Remember the Great Republican Rape Mansplaining Movement of 2012? Despite famously losing several Senate seats as a result, right-wing politicians continue to attempt to win the hearts and minds of American women by carefully explaining to us what sexual assault is, whether it was “forcible,” or “legitimate” or “bad,” whether or not God was into it, et cetera, et cetera.
Unfortunately, and this has actually been proven in staggeringly appalling #s, the cops on the whole think investigating rape isn't a priority. Why? Well because women always lie about rape. Right? Sure.
Interesting. I didn't know about Waylon Lewis's habit of raging against readers who disagree with him. But of course it was clear from the start that he uses "Buddhism" and yoga as a prop. His correspondence with those of us who disagree with him is full of self-aggrandizing faux enlightened posturing (he really IS the nicest man in the world, just ASK him) whilst at the same time very demonstrably pitching adolescent hissy fits.
Like the author of the blog "This blog is an Elephant Journal Free Zone," I've found the general tenor of EJ more or less dumbed down writing on a myriad of quasi-spiritual subjects, which increasingly seemed fairly early on to morph into stuff like "How I learned to love myself even though I'm a horrible human being, and I'm going to write it all down for you in excruciating detail, and if we're all lucky Waylon will attach a photo of a hot babe in a yoga G-string so we'll get as many hits as we can today." The whole journal smacks of opportunistic, feel-good... I dunno... junk food for people who want to believe they're enlightened because they take yoga classes maybe a couple times a month and keep a journal. Which more or less seems to describe Waylon Lewis in a nutshell.
Well sure, putting "defense" in quotes clarifies everything. Thanks! We can all just now admit how wrong we are.
Interestingly, Lewis never responded to my question to him on the heels of that video as to why he might not write a column in "defense" of the women who are claiming sexual assault.
Because I suppose women who claim sexual assault are assumed liars,... or, should we more "softly" suggest, not truthful,... or maybe, I dunno, crazy attention seekers?
And also we have to get the point of view of the rapists in addition to the raped. The rapists must surely have valid reasons for raping, yeah? All feelings are valid. And rapists have feelings too.
After all these years I never knew that yoga had a political ideology. I have followed it off and on for over four decades and have never detected a political element in it, not even a hint. Politics and yoga have always appeared to me to be completely unrelated phenomena.
Alas, our team is not immune to sexism and rape apologists — they are all too often hiding right in plain sight in our very own lefty/progressive/Buddhist/yoga/goji berry culture. While it makes logical sense that crimes of rape and sexual assault don't have a particular party affiliation, I don't see how this particular case has anything at all to do with "liberal progressive culture." What on earth is political about yoga? Yoga seems to be associated with political ideology about as much as calculus is with vegetarianism.
I'm surprised to learn that this guy is the founding editor of EJ. I thought he was just some bored, new age schlub that had some dumb ideas pop into his head (although "on some level", he's both isn't he?) and thought "I've got nothing better to do, let's roll tape and let me riff on rape non-sensically for five minutes then post it on the internet."
Everything about this video is wrong and it's not just reserved to the bad visual aesthetics (although those are awful too) or his "clumsy" articulation of the nuanced and complex subjects of rape culture, rape, feminism, power dynamics, etc that other people have dedicated their lives to studying. He so clearly has no experience dealing with or talking about the issue of rape and it's reflected in a myriad of ways in which he victim blames, questions survivors motivations for coming forward, is clueless as to why they didn't immediately go to the police, using outdated terminology ("Date raped"), to the flippant way he discusses the issue with statements like "that was fun" to conclude the video or how "Rape is in a funny way..." (IT'S NEVER FUNNY!!!!) the reason why he started his publication or whatever. If he were a loser sitting alone in his mountain house posting random videos on YouTube that would be one thing, but the fact that this guy has such a high profile and is viewed as a leader in the modern American spritual community makes this video so much more dangerous and he needs to back track and apologize posthaste with an "I'm sorry, I was wrong." Instead of a fucking half-assed "A mea culpa."
