Actual Ex-Mo Predators

[Kishkumen]

With all of the time and emotion wasted on the sins of John Dehlin, it can unfortunately be difficult to keep in view the fact that there have been and are actual predators out there in the world of Post-Mormonism and Mormon Studies.

Some may recall the horrific and heartbreaking case of Tom Kimball, a very troubled man who worked for Signature Books and turned out to be a child predator. Now new allegations have arisen concerning a person once central to the operations of the establishment known as Writ & Vision, a very outspoken, even strident, champion of women’s rights who is alleged to have preyed on vulnerable adult victims of abuse. If I recall correctly, this person liked to slam John Dehlin. To get a flavor of the accusations, check out the following:

Hey, ex-Mormons, I have an idea for a novel I'm thinking of writing and I REALLY want to get your feedback on it! Please let me know what you think in the comments.

Here's the concept:

So, let's say there was an ex-…..CATHOLIC failed academic by the name of, oh, I dunno... we'll call him something weird and kinda random... maybe something like Krad Bramer. (I literally don't even KNOW anyone named Krad! What a silly goose my brain is to just randomly manufacture such a weird name, amirite??? I might change it eventually, but for now I'll just go with this as a placeholder, lol)

And let's say that this protagonist, Krad Bramer, positioned himself very artfully in the ex-Catholic world. Let's say he so artfully mastered the skill of grooming and outward presentation that he even passed himself off as the brains behind an establishment within this community. Let's say he wants to be known as a baker even though he wouldn’t be able to proof a teaspoon of yeast if it bit him on the ass, and that he decided to pretend to be the creator and executive of a religion-adjacent bakery or something. And let's say he showed up at and pretended to be the primary organizer of community meals there in this bakery and lots of ex-Catholic culinary artists would come and literally break bread, and share their various works in this shop, right in the heart of the Catholic church’s most favorite city. This would give Krad the aura of power and influence in this world. And then let's say he had access to lots of food-lovers and other ex-Catholic culinary artists because of this, as this space that he claimed to have ownership of became a well-beloved part of a hurting ex-Catholic community, and a place for ex-Catholic culinary artists and food writers and fellow bakers to feature their work.

Now let's imagine this guy is REALLY smart. This fictional character I have based on nobody in particular, Krad Bramer, is, as I mentioned, a spectacularly failed academic (seriously, his academic career is so damned pitiful it is embarrassing, and this feeds into his profound sense of egoic inferiority). Yet, at the same time, he is SUPER good with words and is a very convincing writer. And let's imagine that he, studious as he is, learned VERY well the language of politics, oppression, and all of the progressivisms du jour of his day. And that he talked about these things a lot. Let's say he even talked a lot about women and women's issues, and that he did so in a VERY convincing way, that made him appear to be extremely progressive, extremely safe, extremely "not like all the other guys."

But, let's just imagine that something was very wrong. His insides were rotted. His egoic self, behind the scenes, was actually the part of him running the show, and instead of doing good things for good, Krad was building an elaborate ruse with which to live out his sexual fantasies with women.

Lots of women.

Lots of vulnerable, hurting women.

In this story, he would start by singling out a woman in distress and giving her praise and attention. This fictional character targeted survivors of domestic violence and narcissistic abuse. He would swoop in with caring verbiage, saying all the things to make these women feel seen, feel validated. He pretended that he was there to selflessly support them and that he was generously donating time and resources to help a worthy woman to survive and heal. He pretended to be a real friend, the realest male friend she’d ever had.

Many of the fictional women in this story were explicit about not wanting a romantic entanglement and having too much trauma or personal danger to be romantically involved. He would pretend to be a friend and then pretend to fall in love despite himself. He would butter them up, and make them feel like he might provide them the love they'd been missing in previous relationships (meanwhile, Krad himself was married and cheating on his own wife). He would say that his wife had a boyfriend, that the marriage had been sexless for over a decade and that he was going to have an amicable divorce in a couple years when his kids were raised. And then Krad would start to pressure them for sexual favors (and just so you know I HAVE SEEN THE SCREENSHOTS of this kind of thing in other situations so I really do understand what this kind of pressure looks like and can accurately portray it in my novel)-- He TOLD women that the danger he put them in was a turn on for him. He would ask them to keep the favors secret from his wife and kids and he would tell the women that the danger of being caught made the sneaking around all the more exciting.

This fictional character, Krad, would remind them continually of the danger they were in and would encourage them to keep dwelling on the threats to their safety. He actively and deliberately damaged women he pretended to care about in this horrible way. Hurting them without them knowing. Convincing them they were unique when they were just one of dozens, possibly more than dozens, of women he collected as a hobby. He often would take words from a conversation with one woman and pass them off as his own in a different conversation with a different woman. He was very active on Facebook but what most people didn’t know is that the posts that weren’t a collection of nasty insults deriding conservatives were often the words of women he was toying with, that he passed off as his own.

