Infants on Thrones

Episode 18: Manacled Mormon in Sex Chains

Joyce McKinney (audio clip): "Once upon a time, there was a little princess. The most beautiful little princess in all the land."

Glenn (narration): This is Joyce McKinney, and the little princess she's talking about is herself.

Joyce McKinney (audio clip): "Her hair was long and blonde, and her eyes were as brown as the dark waters of the river which ran by her castle. But the little princess was unhappy, for she was lonely. Someday she would find her kind, handsome prince, and he would sweep her up on a big white horse, and he would take her away and marry her, and they would live happily ever after."

Glenn (narration): In 1977, Joyce McKinney and three companions flew from Los Angeles, California to London, England to track down and kidnap a Mormon missionary named Kirk Anderson. Joyce had met Kirk months earlier in Utah and was convinced that he was her kind and handsome prince. But when he went away on his mission without telling her he was leaving or where he was going, she thought he had been absconded by an evil brainwashing cult. So she hired a private detective in Los Angeles to track him down, and then traveled with her entourage to England to liberate him from this wicked cult and live happily ever after.

Joyce McKinney (audio clip): "Hi, I'm Joyce McKinney, and that's from my pending book, A Very Special Love Story."

Glenn (narration): A very special love story indeed. But when two of these three male accomplices realized what Joyce was planning, they bailed. Joyce and her very special friend KJ tracked down Elder Anderson, abducted him at false gunpoint, drove him to a quaint little cottage in the country, tied him spread-eagle to a bed, and for three days engaged in some very special love. I'm Glenn Ostlund, and today on Infants on Thrones, I'll be joined by Randy Snyder...

Randy (clip): "I remember having like wet dreams about that, like that would be so awesome."

Glenn: ...Jesse Smith...

Jesse (clip): "She's this beauty queen, you know, hooker with all this money."

Glenn: ...and Tom Perry.

Tom (clip): "So Glenn, the most important question of all: would you still tap that?"

Glenn: ...to review the documentary Tabloid and discuss in excessively jocular detail the thoroughly rippled case of the manacled Mormon in sex chains.

Theme / Intro: This is Infants on Thrones. The philosophies of men mingled with humor. We are the core.

Glenn: Welcome back to Infants on Thrones. Today, we're going to review the 2010 documentary Tabloid. Now, Tabloid tells the bizarre story of Joyce McKinney, who made national news in the US and created a huge tabloid buzz in Britain when she kidnapped and repeatedly raped a Mormon missionary. Now, the documentary features Miss McKinney herself passionately telling her side of the story in what I thought was a rather shocking display of delusion. It's one of those train wreck type situations where it's just so awful, but you can't quite look away. But what really intrigued me the most about the movie was the way that Mormonism was portrayed and the role that it played in Miss McKinney's delusions. Some of the ways they portrayed Mormonism I agreed with and others I really didn't. But it seemed like the sort of thing that could inspire a lively panel discussion and would hopefully tell an engaging story to you listeners that you probably hadn't heard before.

Now, Tabloid is available on Netflix, so if you haven't seen it, you might want to go check it out before listening any further, but I will provide a high-level summary of the main points so you should be able to follow along even if you haven't seen it. Now, before we go any further, I want to warn you: if you're easily offended by off-color language or overtly sexual discussions or locker-room talk where a bunch of guys are talking about things they maybe don't know that much about, then this isn't the episode for you. These panel discussions did get pretty raw, so proceed at your own discretion.

Okay, so let's dive right in. Here is Joyce McKinney herself telling her side of the story.

Joyce McKinney (clip): "I hadn't been out in the world much till I went to Utah, you know; I hadn't been around much."

Glenn (narration): Joyce McKinney was born in North Carolina in 1949. Her family eventually moved out west, and she was crowned Miss Wyoming in 1972 at the age of 22. She presents herself as an innocent, sheltered young woman, but as you'll see, later evidence arises that calls all that into question.

Interviewer (clip): "Were there a lot of men attracted to you?"

Joyce McKinney (clip): "Well, I guess so. I don't know, I'm not that vain. But I wasn't looking for just any guy. I wanted a special guy, and he had to have certain qualities. There's plenty of guys out there, but I wanted a special guy."

Glenn (narration): So, she went to BYU where special guys are grown and joined the drama department. And at some point, a professor of hers introduced her to the missionaries, and this is how she came to be familiar with the Mormon church. And it sounds kind of like it was a little underhanded way that the professor did this, but I'll let you judge that for yourself.