His so-called "personal experience" on these issues (though it didn't happen to him) is his Mother rejecting a proposition from a sprititual teacher. Does he not know the difference between a come on and somebody being raped? If he does, why doesn't he make that distinction? Why Waylon why? Why did you make this stupid video? Why did you consult MRA groups for additional perspective on rape? Aren't they the same groups of online scum that validated the frightening broodings of that lowlife in Santa Babara who gunned down those poor people at UCSB because he was mad that he wasn't getting laid? You consulted with those assholes? Why didn't you go to actual experts? Like for example, the MESA (Movement to End Sexual Assault) Center located in BOULDER, CO where you FUCKING LIVE? Are you even aware of their existence and the tireless work that they do to end the damaging culture of sexual violence that you just perpetuated with this ridiculous video?
Waylon's clueless, that we do know. However, his catty defensive posturing to the commenters who politely disagreed with him shows him to be an asshole also, plus it further proves he has no real interest in learning about the subject or in improving the dialogue around rape/rape culture. He was offered respectful, educated advice and perspective from survivors and experts in the field and he reacted with the emotional vindictiveness of a Junior High school student that just got thrown out in kickball. Not only that, but that follow up piece of trash article where he quotes Dr. King (are you fucking kidding me?) and Aristotle in defense of his idiocy cements his bogus self identity as a Buddhist trying to lead people to "the mindful life' as nothing more than a fallacy and total bullshit. He's a complete fraud and he's just trying to exploit buddhism, yoga and meditation as a way to advance his own dumb personal brand of modern male mindfulness that feels like a bad commercial. Does he seriously not have the humility to objectively look at himself and understand that he was out of line and just own up to it and apologize? I don't think he does. I think stroking his ego is more important than admitting personal fault which is pretty fucked up considering again, he's supposedly some spritual leader/buddhist guy.
The video and Waylon's commentary and follow up article are so bad I almost think he did it on purpose to draw attention to his website and maybe bring in other advertisers or whatever. I think Waylon's probably too dumb to have actually premeditated such a shrewd marketing endeavor, but I do think he probably just likes to hear himself talk so much that any attention his way inflates his already overblown sense of self. I wonder if he likes all the attention now?
What rights? In the U.S. these issues for men are just as bad, if anything worse. Here are some double standards that are overlooked and considered normal here.
The Medical Field in general, statistically they say that men don't go get check up as much as women, yet no one knows why or claim that they do not. Well ask any male and you'll find out why. In the U.S. men are left on display for everyone to see, and it's the norm here. Even in situations where there's no reason to be exposed, they will if you're a male. Most of the medical workers are female and they tend to cover up the female body right away. The comparable would be a female exposed with legs wide open spread eagle....that's the equivalent if you want to compare it to a male being exposed.
Another one are female sports reporters being able to go into the men's locker room even while athletes are completely naked. Their reasoning is that they're being discriminated against due to being female and it's unfair. The feminists movement fought for this and somehow got it to past legislature. Where are the male activists to fight against this? We have none, so things like this happens. Again the equivalent of this would be male reporters in the female athletes locker room while they're spread open for all to see.....that's the only comparison. See how ridiculous that sounds, that's because it is, but yet it's accepted as a norm for men to go through that, but not women. Also male athletes are the pinnacle of male society, not the same for women.....so really the equivalent would be the a male reporter inside the locker room of miss universe or other pageants while they were naked and spread.....think about that.
Another one in the U.S. is male circumcision. The main reason given is that left uncircumcised, men are more prone to infections and such, and it's unclean. We all know that a vagina is a lot more "unclean" than a penis, why are women not subjected to parts being cut off? Another ridiculous feminist idea that everyone just accepted.
All of this will change in time as later generations would see how backward thinking the people of our time were and they'll look back in disbelief. An example of that in current day is now we look back at the days when men were only allowed to swim if they were naked or nude while women were fully clothed. Seems unreal but it's true. Now a man would go against swimming naked, because it's unheard of today. So why are men not fighting for their rights in the medical environment instead or in the locker rooms. Male modesty is out there but the feminists only fight to take it away. They don't fight for equal rights, they fight for more.
Time changes everything, and the double standards that we see today will change as well. Later generations will look back and wonder what was wrong with ours.
And of course because this rambling mess has absolutely zero to do with rape, therefore.... Huh? Way to go off point.
But enough about the actual topic, which is about one particular thing, sexual assault charges against Bikram, let's talk about you.... And by the way, the double standard you mention and as it might pertain to this article about the Bikram assault charges is what again?
So, but yes, to your suggestion, "Where are the male activists to fight against this? We have none, so things like this happens." Okay, where are the male activists? Can't y'all male activists get your acts together and activize? Like the actual feminists did? What, women activists have more balls than male activists? And whose fault is that again?... I'm guessing it's women.
