Sex, Consent, and Buddhist Right Action

With the verdict in the Steubenville case has come a lot of discussion about rape and sexism, and the state of culture in our supposed "post-feminist" America. I say supposed because like those who speak of a post-racial America, folks who say frameworks like feminism have outlasted their use are either woefully unaware or deliberately trying to reverse the gains made during the second half of the 20th century. At the same time, every framework or set of frameworks has its limits. Which is why I'd like to take up this interesting post from the IDProject blog on Right Action and consent.

Caroline Contillo, the author of the post, argues that Buddhist teachings around sexuality point towards the creation of a culture of consent. The term "enthusiastic consent" was hot stuff back in my college days (mid-1990s) and has returned to the forefront in recent years to address a diverse range of sex scandals, including Steubenville. While I agree with the principle behind enthusiastic consent, it's always felt a bit too black and white of a response to what is decidedly a not black and white world. People consent to sexual contact, as well as many other forms of action, in a wide variety of ways. In addition, people make rejections in a wide variety of ways, which is why the focus on verbal rejections in rape and assault cases is problematic at best, if not a great way to privilege the rights of the accused over the rights of accusers.

There's a lot more I could say about the intricacies of consent, but what I want to dig into goes beyond that. Here's a selection from Contillo's post:

The emphasis in all three aspects of Right Action is consent. The need for another sentient being to agree with your intentions and provide you with an emphatic agreement. To take a life, to take possessions, or to force sex upon another human being against their will is unwise and "wrong" because it is selfish and creates suffering for all parties. Right Action is about using our intention and mindfulness to encourage a culture of consent.

Now, these aspects of Right Action have been framed as things one must abstain from doing. But what if we reversed that and created things that a Buddhist *must* do?

We must encourage life and health (perhaps by learning permaculture, perhaps by taking an interest in health-care reform), we must participate in selflessness, and we must seek an emphatic and freely-given "yes!" in all sexual situations.

I am reminded of something Acharya Eric Spiegel said during the Refuge Vow ceremony I took part in, when discussing the precepts. One of the precepts, in the vein of Right Action, admonishes the participant to refrain from unwholesome sexual activity. Acharya Spiegel made sure to explore this concept in depth. He told us that to him, even flirting your way out of a speeding ticket could be considered a flouting of this precept. "Using your personal charisma to manipulate someone into giving you something" is how he phrased it. That has always stuck with me. If we take this advice to heart, then Buddhism really is a philosophy that puts incredible emphasis on consent.

First off, I reject the notion of "must" she offers. It doesn't reflect the dynamic functioning of Buddhist teachings that are responding to the ever changing world we live in.

But what I'm more interested in is this focus on consent she's offering. I like that she's brought it in here. I don't think I've seen Right Action framed in this way before. At the same time, there's something off about it. Because people consent to things that cause suffering all the time. Either deliberately or out of ignorance. Whatever the case, though, mere consent doesn't really shift us towards a culture of lessening suffering and moving towards liberation. It emphasizes individual freedom and autonomy, but fails to uphold our wider interdependence.

An experience from my college days comes to mind. One night, I was hanging out with a pair of friends playing games and having a few drinks. The male friend of mine had a crush on the female friend of mine, but she didn't share his feelings. In fact, she was interested in me, and that entire evening, I struggled to reconcile my interest in her with my desire to not hurt my other friend. As often happens with college students, we had our share of drinks - not too many, but enough to cloud our judgements a bit. My female friend started flirting with me, while my other friend cooked something for us all in his kitchen. It was a delicate situation to say the least. Eventually, her and I went outside for a bit. It was a warm summer evening, the moon nearly full overhead. We made out for awhile in the alley about a block from his apartment. She repeatedly gave consent, quite enthusiastically I might add, for us to have sex right there in the alley. I continued to struggle with loyalties to my male friend, but continued to consent to an escalation. That is, until we were half naked and at the point of intercourse. Perhaps it was as much about not having protection as about my concerns about our mutual friend back home cooking for all of us. I'm not interested in painting my 21 year old self in a heroic light. However, what happened next - when I told her we should get back to the apartment now - wasn't just about rescinding consent. It was really about weighing the potential consequences. The upset my male friend might have felt about us disappearing to have sex. The possibility of destroying the friendship all together. Unplanned pregnancy. STDs. (I really didn't know her sexual history.) The lists goes on. I already felt guilt about the sneaking around we had done. It didn't make any sense to keep going just because we both wanted to, and agreed to.