Joyce McKinney (clip): "I met this professor and he said, 'Well, I've got these perfect guys for you and they're just your type, Joyce. They don't smoke and they don't drink and clean cut and you're just going to love them and why don't you come over to my house and meet them?' They were Mormons. They didn't tell me what Mormonism was all about. He didn't say, 'We're a group that believes that Jesus was a polygamist and was married to Mary Magdalene.'"

Glenn (narration): Really?

Joyce McKinney (clip): "He didn't say, 'We believe that God lives on a star named Kolob.'"

Glenn (narration): Well, technically, it's a planet near the star Kolob, but okay.

Joyce McKinney (clip): "He didn't say we believe that black people were cursed with the mark of Cain. They made me think they were a church. They made me think that they were family-oriented. And so I was drawn to them as a young 19-year-old teenager like a moth to a flame. I was just so happy to go to this place where I thought that I would have my pick of just all-American friends, people, husband material, I guess."

Glenn (narration): And one of these all-American guys was named Kirk Anderson. Joyce owned a Corvette, and Kirk owned a Corvette. She was maybe six or seven years older than him at the time that they met, so I don't really understand when she's talking about being a 19-year-old teenager. But they met and it was sparks. And she said right at the top, the very first date, there were some really special things that were happening, because remember, this was a very special love.

Joyce McKinney (clip): "He actually told me he loved me the first night I met him and asked me to marry him the second night. And then the next thing I know, we're naming our kids. And we were going to name them all with J's and K's: J for Joyce, K for Kirk—Joshua, Jacob, Kyle, Kirk..."

Glenn (narration): Coriantumr? So at this point, Joyce claims that they were engaged. But then a very strange thing happened.

Joyce McKinney (clip): "Kirk and I were just ready for the big wedding and everything was happy. The only problem is I was wanting to get married in the Christian church and he was getting pressure from the other side. And so one day he vanished into thin air. I don't mean he left me. I don't mean he abandoned me. I don't mean he left me for another woman. I mean he evaporated into thin air. He wasn't the kind of person to just run off like that. His things were still at my place and it's just weird."

Glenn (narration): Yeah, it is weird, because I've gone on a mission, and when there were people that I wanted to keep in touch with, I gave them my address. They knew exactly where I was.

Joyce McKinney (clip): "I did what any American girl would do if her fiancé vanished in thin air: I looked for him. I went to LA and I worked three jobs trying to save up enough money to pay a private investigator to find out what happened to him."

Glenn (narration): Now, after this story became huge, the British press went back and dug up a lot of dirt on Joyce. They found topless photos, personal ads in the paper offering nude massage and oral sex. So it appears that these three jobs in LA were a little more than what an innocent, sheltered woman would be willing to do. Now, she denies that she did any of those things, but the evidence says otherwise.

Joyce McKinney (clip): "The private investigator found him in England. The Mormons had him."

Glenn (narration): Yep, the Mormons had him. So, she and her best friend, a guy named KJ, decided to start planning this trip to England to go and rescue Kirk from the Mormons.

Joyce McKinney (clip): "KJ was like my big brother and he said to me, 'I don't want you going over there to England by yourself. You don't know what they're going to do to you.' All I knew is this powerful group had done something to the man I loved. We got two bodyguards to go with us. One was a big guy that was a bodybuilder guy, and the other was a pilot."

Glenn (narration): Okay, now I've got to read to you the personal ad that Joyce put in the newspaper to recruit these bodyguards: "Free trip to Europe. Big adventurous dude wanted. Must be 6'2" and over 210 lbs. Seeking a Rocky or Mr. Atlas type. Prefer bodybuilder or musician. All expenses paid if you help a lovely fox fulfill a unique romantic sexual fantasy as part of her wedding party."

So she used this ad to recruit two bodyguards who traveled to England with Joyce and KJ. But eventually, both of them bailed when they realized what she was up to. She had this wireless radio equipment so that KJ could talk to the missionaries and she could listen in from the car. And they had chloroform and a fake gun to ensure that they could take Kirk with minimal resistance. Here's what one of the bodyguards had to say about this whole experience.

Bodyguard (clip): "Out come two young men dressed in suits, a tie, and a white shirt. And she told me, 'There is Kirk.' Well, I was totally surprised. This was nobody being held captive. And that's when Joyce kind of leveled with me. Showed me a bottle of chloroform and I'd already seen this phony gun they had. I was going to be no part of any of this. And I told her that."

Glenn (narration): So it was just Joyce and KJ at this point. But that didn't stop her plan. She had KJ pose as an investigator, and they set up a meeting at the church. So when Kirk showed up, KJ pulled out the gun and marched him out to the car.

