ColumnWhen people take a yoga class, they expect to practice in a safe place. The keyword here, especially in the case of Bikram Choudhury’s students, is expect.

Chowdhury is known for a few things. He founded Bikram’s Yoga College of India and Bikram yoga, “a rigorous, 90-minute routine performed in a room that can reach more than 100 degrees,” reports NBC News. Bikram has also been accused on several occasions of  harassment— and for allegedly sexually assaulting six female students.

Those last two things kind of cancel out the awesomeness of bringing yoga to millions of students, huh?

You’ve likely heard about Choudhury and his penchant for being a predator and a run-of-the-mill creep. He’s been in the news for a while now for both of those designations.

All the women who have brought sexual assault and rape allegations against Choudhury have said that the Bikram founder betrayed their trust, and preyed on them because they were young and vulnerable. The first sexual assault allegation against Choudhury was filed nearly two years ago, but we’re going to detail what happened to Jill Lawler, a Canadian yogi, who says Choudhury “raped her during a teacher-training in the spring of 2010,” The New York Times reports. Delightful.

Lawler filled her lawsuit against Choudhury on February 13, 2015. The sexual assault took place “during a teacher training session she allegedly shelled out $10,000 for,” The New York Daily News reports. “This alleged attack came after he apologized to her for groping her during massages and promised to ‘make her a champion’ before he lured her back to his hotel room and allegedly sexually assaulted her.”

Now, let’s talk about the news that broke this week. This past Monday, Choudhury was ordered to pay a hefty sum in a harassment lawsuit. Minakshi Jafa-Bodden, the attorney who filled the charges, says Choudhury fired her for “investigating allegations of sexual harassment against the guru” in June 2013, NBC reports. “A Los Angeles jury ordered Bikram Choudhury to pay the attorney $924,500 in compensatory damages after finding he had subjected her to harassment and retaliation.” And this past Tuesday, the Los Angeles County jury ordered Choudhury to pay about $6.4 million in punitive damages to Jafa-Bodden, as well, reports The LA Times.

The harassment Choudhury “subjected” Jafa-Bodden was nothing short of terrifying. It’s reported that he touched her in an inappropriate manner and attempted to get the lawyer to stay with him in a hotel suite.

This news doesn’t bode well for the yoga mogul, especially considering the first sexual assault trial against Choudhury is set for April. Although, Choudhury’s lawyers are trying to discredit the women already by playing the but-it-took-them-too-long-to-come-forward card. We say, who cares? If he has sexually assaulted the six women who have raised allegations against him, we hope Choudhury is sentenced harshly, never allowed to teach yoga again, and is put away for a long, long time. And it doesn’t matter that it took the women a long time to come forward — we’re just happy they did.

Not surprisingly, this isn’t the only big sexual assault news story that broke recently.

A number of women have called out Heathcliff Berru, CEO of Life or Death PR, a popular music promotion agency, on multiple instances of sexual misconduct. Many of the women who experienced abuse from Berru went on Twitter and retold their stories. Luckily, most of them were received positive comments and support. Amber Coffman of the band the Dirty Projectors was just one of the women who told her story. Here’s one of her tweets about Berru:

Was just re-telling/re-remembering a story abt how a very popular music publicist RUBBED my ass and BIT my hair at a bar a couple years ago

The second story concerns multiple women who were groped, grabbed, and in one case, raped, at a Cologne, Germany New Year’s Eve party. While the city was quick to respond to the attacks, Henriette Reker, Cologne’s mayor, said something really dumb about the attacks. She’s “been widely criticized for suggesting that women ‘keep at an arm’s length’ from strangers to avoid sexual harassment,” reports The Guardian.

Reker also suggested that women “stick together in groups, don’t get split up, even if you’re in a party mood.” Cool, thanks.

To combat Reker’s unhelpful advice, female artists who are part of the “all-female exhibition Exquisite Corpse” are using their art to speak out and fight “regressive attitudes” about women, Dazed Digital reports. In general, the show is about “confronting widespread assumptions about how women should appear and behave both IRL and online.”

While it’s great to see that some women are getting justice and more people are taking sexual assault allegations seriously, it’s still disturbing that these attacks are still happening at such a high frequency. But the only way we can stop sexual assault and abuse is with action. Because, whether you tell your story in the form of a lawsuit, tweet, or an act of art, your voice and story definitely  matters.

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Remember “The Secret”? The 2006 movie and book that promised to change your life just by, you know, wishing for stuff? (But wishing in a really spiritual way.) That may have been the thing that kicked our modern spiritual materialism movement into high gear, but it looks like that chapter might be coming to a close.

We’re not talking religion here. (That would be too dogmatic.) But, really, what is spirituality? We know what it’s not. And these signs signal the End Times of a culture that’s been way over-commercialized and marginalized to the point that it’s lost all meaning.

1. Overuse of the phrases “I’m spiritual but not religious” and/or “I’m an atheist, but I’m spiritual” have become so dogmatic that you can almost pinpoint who’s going to say it, usually right after someone rolls their eyes about your expensive yoga studio membership.

2. The same goes for explaining the many reasons why splurging on Burning Man boosts ones “spirituality” year after year. But instead of spending that time to go meditate, or plant trees, or offer relief to disaster areas, or walk needy shelter puppies, thousands of people continue to spend millions of dollars every year just to go and sit in a temple in super sexy outfits before it burns to the ground all in the name of spirituality, dancing and drugs (of course).