He got off on it. On all of it.

I think I'll actually write Krad Bramer as such a vile character that HE ACTUALLY TOLD PEOPLE that he gets off on endangering abused women. That's right, this protagonist is so vile that while he maintained a public presence in which he claimed to deeply care about the humanity of women, in actuality he only did so because he got off on the idea of women being physically, perilously endangered because of his own actions. This wasn't just fantasy. He was actually attempting to orchestrate situations where this might happen because he found it sexually appealing.

Wouldn't this be SUCH a compelling character in a book?

And listen, I haven't written the book yet, so I'm not sure how things turn out for my protagonist Krad, but I CAN tell you what I would say to any of my three daughters IF that hypothetical situation were true and they encountered someone like my character Krad Bramer, and were maybe even seduced by him:

I would tell them to never, ever ever believe anything Krad Bramer says. I would tell them that Krad Bramer is a serial abuser who uses his reputation as a baker and as a spectacularly failed academic with impressive use of the English language, to cajole women into believing he loves them--and that they should definitely, without question, stop engaging with him if he ever started a conversation with them. I would tell my daughter, if the hypothetical situation I described above about the fictional character Krad Bramer were actually true, that this was not her fault at all, and that she was a victim of a predator, and that she should not be ashamed, but that she SHOULD be angry. Very, very damned angry.

I would also tell my three daughters, or any other woman in this terrible situation, something like this: "If you find yourself in this kind of situation with Krad Bramer, you are not alone. You can reach out to me anytime and I will believe you. You aren't bad and you have nothing to be ashamed of--predators are to blame for their predations, not their victims. Please reach out to somebody if this has happened or is happening to you. My Facebook dm's are always open, and there are people who have reached out to me and offered to stand with you in solidarity as you recover from this situation."

But most of all, I would say Screw you KRAD BRAMER, you snivelling, pusillanimous, gangrenous gaping wound on the rotting ballsack of ex-Catholocism. Screw you for lying to an entire community so you could feel tingles in your ding dong. Screw you for not taking responsibility for your own desires, for not growing up, and then for pretending to be enlightened so that you could access victims. Screw you for convincing other people who DO deeply care about women and women's issues that you were an ally to their cause, such that your words spread. And FUUUUCK YOOOOOU for endangering the lives of hurting, vulnerable women, you lying, manipulative, monstrous piece of human garbage. (We're going to just pretend here that my character, Krad Bramer, in his magnificent ruse, used to go on passionate tirades about people he thought were morally bankrupt that sounded just like this, which is why it is so fitting to now do so about him. I might even include this paragraph in my novel!)

Wouldn't this make SUCH an awesome book with such a loathsome, absolutely vile and disgusting protagonist you hope rots for all he's done?

I hope all of this is untrue, but it looks pretty bad. What I notice in both of these monstrous cases, however, is a real clear and damning pattern of behavior. I also note the lack of a vocal victim who haunts message boards doling out vague claims about the abuser with endless empty promises of forthcoming evidence. Real victims apparently are not rushing out to garner attention through their victimhood. Makes sense, when you think about it.

Finally, the situation with Dehlin is so different from these terrible tragedies and serious crimes of actual predation, that I have to wonder what kind of bizarrely troubled person it takes to waste everyone’s time, for literally years, trying to equate Dehlin’s tawdry peccadillos with such serious crimes and allegations.

I deplore the monstrousness that predators perpetrate when preying on their victims. The suffering of the innocent. I am also baffled and deeply troubled by people who hitch their victimhood fantasies to such deadly serious phenomena in order to capture attention, garner sympathy, and even manufacture notoriety. All of the above is grotesque.

[drumdude]

I don't particularly see the value in comparing disparate people's traumas. They can stand or fall alone on their own merits.

[IWMP]

I don't particularly see the value in comparing disparate people's traumas. They can stand or fall alone on their own merits.

Life is relative. I'm not sure I fully believe rosebuds claims because it seems clear from her own evidence that there is a level of mutual whatever you would call it and it reads as scorned lover. But I hold the benefit of the doubt that she is genuinely feeling the way she feels. I do think scorned lovers would eventually get over their scorned feelings if it were as simple as that. But, if what she says is true, even relatively low level abuse, we can't compare. We can't say, suck it up because people out there experience worse. When I went to therapy years ago the psychiatrist said my childhood was horrific. I didn't believe him. I could always imagine worse. But I have always understood that because be that as it may, a person could have a wonderful childhood by comparison but can be equally affected and traumatised. Because the level of trauma isn't proportional to the experience that caused it.