Joyce McKinney (clip): "He got in the car and he goes, 'How long have you been in England?' like a robot. He was almost speaking in a monotone voice, and he goes, 'They said you didn't love me anymore.' It was like he had a personality alteration: Kirk number one and Kirk number two. Kirk number one was the man I fell in love with. Kirk number two was Cult Kirk."

Glenn (narration): Now, Kirk Anderson didn't want to have anything to do with this movie, so all we know from his side of the story are things that he testified in court back in 1977. But according to Joyce, Kirk got in the car and went with her willingly. According to Kirk, he was chloroformed and covered under a blanket. And then Joyce and KJ drove him out to a small rented cottage in Devon, tied him up to a bed, and then KJ bowed out while Joyce and Kirk celebrated what she called their three-day glorious honeymoon. And this is where things get really crazy.

Joyce McKinney (clip): "Well, I was looking for someplace peaceful where he could normalize, someplace where he could come back to Kirk number one. I had a big fireplace, patchwork quilt, silk sheets—blue to match his eyes with his initials on it—cinnamon oil back rub 'cause he loved my back rubs, and all his favorite foods in the fridge. Oh, I had chocolate cake and southern fried chicken. He loved my chicken. Mashed potatoes. I made everything that he wanted. I was like his little wifey almost. We were slow dancing. He got turned on as we were dancing. I'll be blunt: he had an erection, okay? And we sat down on the bed and he said, 'Can you give me a back rub?' And I got the cinnamon oil which I had warmed and I was giving him a back rub and he had these ugly garments on. I said, 'How am I supposed to give you a back rub with this Mormon thing on?' And I ripped the ugly things off because they smelled, and they had those occultic symbols, and I didn't want anything ugly there in our beautiful moment. It was like a honeymoon cottage and we burned them. We actually burned them! We ripped off his magic underwear and I threw them in the fireplace where they belonged, where they should put them all as far as I'm concerned."

Glenn (narration): Her story is a little difficult to follow, because at first she says that he got aroused while they were dancing and had an erection. But later she says that he was impotent and the only way that she could get him erect was to tie him down to the bed—a little trick that she read in a book so that he could just let go and not have to feel any guilt for what was going on. So she admits to tying him up, but she says it was for his own good.

Joyce McKinney (clip): "Kirk was sexually impotent because of this brainwashing. He's not supposed to have sexual feelings; he's not supposed to have emotional feelings; he's not supposed to fall in love. And we were in love. He loved me and I loved him. I knew there was only one way to get Kirk out of Mormonism, and that was to make love with him. Because for a Mormon missionary to have a love affair is totally taboo. They can't be in a room alone with a girl without their companion with them to even shake hands. So if it took giving up my virginity in a romantic moonlight cottage, so be it. I just wanted him out of that cult."

Glenn (narration): Jeez, that's not how I got out.

Joyce McKinney (clip): "We started to make love and all of a sudden he jumps up on the bed like this. He goes, 'By the law of the Holy Prophet Joseph Smith, I cannot touch the bodies of others in an unnatural, experimental way! By the law of the Holy Prophet, hold a Book of Mormon firmly in hand! Sing a Mormon song! Sing a Mormon song!' Because he's turned on and he's not supposed to be. And I go, 'I'd come across an ocean to find him, and the Mormons were in our bedroom!'"

Glenn (narration): Okay, now that chant seems a little weird, and we'll talk about this in more detail during the panel discussion, but to me, this sounds like a freaked-out Mormon kid trying everything that he can do to keep this event from happening. It doesn't sound at all like he's a willing participant.

Joyce McKinney (clip): "I went back in the kitchen and got myself a real cold glass of water. I came back in there and I'm thinking, am I doing something wrong? He started to cry. He had ejaculated, I guess. He said, 'Please don't tell them about the filthy place. What happened at the filthy place?' And I said, 'Honey, what's wrong?' He goes, 'They'll know.' I mean, every guy on the planet masturbates and has wet dreams. And I asked him, 'Honey, don't you have those dreams guys have or whatever they're called?' He goes, 'Yeah, but I didn't tell them in the interview.' I go, 'What interview?' He goes, 'Yeah, once a week they take us in rooms by ourselves and they say M1, M2, M3...' I go, 'What's that?' 'Masturbation once, masturbation twice, masturbation three times. So many times you're out, you're exed, you're home, you're off your mission, you can't get married in the temple.' I go, 'Kirk, these people are controlling your sex drive, they're controlling your mind, they're controlling your food; you can't have coffee, tea, or Pepsi-Cola!'"

