 Does it bother Dave that you talk so openly about this online? The answer is yes, but in a good way. A lot of married women feel like sex is more of a duty. I want to change all of this, and that's why I've created the ultimate course for Christian women. In a world that is as cruel as it is to seek for, tragedy is ignored in pursuit of a happy mind. Those who seek more venture beyond the thing, lay venture into the vortex. There are more and more unmarried teenage girls getting pregnant every year. Our goal is to bring the truth to thought's words back into the lives of girls all across America. When is the last time you've thought about the topic of submitting to your parents' authority? I am starting an ocean sex mentorship course to do when you're like, I feel like I'm getting turned off. Should Christian girls kiss before marriage? I'm 25 years old. I've been in two serious relationships, and I've never kissed a guy. It's not because I think kissing is gross, or that I've never wanted to kiss. The fact is, I'm saving my very first kiss for my future husband on the day of our wedding. You want to get married, you want to live your life together, and from there you want to just serve God and love each other, and who knows? Okay, does it bother Dave that you talk so openly about sex online? The answer is yes, but in a good way. Okay, so here are three things to help you gain a biblical approach to purity. Why even call yourself a Christian? You're drawing closer to one another, but you know that sex in a dating relationship is not what God has for us. Instead of defining our worth, purpose, and identity according to their culture, we are now defining it according to God's word. Join us on a liberating journey toward a radically better vision for femininity. Good, evil, greed, selflessness, innocence, and corruption. The saved and the damned. Bethany and Kristen, the women behind Girl Defined, thought they knew the answers to it all. That the biggest focus in your life should be finding a life partner and staying pure until you do. I'm striving to save pure. I'm saving sex for marriage. I'm trying to live counter-culturally. In the movies, often there was a sheltered princess who lived in the woods or a cabin far from civilization. She was pure, innocent, good. Her sheltered life often keeping her that way until she met the prince of her dreams. And then she lived happily ever after. But this video is not an old princess movie. Sometimes life moves on after happy ever after. And happily ever after is not the fairy tale or the life that you dreamed it would be. Sometimes in the Christian world it can be like, yes, you just need to serve each other and that's where the best comes from. And you're like, well, we have like physically more struggles. We're like not connecting even though we're like going through the motions and we need help with that. And well, you have to carry on and pay a mortgage. The ultimate source for Christian women is for you. We haven't intentionally created these resources and that's why these like fly off the shelf. Calm down. And sometimes Disney has a gay scene. Which Bethany and Kristen, the women behind Girl Defined, have made it clear they do not like. I was sitting outside working on a writing project when I first got the news. I clicked on the link and it took me to an article titled Beauty and the Beast to feature first exclusively gay moment in a Disney movie. My thought was, oh no, you've got to be kidding me. But my next thought was, what else would I expect? How could Disney put a gay scene in a Christian movie? Why are they shoving their agenda down our throats? Disney is flying off the rails. What else did we expect? Many people know Bethany and Kristen, the women behind Girl Defined. Hey everyone, I'm Kristen. And I'm Bethany. And we are going to sell this Benz to the brand. Hey, I know what I'm saying. But what if there is a more dark and evil story behind the start of the Girl Defined platform and the Girl Defined fundamentalist family tree? While we all have been laughing at the women who say, honestly, cringe-worthy things on the internet. We need to be careful to not use our beauty in a way that selfishly causes people to give us attention and glorify us rather than glorifying our creator. Honestly, I really do desire to get married. I've learned to really, like every day, not to look ahead and go, oh my goodness, I'm probably going to be 100 years old just sitting in a rocking chair all by myself. This is wither an old woman that's just miserable. And who've been selling courses on how to be the best God-honoring, sensual Christian girl. We are so excited to announce the launch of our fall online inventory course. Our passion from the beginning has been to help young women understand God's design for womanhood. True Beauty really is the farthest thing from hot looks and sensual poses. True Beauty really is found in a girl who loves Jesus and is striving to reflect him through her life. How to be pure and perfect and yet simultaneously. How to have sex as a Christian and how to get rich as a Christian. We put it in our books, Sex, Purity, and the Law and Inns of a Girl's Heart. Another great book to read if you're dating or engaged or even married. This book is a must. You are, you know, with your kids but you're also pouring into your family economy and you are pouring into the budget. We've cringed at their TMI stories. How they've waited to kiss until they've gotten married. I have not kissed Dave. We are saving our first kiss for when we are husband and wife. But what if Bethany and Kristen are casualties in a much larger system than we've realized? That's not to say that Bethany and Kristen haven't done any wrong or ridiculous things themselves which we will certainly be covering heavily in this video. It's only to say there may be much more to the story here and we're gonna try and dive deep into it all today. So let's dive into the vortex on Girl Defined. Hello friends and internet acquaintances. Welcome or welcome back to another video on the channel. If you're new here and you like obnoxious cats and topics covering very in-depth deep dives on problematic people on the internet then don't forget to subscribe. And if you like this video then don't forget to give it a like. And this cat here is Boofy. Don't forget to say hi to Boofy in the comments. I don't think she cares how you spell her name so. You can also say hi over on my Instagram. Before we get into the video I want to do a huge shout out to Rachel Oates who did a deep dive into Bethany Beale, one of the sisters of Girl Defined. I also love her channel so I definitely wanted to give her some love. The most shocking aspect of the Girl Defined story and one that has particularly recently been puzzling fans and well anti-fans has been the transformation of the sisters who seemingly started fairly close, preaching purity culture and then through their evolution drifted apart as Bethany, one of the sisters, began to post more and more sexual content. Oh my. This first time sex actually hurt. This is one of the most common questions I get from single women and from engaged women who have never had sex and are planning on waiting until their wedding night to do it for the first time. And began to spiral into seemingly greed and lust. I'm not being overdramatic when I say that I'd rather sit on the hot grill and wear something off the rack. I managed a $40,000 course lunch this year while being a full-time, stay-at-home mom. Both Bethany and Kristen played by the perfect handbook. They saved themselves from marriage, practiced purity culture and yet seemingly after they got married and started a family of their own they weren't satisfied. Kristen posting about how unhappy she was even after adopting children and Bethany's spiraling into greed asking her followers for gifts and constantly posting about different courses. It's a transformation of two Christian influencers that I've truly never seen before and it truly begs the question how did it all get this way? Bethany and Kristen are a part of the Baird family, a fundamentalist Christian family in Texas with an interesting online presence and an even more interesting story. The Baird family has nine children, one deceased and nine grandchildren from parents Michael and Heidi Baird. On the Girl Defined website, the sisters introduced themselves by saying we are sisters from the southern state of Texas just enjoying life and spreading truth. Everything is truly bigger in Texas with eight out of our ten family members being over six feet tall. Most of y'all know that we come from a really big family but some of you might not know that there are actually eight kids in our family. The oldest sibling is Michael, then Kristen, then Bethany, Stephen, Alyssa, Timothy, Rebecca, and Susanna being the youngest. So Susanna's the youngest. How old are you? I'm 15. 15 and then the oldest is now 34. So there are a lot of people in our family. Some of the children go by the last name, Mershawn instead of Baird because originally their ancestry had the Mershawn name. However, along the lines, a biological father by the name of Mershawn died and some children have reverted to the Mershawn last name to honor their biological ancestors. However, according to a Reddit post by one of the siblings, changing their name to Mershawn was also a way that this sibling separated themselves from their family to gain a sense of their own identity. But this Baird-Mershawn last name change isn't the only strange history surrounding the girl-defined family. As people found out that girl-defined has ties to the Nazis, girl-defined's great-grandfather, Johann Hans, I'm going to pronounce this wrong, Grosslitcher, Grosslitcher, was a member of the NSDAP and was the Nazi mayor, Salfeld in Austria. He was arrested multiple times in 1934, likely for participating and possibly leading Nazi demonstrations, which were illegal at the time. During her honeymoon, Bethany and her newlywed husband posed in front of the grave of the Beel family's great-grandpa. People first noticed that, hey, Bethany's in Austria, where a lot of history happened and Bethany has family in Austria. So they looked up the names of the gravestones only to discover the details that I just mentioned. And Bethany began deleting comments asking about her family's Nazi connection. Bethany posed proudly with the captions, with family that lived in Austria, we were directly impacted by the war. I have a special interest in learning about what they went through. Johann Grosslitcher likely oversaw sending Salfeld's Jewish community to... Once World War II ended, he was removed as mayor in 1945. Alongside one of the posts, Bethany wrote about the sobering time she spent at the World War II sites, especially with family that lived in Austria at the time. At the time of... of it. So they were... You chose to go visit your Nazi relatives during your honeymoon and take pictures of it all. Document it all for your Instagram? Bethany wrote another wonderful day in Austria. We had the opportunity to visit some World War II sites. Now, of course, it's important to mention Bethany and the rest of her family could have been unaware of their ties to the Nazis. I feel like if that's the case, they just are very ignorant and unaware. Like, this is one of those cases where it's very easy to connect the dots here on your own. But their own mother, Heidi Baird, still holds their great-grandfather in very high regards. Clearly, one of Heidi's sons was nicknamed after their great-grandfather with the name Hans. And she even made an Instagram post comparing one of her granddaughters, it looks like, to her grandfather? Saying, the granddaughter's name, you were born on your great-great-opaz birthday. Oh, he would have loved to have known you, sweet girl. Hans, born July 12th, 1896. Granddaughter, born July 12th, 2018. 122 years apart. What would a Nazi war criminal loved to have known about a baby born 122 years apart? That's what I would love to know. So, a lot of people wonder if the Bairds or at least some of them. I'm looking at you, Heidi. New of their Nazi ancestry and past. With the amount of times, they seem to talk about purity. Purity, purity, purity, purity, purity, purity, purity. Keeping yourself pure and with the general racism exhibited in the family. I don't know. There's definitely a lot to ponder. And this knowledge definitely puts these Reddit comments in a different light. My family and I used to run in the same circles as the Bairds. We never knew them personally, but my brother-in-law and the churchy pastors has close ties to them. The Baird girls are the popular girls that all the boys strive to land. And the girls want to be like them. Can confirm. I remember the first time I laid eyes on the Baird family at a wedding. They walked in so blond, tall, slim. The entire family, blond, white, tall. Pure, pure, pure, purity, purity. The Baird-Merchant family grew up as an upper middle-class family with the father working as an attorney. They also had a family cleaning business called the White Glove Made Surface. Okay. All of the children were homeschooled and very sheltered. I said what I said. None of the girls were allowed to go to college. And often, when any opportunities were presented to them, they turned them down to keep staying at home. We look to our talents and we say, wow, if I can achieve this certain, like, status in people's eyes of having a great enough talent, then I will be successful, then I will be worth something. But that's hard because we're not always going to achieve those things perfectly. I was a basketball player and I think I was pretty good. Our verse for today goes right along with our topic, which is submitting to your parent's authority, and that's Colossians 320. It takes a strong girl to respect her parents even when she feels like they're being totally unreasonable. And the family became more and more sheltered with more and more extreme beliefs. The matriarch of the family, Heidi Baird, not only posts about her not-the-grandparent, but is a Christian influencer of her own right. With her own website and Instagram, Heidi Baird's About Me on her website reads, Married four years to my