Caporegime
- Joined
- 30 Jul 2013
- Posts
- 30,065
Just read this story on BBC.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-51053580
Relevant passage of the article is below:
Come on....this does not sound like sexual "abuse" at all to me. This woman wasn't a girl. At 20 you might be very naive, but you are old enough to make your own decisions, good or bad and have to live with them. Sounds like she made a bad choice to me.
I think this does women, who are sexually abused, a massive disservice.
Thoughts?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-51053580
Relevant passage of the article is below:
The psychedelic powers of a traditional Amazonian plant medicine called ayahuasca are attracting more and more tourists. It's said to bring spiritual enlightenment and to help with addiction, depression and trauma. But a string of allegations suggests there's a darker side to the ayahuasca scene.
Rebekah first tried ayahuasca on a "complete whim" when she was travelling in Peru in 2015.
"I thought it sounded interesting and I thought I might as well give it a try," says Rebekah, a New Zealander in her 20s who asked the BBC not to use her surname. "So I found a retreat centre that I felt was good and I just went for it and it was amazing."
When Rebekah went on her first ayahuasca retreat, she was the only single woman there and noticed that the male healer was paying her special attention.
"How he treated me was very different, which I didn't find suspicious at the time. But upon reflection, now I do."
A year later, by now a more experienced ayahuasca drinker, Rebekah returned to the same retreat in Peru. The same healer was leading the ceremonies.
Once again, she says, she was treated differently from everyone else. There was a lot of flattery. Then the healer began confiding in Rebekah.
"He constantly told me that he had a lot of troubles," she says, "and he said he was having problems with his wife, that he wasn't sexually fulfilled, and that I was the one who was able to cure him of that."
Rebekah was 20 at the time; the healer in his 50s.
"He also promised me a lot of spiritual advancement or a lot of spiritual power, if we had a relationship - while his wife was down the road."
Rebekah says the healer sexually abused her, coercing her into sexual acts.
"It's disgusting," she says. "Because he was a shaman, I thought he had moral superiority in a sense and I trusted him."
After she was abused, Rebekah left the centre - and the country: "I booked a flight and got the hell out of there."
She was left with a tangle of painful emotions: "Disgust, repulsion, betrayal - confusion, as well as to why a guide would do this, why a teacher would do this and why they would exploit their power like that."
Rebekah's alleged abuser is still the head shaman at his centre - which gets five-star ratings on review sites.
"He is still there," Rebekah says, clearly deeply angered by the situation. Her hands are visibly shaking. "There are other centres that I know of as well that are still operating. There've been multiple women that have been sexually abused in these centres."
Come on....this does not sound like sexual "abuse" at all to me. This woman wasn't a girl. At 20 you might be very naive, but you are old enough to make your own decisions, good or bad and have to live with them. Sounds like she made a bad choice to me.
I think this does women, who are sexually abused, a massive disservice.
Thoughts?