Flirty Fishing (FFing) is a form of evangelism by sexual intimacy practised from around 1974 to 1987 by the cult Children of God, currently known as The Family International (TFI). Female members of Children of God, or "fisherwomen", would apply their sex appeal on "fish" – men from outside the cult (often, but not always, having sex) – using the occasion to proselytize and seek donations.
Children of God have defended it as a way of "bearing witness" for Jesus to people who would not otherwise be open to it. Cult leader David Berg extrapolated from this that women in his movement should be "flirty fishers" (also called "bait" or "fisherwomen"). The targeted men were called "fish". The cult published several documents with exact instructions. Flirty Fishing was defined as using sex appeal for proselytizing.
According to The Family's history, "Father David [Berg] arrived at the rather shocking conclusion that Christians were therefore free through God's grace to go to great lengths to show the Love of God to others, even as far as meeting their sexual needs." While acknowledging that this interpretation scandalized "many religious institutions", The Family maintained that "many people, most of whom would never even go near a church, were reached and won to Christ through this very humble, honest, open and intimately human approach to witnessing." A Family spokesman John Francis describes the main "fish" involved as "lonely traveling businessmen" staying in hotels. As the women were expected to keep exact records of their "fruits" (successes), a 1988 statistic showed that more than 223,000 men had been "fished" since 1978—and that FFing had nevertheless continued into 1988. Though the cult had no problem ignoring Christian norms on fornication, it did follow Christian beliefs when it came to birth control. Sources differ on whether birth control was forbidden The "first child conceived through 'flirty fishing', was born to Berg’s common-law wife, Karen Zerby", but was fathered by "a waiter she picked up in the Canary Islands".
According to author James Chancellor,