercourse, but that this was by far the most efficient method of proselytizing. Women who objected to being what the cult itself bluntly described as "God's whores" or "hookers for Jesus" were admonished not to "let self and pride enter in", [7] and reminded that their body did not really belong to them, as according to 1 Corinthians β 20 it had been "bought" by Jesus through his crucifixion "with a price".
In Family publications, flirty fishers and escort service practitioners see below frequently reported that they found their work hard, dangerous, and exhausting. The financial benefit of Flirty Fishing soon led to a further degeneration of the practice from mere flirting into "loving sexually" to "escort servicing" ESing βdescribed as "making FFing pay" by Bergβin which female cult members would work as regular call girls for escort agencies or freelance, and merely "witness" proselytize to their clients when the occasion offered itself.
The Children of God practiced flirty fishing and escort servicing from until , when it was officially abandoned, in part because of the AIDS epidemic. As the women were expected to keep exact records of their "fruits" successes , a statistic showed that more than , men had been "fished" since [3] βand that FFing had nevertheless continued into As the cult generally discourages birth control , the practice also resulted in numerous pregnancies, the offspring of which were termed Jesus babies by the organization.