love, Mike, who I share nine beautiful children and eight grandchildren, now nine together. We own our own business. We homeschooled all our children from Kinder through high school. We love Jesus and the truth of God's Word, my passion. For the last 25 years, I've had the greatest privilege of coaching women through the rough seasons of life. Nothing brings me greater joy than guiding these precious women into an unhindered, freeing and intimate relationship with Jesus. Which, of course, you'll find is the entire purpose of Girl Defined as well. Was Bethany and Kristen inspired by their mother, or were they taught that this was the way, maybe the only way for women to be brought up? According to one sibling who's come forward recently, Heidi is not necessarily the bright, happy, perfect person that she portrays online. In fact, this sibling has spoken out recently saying that she is a narcissist who you could never have an honest conversation with, who had an end motive with everything she did. And that for the girls of the family, going to school was never an option. They were simply raised to be married off to men that Heidi approved of, which also makes it even more creepy when you look at the family's history. Would Heidi ever approve of the women marrying, for example, a man of color? Also that the women of the family could be turned into many versions of Heidi, which you can see from their social media. And how they talk about Girl Defined helping lead women to God, just like how Heidi talked about helping lead women to God for over 25 years, way longer than Bethany and Kristen have been doing it. This sibling goes on to say that his sisters are simply pawns in his mother's world and that his mission is just to stop his mother from hurting more people. The sibling even went as far as to insinuate that Heidi may even be in control of the Girl Defined platform and has control of his sisters. For a while now, people have been noticing that Bethany and Kristen seemed to devolve over time, especially on the Fundy Snark subreddit, though many attributed their decline to their strict belief system holding them back, not a possibly abusive and overbearing parent. The devolution? Devolution? Is that a word? Did I pronounce it right? I'll never know until after this video posts and people tell me of Bethany Beale. Looking back at some of her older photos, she looks tremendously grounded, happy, even dressed like an adult, and she had friends. What happened? Girl declined. Bethany and Kristen used to have friends. They did modeling and basketball. I was really into sports, honestly. I loved basketball. I was super competitive. But instead of pursuing college or any of their passions, they plunged deeper and deeper into more and more extreme beliefs and a more and more sheltered life, isolated from friends and a social system. Why is this? On the Girl Defined website, Bethany and Kristen describe leaving basketball and modeling and that time in their life by saying, after high school, we both dabbled in the modeling industry but soon discovered that our Christian values and morals wouldn't jive long term in that environment. I mean, I could make money. I mean, it would be fun. It wouldn't be too bad to be on the front of a magazine. I started to have these thoughts. I decided to pull out one of the modeling cards that I had received. We talked to my parents about it. Kristen was there for that conversation. They were not a fan. Long story short, she offers me a contract and I'm like, whoa, a one-year contract to be a model? And so I talked to my parents and they're like, well, I mean, it seems like it can work. You know, why don't you try it out? But as long as they understand, you know that there are certain things you're not going to compromise on. And like Bethany, that point in my life was a huge turning point. And I prayed and talked to my parents and sought counsel. After putting our modeling dreams to rest, we both felt God stirring within us a passion for something more. We dove into God's word to study what he had to say about our design as women. The more we learned, the more we felt compelled to share it. And on their old modeling page, they would make posts like these. God has called us to honor the position our parents hold above us. It doesn't matter if you feel like your parents deserve to be honored or not. God commands us to honor them in the position he has placed them in despite what you feel like they may deserve. When is the last time you thought about the topic of submitting to your parents' authority? Bethany didn't only play basketball in high school. She loved basketball. We're not talking about basketball. Although I could reminisce on that a long time. I love talking about the good old days and basketball. And that was one of my favorite things ever. Basketball was a major passion of hers. And Bethany was actually really good at basketball. I was a basketball. Like, you actually lost a game? Maybe one. And was offered multiple scholarship opportunities that she turned down after talking with her parents. I wrote a blog post about it on Girl Defined that reads, When I was 17, I'd been offered multiple full basketball scholarships to division one universities. Basketball was my passion and I loved playing. When I wasn't playing basketball, I was either talking about it, thinking about it, or dreaming about it. In my junior year of high school, the university basketball coaches needed an answer from me and I had to give them my final decision. After many hours of prayer and long discussions with my parents, the answer was crystal clear. To be willing to say, I give up my plans and desires and I surrender to your will for my life. Wow. After long discussions with my parents, I wonder what they said. A few years later, my older sister, Kristen and I, started thinking about attending Bible school. After much prayer and discussions with our parents and discussions with our parents, we applied and we were accepted. All seemed to be moving along smoothly until a few months before the start of the school year. God started working in each of our hearts and eventually made it clear that Bible school was not what he wanted us to do. Kristen and I both had to say those incredibly hard words. I give up my plans and desires and I surrender to your will for my life. Do none of them go to college? They don't. Bethany was offered a basketball scholarship. Her facial line is that after discussing it with her parents, she decided it was holier to be a stay at home daughter. My read is that Heidi and her husband just wanted to keep her sheltered and didn't realize just how long that was going to go on. That's so sad. I can't fathom having my daughter turn down a sports scholarship to be a stay at home daughter, just around waiting for a man to show up. No wonder she's boy crazy. It was her only ticket out of her parents' home. Did she even work? She supposedly worked for her dad's cleaning company, but it was just something in the office. Plus she had girl defined. According to Bethany and Kristen, after quitting basketball, quitting modeling, quitting school due to a console with their parents, that's when they decided it would be a good idea to start an at home blog, where they'd still be able to stay with their mother dearest, where they could blog about their religion and how well waiting for a man was working for them and who knows eventually make money from it. According to Vice, for the better part of the last decade, Bethany and Kristen have worked in the influencer realm with an audience that remains in their estimation around 18. So through Bethany and Kristen's blog, they made a choice somewhere along the way to actively target young girls with their message. And it's a day's blog. We want to talk about how to mentor a younger Christian girl. Their first online venture, Bairdsisters.com landed flat. In 2014, Bethany and Kristen rebranded as girl defined. It's important to note throughout this video, since you'll be presented with a lot of the messaging of what Bethany and Kristen think young girls should be defined as and should look like, act like, think like, talk like, that Kristen and Bethany have no formal certifications. Not only regarding psychology and mental health or anything regarding mentoring, teaching and coaching to help young people find their identity. But on top of that, it even seems that Kristen and Bethany have no formal Bible training apart from just attending church and identifying as a Christian, studying the Bible and blogging about it. So why are they doing it? Through our blogs, videos, conferences and online webinars, we are building an online sisterhood. And then we get messages, encouraging messages from the sisterhood like this. And it is so amazing to hear what God is doing through the work of girl defined. Aka, they're building a systemic way to profit off of the supposed sisterhood of girls and women that they're supposedly trying to uplift through content that has no reasonable way to benefit these women because Bethany and Kristen have no expertise in these matters. According to Vice, there's almost no online platform that the sisters have not participated in at one point or another, but their mission has stayed largely consistent. Young Christian girls deserve role models who don't mince words and Beal and Clark know they have a knack for getting through to them. The phrase getting through to them really rang through me because again, we're talking about young girls here. And Bethany and Kristen said plain and simple, their goal was to send messages these young girls would resonate with and follow. And what exactly is Bethany and Kristen trying to get through to these young girls? Well, through the literal thousands of hours of videos and podcasts and books and just general content that they've put out there, I think the message is pretty clear. Don't have sex, stay pure and stay focused on finding the right Christian guy. Lust is what that sexual desire becomes when that honor toward the other and that holiness toward that is missing. So it's when you're saying like, okay, God, I know what scripture says, but I am choosing not to honor you. I'm choosing not to obey you, not to respect that, not to walk in that, not to live set apart in that and I'm choosing not to honor the other person and instead I'm going to lust in this relationship and disobey you. Bethany's called us to something in his word that says, hey, don't be s*** immoral. Having s*** marriage is what God calls a sin. Today I'm going to be talking about praying for your future husband. The thought really clicked in me like, wow, this is a way that I can actually start serving my future husband even before I know him. So truth number one that we discovered was this, that gender matters. Truth number four for God to find womanhood is making purity a priority. The epitome of fundamentalist teachings. The epitome of purity culture. According to Vice, a few months after the launch of the new blog, Kristen Clark wrote a post that quickly funneled traffic to the site and set the tone for the content to come. Why Christian girls post seductive selfies. So we always come across a few comments that read something like this. Christian girls can post whatever images they want if it makes them feel beautiful. Or being beautiful and seductive are the same things and there's nothing wrong with it. So the more we've seen comments, it seems like they're popping up more and more and more and becoming really common. Now we believe that there really is a massive difference between the word beautiful and the word seductive. The post was noticed by Baker Books, a Christian publishing house, and led to the release of the sister's debut novel. She starred in 30 major films, was awarded a Golden Globe for female world film favorite. She was voted second greatest movie star. She was chosen as one of the 100 sexiest stars in film history. She was beautiful, talented, successful, and seemed to have everything a woman could dream of, except for one thing, happiness. I kept covered face, dyed blonde hair, and sparkling clothes only hid what she was feeling on the inside. Depressed, unloved, alone. Sadly, the beauty and fame wasn't enough to satisfy her. Marilyn Monroe committed suicide at the young age of 36. Marilyn Monroe had everything a woman could dream of and it still wasn't enough. What does that mean for average everyday girls like us? Girl defined, God's radical design for beauty, femininity, and identity. So Kristen in this blog judged anyone who put on makeup for a photo and wanted the photo to look decent before posting it to social media. What are women supposed to do? Post a photo like Miranda Sings? Uh, never mind. I never want to hear that name again. Not only did Kristen call these photos self-absorbed or vain, just the act of putting on makeup to take a selfie Kristen called seductive. Which don't get me wrong, any of those descriptors are reach, but seductive for wanting to look your best in a social media profile. As my friend Savannah said in our interview for the video I did on Illuminati, are you a yoga instructor? Because that feels like a reach, but because this problematic blog post gained some traffic, Bethany and Kristen kept going. Either because they themselves liked the attention they were getting, how's that for vanity? Or they felt dignified enough in their beliefs to create more content surrounding them. Content like how to show love towards prostitutes, homosexuals, and Muslims by Bethany Baird. I'll be totally honest with you, in the past and still at times, I've struggled to view lost people with compassion and love. When I hear the words homosexual, prostitute, or even the word Muslim, I cringe inside. What? You wrote that? And you still felt like a good person inside? Why I'm not jumping into the gender blender by Kristen Clark? You can probably guess what that article is going to be about. The usual transphobic talking points. I don't need to spell it out. And honestly, I don't want to further platform it in this video. Keeping marriage straight. Why the Bible never recognizes gay marriage. Where Kristen Clark basically says that even if gay marriage is legalized, they're still