I suppose it's possible to argue that consent contains all the rest of the stuff I spoke about. But more often than not, I don't think it does. I certainly have consented to having sex when I probably would have been better off saying no. There seems to be an assumption by the author that when folks are consenting, they're doing so mindfully, with at least some awareness of what that might mean in terms of the Eightfold Path or the precepts. But really, how often is that the case? And how often is consent mainly driven by horniness or lonliness or some other powerful emotion?

What do you think of all this? I'm especially interested in ways folks have reconciled Buddhist teachings around sexuality in our sexually diverse, modern society. Because one of the things I enjoyed about Contillo's post is that she attempted to do just that.

Yoga, Feminism, and the World of Oppressions

It's been about two months now since I started my yoga teacher training program. Overall, it's been a wonderful experience, filled with little insights, and lots of learning. My own yoga practice has deepened and expanded. I have made some new friends. I have met some excellent teachers. And it's been a great way to burn through the last few months of winter.

Yet, it's also brought up in person some issues I have long read about in the larger American yoga community. The first night of my core class, someone brought up eating disorders and yoga, which tumbled for me into all the warped body issues we have in the U.S., especially when it comes to female bodies.

Another issue that's been on my radar is class. Unlike my old yoga studio in St. Paul which is pretty toned down in terms of things like designer yoga clothing and expensive mats, the place where I am doing my teacher training attracts - overall - a more affluent crowd. Or, at least, there are more people who are visibly affluent, something I've struggled a bit with. Free flowing discussions, for example, about spur of the moment vacations and attendance at high end yoga retreats are dead zones for someone like me, who has no experience doing either, and has never been in a financial position to really do so.

The thing is that I'd argue that this studio is a hell of a lot better than a majority of larger places. The leadership emphasizes the totality of yoga practice, is rigorous in it's class offerings, and doesn't seem to pander a lot to fluffy forms of yoga that might bring in more money, but do so at the expense of integrity. In fact, I believe that these issues I'm speaking about above are as much about how yoga is marketed and has been "branded" in a cultural sense, than anything in particular my yoga studio is doing.

And yet, there's a part of me that wonders what would happen if I didn't "blend" in as well as I do. If I was a little more ragged around the edges - less educated, a little more shabbily clothed. Long ago, I learned how to "pass" for an average middle class white American making a decent living, owning the "normal" things middle class folks do, and being able to afford things like regular vacations to distant educations, expensive accessories, and the latest Iphone.

My yoga training classmates don't know, for example, that I have never owned a car, haven't had health insurance for nearly a decade, and have to debate myself internally on a regular basis about adding anything "extra" to my life, like home internet service - primarily out of cost consciousness. The realty is that I have always been just above poor economically, with a middle class education. So, I'm kind of a tweener when it comes to class, something that can be challenging.

But class isn't the only marker that can cause distress for people who are interested in yoga. I found this excellent post by Natalia Thomp­son (no relation) about yoga and feminism. She writes:

There’s a rea­son that yoga is a con­tentious topic on many fem­i­nist blogs: not only is yoga a “bougie” trend (striv­ing to “just be” is a pretty priv­i­leged state of exis­tence), but the com­mer­cial­iza­tion of yoga car­ries dis­tinctly sex­ist under­tones. Amer­i­can Apparel’s recent reap­pro­pri­a­tion of yoga poses in their noto­ri­ously sex­ist ads is hardly the only offender; Yoga Jour­nal is also guilty of “tap­ping that yoga ass.” The fem­i­niza­tion of yoga has become all too com­mon: as one blog­ger notes, images of yoga fre­quently depict women in “bounded, con­torted, sex­u­al­ized positions.”