People can be genuinely traumatised from things that others find normal.

I do understand what kish is saying. I do think there is a huge difference and there is value to be said in that but ultimately, how people are affected and how they behave can be very different.

[Marcus]

Holly Welker commented further:

So, about this Brad guy who has left Facebook. (TW: creepy sexual stuff, Mormon stuff)
tl;dr: men should stop making so many goddamn messes, and when they do make a mess, they should clean it up themselves instead of leaving it for someone else to deal with
POST:
A decade or so ago, someone who had been subjected to creepy, unwanted sexual advances from him told me in person about his behavior. I believed this person, and I was horrified. Thereafter I warned women about him when I had the chance, but I also stayed Facebook friends with him, because he was willing to hold readings for my Mormon-themed books at his art gallery in Utah County. And, admittedly, I enjoyed some of his Facebook posts. I even recommended his feed to some of my friends who shared the politic bent Brad presented.
When I was in Utah in 2022 for readings of "Revising Eternity," my second book about Mormon marriage, Brad lied to me--a stupid, gratuitous, servile lie that someone at his art gallery casually exposed, because they had no idea he'd told this stupid lie. I didn't unfriend Brad over that, either, but I did scale back my interaction with him.
The story about him now is that he persuaded and/or tried to persuade women in fraught situations to engage in surreptitious sexual behavior with him and that he underscored the danger this posed.
After Tom Kimball unalived himself in 2020, I wrote that predators groom not only their victims but their entire community, because how else can they have access to victims and enough clout to avoid punishment? Tom talked openly about his sense that he deserved special treatment and consideration, and women who proclaimed themselves feminists gave it to him.
Parents don't usually leave their kids in the care of irresponsible strangers. So someone who wants access to a child will first groom the child's parents and convince them that they're trustworthy enough to be left alone with the child. The trust is crucial, not just so that abuse can be perpetrated, but so that it can also be credibly denied by the abuser.
In other words, a predator's MO is to create trust and then exploit it in the service of their own gratification and harm to others. And along the way, there's little else they won't exploit.
In hindsight, it seems clear to me that Brad exploited
--his art gallery
--politics
--religion
--ethics
--feminism
--LGBTQ+ people
--anything anyone else said or wrote that was clever and insightful (the charge is that if he wasn't a complete plagiarist, he still did not practice intellectual integrity, despite being an academic)
--his connections
--his marriage
in service of his serial sexual creepiness.
I've learned that Brad trotted out my name and the fact that I was Facebook friends with him as evidence of his feminist credentials. As if my judgment in Facebook friends were completely unassailable.
I saw through Tom Kimball and did something about it. I saw through Brad Kramer and didn't do much about it.
As I understand it, Josh Weed was asked to publicize Brad's actions so that his victims could remain anonymous. So there's a massive post on Josh's page with somewhere near 500 comments, some of them complaining that, say, Josh's post was insufficiently decorous, or that ex-mos have the temerity to say mean things about men they haven't met in person, like Brad or John Dehlin (both of whom I have met in person; I've also met some of their victims in person). It's a big old damned mess.
I'm just so goddamn sick and tired of this messy crap.
When I was struggling to say something helpful in the wake of Tom Kimball being outed, I came up with a test regarding messes. To wit:
//How does the person feel about creating a mess? Do they make messes on behalf of others--like, say, protesting because they want to rectify injustice suffered by people who have historically been without power--or because they want to preserve a status quo that favors them and those like them?
Do they recognize the cost of their actions? Do they accept the consequences of their messes, which is that you might no longer trust or like them? If they're making a mess and you tell them to stop, will they? If they make a mess and apologies are in order, will they apologize? Will they stick around to help clean up the messes they've made?//
Thanks to Brad (and John, and someone else I know in person but won't name, as well as Joseph Smith and Brigham Young), I've thought of a few more questions: Do they make messes because they get off on making messes? Do they make messes because they just don't give a crap about anyone but themselves? Do they make messes to distract from their bad behavior? Do they make messes because they're just really bad people?
Brad didn't clean up his mess. Instead, several weeks ago he posted something about how he'd decided it was important to leave Facebook for his mental health. I rolled my eyes at that but didn't say anything.
I AM SO GODDAMN SICK OF DEALING WITH THE ROTTEN MESSES THESE ROTTEN MEN CREATE.
Polygamy is the biggest single mess I've had to deal with that some man created just because he was a really bad person. Look at all the misery Joseph Smith's sexual selfishness has wrought. I seriously doubt this mess will ever be cleaned up. To clean it up in the Utah church, the leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would have to renounce Doctrine and Covenants 132, and that's unlikely to happen. But even if it did, it would have no effect on the FLDS and other polygamous offshoots of the church.
And it also wouldn't do anything about this creepy polterzeitgeist (which I just coined on my own and then googled and sure enough, someone else thought of it first because there is nothing new under the sun) so many exmo men swim around in, where they leave the church and feel really cheated that they've had sex with only one partner, so they pressure their wives to open their marriage and pretend they're enlightened polyamorists instead of benighted misogynists.
I buy lots of books I don't read right away or maybe ever. I bought this book, "The Tragedy of Heterosexuality," two years ago. I started it last night. I'm 12 pages in, and so far, so good. I underlined this passage:
"An important indicator of the relatively negligible value of heterosexuality for many women is the fact that their sexual relationships with men have been maintained by force, both through cultural propaganda targeting girls and women and more directly through sexual assault, incest, compulsory marriage, economic dependence, control of children, and domestic violence. This book will provide ample evidence of these dynamics. The question, then, is, Is heterosexuality optimal for women when it requires so much coercion?"