not married in God's eyes. Why it's good to be closed-minded sometimes by Kristen Clark. Points for honesty. Christian girl, you don't need to love yourself more to find lasting worth by Bethany Beale. Self-esteem. Why Christian girls don't need it by Kristen Clark. And then for whatever reason, Bethany and Kristen were like, we're doing so good at these blogs. We're killing it with these blog titles. We have to bring this to a video format. So in 2016, Bethany and Kristen branched their ministry onto YouTube, creating a channel that now has more than 150,000 subscribers. At first, the videos that Girl Define was making were relatively unknown in the YouTube sphere until they were featured on the iconic Cody Kose That's Cringe series. Cody Kose, alongside Nobel, reacted to two different videos that Girl Define made. Welcome back to That's Cringe, ladies and gentlemen. Today we are tackling religion. And these videos were incredibly popular, gaining millions and millions of views. Five powerful truths for overcoming sins. Like Christian rooted videos where they tackle issues that women have to deal with, but it all comes off very brainwashed and s**t. It did a literal U-turn because of a guy. Because of a man. Talk about guy obsessed. Wow. I was literally pulling U-turns. Literal U-turns in the middle of the road. Propelling Girl Defined into the mainstream YouTube commentary sphere. Cody Kose, most likely unintentionally, gave the Girl Define sisters a popularity boost. And while the sisters themselves were not very popular, their content was popular to discuss. How to recover from being a desperate flirt? We should watch that one. Especially among LGBT YouTubers. This is so cultish and brainwashi and so familiar. Oh my God. How to wear makeup in a God-honoring way. Where we thought that more eyeliner was better. More eyeliner is better. Why don't you just look me in the eye and tell me to go f**k myself? If we dove into all the content that Girl Defined has made on YouTube, we would be here for hours. Especially because Girl Defined regurgitates so much of their content. For example, there's a Reddit post that's compiled a lot of their favorite content topics that they'll constantly post about. Like the content topic, You're Sad Because You're Single, which they've made constant videos about. They're going out on dates and he's bringing her flowers and you're over there like, life is horrible. Honestly, I really do desire to get married like five years ago. That would have been nice. But I've learned to really, like every day, not to think ahead, not to think of the future, not to look ahead and go, oh my goodness, I'm probably going to be 100 years old just sitting in a walking tour all by myself. You know, that's depressing. Like, great. Yeah, and I'd probably imagine like 100 cats climbing around you like, just this withered old woman that's just miserable. I don't know about you, but when I was single, I enjoyed my single years. Me time, that was great. It doesn't need to be a sad thing. They even make constant videos about being sad because you're single on the holidays. And we kind of want that someone special to give gifts to or to get gifts from or just to kind of have to, if we're married, kiss under the mistletoe. You know, I am totally single and it's almost Valentine's Day. Guys buying flowers for their true love and to look around and go, well no one's burning me roses. No one's giving me flowers and if I'm not careful, I can really get into this like, well with me mindset. As if people don't have friends or family members to spend the holidays with or coworkers or cats. And though Bethany and Kristen have shared what many feel are very toxic beliefs, by far what has been the most toxic belief system upheld and heavily pushed throughout Girl Defined content has been the purity culture belief system. Purity. Purity. Purity. Purity. Purity. Purity. Purity. Purity. Purity. Purity. Purity. Which can be particularly harmful to Girl Defined's main demographic, young girls. According to the Gospel Coalition, purity culture is the term often used for the evangelical movement that attempts to promote a biblical view of purity by discouraging dating and promoting virginity before marriage. Often through using tools such as purity pledges symbols such as purity rings and even events like purity balls. Purity rings are sometimes worn by those who have made a purity pledge. The rings were popularized by the Christian ministry, the silver ring thing. And in the early 2000s, purity rings were worn by a lot of pop stars including Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato and the Jonas Brothers. Purity balls or father-daughter purity balls are formal dance events attended by fathers along with their daughters that promote virginity until marriage for teenage girls. So while Girl Defined definitely participates in purity culture, there are aspects of purity culture that you can see throughout our society through events like purity balls or symbols like purity rings. And these things are supposed to be reminders of very young girls to stay pure, often times to save themselves for a man. Some examples of early Girl Defined content that's promoted purity culture has been mind-verting, saving more than just your body because even thinking on pure thoughts makes yourself un-pure. Should Christian girls kiss before marriage because even kissing before you marry is making yourself un-pure. When romantic fantasies get the best of you and my secret thought life, again the idea that thinking anything un-pure will make yourself un-pure. And of course the majority of Girl Defined's content on YouTube has reiterated this message over and over and over again. They ended up getting married and they saved their first kiss for their wedding day when they were husband and wife. And for some reason that just like really inspired me. I remember reading that story, yeah. How to stay pure until marriage. It really came down to this heart of wanting to preserve all forms of intimacy like physical intimacy for marriage. And then how to find the right Christian man so that you can marry and have the perfect pure union. So there's a worldly way to enter into marriage and then there's a very biblical way to enter into marriage. Former Girl Defined intern here. I've always been very open on social media about the fact that I used to work for Girl Defined and it's one of the greatest regrets in my life. My heart still hurts for those stuck within the whirlwind of questioning and feeling like you can never do anything right. I see Kristin's podcast about starting a family and how I felt so fearful that I would never be enough for a man or healthy enough to have babies because of my disabilities. It just hurts me to think that there will be more young people caught up in purity culture, modesty mentality and fundamental literalism to the point where they devalue anyone who disagrees with them but also devalue themselves for not truly feeling like they belong. I've come a long way from my Girl Defined days but it still haunts me. That post from petty fundamental on r slash Girl Defined snark I thought was really important in talking about the dangerous aspects of purity culture. However, there's also a huge part of the conversation that I feel the need to mention as well. It goes back to the beginning of this story to the Baird family and their history and ancestry and that's this research decolonizing purity culture gendered racism and white idealization in evangelical Christianity and this article mentions how research has shown the way purity culture has harmed women by normalizing the oppression of their bodies restricting sexual agency teaching a shame response to pleasure and perpetuating our word culture. Some authors have also written anecdotally about the long-term consequences of teaching purity culture resulting in many symptoms for women that mimic that of post traumatic stress disorder but also simultaneously these studies have centered white women's experiences and the findings of this particular study shown showed how women of color were profoundly impacted by the legacy of racism and sexism which often centers the promotion of white middle-class families through espousing norms of white femininity purity and marriage this is why people have been so deeply upset with the girl-defined platform and why they've been turned into content fodder since their inception on YouTube but Bethany and Kristen's Reach extended beyond just the content they were making online into a fully fledged brand they were making as soon as girl-defined gained an online following they began to build a brand girl-defined is a content machine they're putting out constant YouTube videos podcasts and blog posts there are thousands if not millions of hours online of girl-defined content that can be consumed and well-reacted to online this is dangerous for girls on YouTube that come across this shit they're like, I guess I can't be guy obsessed take down my Harry Styles poster this is something that will harm somebody for the foreseeable long-term future and it drives me banana pancakes that we've just dressed it up with a flower headband and been like, it's fine it's totally, we're just the girls just chatting about girl things like no, no you're not like this is dangerous wait a minute, wait a minute did you hear like the absolute she said we need to worry about our children we need to get back to God's design and if you're interested in that do you see what I mean they've written five books and multiple online guides again, where do they have the time to be doing this all of which are available for sale on their site let's read some descriptions of their books love-defined embracing God's vision for lasting love and satisfying relationships our culture is obsessed with love and romance so why are so few women experiencing satisfying long-term love in this insightful and encouraging book, sisters Kristen Clark and Bethany Baird help single women of all ages discover a radically better approach to navigating their love lives girl-defined sex, purity and the longings of a girl's heart for the modern Christian women living in today's sexually charged society embracing God's design for sex and purity can often feel like an impossible pursuit as the culture seeks to normalize things such as pornography or pedagogy and casual sex both single and married women of all ages feel immense pressure to conform they wrestle with questions like what is the purpose of my sexuality what does it mean to pursue purity are my sexual longings good or bad? I've been struggling with it for a while now and I don't know what to do I'm ashamed and scared of letting my secret out I struggle with same-sex attraction to women lust is almost constantly invading my thoughts they're longing for things like help hope and freedom the two of us get it because we've been there not all books are about s*** and love but almost all of their books connected to womanhood are of course it's okay to be a young person who cares about love and romance but in my opinion it's dangerous to be someone who's putting yourself in a mentorship role to be telling young people that the only thing that matters is s***, love and romance and that your only identity should be connected to finding love and getting married and of course none of these books examine sexuality and identities outside of a heterosexual relationship but are we surprised? no, we're not the girl-defined website also has a store where you can buy many girl-defined branded items from how to discern a guy's true character for six bucks just the concept that for six bucks I'll have everything I need to discern someone's true character is wild to me I feel like it takes weeks if not months to discern someone's true character and really get to know them not a six dollar guide you need to be asking questions like what kind of character does this guy have? I do feel like that is a good question to ask to discern someone's character how to know if he's the one for eight bucks, again I feel like this takes a long time to know and is not something you can figure out with an eight dollar guide and the people who buy this guide are putting quite a lot of faith in Bethany and Kristen's judge of character a Christian girl's guide to interacting with guys eight dollars if I'm being totally honest one word that probably best describes my Bethany interactions with the young men would be flirting scandalous how to recover from being a desperate flirt so the two of us have definitely been desperate alerts over the years oh my goodness like back in high school especially and even before that like when we were eight, nine, ten like we started crushing on guys I can remember so many things that we did to get the guys attention to get him to notice us just crazy things and one of those stories that comes to mind is one that some of you may have heard but back when I was in high school just don't interact with guys they're icky and have cooties stay Bethany and Kristen also sell merch on their girl defined website to endorse their clothing in their shop Bethany and Kristen released a video claiming that they were starting a movement to bring back God's amazing design for womanhood you're starting a movement to bring back God's amazing design for womanhood he is our designer and he has a specific and good plan for us as women we're here to reclaim biblical womanhood and we want you to join us we're here to unite as Christian women to bring back biblical womanhood because we know that the one who designed you gets to define you where they describe God as our designer who has a specific and good plan for us as women we're here to unite as Christian women to bring back biblical womanhood because we know that the one who designed you gets to define you describing God as a designer and then claiming that you're going to bring back his amazing design before releasing your clothing designs it's a weird tactic as if you're trying to tell your audience that they'll be somehow pleasing God by purchasing your t-shirts so let's examine some of their t-shirts and see how much God's design and vision was implemented into the t-shirts you guys decide and let