Glenn (narration): You see what I mean by train wreck?

Joyce McKinney (clip): "We made love actually for three days. We sort of like didn't get out of bed. It was a honeymoon is what it was for me. I wanted us to have a good sex life. I wanted to be a good wife to Kirk and I wanted to give him lots of babies in my tummy. I didn't look at sex as a bad thing with him; I looked at it as a melting of two souls, because when he kissed me, it was like we melted into one person. It was like I didn't know where I stopped and he began."

Glenn (narration): Eventually, they left the cottage, and Kirk was able to call the mission home and get back to safety. Joyce and KJ were arrested. There was a bit of jail time and a preliminary trial. She gave this infamous statement that she loved Kirk so much that she would do anything for him, even ski down Mount Everest with a carnation in her nose. She was released on bail, and then she snuck out of the country very shrewdly, never going back and never really paying for her crimes. But of course, to her, she never thought it was a crime at all: it wasn't kidnapping, she was just trying to rid Kirk Number One of the brainwashed Kirk Number Two. And as for the question of rape?

Joyce McKinney (clip): "Do you think a woman can rape a man? No. I think that's like putting a marshmallow in a parking meter. A guy either wants to have sex or he doesn't; he has an erection or he doesn't."

Glenn (narration): So there you go. You will never be able to look at a marshmallow again without thinking of Joyce McKinney and the manacled Mormon in sex chains. Okay, so let's go to the panel discussion with Tom, Randy, and Jesse, and then later on a little surprise visit from Matt.

Panel Discussion: Reviewing Tabloid

Jesse: I think she was supposedly so smart and such a genius that that's what pushed her into this level of crazy, psychological dilemma in her head where she didn't know what was reality and thought she was invincible.

Randy: Crazy plus a high IQ makes a great criminal! If I was in England and let out on bail, I wouldn't know what the fuck to do. She knew exactly what to do and got out with a very clever scheme. But overall, she's just a crazy person that I want to back slowly away from.

Tom: I was terrified of her by the end of the show. She's talking about getting out of England like, "Oh, I just got a few death certificates from dead people." How do you even do that when you're in a foreign fucking country?

Jesse: She's admitting to the camera that she lied and deceived people, saying, "Look how clever I am," but then denying things like the nude pictures.

Randy: She has an IQ of 168 and she's crazy, so it's impossible to relate to her.

Glenn: I want to go back to when she met the missionaries. She claimed what they didn't tell her was that Mormons believe Jesus was a polygamist married to Mary Magdalene, God lives on a star named Kolob, and black people were cursed with the mark of Cain. Did Mormons as a group believe these things?

Randy: They went right down the anti-Mormon stereotype—they even spliced in the cartoon from The God Makers throughout the whole documentary! I hate The God Makers. Did you guys ever hear that Jesus was a polygamist?

Tom: I served my mission in Arizona, and there were a lot of amateur theologians and Hugh Nibley fans. My ward mission leader taught me that one of the reasons Jesus was hated was because of all the wives that followed him. I felt like I was privy to very special knowledge that played into the polygamy narrative.

Glenn: To me, it was always impossible to imagine Jesus having sex.

Jesse: With porn music in the background? I think both were common beliefs. While that list is couched in anti-Mormon terms, when you get down to brass tacks, is polygamy part of the eternal plan? Yes.

Glenn: But Mormons don't self-identify that way. She paints it as if all Mormons believe this secretly behind closed doors, but you're not going to hear that in Sacrament Meeting or Gospel Doctrine. And saying God lives on a star named Kolob isn't even accurate—the planet is nearest the star Kolob.

Jesse: That's splitting hairs.

Randy: It bugs me aesthetically! And people say we inherit a planet—no, we inherit a fucking universe of worlds without number!

Tom: She gives a negative caricature of the church to suit her own purpose.

Glenn: She has to view the church as an evil, brainwashing cult because it explains why the love of her life left her. In her mind, it wasn't that he rejected her; it was the cult. But what do you think was going on in Kirk's mind when she showed up in England?

Randy: A whole Sharknado of things going on in his mind!

Tom: He was a big guy—nearly 300 pounds! I have a hard time believing she could control him like that unless he went along with it. None of you guys know the power of vagina and boobs! If an attractive ex-girlfriend showed up in a car on my mission with a see-through shirt and no bra asking to go for a ride, I'd tell my companion, "Give me a few minutes!" And then he's tied up spread-eagle and living every missionary's wet dream: having sex over and over with zero guilt because you can tell the mission president you were kidnapped!

