The term is derived from Matthew from the New Testament, in which Jesus tells two fishermen that he will make them "fishers of men". Cult leaderDavid Berg extrapolated from this that women in his movement should be "flirty fishers". 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", 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", and reminded that their body did not really belong to them, as according to 1 Corinthians – it had been "bought" "with a price". After an initial phase, male members no longer partook in this drive, partially because of the cult's dismissive stance towards homosexuality, but also because Berg thought it did not "pay off financially". Many of the flirty fishers had boyfriends, were married, or had children. In Family publications, flirty fishers and escort service practitioners frequently reported that they found their work hard, dangerous, and exhausting.
ESing
The financial benefit of Flirty Fishing soon led to a further degeneration of the practice from mere flirting into "loving sexually" to "escort servicing" —described as "making FFing pay" by Berg—in which female cult members would work as regular call girls for escort agencies or freelance, and merely "witness" to their clients when the occasion offered itself.
Effects
The Children of God practiced flirty fishing and escort servicing from 1974 until 1987, when it was officially abandoned, in part because of the AIDSepidemic. As the women were expected to keep exact records of their "fruits", a 1988 statistic showed that more than 223,000 men had been "fished" since 1978—and that FFing had nevertheless continued into 1988. 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.