me know in the comments what you think there's the girl sweatshirt with just the word girl on it there's the pink girl defined sweatshirt there's a kind of like a child looking drawing sunset shirt that says sister press on final sale only $10 that's not that bad I can't believe I'm saying that the website claims that every purchase made goes directly to supporting the ministry but Bethany and Kristen haven't been very transparent as to where in that ministry the money is going and in past financial records it's been noted that over 55% of the revenue from the ministry has been attributed to their income so at this point can you really say you're a ministry or just a social media brand on top of that Bethany and Kristen also started their speaking events and annual conferences another source of income for the ministry Kristen and Bethany would be honored to speak at your church event retreat conference or bible study the energy and enthusiasm they bring will keep your audience on the edge of their seats and if the attendees aren't laughing or crying they're scrambling to take notes during these fast paced sessions the only regret your attendees will have is that they didn't invite more friends to come you want to feel secure, confident unbrained, unashamed and certain of God's love then the 20th is for you this year we'll be focusing specifically on what it means to live bold and courageous lives for Christ as we embrace our full identity in him we're excited to bring you over a dozen breakout sessions 20 different speakers worship a late night party and plenty of coffee and snacks to keep you going we're bringing a bunch of our friends and we hope you will too a Girl Defined conference is happening in San Antonio, Texas on July 30th and 31st we'll see you there who the heck would go travel in person to a Girl Defined conference if they're trying to market to young teenage girls what teenage girls would want to go to a convention hall and listen to Bethany and Kristen talk for an entire day straight but the genius of the marketing is that Bethany and Kristen targeted the parents of these teenage girls to buy the tickets to these conferences so the conventions that Bethany and Kristen through sold a decent amount of tickets from parents who wanted their daughters to become more godly and pure and it's kind of bizarre how well it worked and how many tickets to a Girl Defined conference sold more than 510 girls some accompanied by mothers packed the sanctuary of the Cher Hills Baptist Church for the third annual Girl Defined conference participants traveled from 30 states and 8 countries Austria to Australia so the Girl Defined conference is an incredible opportunity in time where the sisterhood from literally all around the world Switzerland, Australia, Puerto Rico, Canada, everywhere we come together and we actually get to see each other face to face Girl Defined 2018 was the sister's third conference in San Antonio and involved other family members in supporting roles the sister Rebecca handled conference coordinating 16 year old Susanna designed merchandise Alyssa provided support and brother Timothy videoed their mother Heidi Baird hosted a breakout session for other mothers and her husband Zach led a session on how to know if he's the one Bethany and her fiance Dave shared the story about their purposeful pursuit of romance We hope you'll join us for our upcoming girls conference Love Defined discovering a Christ centered approach for love and romance filled with life changing truth powerful speakers, small group discussion breakout sessions and great fellowship of young women from around the country Defined has been called out numerous times for gatekeeping Christianity During the 2019 girl defined conference, Bethany and Kristen publicly tour par another Christian YouTuber by the name of God is Gray just because God is Gray has a different interpretation of the Bible Bethany in particular was outwardly hostile towards God is Gray's LGBT friendly and s*** positive messages. At their latest conference they directly questions my face and inadvertently question the intentions of the entire God is Gray community Of course all the world is going to be like yes you've seen the light because they hate God's word so it's like if we're doing it for the popularity or we're doing it for the likes we might as well literally ditch the Bible like why even call yourself a Christian an up and coming popular YouTube channel that we've had even some communication with is very much a bold Christian channel but very confusing in the messages check out this video the girl defines approach into question but I never ever call their faith into question which at the conference is what Bethany did to me Brenda, the woman behind God is Gray had reached out to girl defined a month earlier asking them if they'd be open to discussing their views on purity and modesty was deeply hurt by the modesty and purity movements. I see them very differently from you but I also respect the personal paths you've both taken in honoring God that said I wonder if you'd be up for talking they responded saying they'd love to talk through Skype but that they were too busy preparing for the conference Bethany mentioned being swamped by the conference so I waited a few days after and then sent them a reminder and then Brenda doesn't hear from them again until Brenda's own fans find out that girl defined publicly in their conference questioned Brenda's faith and said rude and mean comments about her so Brenda did an entire video about how girl defined played sweet to her face but essentially stabbed her in the back girl defined totally just stabbed me in the back on top of that if you have a primarily young teen girl audience what kind of example are you setting by publicly tearing down another woman just because she has a different opinion than you is that what you want your teen girl audience to do as well on their website in the we want to meet you video where Bethany and Kristen are advertising their conferences when they describe their ticket options there are just so many different types of ticketing options you'll have several ticket options you can purchase an individual ticket for streaming just one or a small group ticket for like maybe up to 10 or a large group ticket which is like as many friends as you want to watch the conference with together and a VIP ticket there's a lot of details I just didn't know that worshiping God required a special VIP package in 2021 girl defined also announced that their sisterhood anthem would be sung at the conference was cleaning out my childhood room and found this gem from the first ever girl defined conference girl defined conference discovering God's design for beauty femininity and identity timeless truth gender matters God created all of us to be female for reason and it's a beautiful thing purity is valuable to God God values purity because it's for our good and his glory in my opinion after seeing all of this girl defined wasn't just perpetuating purity culture but was capitalizing off of the purity grift hope you'll join us for our upcoming conference chasing truth being a girl who fearlessly pursues God's word this two day conference will equip you to become a woman who unapologetically chases after God's truth in your own life it's $39 you get access to all the sessions one individual one individual person one viewing on your computer or tablet or phone or whatever stuff we have a really fun ticket called our VIP online ticket if you have a small group less than 10 then we have a small group ticket so rather than each person buying individual tickets which will cost way more you can get a group packet for less than 10 people and that's $199 so $199 for a small group and that comes with a lot of the same purchase the individual ticket but if you have more friends if you're like man you know it's way in our church to gather a safe healthy group of maybe 20 30 you know whatever your city is allowing we don't know but that's for groups of 10 or more you can get our large group ticket which is $3.99 and that can be literally 10 or more people so however many people you're able to have to join you for that gathering get the large group ticket Bethany and Kristen were marketing purity events to parents who were so ingrained in purity culture that they wanted to bring their daughters to keep their children more pure so they bought tickets and gave their children homework and merchandise and books and courses it seems the main way that their business worked was through branding themselves as the purity experts so that parents looking for a way to ensure that their daughters remained pure stumbled upon Bethany and Kristen's resources I honestly won't ever understand why do these girls go to the conferences they always regurgitate the same crap over and over again I could tell you what they'll be talking about this year just by the title of the breakout sessions it's an absolute waste of time and money I don't know why they go either but I wonder if families send their daughters out of guilt and fear for us while we were a part of the movement there was always a fear that if we didn't do things a certain way or if our daughters didn't behave a certain way then we wouldn't be glorifying God and our girls may fall into sin and walk away from their faith so going to a girl defined conference would encourage and strengthen the girls faith if you didn't live near the conference or couldn't buy a ticket to go to the conference no worries girl defined has another option on their site to ensure you can get every ounce of godly wisdom right into your noggin through purchasing their mentorship course girl defined have created an eight week mentorship course where they look to provide members with personal discipline members will receive downloadable homework to help them dig deeper into each topic again the word homework comes up so what age demographic do you think this course is aimed towards but really we are passionate about mentoring younger women so we are so pumped because we have for the first time ever an online mentorship course it's an eight week course that anyone can sign up for it doesn't matter where you live like a small sisterhood with these live videos each week and these videos you watch it's really awesome and we're going to take a group of people through it for eight weeks I'm so pumped about it because no grown woman or person at least that I know of is going to take a course with the word homework in it I'll learn something but don't make me feel like a child back in school the website claims that over 100 girls have taken this course and they really show that this course is intended for younger girls when they say God has given us a beautiful model for spiritual growth in Titus 2 where he calls older women to teach younger women before displaying scripture Titus 2 verse 3 4 which reads likewise teach older women to be reverent in the way they live then they can urge younger women to love their husbands and children this course is $79 for an eight week course now I don't know about you but when I was a teenager I just didn't have $79 laying around what age is this course geared towards the content of this course is truly relevant for all ages we purposefully designed the lessons to be engaging challenging and applicable to everyone ages 13 and older whether you're a teen girls in your 20s or older you will be greatly encouraged by this course all of us have decisions we have to make a complication with a sister a relationship we need someone who can lead us and guide us and bring that wisdom we wanted to take what we've learned and help the next generation help younger women now with all these different revenue streams how much has the girl defined brand made it's hard to tell because girl defined has been shady about their business operation and expenses according to this reddit post who did a great in depth analysis about all their tax returns and the lack of information that they've publicly provided as a nonprofit they're required to file an annual 990 tax return I'm a dumbass who can't quite make out tax returns but here is their report for 2017 and here is their report for 2018 they have not released their 2019 form but when pressed they offered a budget and expense report not the actual amount of money they took in which does make me curious what year they released the course also I'm pretty sure that 2019 was a year that they took in a pretty large amount of donations they had a net asset of about 92,625 by the end of year 2018 but continue to ask for donations of 30,000 at the end of each year they even asked for 20,000 when Cody co's video on them went viral one of their biggest yearly expenses appears to be 6,000 plus on meals and entertainment and in 2019 they asked for $30,000 for a new website and a little bit extra and people speculate that they ended up getting a lot more than the expected donations which is why they never end up releasing their tax forms 55.6% of their operating costs are their salaries and even most churches have that under 20% when they mysteriously needed the $20,000 because of Cody co's video they already had $92,000 in the bank of course other nonprofits ask for donations but usually it's for necessities like supplies and people have a clear picture and idea of where their donations and their money is going but when girl defines biggest expense is on meals for themselves and more than 50% of the money from their ministry is going into their own pocket where is this money going it's all very shady and convoluted and there's really not a necessity for these donations because it doesn't seem like a lot of actual charity work is being done here I mean what is the charity work here genuinely what is the charity work the charity work is keeping teenage girls as f***ings that's the only thing they're doing here that in their minds would be considered charity work most of their ministries still focus is centered around the idea of keeping young girls pure and helping single girls find husbands which in my opinion is not a cause in need of $30,000 donations God wants our relationships to have so much honor for the other person are there ways that as Christian