Flirty Fishing

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Flirty Fishing (FFing) is a form of evangelism by sexual intimacy practised from around 1974 to 1987 by the cult Children of God, currently known as The Family International (TFI). Female members of Children of God, or "fisherwomen," would apply their sex appeal on "fish" — men from outside the cult (often, but not always, having sex) — using the occasion to proselytize and seek donations.^[1]

Children of God have defended it as a way of "bearing witness" for Jesus to people who would not otherwise be open to it.^[2] According to some sources, over 200,000 men were "fished" and over 10,000 babies were born to cult women between 1971 and 2001.^[3] The practice was curtailed as sexually transmitted diseases spread through the cult,^[2] and then abandoned in 1987, reportedly because of the spread of AIDS.^[4]