https://www.Facebook.com/holly.welker/p ... FuUP19FSxl

And in the comments, additional information

Holly Welker
Josh's post, ICYMI
https://www.Facebook.com/josh.weed3/pos ... YKC28BLz1l
14h14 hours ago
Holly Welker
My post about people creating messes:
https://www.Facebook.com/holly.welker/p ... b7tvoBD3Wl
14h14 hours ago
Holly Welker
Post that leads to discussion of Tom grooming his whole community (see comments)
https://www.Facebook.com/holly.welker/p ... 8rwiRT46Dl

I disagree slightly re her assessment that the comments on Josh Weed's post quoted in the OP here, though. I thought many of the comments gave a tremendously valuable view of the situation as a whole.

[Kishkumen]

I don't particularly see the value in comparing disparate people's traumas. They can stand or fall alone on their own merits.

I am not comparing people’s traumas, dd. I am pointing out the difference between a likely/proven predator and someone who is falsely accused of such by a troubled person. I don’t deny that Rosebud has experienced trauma. I am unconvinced that JD preyed on her, or anyone else for that matter.

[Marcus]

The comments under the post you brought over don't support that separation.

[Kishkumen]

The comments under the post you brought over don't support that separation.

I don’t completely agree with everyone’s conclusions. In fact, the lumping of JD in with the other two makes me skeptical, not of the predation of the two (Kimball and Bramer), however.

Note that Rosebud shows up in Josh Weed’s comments, so, of course Marcus is right that some comments clearly do not support the distinction I am making. Indeed, it is Rosebud who drags JD into the discussion.

[IWMP]

I don't particularly see the value in comparing disparate people's traumas. They can stand or fall alone on their own merits.

I am not comparing people’s traumas, dd. I am pointing out the difference between a likely/proven predator and someone who is falsely accused of such by a troubled person. I don’t deny that Rosebud has experienced trauma. I am unconvinced that John Dehlin preyed on her, or anyone else for that matter.

Apologies. I also misread your post.

[Kishkumen]

Apologies. I also misread your post.

No apology necessary, IWMP. I was not upset by your post at all. Rosebud, like any of us, is entitled to her feelings.

[IWMP]

The comments under the post you brought over don't support that separation.

I don’t completely agree with everyone’s conclusions. In fact, the lumping of John Dehlin in with the other two makes me skeptical, not of the predation of the two (Kimball and Bramer), however.

Note that Rosebud shows up in Josh Weed’s comments, so, of course Marcus is right that some comments clearly do not support the distinction I am making. Indeed, it is Rosebud who drags John Dehlin into the discussion.

I don't think John dehlin or how rosebud describes him is on the same level as the other things you shared on this topic. Just to clarify. I agree there is a big difference between the two. I assumed you were sorting of saying that just because it wasn't as bad as something else means that it's ok. I do think that there was a mutual understanding from the documents shared but there is evidently a lot of pain there. I'm not sure that pain comes from simply being dumped. My instinct feels it is more complex than it comes across. I truly feel for rosebud but I also don't think dehlin is a predator or a narcissist in the way that is expressed. Just my feeling. I hope she can move on and shut him out of her life.

But yes, the story you share is horrific if it is true. Preying on vulnerable people and admitting one gets a kick out of it is just vile. I was expressing that we can't assume that because we can show worse examples of things that that means people shouldn't feel trauma for things that might be less traumatic than what some experience.

I think of the book, a child called it. This book is horrific. The things that happened to that guy just turn my soul. How can a mother be so evil? And yet people experience far less and come out worse. Isn't it remarkable. Our minds can be so fragile and yet also so strong.