women that you can be available that you can pursue or let a guy know you're interested without being too pushy or manipulating where we're not viewing them as an object to satisfy or lust we're not just giving into our passions like he's saying the Gentiles right like he's saying flee that you can love without f***s but you can't love without intimacy like Bethany and Christian there are people that are dying people that are dying and the other funny thing about that is that for a long time while they were teaching young girls about how to find Mr. Right so we highly caution you with a guy that's really struggling who the f*** do you want to date who are you like a rock who are you trying to date Mark Zuckerberg just yes pay about yes yes I'll do whatever you want I'm openly talking about her struggle of being single which also means because you know, purity culture her struggles of being a virgin and not being able to find a man and get married my sister's got someone, my friends have someone and I remember Christmas coming specifically and just feeling like I'm in my late 20s I still don't have that special someone I can remember year after year after year of you being married and having your romantic relationship and kissing under the mistletoe not having a boyfriend we know Valentine's Day is coming up it's all great and stuff to spend it with your family and I love my family but I kind of just want to have that special someone which is a little bit contradictory your ministry isn't even helping yourself so who are you helping here but luckily for Bethany since she had been complaining for so long that she was so single and in her season of singleness everyone else seems to have a boyfriend a boyfriend, a husband that's someone special to kiss under the mistletoe she ended up meeting someone and falling madly in love I think and forming a kind of perfect union normally I would never dive into someone's personal dating life at least to the extent that we're about to but before we get into the next section of the Girl Defined story I think it's important to preface that Bethany's dating life and marriage will become really relevant later in this chapter and that Bethany herself has heavily posted about the intimate details of her relationship does it hurt the first time I think the answer is yes it does hurt the first time personally never had any pain for those of you who don't know who this is why don't you introduce yourself I'm Dave, I'm Bethany's husband and I've been married to Bethany privilegedly for the last three years so we have actually had a lot of videos on Girl Defined our entire wedding was livestreamed on Girl Defined our entire I think it was on Girl Defined we'll actually hear first let me show you this, this is me and Dave I don't know if you can see him maybe so go to my page at Bethany Baird on Facebook or Instagram and I'll be posting some pictures on them or just go to any of Girl Defined's social media sites and I'll be posting some pictures of her and exploited all the ups and downs of her personal life which is really a whole subject on its own a lot of people have gotten pretty parasocial when it comes to the relationship of Bethany but sometimes it can go too far and have dangerous connotations so I'm going to try not to do that too much in this video one thing I will know at the time that Bethany became really involved in her relationship fans and I guess anti-fans people who followed Bethany and Kristen but were not fans of them started to notice that Kristen became a little bit more withdrawn and distant from Bethany they didn't seem as close as they used to which can be a really normal thing when sisters get married or of course there could be more to this story which many people had their own theories on Kristen was dealing with infertility problems and had multiple miscarriages we didn't really know what the problem was at this point it's like we've gotten pregnant twice and miscarried twice there's really no answers which is a horrible experience to go through but as Kristen and Bethany became more distant fans started to believe that Bethany was on a path that Kristen no longer agreed with a lot of fans theories on this around Bethany's sexuality and sexual posts which is problematic in a sense but will make more sense as this chapter unfolds because keep in mind when this chapter starts off Bethany is still single Kristen on the other hand is kind of seen as the superior sister who's been married off found love and you know probably consummated the marriage Bethany was still the sheltered girl well actually very full grown woman approaching 30 so just the fact that she now has a boyfriend that her family actually accepts for her is kind of really big news Bethany announced her new relationship to a girl defined audience in January of 2018 and some of you may have caught on to it but I'm hoping that today I can clarify for everyone and share with you something super exciting he talked to my dad and my dad at that time was like you know it's not actually like they both kind of agreed it wasn't the best time just because of some other stuff going on and just busyness and things like that in my life and I said yes I would love to be in a relationship with him and get to know him on a more intentional level her boyfriend's name was David or as he goes by Dave and soon after the big announcement he began appearing on all of her social media platforms Dave is from Southern California Dave and Bethany met at a church in Texas but there was a five and a half year age gap they got to know each other completely platonically in a friend group and it wasn't until much later that they expressed interest in each other Bethany and David got engaged on May 26 of 2018 29 years and this is the first time this happened that's right that's right that's true I've never had one of these oh y'all I cannot wait to tell you the story and then he sings another song and so I asked him if he would play it for y'all so I just wanna ask you I just wanna ask you I just wanna ask you I just wanna ask you I just wanna ask you I just wanna ask you I just wanna ask you I just wanna ask you David, Jonathan Beale pulled out his ukulele and sang me the most amazing song about his love for me he put the ukulele down put out a ring box got down on one knee and asked me to marry him not the ukulele please leave the ukulele out of it hey an interesting that drummed up a lot of internet buzz was that throughout Bethany's engagement she proudly spoke about how she was waiting to kiss Dave until their wedding day I have not kissed Dave we are saving our first kiss for when we are husband and wife which was going the extra mile to say the least almost no one not even within her immediate circle thought it was a noble cause for her to be doing I think it was weird that we waited until our wedding to kiss for the first time weirdo, cute and sweet what do you think everyone voted what do you think they voted can you guess? I actually don't know what they ended up voting Bethany also chose to live stream her entire wedding for her girl defined audience we are now in a gage trouble I cannot be more thrilled and excited and then the night of the wedding came when, well every pure gal you can expect the magic to happen if you catch my drift Bethany has openly talked about her and Dave's first time together which I won't get too much into there are reddit posts going into the details of it but from what it seems like Bethany insinuates that there were not as many fireworks and excitement as was initially anticipated it seems like not everything is made out to be in the movies and you know what, that's totally fine and should be talked about more maybe not with your life partner but it's okay to not always have chemistry with someone and for your first time to be a little bit awkward I don't know, I'm not an expert on this topic by any means and after their honeymoon on the girl defined platform Bethany made a lot of content about her experience being a newlywed but then the content about Bethany's marriage life took a weird turn with girl defined making video content like why marriage ultimately won't satisfy figuring out boundaries for your christian marriage so in marriage though it's hard because you go from being two single people to dating engaged and then married but oftentimes you still have a lot of friends who are either unmarried or who do things differently than you or who still want to be friends and maybe it's a guy or a girl like maybe your husband had friends that were girls you had friends that were guys which is fine and okay then you get married and you're like oh maybe this should change, maybe this should look a little different nothing a baby can't fix right because soon after Bethany would become pregnant and announce her pregnancy online and we're having a baby what? what's up y'all this is actually my first video for girl defined since having David I loved having a home birth I absolutely loved using midwives I absolutely loved the experience that that gave me while still openly talking about her marriage journey and the amount her and her husband were clearly struggling in their relationship we only have like couple fights a day right she jokes and while Bethany and Dave were openly talking about the struggles within their relationship the girl defined content became more and more sexually focused in a way that it hadn't necessarily been before creating a strange dichotomy that was clearly off-putting for viewers experiencing it you asked is it really as great as everyone's sensitive our most open marriage conversation yet does it bother Dave that you talk so openly about this online the answer is yes but in a good way I think that a lot of things have changed more recently like in the last six months I'll just speak personally I got to a point basically four years into our marriage where I just kind of hit a big wall of disappointment and went to get counseling mostly thinking you should get counseling I was mostly thinking really Bethany should get counseling even if I were to ask you would say we're happy I was miserable we both went and got counseling last year separately we didn't do marriage counseling so I found which we should that would be really fun so the exposure via Bethany's talking about herself and our relationship is very exposing in that sense we're like not connecting even though we're like going through the motions and we need help with that and so I never claimed to be an expert I am very open that we're learning and growing and that's why I'm constantly recommending resources and pointing you to people that I trust that I've learned from lust and sexual fantasy as a married woman when it comes to actual intimacy fantasizing about other men to be able to you know have a more pleasurable experience very common and something that's just not really talked about on top of Bethany and Dave discussing their marriage issues so openly around this time as I mentioned earlier Kristen Clark had been dealing with infertility eventually adopting two boys from Ukraine after years of trying to conceive Kristen immediately changed these two boys' names to American names and began teaching them the gospel on top of these major red flags of erasing these boys' culture that they grew up in Kristen made an Instagram post that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way after three miscarriages and 11 years of infertility I thought that finally becoming a mom would make all of my longings and discontentment go away I'm learning a very raw and real lesson about my heart I am prone to discontentment and disappointment just as much now as I was before kids I won't lie this was kind of hard to read as someone who was adopted I'm sorry to hear that can you explain why? I mean I'm not adopted but if my mom was posting on the internet that me and my siblings were so disappointing that motherhood was disappointing I honestly believe not all women are meant to be mothers talk to your girlfriends or a therapist not somewhere your kids could see this post brought up major concerns for people like was Kristen adopting just to fill a void of not being able to conceive? don't get me wrong infertility is something that is traumatic and incredibly hard to deal with but if you choose to adopt never something that you should put onto the children that you adopt as their burden to bear on Kristen's 2 year adoption anniversary she made an instagram post that many began to think was a public shade towards Bethany Kristen's post read a lot of you have asked why I've been MIA here on Instagram and well these two cutie boys are my main reason with my life and our family's life going through so much change these past 2 years I needed to be as focused and as present as possible for my boys by default social media became a low priority many people believed this was a shade towards Bethany because Bethany is extremely active on social media constantly posting and constantly on her phone in the right way we unpack all of that in our books purity, disciple ourselves to understand the truth of 16 guys things you're doing in secret that no one knows the feud and competitive speculations between the two sisters is nothing really new in the girl to find lore Kristen used to be the much more intolerable and b**** sister Bethany was the more so awkward more timid sister and Kristen was always taking shots at Bethany's season of singleness Bethany's unlikable traits really manifested once she got that old married confidence and remember what the sibling said about Heidi Baird they were raised to be married off to men that my mother approved of they were essentially turned into many versions of my mom imagine receiving so much pressure at a young age to adhere to a perfect standard to become exactly like your mother and be a pawn in your mother's game even on Heidi's Instagram there are certain children on there that she will post very frequently and there are certain children who will show up on Heidi Baird's Instagram rarely and some children who do not show up on her Instagram at all like an attention reward system meanwhile each sister is going through their own personal plights and emotions Kristen