That's why I'm posting here, to open more eyes on the topics I posted. I post everywhere, it's not so much as women having more balls, it's just that women fight more in general, argue I mean. So men pass it off, but some things should not be pass off that easily. I honestly never read the article I just posted. If that guy raped people as you say, then he should be in jail. I don't support incorrect or bad actions in any way, so this guy should pay for his actions. As far as what I posted, it's just something that's overlooked in general but will be corrected overtime as everything is in the end.
Perhaps you should consider writing an article instead of randomly posting responses that are so off-topic as to not be relevant to the actual issue at hand.
Is there some kind of controlling authority telling us what we can wear? Fuck off. No one tells men what they can wear to be comfortable. Where do you get off telling women they can't wear what they want to do an activity they want to pursue because it makes them not sexy enough for you?
No one tells men what they can wear to be comfortable.
Well...at the end of my first semester of teaching at the place from which I retired (so, over a decade after my first teaching jobs, perhaps at less uptight places) one of my students' narrative teaching evaluations condemned me for "dressing like a clown" (I admit that I had been affecting off-the-rack tweed jackets that semester; but definitely comfortable tweed jackets). That of course was, pretty surely, not an attempt to control my (male) sexuality.
Years later a dean (or was he a provost by then?) criticized me for not dressing sufficiently managerially while I was enacting the role of department chair (he also disapproved of my discussing things with my subordinates in any position except across a desk).
I think the common thread in that sparse catalogue is that the boss (or the sufficiently entitled customer standing in for the boss) can, and does, tell everyone "what they can wear to be comfortable". So of course if someone (say, Blank Ron) thinks that in the natural order of things he is the boss of all women, why, then, naturally he gets to tell all women what they can wear!
American Buddism has always had a problem with sexist men passed down from Asian and South Asian teachers, man to man, like all sexism is passed.If you have offended so many, perhaps you should stop defending yourself and look at your offense.This is everyday sexism, the sexism people like you cannot even acknowledge.All those women you offend just don't get it?I don't think you are going to be able to shush people talking about the sexists amoung us, especially when you make it so easy by making yourself the clueless sexist entitled white guy example.
Namascray
Unfortunately, and this has actually been proven in staggeringly appalling #s, the cops on the whole think investigating rape isn't a priority. Why? Well because women always lie about rape. Right? Sure.
Interesting. I didn't know about Waylon Lewis's habit of raging against readers who disagree with him. But of course it was clear from the start that he uses "Buddhism" and yoga as a prop. His correspondence with those of us who disagree with him is full of self-aggrandizing faux enlightened posturing (he really IS the nicest man in the world, just ASK him) whilst at the same time very demonstrably pitching adolescent hissy fits.
Like the author of the blog "This blog is an Elephant Journal Free Zone," I've found the general tenor of EJ more or less dumbed down writing on a myriad of quasi-spiritual subjects, which increasingly seemed fairly early on to morph into stuff like "How I learned to love myself even though I'm a horrible human being, and I'm going to write it all down for you in excruciating detail, and if we're all lucky Waylon will attach a photo of a hot babe in a yoga G-string so we'll get as many hits as we can today." The whole journal smacks of opportunistic, feel-good... I dunno... junk food for people who want to believe they're enlightened because they take yoga classes maybe a couple times a month and keep a journal. Which more or less seems to describe Waylon Lewis in a nutshell.
Well sure, putting "defense" in quotes clarifies everything. Thanks! We can all just now admit how wrong we are.
Interestingly, Lewis never responded to my question to him on the heels of that video as to why he might not write a column in "defense" of the women who are claiming sexual assault.
Because I suppose women who claim sexual assault are assumed liars,... or, should we more "softly" suggest, not truthful,... or maybe, I dunno, crazy attention seekers?
And also we have to get the point of view of the rapists in addition to the raped. The rapists must surely have valid reasons for raping, yeah? All feelings are valid. And rapists have feelings too.
After all these years I never knew that yoga had a political ideology. I have followed it off and on for over four decades and have never detected a political element in it, not even a hint. Politics and yoga have always appeared to me to be completely unrelated phenomena.