3.Bikram Choudhury,the millionaire luxury car-collecting yogi to the stars, has been slammed with lawsuits over allegations from former students that the enlightened, bendy, and sex-deprived yogi sexually assaulted them. Why is it so believable? It’s not just the number of allegations, or the fact that the man is more often than not photographed in Speedos, but that he continues on—teaching and preaching about a spiritual lifestyle in the face of such controversy.

4. Spiritual materialism is at an all time high. Just today I saw advertisements in my Facebook feed for “Dress Pants Yoga Pants.” As in, one in the same. They go perfectly with that mala bracelet that’s supposed to be used in meditation, but rarely ever is. Except maybe when road rage cursing takes over the Prius driver after yoga class because someone almost scratched their Coexist bumper sticker and made them spill their kombucha!

5.Veganism, the ethical diet and lifestyle choice for the hippie-freak animal lovers, has hit mainstream in a big way. Mike Tyson’s a die-hard vegan now. The diet has even captured Al Gore and Bill Clinton. So what happens when the woo-woo diet of the spirituality movement becomes really popular? Well for one, vegan cuisine gets really expensive and restaurants impossible to get into. Then, those people who used to be vegan start eating meat, of course. From the flip-flop celebs to the backyard gardeners/urban Brooklyn hipsters who “used to be vegan” but now find more of a spiritual experience in slaughtering expensive breeds of rabbits because they “make a better stew.”

6. Marianne Williamson is running for Congress in California. And now that Henry Waxman is stepping down, the best-selling spiritual teacher, author and lecturer may have a realistic shot at moving from the self-help genre to the self-helpless world of elected officiating. Is it time better spent? Or just egotistic pursuits and arrogance in thinking she can bring some kind of awakening to Congress? Or another book opportunity in the works?

7. Lululemon ruined yoga clothing forever. Not that we need clothes specific designated for yoga anyway, but those pants were kinda comfy. That is, until we could see right through them to everyone’s stinky arses. Offensive comments about thighs made by the now former chairman, founder Chip Wilson, led to his ultimate retirement. The company has brought in Laurent Potdevin from TOMS shoes—another sign the spiritual movement is being overly commercialized. Instead of meditating on or working through your privileged white guilt in real, tangible ways, brands like Lululemon and TOMS tell us to just shop. With a cause, of course. Feel better?

Keep in touch with Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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What’s up, guys? Why are you doing so many annoying things with your penises? From the political sex scandal to the extremely weird to obscene yoga postures, there are far too many penises in the news lately. 

Don’t get us wrong. We love a good penis. But, guys, seriously, it can be so easily ruined when you do weird and inappropriate things with it. (Right, Brett Favre? Everyone knows your passing game was far more impressive than those pics.)

It’s not like we actively sought out these stories, they just keep, well, falling into our laps…and it’s getting pretty annoying, if not downright Carlos Danger-ous…

1. That creepy Subway employee who rubbed his penis all over some bread: If only he could have given new meaning to the “foot long,” but alas, all he did was take pictures of his not-so-salami rubbing up against some freshly baked Subway sandwich bread, claiming he was at home and would “never” do it at work. Still, no wonder Jared lost so much weight…ew.

2. Andrew Weiner aka Carlos Danger: If you’re a politician looking for some way to stir up media attention and piss off your wife again, a sex scandal is so predictably boring. Unless, of course, you’re New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, who can’t seem to keep his iPhone camera away from his penis for any significant length of time. His latest faux pas involves the secret identity, Carlos Danger, which we think is kind of awesome if it weren’t so grossly connected with sending pics of his penis to strangers on the internet. Someone get this guy’s computer password protected already, and a really complicated belt buckle.

3. Brazilian Evangelical Pastor Valdeci Sobrino Picanto: Pastor Picanto apparently has the most sacred penis in all of the world. He claims the Holy Spirit would “secrete” from his penis “sacred milk.” (Go ahead and clean up the vomit, we’ll wait.) He’s now in jail after being arrested for encouraging followers to “drink” this Holy Spirit.

4. San Diego Mayor Bob Filner: Ah yes, the sex scandal and politicians…next on our list is the class-act in San Diego, Mayor Bob Filner, who has been accused by so many women of sexual harassment that Hooters restaurant has banned him (for real!), even after he underwent rehab for his apparent illness, which didn’t convince anyone. He’s been forced to resign. No word how his penis is taking the news.

5. Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi: Finally, a political sex scandal with real consequences. Across the pond in Italy, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (and his penis) will serve seven years in prison for sexual relations with an underage girl while he was in office. He also tried to cover up the incident, using his position and influence. Berlusconi is no stranger to the courts; he’s been tried 30 times and convicted three, on unrelated incidents. But we have a feeling you can trace most of his reckless behavior to somewhere between his knees and his belly button.

6. Pretty much every politician in China: What is up, Chinese government officials? There are so many gross penis related sex scandals over there right now it’s as if they’re being pumped out by the nation’s factories. Liu Zhijun, the former Railways Minister accepted sexual bribes, three judges in Shanghai are being expelled for hiring sex workers, there are major breast milk sex parties, and one official who reportedly had more than 140 mistresses, including a mother/daughter duo. That totally gives “made in China” new meaning.

7. Bikram Choudhury: And now for a little enlightened sex scandal, yoga style. Bikram Choudhury, the creator of the popular Bikram yoga studios, is in the news again for apparently creating a number of unique yoga poses…that involved his penis. He’s being sued by a former student who claims Bikram would make inappropriate contact while adjusting her in class, as well as ordering the student to kiss him, and grinding his penis on her leg. Down, dog.

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Keep in touch with Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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