feeling grief for not being able to conceive possibly feeling pressures of purity culture and needing to be perfect and the frustrations of her body all collapsing in around her Bethany dealing with frustrations in her marriage while trying to maintain the perfect outward image all the while Bethany and Kristen have to maintain a social media brand and are for some reason updating their followers on their personal lives why are you on your ministry YouTube page updating your followers about your marriage and your life we don't need to know that information and then the whip cream happened after the whip cream content things went downhill real fast for Bethany Baird Bethany went on a social media rant about how bad it is to make fun of and talk poorly about marriage and how we should only speak positively about marriage ways to get popular on Instagram make fun of your marriage make fun of your husband's talk about how much you hate make fun of your husband we should change the conversation and start speaking positively about marriage and since you with me Bethany it feels like you have barely spoken positive about your marriage what are you talking about on top of that Bethany has posted unhappy marriage content when you're trying to watch a movie with your husband but he smacks his lips while eating the popcorn when your husband is ready to peacefully resolve conflict but you feel like being mad when your husband wakes up early with the baby and makes you coffee and you get annoyed over something small when you wake up it feels like these kinds of contradictory posts are kind of a cry for help obviously that's just my opinion but in my opinion in purity culture there's nothing more valuable than a young white sheltered woman once you've matured are married off and have children you no longer have any value of course parents have a huge value in society in general but in terms of purity culture where pure women can be seen as a commodity that needs to be kept as pure and untouched for the man she's married off to a married woman with children disregarded completely and maybe Bethany's feeling discarded by the religious culture that she's been uplifting all her life and then the fundy falls apart you told me you were interesting but you're literally always in bed I'm into resting searching for a new identity and the one that she falls into is I personally believe that the Bible gives so much room for exploration and passion and all sorts of positions all sorts of body parts after three years of marriage Bethany probably has better spiritual experience and I think has better spiritual experiences finally so now she decides she's a Christian couple who can advise young women in these very complex issues with no training or formal education being a stay at home mom wasn't fun, whimsical and fulfilling so Bethany decided to start selling courses and retconning her life goals to include entrepreneur dreams and what kind of married women feel like is more of a duty rather than a delight and I want to change all of this I want to help us as Christian women enjoy delight, get excited about and that's why I've created the ultimate course for Christian women as this Reddit post points out somewhere along the way in Bethany's new identity she realized she needed another way to make money and what better way to make money than off of her course for Christian women so Bethany began marketing a ultimate course for Christian women all over all of her social media profiles don't have sex, save sex for marriage wait, wait, wait, that's the message many of us heard growing up and then we get married and we're like okay so is this what I waited all this time for? the ultimate course for Christian women this two week intensive we're trying to help you experience the most satisfying sexual pleasure and deepen your relationship slash emotional connection with your man you can experience more pleasure sadly many women have bought into the lie that they're broken they believe something is wrong with them or their marriage and mind blowing pleasure just isn't in the cards for them, this is simply not true in this course I've brought on some of the greatest experts regarding sex marriage and intimacy so now the same person who promoted purity culture didn't even kiss anyone until marriage and didn't have her first intimate experience until the age of 30 had only been having intimate experiences for three years created an entire course to help you experience the most satisfying sexual pleasure for the price of $169 three years of marriage in which Bethany and Dave openly talked about struggling and were also preoccupied with a baby unless you're naturally a sex goddess what on earth gives you the expertise to be selling people a $169 course this course includes 10 sessions that will explore God's beautiful design for your sexuality pregnancy, postpartum and body image and security sexual intimacy during infertility members will have access to the course as long as it exists that's not vague at all Rachel Oates did a great video actually taking the course if you want to see the ins and outs of the course itself and some comments on that video read it's so bizarre watching people in their 30s discover basic knowledge that I already knew at the age of 14 Bethany was talking about wishing that there was some kind of required class or counseling for newlyweds about sex if only there was something like ed but no, fundies like her are actively advocating banning it from schools the Facebook group the ultimate sex course for Christian women has 211 members who joined how much did the 211 pay she had a 30% discount code when the course was 129 and now 40% when it's 169 so probably around $80 to $100 so in total Bethany has made somewhere around $16,000 to $20,000 off of this ultimate sex course though of course that doesn't factor in the costs because Bethany features experts within this course I'm judging this out of those 211 people for essentially co-signing what that one couple did to the poor baby since that couple is still part of the course what couple baby are you talking about the exologist's wife and her friend that's featured on the course basically S.A.A.D a baby to find out where a body part was and they shared this story on Beggy's podcast like it was a normal thing to do and then I just said oh well I don't have a class and she was like what do you mean you don't have a class and our friend after a bit said I just feel like taking Phyllis in the back room and showing her what I'm talking about well Phyllis started to stand up and then this other woman said but I just can't do that our oldest child had been born which is a little girl and eventually Phyllis was changing our daughter's diaper and our friend showed her on our little girl and yeah that was actually a legitimate thing that happened that Bethany shared on her podcast Bethany co-signed this behavior and then featured them as experts in her course but because Bethany made a good amount of money on her first course Bethany made another course this time for single women I am starting the ultimate mentorship course for single women what to do when you're like I feel like I'm getting turned on when we talk about all of that I'm confused wasn't your whole thing that single women can't have sex this two week intensive is designed to help you understand God's amazing design for your sexuality as a single woman and thrive exactly where you are right now this two week course to do exactly nothing great similar to the other course this course costs $169 and members have access to it as long as it exists and this course has 10 sessions with titles like understanding my sexuality and strive finding healing and wholeness from past wounds managing your cycle, hormones this is something people literally train for years to do well they do internships they pass licensing exams because they can do serious damage to people's lives and mental health if you do this wrong this is so dangerous girl defined is doing serious damage already with their discussions about gender, sexuality and gender expression they're doing damage that may cause people to feel serious genuine and despicable which brings up a really good point a lot of people who get into helping people with their gender their sexuality have a massive passion for it and it's their life mission whereas I don't get the sense that this is Bethany's life mission you're dealing with such heavy topics in a really light handed way and you have to be very careful because if it's handled improperly you can really damage someone's life as Bethany continued to post about her sex courses and how this advice has changed her life if you have been wanting to find a community of women and a resource that can help you grow in your sex life, grow in your marriage, grow in your relationship, grow in your understanding of your sexuality the ultimate sex course for Christian women is for you Bethany's public marriage problems persisted in March of 2023 Dave posted a public instagram reel where he gave the honest truth regarding the problems with his relationships Dave claimed around a year ago he realized I didn't like myself, I didn't like my life according to Dave he was suppressing his life energy by adapting himself to what he thought other people wanted from him he even claimed that he was being emotionally manipulative and controlling in his marriage I was emotionally manipulative and controlling in my marriage and ultimately ineffective and undesirable around this time Bethany was promoting her courses and routinely giving marriage advice David posted another video talking about how he's going to therapy and is working on himself I went and got some therapy wonderful therapist some of what he said according to others described a codependent relationship but the positive in this is eventually he saw the problem and saw therapy in a live video Dave also admits that his and Bethany's life used to be bare crumbs we could have the crumbs just the bare crumbs of love and intimacy for both of us and then just pretending that that's great this was an attempt to try and sell the course stating that in the past before they had educated themselves on they were only getting the bare crumbs but now their life is so much better so you should buy their course so that you have a better life as well the thing is this goes against all of the Christian teachings that Bethany had been peddling before the idea that if you stay pure and wait till marriage you'll have a fulfilling life fulfilling marriage and sex life that everything's going to be good if now Bethany's saying that you need to educate yourself and you need a sex course then that goes against all of that doctrine throughout Bethany and Dave's marriage there's been a continual flip-flop of Bethany trying to portray the perfect marriage life Bethany talking about her and Dave's struggles in their marriage you can't have your cake and eat it too Bethany is continually trying to profit off of her marriage trying to portray the perfect Christian married life and even while her and Dave make content on their continual marriage struggles she simultaneously will use her marriage as a way to market her courses and ways to give advice to other people on bethanybiel.com she advertised a $15 pdf for strengthening marriage that kind of makes your marriage an issue we need to evaluate unfortunately and unfortunately your marriage doesn't seem like the strongest one and you are literally selling advice to people asking them to pay you money for you to give them marriage advice on how to strengthen their own marriage which means you're an expert in the subject matter when you're clearly not but the sad fact of the matter is as we saw at least 200 people bought bethany's course and then joined a facebook group on it so the business plan worked which gave bethany the boost she needed and the motivation to make courses courses and more courses Bethany sold a six course scholarship so bethany officially entered her prime time boss entrepreneurship start your own business era y'all it is 2022 this is totally possible one you just need to recognize that this is possible for you women all over bethany posted about a six week thrive single girl mentorship program which is different than her single girl sex course and was all done and $249 she heavily promoted it on her personal social medias but also would interact through girl defined social medias which is where things get ethically sketchy here is her interacting with a customer on the girl defined social media profile asking them to DM the girl defined profile for a discount code on the single girl thrive mentorship program which I'm pretty sure goes directly into bethany beals bank account not the girl defined ministry bank account since she advertises it on her personal social medias as my six week live single girl thrive mentorship program promoting a course that goes directly into your personal bank account through a nonprofit ministry is really sketch shady you're mixing your personal business with a nonprofit ministry bethany beal continued her pattern of grifting and greed but straight away from her Christian brand into a path that almost every sort of influencer scammer eventually goes down a path that we've covered on this channel countless times you've guessed it or maybe not I honestly can't read your mind but bethany beals started a platform for selling courses you how to sell courses also you can be a boss babe like bethany beal a bethany beal boss babe a bbbb and she called this said platform I wish she called it a bbbb but bethany called this platform she works smart my name is bethany beal and I am the founder of she works smart and I actually got the name idea from province 31 I want to help women work smarter she works smart is a complete guide to creating and launching your own profitable online course business my name is bethany beal and I'm excited to help you start your very own profitable online course business so that you can make money on autopilot online courses are usually directed at this idea of helping you launch an online business they often over promise or over insinuate how much money you're going to be able to make after purchasing