Alas, our team is not immune to sexism and rape apologists — they are all too often hiding right in plain sight in our very own lefty/progressive/Buddhist/yoga/goji berry culture. While it makes logical sense that crimes of rape and sexual assault don't have a particular party affiliation, I don't see how this particular case has anything at all to do with "liberal progressive culture." What on earth is political about yoga? Yoga seems to be associated with political ideology about as much as calculus is with vegetarianism.
I'm surprised to learn that this guy is the founding editor of EJ. I thought he was just some bored, new age schlub that had some dumb ideas pop into his head (although "on some level", he's both isn't he?) and thought "I've got nothing better to do, let's roll tape and let me riff on rape non-sensically for five minutes then post it on the internet."
Everything about this video is wrong and it's not just reserved to the bad visual aesthetics (although those are awful too) or his "clumsy" articulation of the nuanced and complex subjects of rape culture, rape, feminism, power dynamics, etc that other people have dedicated their lives to studying. He so clearly has no experience dealing with or talking about the issue of rape and it's reflected in a myriad of ways in which he victim blames, questions survivors motivations for coming forward, is clueless as to why they didn't immediately go to the police, using outdated terminology ("Date raped"), to the flippant way he discusses the issue with statements like "that was fun" to conclude the video or how "Rape is in a funny way..." (IT'S NEVER FUNNY!!!!) the reason why he started his publication or whatever. If he were a loser sitting alone in his mountain house posting random videos on YouTube that would be one thing, but the fact that this guy has such a high profile and is viewed as a leader in the modern American spritual community makes this video so much more dangerous and he needs to back track and apologize posthaste with an "I'm sorry, I was wrong." Instead of a fucking half-assed "A mea culpa."
His so-called "personal experience" on these issues (though it didn't happen to him) is his Mother rejecting a proposition from a sprititual teacher. Does he not know the difference between a come on and somebody being raped? If he does, why doesn't he make that distinction? Why Waylon why? Why did you make this stupid video? Why did you consult MRA groups for additional perspective on rape? Aren't they the same groups of online scum that validated the frightening broodings of that lowlife in Santa Babara who gunned down those poor people at UCSB because he was mad that he wasn't getting laid? You consulted with those assholes? Why didn't you go to actual experts? Like for example, the MESA (Movement to End Sexual Assault) Center located in BOULDER, CO where you FUCKING LIVE? Are you even aware of their existence and the tireless work that they do to end the damaging culture of sexual violence that you just perpetuated with this ridiculous video?
Waylon's clueless, that we do know. However, his catty defensive posturing to the commenters who politely disagreed with him shows him to be an asshole also, plus it further proves he has no real interest in learning about the subject or in improving the dialogue around rape/rape culture. He was offered respectful, educated advice and perspective from survivors and experts in the field and he reacted with the emotional vindictiveness of a Junior High school student that just got thrown out in kickball. Not only that, but that follow up piece of trash article where he quotes Dr. King (are you fucking kidding me?) and Aristotle in defense of his idiocy cements his bogus self identity as a Buddhist trying to lead people to "the mindful life' as nothing more than a fallacy and total bullshit. He's a complete fraud and he's just trying to exploit buddhism, yoga and meditation as a way to advance his own dumb personal brand of modern male mindfulness that feels like a bad commercial. Does he seriously not have the humility to objectively look at himself and understand that he was out of line and just own up to it and apologize? I don't think he does. I think stroking his ego is more important than admitting personal fault which is pretty fucked up considering again, he's supposedly some spritual leader/buddhist guy.
The video and Waylon's commentary and follow up article are so bad I almost think he did it on purpose to draw attention to his website and maybe bring in other advertisers or whatever. I think Waylon's probably too dumb to have actually premeditated such a shrewd marketing endeavor, but I do think he probably just likes to hear himself talk so much that any attention his way inflates his already overblown sense of self. I wonder if he likes all the attention now?
This was so completely right in every way. Thank you.
What rights? In the U.S. these issues for men are just as bad, if anything worse. Here are some double standards that are overlooked and considered normal here.
The Medical Field in general, statistically they say that men don't go get check up as much as women, yet no one knows why or claim that they do not. Well ask any male and you'll find out why. In the U.S. men are left on display for everyone to see, and it's the norm here. Even in situations where there's no reason to be exposed, they will if you're a male. Most of the medical workers are female and they tend to cover up the female body right away. The comparable would be a female exposed with legs wide open spread eagle....that's the equivalent if you want to compare it to a male being exposed.
