Thursday, May 9, 2013

Every Time I Wave My Flag (Nobody Waves Back At Me)


As I've discovered, like so much outside of ghettos and the good life, society's proven it fully understood what yogic cult training's pitfalls were - before embracing them:
Bikram Choudury, the famously abrasive founder of Bikram hot yoga, has been accused of rape and of encouraging his followers to recruit women he could victimize, according to lawsuits filed by two different women. 
Two separate Jane Does filed suit against Choudury, 67, and Bikram Yoga alleging sexual battery, false imprisonment, discrimination, harassment and seven others counts, according to Courthouse News. Both women, whose identities were not released, filed very similar suits on the same day in the same California courtroom. 
Another former student, 29-year-old Sarah Baughn, filed suit against Choudury in March claiming he sexually assaulted her constantly during her time training to become a yoga instructor in 2005 and has since prevented her from teaching “because of her past and continuing refusal to have sex with the guru.” 
In her complaint filed Monday the second Jane Doe claimed she had been raped in November 2010 after her boyfriend paid for her to be trained as a teacher a Bikram’s San Diego studio. The court documents claimed the attack seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary, reading “other persons in defendant Bikram Choudhury’s inner circle, were aware of defendant Bikram Choudhury’s pattern and practice of causing, inducing or persuading young women to enroll in teacher training classes to become yoga instructors only so he can sexually assault and/or rape them.” 
It also accuses Bikram’s underlings of knowing an attack was inevitable, but says they still “did nothing to prevent this from happening to plaintiff or to protect her.” 
Jane Doe said she “lived in constant fear” of the “cult-like atmosphere” fostered in the organization. Potential instructors are required to pay $13,000 for a nine-week training program, where they’re deprived of communication with the outside world, forced to listen to Bikram’s vulgar rants on sexuality and endure “demoralizing” activity, including urinating on themselves. 
“Plaintiff Jane Doe No. 2’s life unraveled after she returned home,” the suit claims. “Her long term relationship fell apart, she went into a severe depression, attempted suicide, started drinking, doing drugs, engaged in uncharacteristically impulsive behavior, quit her job and cut off communication from almost everyone in her life.”
 

I think the current standard is, if you don't have photos, it didn't happen. [Rimshot] No, wait, wait - if you ask me, with The Vagina Monologues playing everywhere, getting that stretching-is-mystical thing out of everyone's mind will take a little time. [Kidding, kidding - this is all tragic.] But seriously, I think I watch a lot of Nazi movies because I'm still coping with SS Guards-doing-yoga-for-Hitler-hating Americans, in America, allowing frauds to openly manipulate swallowing others whole (and even groups of others) while everybody just stands around:
“With the power and hubris Bikram wielded (and the stories that have been floating around for years) it was almost expected, like we were all just waiting for it to happen.”
 

 "We were all just waiting for it to happen.” Spoken like a real monster. Great incentives, too. Straight from the gutter - with a hearty "Namaste" and (a "spiritual") Good For You! - here's some cud for you to chew on, pimp:

   

See, it's only after someone's identified themselves as a cultist - that is, someone capable of being convinced touching their toes should be considered a smug-inducing accomplishment - that I can understand how anyone in this country "thinks" like that.

   

 And, for some odd reason, it's never a pleasant experience.

Now that I think about it, it rarely follows one either,...
 

1 comment:

  1. Kinda puts a new light on all this sexual assault controversy in the military -- hot yoga is one of the things one can do by way of PT nowdays (I told my kids to stay from it -- besides, I fail to see what hot yoga has over putting up fence -- manually -- or hay -- manually; the damn Army could hand them over and I'd have them in shape in no time...and they'd be in better fighting trim than any blasted hot yoga would do for them.)

    PW

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