Glenn: Well, I prayed about this and the Spirit confirmed to me that he was 100% a victim who was raped. And what about that bizarre chant she claimed he recited: "By the law of the Holy Prophet Joseph Smith, I cannot touch the bodies of others in an unnatural, experimental way! Hold a Book of Mormon firmly in hand! Sing a Mormon song!"

Tom: Bullshit. None of us have ever heard that. He probably raised his arm to the square and commanded Satan to depart in the name of Jesus Christ, and in her confabulation, it sounded like that.

Glenn: And then she burns his temple garments in the fireplace. They called them "magic underwear".

Jesse: As an outsider, what else do you call it? Garment is just a piece of clothing. Mormons are taught in the temple that they are a shield and protector, and people tell faith-promoting stories about being protected in accidents.

Randy: J. Willard Marriott gave an interview to Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes saying his garments saved him from being burned in a boat fire! What other colloquial word can an outsider use besides magic?

Glenn: So why do the garments burn in the fireplace, but not on the body?

Tom: You found the sacred loophole! It has to touch endowed skin. Like the Greatest American Hero putting on the super suit.

Randy: Can we talk about KJ? The guy was head-over-heels in love with her, helping her kidnap this guy and tie him to a bed while he sat in the kitchen!

Tom: She had that power over men—KJ, the pilot, the guy back in LA watching her dog. If you're a hot woman, you dominate us!

Jesse: Edit that whole misogynistic diatribe out, please!

Tom: And when she was arrested and transported, she hid two blank pages torn from the Bible—one up her vagina and one up her anus—and threw them out the window to the press!

Jesse: She was going for the Alpha and the Omega—Genesis to Revelation!

Glenn: And she later cloned her dead dog Booger in South Korea!

Randy: She cloned Booger into six dogs, but she couldn't clone poor KJ!

Glenn: Ratings for Tabloid?

Tom: 6 out of 10.

Jesse: 7.5 out of 10.

Randy: 7.5 out of 10.

Glenn: I'd give it a 6.5 or a 7. But the big legal and ethical question the movie raises: can a woman rape a man? Joyce McKinney said a man can't be raped any more than you can put a marshmallow in a parking meter.

Randy: In 1970s English law, a woman couldn't legally be charged with rape of a man. But physically, having an erection is an involuntary physiological response, not consent. Let's call Matt—he works in law enforcement.

Phone Call with Matt

(Glenn dials Matt on speakerphone)

Glenn: Hey Matt, we're discussing whether it's possible for a woman to rape a man.

Matt: You're in luck, because sitting right here with me is a very experienced sex crimes detective. In criminal law, any sexual act without consent is sexual assault. An erect penis does not denote consent; it is purely a physiological response, just like victims of sexual abuse can experience physical arousal or pleasure responses involuntarily. That does not negate the lack of consent.

Randy: But wouldn't you agree that an adult woman forcing intercourse on a man without weapons is fundamentally less violent than a man violently raping a woman?

Matt: No. In our work, we don't try to create a hierarchy of sexual offenses. The psychological trauma of being a male victim taken advantage of is massive. The rule is simple: lack of consent.

Post-Show Banter & Outro

Glenn: Well, I hope you enjoyed today's podcast. Check out Tabloid on Netflix, and let us know your thoughts on our website or Facebook page. Anyone for the closing prayer?

Glenn: While we're waiting, Randy, why did you get banned from Facebook?

Randy: Some prude on a Mormon group called people who use curse words "uncouth." I argued that science shows swearing helps endure pain and activates parts of the brain that euphemisms don't. Then I said I'm a fan of blasphemy and used the phrase "Jesus fucking Christ." She called me an asshole, and next thing I know, I was reported for hate speech and banned for three days!

Glenn (retroactive message): Welcome back to Infants on Thrones. I'm Glenn Ostlund. Just real quick: I started this podcast back in 2012 with several friends who were all in the process of leaving the Mormon church. Back then, I didn't fully understand the mental, emotional, and physiological impact of all this faith crisis stuff. But the more I learned about mental health and the human nervous system, the more I began to understand how deep it actually goes. And it made me want to do more than just podcast. I became a certified life coach in 2019 and a licensed therapist in 2025. I'm currently building my caseload and accepting new clients. If you or someone you know is seeking either coaching or therapy services, please reach out for a free 15-minute consultation. I'll include a link to my Psychology Today profile on the website and in the show notes. Thanks again for listening, and now, here's your episode.