I just finished watching She Said…the story about Weinstein and how these 2 reporters gathered information from many women about the abuse Weinstein did over decades of being in the business.
All the steps, all the gentleness, spaciousness and persistence that it took from those reporters, and the courage of those women to tell their stories…at first off the record and then on the record.
How those NDA’s were poison. How they take away people’s voices and the fear and relief that they must have felt to have the story out there…they weren’t alone and they could breathe again.
I know about a year after that I called out a School of Tantra for the abuse that happened and the rape that happened in their school and tagged with with #metoodakas. It was powerful how many people came forth and said #metoo with daka’s too. The list was long of all the people who were abused and raped in the tantra world. I made a page where everyone could tell their stories. It was heart breaking. Women or men would go in for healing from a Daka/dakini and come away with more abuse. I know that was my situation too. I stopped going to Tantra practitioners after, not only I was abused, but the school…the owner of the school took the guys side, his employee and student saying “someone has to take that guys side”. Amongst many other horrible things he said to me. I can’t say how many comments were on that post…but there were hundreds, if not more.
Over the next few years, I was a witness in cases against some of the Daka’s in that school. It was horrifying how the courts deal with these things.
Tantra educators took that letter and used it as a way of outing people for abuse. As I used no names, I told my story and enough that people could figure out who it was from description…which is fully legal. Though the owner of the school went on and outed his student and employee.
You can’t find the letter any more and FB took down my account 4 years ago for something else. I am deeply disappointed that was lost when they took down my account. It was a great educational tool.
I am doing to admit something that I haven’t ever shared on social media. After me admitting what happened, there were a few Tantrika’s from his school that were on me to keep the anger, the pain, the rage, tearing into him…keep writing, keep posting about it. And when I didn’t, as it was exhausting, they turned on me. This whole experience was traumatizing. It was the beginning of me walking away from Tantra. I saw how unhealthy the field was. I saw how angry these women were and wanted to keep the pain alive. I just wanted to warn people, let people know what happened so it didn’t happen to them.
But what came of it was mostly some ugly attacks of me behind the scenes, losing a lot of people out of my life and me mistrusting a lot of people in the industry. I don’t regret posting that post…but man, I will say, have a team of people to support you when you call people out, as it will take everything out of you to bounce back from it. I had to purposely take time off from social media, all the messages that came in, the responses, the owner of the school and then some of his students attacking me, the people on my side judging and attacking me for not keeping the attack of him going.
So this movie brought this all up. An how I can really relate to Laura who had her voice and choice to have her name not taken away and then she had to deal with the backlash. Sure, I wrote the letter and posted it, that was my choice, but the backlash, the time taken off from work, the not knowing who to trust…even though hers was so much larger than what I went through.
I know why women stay silent, I have stayed silent for many abuses in my life, it sometimes is easier that way…though thankfully I can speak to the people close to me about those things…these women couldn’t, which is like drinking poison every day and having to live with it..that is called hell.
It was amazing to see how many women played themselves in the movie. Grateful they could…finally. Weinstein has been behind bars for only 4 years of a 23 year sentence after 82 women came forth after the initial article. I don’t think 23 years is fair for the lives he ruined, hopefully he rots in there but who knows.