Over­sex­u­al­ized ads aside, the roots and phi­los­o­phy of yoga also pose a chal­lenge to fem­i­nist yogi­nis. As one fem­i­nist scholar and yoga teacher explains, “On our mats, we have the oppor­tu­nity to cul­ti­vate a wit­ness to how things are [and] learn to accept real­ity as it is, with­out judg­ment… But as a fem­i­nist, I am not accus­tomed to accept­ing things as they are.” Another fem­i­nist blog­ger trou­bles the ori­gins of yoga: accord­ing to her, it “is wrought from patri­ar­chal ide­olo­gies and power struc­tures that are his­tor­i­cally and con­tem­porar­ily per­va­sive in culture.”

From my own expe­ri­ences prac­tic­ing yoga, I’ve become painfully aware that the yoga stu­dio isn’t always a safe space for women and queer folks. I’ve had male teach­ers who have made sex­ual com­ments and touched female stu­dents inap­pro­pri­ately, and I could cer­tainly empathize with a queer yoga teacher’s account of attend­ing a Yoga Jour­nal con­fer­ence that was any­thing but inclu­sive: the (hetero)sexist norms reflected in yoga ads too often shape the spaces where yoga is prac­ticed. The yoga stu­dio should be a place where we escape the (unwanted) male gaze or the polic­ing of gen­der non-conforming bod­ies, but that’s not always the case.

To my current yoga studio's credit, they have developed a whole series of classes for plus-sized yogis and yoginis - recognizing the ways in which our collective thin people fetish has bled into the yoga world. In addition, there seems to be strong culture of ethics amongst the studio's teachers, which is evident by how much respect students are given, and how - as teacher trainees - we have discussions about things like requesting permission from students to do pose adjustments. This might sound basic to some of you, but the stories I have heard from classmates about experiences with teachers and other studios suggests to me that it's not as basic and commonplace as one would think.

But then there's some of the other issues Ms. Thompson mentions above. I wrote recently about an exchange between a few female students and a male teacher that exposed some of the male-centric, perhaps sexist issues of yoga as a historical discipline. I've written about race issues in Buddhist convert communities frequently, and I think some of that applies as well to the yoga world. During the weekend workshop I took in early March, I remember looking around at one point and thinking "Man, it's a sea of whiteness here." I can imagine the few people of color in the room felt like they were border crossing just to come practice. And then there's the gender-queer dimension brought up in Thompson's post. This one is perhaps harder to tease out, in part because talking directly about sexuality doesn't tend to be on the agenda in an average yoga class. Furthermore, just as I can pass as financially middle class, many queer folks can pass as straight. Or, perhaps it's more accurate to say that they are blended into the heterosexual norm by default. However, if you're a woman with a butch appearance and mannerisms or a decidely femme looking and acting man, it's hard not to stand out in the average yoga studio.

One of the challenges, as I see it, is figuring out ways to bring these topics into the regular discourse of yoga classes and trainings. Being a path of liberation, yoga needs to be more deliberately applied to the oppressive, destructive narratives that we all have ingested by growing up and/or living in this society. And it seems especially important that anyone who feels compelled to spread yoga to "the masses" best get on board with ways to de-centralize the current norms that privilege the experience of white middle and upper class, thin bodied, heterosexual yoga practitioners above all others.

None of this is meant to condemn American yoga as a hopeless cause. Or an indulgent, "bougie" activity. Despite the issues above, there's a lot of wonderful things happening in certain pockets of the American yoga scene. There IS plenty of substance and depth, but you have to look for it. And there are people looking at some of the difficult -isms that plague our lives on a daily basis, if perhaps in a piece-mail way. With more discussion, more sharing of ideas, approaches and experiences, it might be that somewhere down the road, a more thorough and inclusive method of interrogating oppression through yoga practice will come forth. A more total liberation depends upon it in my view. May it be so.

