00:00This internet-famous group of Mormon moms imploded after one of them revealed they were all wife-swapping swingers.
00:05The fallout was so juicy that marriages fell apart, friendships ended, and the cops got involved.
00:10Now the drama is getting its own TV show.
00:13The soft-swinging Mormon wives of TikTok may be the most scandalous social media stars to break into the world of reality television.
00:19But who are the women of Hulu's new series, the secret lives of Mormon wives, and why is their story so controversial?
00:26The reality show features a crew of young, attractive housewives living in Utah with their families
00:31and their ongoing struggles to uphold the strict standards of their Mormon faith.
00:35The women found overnight viral fame on TikTok with their synchronized dances and identical aesthetics
00:41and gave their growing community the name, hashtag, MomTalk.
00:45The show also delves into the life of MomTalk's leader, Taylor Frankie Paul,
00:48who in 2022 revealed to her 4 million TikTok followers that she and her friend group were soft-swinging,
00:54a confession that sent shockwaves through their online community.
00:57The agreement was just like, as long as we were both there and we saw it and we knew it, it was okay,
01:02and the second it goes behind without each other, then that's, you stepped out of the agreement, and I did that.
01:09Taylor described her friend group's soft-swinging as tame hookups among the different husbands and wives,
01:15under the agreement that all parties gave permission and that the hookups took place in a group setting.
01:20It was like swapping in front of each other, standing next to each other.
01:24The racy revelation was particularly shocking due to Mormonism's strict conservative rules,
01:29which dictate who they can marry, what they can wear, what they can eat, and more.
01:33And these women aren't just bending the rules around adultery,
01:37they're also pushing back against the outdated roles Mormon wives are expected to fulfill,
01:42like submitting to their husbands.
01:43It's clear that these booty-shaking, money-making, husband-swapping TikTok moms
01:48are at odds with their religious honor code.
01:50The Hulu series also covers the scandal around a 2021 viral video made by Utah MomTalks' Whitney Leavitt,
01:57who posted a bizarre TikTok of herself dancing next to her newborn in a hospital
02:01to announce her baby's health condition.
02:12After receiving backlash, Whitney explained the video was made to answer questions people were asking about her son's condition.
02:18And since her videos usually involve dancing, she stuck with her familiar content style.
02:23But critics argued that Whitey's actions prove just how strange and unsettling performative
02:27mommy content can be.
02:29Beyond the tabloid-worthy, attention-seeking stunts pulled by the women of the secret lives of Mormon wives,
02:35the show deals with how they struggle to maintain their religious ethics while managing their modern desires.
02:40While the show has started conversations about the rights of women living in religious communities,
02:44others point out that if they wanted to live more freely, they could always leave the Mormon church.
02:49It seems that, as long as the wives of MomTalk keep sinning, the cameras will keep rolling.
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