their online course bethany claims that she can help you create your own profitable online course business suggesting that your financial situation can change in merely six months if you start your own profitable course you can change your future she claims so bethany's other courses would range from 250 to 150 how much is this course the low price of $2,400 wait no $1,900 and of course as you can see on the website the price is pretty much perpetually marked down from $2,400 to $1,900 which is a really silly fake sale deceptive marketing practice the idea behind this is to create this perception of getting a great deal when in reality there's actually no deal and no savings being made which I feel like most reasonable people are going to look at the price of $1,900 and see that as a ridiculous price regardless even if the original price was $2,400 on the website it also says the option of a one-time payment of $1,900 or you can make 6 monthly payments of $400 which is definitely more realistic for most households to be able to spread out the payments over 6 installments but the thing is although bethany's website claims that the course sells at a reduced price of $1,900 that only applies if you choose the one-time payment. If customers can't pay the one-time payment and you can only pay the $400 over the period of 6 months that will equate to the original price of $2,400 which was done very strategically knowing that most customers won't be able to pay all at once and will likely have to choose the $400 over a period of 6 payments option. Personally I feel like that's a really deceptive tactic. If customers choose the more financially comfortable option of $400 over 6 payments the price goes up from $1,900 to $2,400 which is over a 25% increase in price. Becoming your own online course business owner is your ticket out. That feels predatory to say you have to take this course because it's your ticket out. You have to pay $2,000 to have more money in life. That makes sense. You are crushing it. You are taking steps towards launching a super successful online course that makes you passive income literally while you sleep. I'm just so glad that you're here. On the SheWorkSmart Instagram page Bethany constantly brags about being a stay-at-home mother who has made thousands of dollars from her online course. Unlike her girl-defined brand this business seems to be primarily marketed towards mothers who are struggling financially who may also need to stay at home and raise their children. So it's important to note that this issue specifically impacts single mothers. Almost half of single mothers worldwide struggled to afford food in the past year. In the U.S. alone, 40% of single mothers struggled to afford food and 27% could not afford shelter. Bethany continues to make the claim that she made $40,000 on her launch day of SheWorkSmart. $40,000 initially sounds like a substantial amount until you divide that $40,000 by the 1900 price which equals 21.1 meaning roughly 21 to 22 people signed up for her program on launch day which is not much considering Bethany's large social platform. If you divide the $40,000 by the 2400 price it equals 16.6 meaning 16 to 17 people bought the course. Bethany also continues to make posts saying things like when you're in bed for 24 hours with a killer migraine that still bring over $2,000 from your digital products continuing to brag about her passive income and how she doesn't have to go out and work. The dream for most stay-at-home moms is to figure out a way to make passive income while you are out with your kiddos. I was at Chick-fil-A the other day I literally was sitting there watching my kiddos play and made $800. If you want to be a stay-at-home mom who makes money while you're at Chick-fil-A with your kids then just DM me I'm ready and I will send you my free master class to get you started. When someone asked Bethany how they were supposed to sell a business course without a significant social media presence Bethany clarified she would not use her social media platforms to promote she works smart. I'm not using my other platforms to build this. I want new people that are passionate about what I'm sharing here to follow. However, Bethany likely noticing that her platform was struggling to grow began promoting she works smart on her personal social media accounts. And Bethany's excuse was that she was just super passionate about this and couldn't help but share and connect with other like-minded people. Bethany also received a lot of backlash for one of the posts she made promoting her course which was reviewed by the New York Post in which she says women don't want to be like men for the workforce. Women don't want to spend their most fertile years chasing a job or a degree and don't want to hustle our lives away. What are you doing then with this course? Aren't you hustling and teaching women how to grow a business and make a career with she works smart? The cognitive dissonance here is alarming and that's why Bethany's she works smart course is struggling. She just seemed to grasp who she's selling her course to and what it is they want. Whether or not she's selling the hustle grind mindset or the soft and gentle stay at home lifestyle she has no brand strategy including pricing is it an ultra high end luxury course where pricing is no issue or is it a reasonable course where pricing is moderate and affordable for the everyday person. Also just like the course what gives Bethany the right and expertise to put out a course like this she's only sold one course or technically three one through girl defined in the mentorship program and then two courses one for single ladies and one for married women and none of them were technically a major success to my knowledge none of them reached the thousands of participants and now she's enough of an expert on how to sell courses that she's going to teach you how to do it the fact that all of this started with a ministry that was supposed to teach young women about God and now it devolved into a grift focused on profit and even deceptive marketing tactics is bizarre. The saddest part of all of this is that as soon as Bethany's number of courses exploded so did the amount of family members who came out with courses as well their sister Rebecca came out with a nutrition course when again Rebecca has no nutrition background or nutrition education she has a guide for 34 dollars and a one on one call for 69 dollars where she'll help you create a health plan a nutrition health plan from someone with no nutrition education what this is so dangerous again there are people who study and dedicate their entire lives to nutrition to help not give people any dangerous advice to help them recover from things like eds not get eds from giving them the wrong advice because nutrition is so complex on a chemical level on a biological level another sister has two courses Alyssa created a thrive together course for the cost of 60 dollars you can do an eight week online course tired of feeling awkward in social situations done with social fear and worry ready to start thriving in any social situation in a god honoring way um so this is a course on social anxiety how to be less awkward pray saved you all 60 dollars Alyssa also came out with a course to help Christians in long distance relationships where my long distance relationship ladies a Christian girls guide to long distance dating learn to biblically navigate the exciting and challenging season of long distance dating my theory is that the mom and sisters all took bethys course on courses found their niches and are all selling to each other now like some sort of weird twisted pyramid scheme I think bethys made some the intercourse that's what lit this fire I'd be shocked if any of them actually took her course on courses unless she gave it to them for free and as we know the matriarch of the family Heidi Baird is also branding herself as a mentor for women I've never seen an older woman of a church have such a millennial branded Instagram before but Heidi Baird also has life mentoring which you can sign up for for one hour sessions for a hundred and ten dollars one hour of personal life coaching and mentoring but then he continued to amp up the greed in her actions online posts and what she would continue to ask of her audience even in her posts about girl defined she would brag about how girl defined maximized their profit through the fact that they created PDF books and hosted live events and had zero overhead charges and how they discovered online courses and jumped in to create an online course that would fund the ministry and how each launch in the three launches they did brought in five plus figures and I believe these were the years where they did not release how much money they made do you think this is something that should be marked as a nonprofit is this a nonprofit or is this a business what charity work is girl defined really doing here Bethany would also begin advertising her baby registry when she became pregnant so that her followers would buy gifts for her from her registry and send them to her and then she began complaining about the gifts that people would send her from her registry when someone bought Bethany an $80 bag off of her registry for her toddler she went on Instagram to complain because she didn't intend to put it on her registry for her toddler but for her baby instead one of you is sending me the blue one for Davey which is so funny because I'm like he's the toddler baby girl she's the main one for the registry whoever you are you keep adding it back and taking it off because you didn't purchase it through Amazon I couldn't follow this repetitive stream of consciousness blabber very well but what I'm getting is someone kindly bought Bethany the blue bag and she can't believe they didn't also buy the pink bag those bags are $80 a piece and she's wanting a fetus and a toddler to use them and she wants her followers to buy them for her baby and toddler Bethany also put items on her baby registry that are over $500 Bethany put the Duna infant car seat which if you don't know what that is it's a baby car seat that turns into a stroller that is over $500 on to her baby registry expecting somebody from her followers to buy it for her she also had an arm chair on her baby registry which is $600 to $800 depending on the color and Bethany would promote her registry to her followers asking them to send her things for her baby and then thanking them when they did send her things I doubt any of her followers bought her the $500 car seat or the $600 arm chair at least I am praying that nobody did but influencers can often take advantage of their fans wanting to support them and the most common time is during pregnancy but subtly asking for your followers to buy a $600 chair for your baby off of your registry is a whole other level of taking advantage of your fans as Christian blogger Ray of Dawn noted charity is a tenet of Christianity so if anything she ought to bless her followers with her abundance of wealth and while she no doubt say something like oh these people just blessed me out of the goodness of their heart she wouldn't have posted her registry publicly if she didn't want to guilt her followers into buying her stuff Hebrews says keep your life free from love of money and be content with what you have and Proverbs says better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways sure while there aren't any explicit Bible verses saying don't exploit the people who support you into funding your own lifestyle it goes without saying her behavior is shady and selfish at best and downright sinful at worst I've done a lot of research on girl defined and I think it is a really important point to bring up that while girl defined as a company is a non-profit I cannot find too many instances where Anthony and Kristen are actively giving back to their followers in acts of charity compared to the amount of times where they are asking for donations from their fans and when they are asking for charity from their followers not only does that bring into question whether or not girl defined should even exist as a non-profit or whether it's just a brand and a business it also brings into question the downward spiral of greed that the sisters have embarked on particularly Bethany Beale but it's important to remember that people don't exist within a vacuum there's a reason that Bethany became the person that she is today treats her followers the way she treats them acts greedy and selfish at times and is overall aimless her opportunities were stripped away from her before she ever got the chance to discover herself when she loved basketball her parents said no she could only be with a Christian man her parents approved of she couldn't go to school not even a bible college the only identity she had was her purity and after that was lost when she got married the only identity she had was marriage and having sex she clung to that last leg all the while Bethany has no idea who she really is was this all Bethany's own making or was this a path she was led down under the strict guidelines of her mother as a sibling alluded to well that sibling has come forward with his harrowing story on reddit which uncovered quite a lot of the dark truth of Heidi Baird and the Baird family may contain the answers to these questions as the sibling Michael Mershone posted his truth on to reddit let me read what Michael has said himself coming from his own words as it deserves to be highlighted strictly from his own words the truth from the oldest Baird child I'm the oldest Baird child and I don't align with much if anything of what my sisters girl defined say I have enough hate and don't need it for me as well I will not talk sh** about my sisters despite disagreeing with them that being said much of what they preach is fundamentalist and does damage but they are just pawns in a larger game if you made it this far and your head didn't explode at the mention of girl defined then let me tell you why I'm here I'm here to speak my truth about the abuse I suffered at the hands of my parents I was raised in the Gothard ATI world and I was homeschooled my entire life and was a victim of ongoing abuse of