Another one are female sports reporters being able to go into the men's locker room even while athletes are completely naked. Their reasoning is that they're being discriminated against due to being female and it's unfair. The feminists movement fought for this and somehow got it to past legislature. Where are the male activists to fight against this? We have none, so things like this happens. Again the equivalent of this would be male reporters in the female athletes locker room while they're spread open for all to see.....that's the only comparison. See how ridiculous that sounds, that's because it is, but yet it's accepted as a norm for men to go through that, but not women. Also male athletes are the pinnacle of male society, not the same for women.....so really the equivalent would be the a male reporter inside the locker room of miss universe or other pageants while they were naked and spread.....think about that.
Another one in the U.S. is male circumcision. The main reason given is that left uncircumcised, men are more prone to infections and such, and it's unclean. We all know that a vagina is a lot more "unclean" than a penis, why are women not subjected to parts being cut off? Another ridiculous feminist idea that everyone just accepted.
All of this will change in time as later generations would see how backward thinking the people of our time were and they'll look back in disbelief. An example of that in current day is now we look back at the days when men were only allowed to swim if they were naked or nude while women were fully clothed. Seems unreal but it's true. Now a man would go against swimming naked, because it's unheard of today. So why are men not fighting for their rights in the medical environment instead or in the locker rooms. Male modesty is out there but the feminists only fight to take it away. They don't fight for equal rights, they fight for more.
Time changes everything, and the double standards that we see today will change as well. Later generations will look back and wonder what was wrong with ours.
And of course because this rambling mess has absolutely zero to do with rape, therefore.... Huh? Way to go off point.
But enough about the actual topic, which is about one particular thing, sexual assault charges against Bikram, let's talk about you.... And by the way, the double standard you mention and as it might pertain to this article about the Bikram assault charges is what again?
So, but yes, to your suggestion, "Where are the male activists to fight against this? We have none, so things like this happens." Okay, where are the male activists? Can't y'all male activists get your acts together and activize? Like the actual feminists did? What, women activists have more balls than male activists? And whose fault is that again?... I'm guessing it's women.
That's why I'm posting here, to open more eyes on the topics I posted. I post everywhere, it's not so much as women having more balls, it's just that women fight more in general, argue I mean. So men pass it off, but some things should not be pass off that easily. I honestly never read the article I just posted. If that guy raped people as you say, then he should be in jail. I don't support incorrect or bad actions in any way, so this guy should pay for his actions. As far as what I posted, it's just something that's overlooked in general but will be corrected overtime as everything is in the end.
Perhaps you should consider writing an article instead of randomly posting responses that are so off-topic as to not be relevant to the actual issue at hand.
What is in them, often less so. Just because Spandex is made in your size doesn't mean you should be allowed to wear it.
Is there some kind of controlling authority telling us what we can wear? Fuck off. No one tells men what they can wear to be comfortable. Where do you get off telling women they can't wear what they want to do an activity they want to pursue because it makes them not sexy enough for you?
No one tells men what they can wear to be comfortable.
Well...at the end of my first semester of teaching at the place from which I retired (so, over a decade after my first teaching jobs, perhaps at less uptight places) one of my students' narrative teaching evaluations condemned me for "dressing like a clown" (I admit that I had been affecting off-the-rack tweed jackets that semester; but definitely comfortable tweed jackets). That of course was, pretty surely, not an attempt to control my (male) sexuality.
Years later a dean (or was he a provost by then?) criticized me for not dressing sufficiently managerially while I was enacting the role of department chair (he also disapproved of my discussing things with my subordinates in any position except across a desk).
I think the common thread in that sparse catalogue is that the boss (or the sufficiently entitled customer standing in for the boss) can, and does, tell everyone "what they can wear to be comfortable". So of course if someone (say, Blank Ron) thinks that in the natural order of things he is the boss of all women, why, then, naturally he gets to tell all women what they can wear!
Really, it's very simple.
American Buddism has always had a problem with sexist men passed down from Asian and South Asian teachers, man to man, like all sexism is passed.If you have offended so many, perhaps you should stop defending yourself and look at your offense.This is everyday sexism, the sexism people like you cannot even acknowledge.All those women you offend just don't get it?I don't think you are going to be able to shush people talking about the sexists amoung us, especially when you make it so easy by making yourself the clueless sexist entitled white guy example.