Zen Teacher Scandals, Group Dynamics, and The Swamp of It All

I'm feeling a bit disturbed today. My great grandmother, at almost 102, is probably on the way out of this life. It's amazing that this spunky, sassy woman has lived so long, and mostly in pretty good health, so it's hard to feel to down about it. But there's still some sadness.

Secondly, I was thoroughly dressed down on the thread of this post from a prominent feminist website. I enjoy learning about new issues and theories, especially when they might aid me in seeing through some of the warped cultural conditioning I have inherited. My only comments about what happened there was that my mistake was not shutting up earlier, and that I feel this kind of behavior amongst people "on the left" for lack of a better term is one of the main reasons social movements have gone nowhere in recent decades here in the U.S. (Please, no feminist bashing in response to these comments; it's not about that, it's about how people struggle to work together across differences, and end up tearing each other to shreds in the most uncompassionate ways.)

Finally, this Zen teacher scandal business moved from wherever it had been down to my gut this morning. An anonymous commenter left a comment on my recent Genpo Roshi post that basically defended Genpo through absolutism, and I kind of went off on that person.

This whole defend the "victims" at the total expense of the "victimizer", or defend the "victimizer" at the total expense of the "victims" is a pair of sick delusions that we all need to wake up from.

James Ford over at Monkey Mind has some great comments this morning about the state of "Western Zen":

There are those who say we need to grow up and walk away from Zen teachers.

I respectfully say you can. And you may well find a true and useful and healthful path. It won’t, however, be Zen.

The Zen way has evolved within a system of training, or rather a cluster of training systems, all of which require spiritual direction.

The way Zen came west, through individual teachers with limited supervision, and then establishing centers that are more or less isolated from each other has created a cultish system. That’s the problem, aggravated, of course, by the inflated language of transmission. I’ve explored both of these issues before.

I’m confident we are also at the edge of a time where people are no longer dependent upon keeping a relationship with a specific teacher or giving up the practice. In some ways the scandals reflect that reality. We don’t have to put up with the inappropriate in order to have access to the way.

Over at Sweeping Zen, Erik Storlie has an even more provocative essay about Lineage, Dharma Transmission, and teacher scandals.

So long as American Zen relies on dharma transmission as a credential, there will be one Shimano after another – and dharma heirs who will go to great lengths to protect the master that conferred authority upon them. For if the master who has declared me awakened has erred, if he does not, indeed, “dwell in the Absolute,” then my own credential is called into question – along with my prestige and authority in the community and my ability to confer this power upon others.

Even if the magical claims of dharma transmission are discarded and it is recognized as an ordinary human institution, it still should not be retained as a method of training Zen meditation teachers. No truly meaningful credential can be conferred simply at the pleasure of one person. Indeed, as a method, it creates toxic interpersonal dynamics in communities, for the future recognition or preferment of a student is entirely dependent upon pleasing a dharma heir, or a presumptive dharma heir. If I wish to rise in this hierarchical system, I must pay court to the dharma heir and his or her favorites, and as a courtier in such a system, I can never openly acknowledge my self-interested pursuit of attention, for my goal is always, theoretically, “spiritual” development. Yet, of course, my ability to please a dharma heir and receive, in my turn, recognition and/or authorization will give me status and even employment opportunities. The dynamics of court, courtier, and courtship create endless distortions of human behavior even in ordinary institutions – a business, political party, or college. These run wild when the king, queen, pope, or dharma heir has imputed “special” powers. Anyone connected for a length of time to a Zen Center can cite examples.

This is perhaps a bit cynical. I don't think that dharma transmission has created "a toxic" environment in all the "Western Zen centers" out there. Or even a majority. However, the delusions around the student/teacher relationship on both sides of the equation are certainly exploding all around us, and I agree that attachment to stories about lineage, dharma transmission, and teachers as mostly perfected bodhisattvas are major concerns that need to be addressed.

Anyway, it's all very swamp-like to me today. I'll be heading over to see my friends at the local college meditation group this afternoon, which seems like good timing. Take care everyone.