multiple kinds I'm a survivor of childhood SA by a female neighbor when I was around 7 years old I know my mother knew about it because she walked in on it happening it has never been spoken of to this day and if that were the only time that would have been bad enough I also was grew an SA'd arred in the A 7 years old by a male neighbor at our next house I was made to feel like a victim and that it was my fault which led to repressed memories that didn't resurface till I was in my 30's it has been roughly 5 years since I started dealing with my past SA and to this day I have never received anything close to a sincere apology from my mother Heidi Baird to this day my mother accuses me of living in a victimhood mentality that I need to take to God and let him heal me from my mother is a toxic person and nothing that you see on any of her posts is authentic or real as if you needed me to tell you that I cannot change what was done to me or get the years of my childhood I was robbed of back but I can do my part to prevent her from hurting anyone else this post was also mod verified verifying that this was Michael Mershawn that posted in this post Michael mentions Gothard A.T.I if you've seen the Duggar documentary you know what that is but if you don't the Gothard and A.T.I world is something founded by William Gothard Jr who founded the Institute in Basic Life Principles otherwise known as IBLP an ultra-conservative Christian organization his conservative teachings encourage Bible memorization of large families homeschooling, aversion to debt male superiority and female obedience and conservative dress sound familiar? Girl Defined has publicly denied that they were active members of IBLP growing up in a homeschool family we were involved in some of those programs so we did go to some of those conferences we did attend some of those programs we were never members we were trained in the program we never did any of the curriculum but according to Michael Mershawn at least through his childhood this was not the case I grew up in a very loving home by all accounts very strict very rigid Christian home ultra-conservative if I had to put a definition to it and at least in a video Bethany admitted to meeting Gothard did you meet Bill Gothard? because I remember meeting him he was the big bad man for this whole thing he was kind of a god in that arena and I remember feeling that like he was the leader of the entire program it was like meeting the president but Gothard has been accused of sexual harassment and molestation and some of the plaintiffs were minors at the time he would often place his hands on inappropriate areas of women's bodies with their hands on inappropriate areas of his body I didn't know the Bairds followed Gothard ATI I thought they were more of the evangelical megachurch attending kind Michael responds I cannot speak to their current beliefs but I was raised under Bill Gothard's teachings attending at least five basic conferences that I can remember and was shipped off to alert two days after I graduated high school spending almost two years there was that voluntary or were you forced to go I was told I was going about two years before I graduated and honestly didn't question it to say that the basic training indoctrination for alert was psychotic we lost over 60% of the people that started it I later joined the military and that was a cakewalk compared to what we were exposed to at alert when you say lost do you mean people died or they quit and left the program lost would be people that got physically or mentally injured and had to leave you were not allowed to quit or just leave the boot camp portion you had to essentially snap mentally or get a serious enough injury that you couldn't finish the course I saw multiple of both wow that sounds incredibly traumatic on the website for the alert academy they describe themselves as the alert academy is an intense post high school Christian discipleship and training program for young men who want to live with purpose and make an impact we forge men to be spiritually sound physically fit and ready to serve alert utilizes a military style structure intentional discipleship unique experiences and professional skills training to create an environment that facilitates the forging process Michael Marshawn also released a YouTube video describing his experiences in his childhood titled one in six male survivors my story of childhood s a I remember vividly as about four years ago standing in the kitchen standing in front of the sink talking to my wife who was sitting on the couch at the time and we were having a conversation and I remember very specifically that she knew something was very heavy and something was going on but she didn't know what and I knew I wanted to tell her I didn't tell her but I didn't know how so in so many words I just gave her some clues and she was able to guess that something had happened to me and through a series of further questions it came out that I was sexually abused as a kid and this is when I was 33 years old and that is when I told anybody for the first time there was a flood of feelings and emotions and guilt and shame I just broke down crying right there at the sink and she came over and she just held me that was the start of my journey I remember very vividly that I would act out because I was hurting and I was wounded and I didn't know what to do so my cries for help were perceived as they were perceived as anger and hatred and rebelliousness and basically the end result was that I was punished all my experiences in childhood had taught me that anything that I bring up or anything that I try to do is going to lead to me being punished that's the whole thing is that like it can happen to anybody I was raised in a very strict very rigid Christian home homeschooled the whole nine yards this is kind of my way of punching fear in the face and just yes I was a statistic yes I was a Jesus a kid but I want to use that story for good and I want to help other people that may be in the same situation let them know that you're not alone in the text message that he shared of Heidi victim blaming him Heidi says victim hood can become an idol when threatened, fears losing control and becomes angry at those that seek a resolution it's the only life a victim knows that's how well meaning counselors and therapists keep clients in years of a cyclical system of never ending sessions with no hope of an end it does not seek resolutions and forgiveness Michael says in this particular conversation my mother says she's been waiting for years for me to reach out to talk about my CSA she never once in all those years reached out for anything related to my healing or abuse because she's been waiting for me the victim to reach out to her according to Michael he claims that Heidi is a narcissist I grew up with a narcissist as a mother I think it's important to understand why I love my sister despite what I may think of the content they post I believe they are victims as much as I was and I wish to do what I can to save them from the toxicity that is my mom the best way I can see to save my siblings is to expose my mom for the fraud she is I cannot remember having a single honest conversation with my mother I don't remember ever receiving any sincere affection from her and she had an end motive to everything she did I learned that to survive my childhood I was going to have to suppress any emotion ask no questions and play the obedient son image was and from what I can see is everything to her I experienced many forms of punishment from being spanked so hard wood spoons broke to being forced to move from a bedroom in the main house to a converted garage they made a portion of into a bedroom so my sister could have her own room I was kicked out of the house by my mom on several occasions in my teenage years I had my bedroom door removed on multiple occasions because I either slammed it or locked it without permission other times I was removed from my room and forced to live on a cot in our school room with three open shelves for my things I was basically a warning to all other kids in the house what can happen if they disobey I feel deeply for my sisters as they grew up with the same mother this is from my perspective so I cannot speak for them but can speak to what I saw and how I perceived things for the girls school was never an option and they were raised to be married off to men that my mother approved of I feel deeply for them because they were essentially turned into mini versions of my mom I understand the hate they receive on here and I would say that they are simply pawns in my mother's world I am making it my mission to stop my mom from hurting anymore people and the best way I see to do that is to speak my truth despite what my family may think or say of me growing up I was always the loner in the family I was also the oldest and often helped with the younger kids with the age gaps and role reversals I never really developed relationships with my siblings before I moved out when Michael speaks of his sister Bethany he says I don't pretend to align with on girl defined but she's a product of my family and I see her as a sister and not a social media personality I know she's working through things her own way and I've actually seen a lot of growth in her as a person I'm so sorry your mother wasn't there to protect you you deserved so much more I hope that speaking out helps you heal thank you for your kind words I feel for my sisters they're victims of my mother's toxicity as well and I do help they find their way out my goal in this is to expose and provide tangible testimony or evidence that people can use to start to dismantle her social media following and expose her for the fraud she is before she hurts anyone else can you assess how much clout she really has inside her community and the wider fundamentalist realm has that changed in recent years I don't know specifically but I do know she mentors many women and her message gets amplified as long as she's control of my sisters and their girl defined platform it is my hope that by speaking out the truth will make it to the people that still believe the nonsense she spouts so according to Michael Heidi Baird has quite a bit of level of control over Bethany and Kristen and the girl defined platform I'm so glad that Michael is speaking out first off because more people need to know about the toxic terrible treatment that Heidi put her own child through the punishments that she made Michael endure again having one child endure specific treatments to show other children what could be done to them brings me back to what I was talking about earlier having a child ranking system and very clear favoritism caring about very specific images as Michael mentioned all of this are very reminiscent red flags secondly because it can help other survivors know that they're not alone maybe even within his own family family dynamics are one of the most complex but are so connected and as much as Michael may be or seem like the black sheep or the family scapegoat which I'm not a mental health expert but often times particularly in narcissistic family dynamic you'll have a scapegoat who is the outcast of the family where blame is shifted to in the family dynamic if Michael is the scapegoat his dynamic is probably interwoven and connected to other children within the system to feed the beast that is Heidi's ego and social standing if I may boldly say as much I never expected I would have this much to say on the topic of girl defined but you never know what someone's full story is until you dive a little bit deeper is someone truly a product of themselves their own worst enemy are they getting in the way of their own growth trajectory or is it their upbringing and their surroundings that are holding them back I think it's safe to say it can be a mix of both your past is never what defines you you can always grow and change become better like a lotus rising from the muck at the bottom of the lake to bloom on the clear surface of the water and in essence that's what purity is to me not keeping yourself clean in body but being able to rise above your past the demons that maybe haunt you and continually grow yourself as a person in mind and spirit we've all had people who have held us back in life whether that's been our parents friends or life circumstances just like Bethany and Kristen have some of those things are incredibly difficult to overcome and some of us are incredibly more privileged than others but the sad thing is Bethany when given the opportunity to grow pushed herself more towards greed and exploiting her own audience and less towards finding herself and her own autonomy but there's still time and maybe because of their past we can be a little bit kinder and more gracious towards Bethany and Kristen and the Mershawn and Barad family besides Heidi as we hope for them to grow as people to realize that they have been wronged in their own lives and not continue the cycle and acknowledge the harm that they have perpetuated and passed on to others and that's all for today's video thank you so much for watching if you made it this far I really appreciate it so much work into this video and thank you so much to my team who has been alongside with me in this ride thank you so much to everyone who has been making suggestions in my videos I have been taking them in and trying as hard as I can to implement them while still incorporating a unique style if you have any more suggestions I definitely would love to hear it I want to make my videos as accessible for everyone as possible and that's been a huge thing I've been trying to incorporate big things with the updates to the set I've been trying to make it still less distracting so that anyone with disabilities is still able to watch same thing with transitions I've been trying to make them not as flashy with different editing styles so that it's as accessible for everyone watching I know another huge suggestion I've been getting is different captions to make my videos more accessible and that's something that I am wanting to implement in the future and definitely looking into anyways I hope you are all doing well and I will see you in the next video bye