The Brahma Kumaris make your penis shrink

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ex-l

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The Brahma Kumaris make your penis shrink

Post10 Nov 2008

This is actually really not funny at all but uncovers another little bit of the reality of BK experience. It documents the experience of adolescent sexuality with the Brahma-kumaris cult.

I attempted elsewhere to discuss in general the Indian woman's experience of sex, as a background to Brahmakumari attitudes, to a resounding silence ... it was an unspeakable subject. The only relating discussion of it that I have found to date were references to Indian women's nickname for their sexual organs and how they addressed it to their daughters ... the word they used for their vagina was "shame-shame". Recently, a South Indian actress that promoted safe sex and spoke out about men's unrealistic expectations of women's virginity at marriage (given their own sexual behaviour) was subjected to 25 court cases and violent protests taking three years to resolve. Protests were led by other women.

From Chronic koro-like symptoms, Nilamadhab Karl, Wolverhampton Primary Care Trust, United Kingdom
Background

Koro is a culture bound syndrome, which has been reported usually from Asian countries. It has been described as an acute, brief lasting illness, which often occurs in epidemics. There is no description in literature of a chronic form of this syndrome.

Case: 1

A 30-year-old unmarried, male, clerk presented with the persistent fear that his penis was shrinking gradually for last 12 years. He stated that due to the shrinkage he remained weak, anxious and sleepless. He continuously brooded over it. He got panicky whenever he saw his penis, as he felt that it is shrinking back, and remained perturbed for days together after that. Due to this he consciously avoided to see or contact his penis, even in bathroom.

He explained that it was due to his nocturnal emissions and a couple of masturbatory acts in middle adolescence. He was extremely religious and attended religious institutions like that of ... Brahmakumaris.

He considered penis as sacred and its gradual shrinkage as an omen of his ultimate destruction and death. He believed that this was due to sinful (anti-religious) incidences of nocturnal emission and masturbatory acts. He had decided not to marry in order to avoid any possible retraction. He remained preoccupied with these thoughts, avoided company, and interaction with females. He requested for medicines that would stop further retraction.

He had been given anxiolytics, sedatives, antidepressants and anti-psychotics at various point of time by many practitioners and had been counselled. His symptoms persisted with intermittent exacerbations without much relief.

Unlike obsession his thoughts were never resisted. His belief had influenced his behaviour and way of life, was shakeable, and appeared more like overvalued ideas. His mood state was predominantly anxious with occasional panic attacks associated with somatic equivalents. He did not have any other major psychiatric syndrome.
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paulkershaw

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Re: The Brahma Kumaris will make your penis shrink

Post10 Nov 2008

Well ... there is a saying that fits the bill here : - "use it or lose it" ;).

Luckily I left the BKs in time then ... and way before they made me a eunuch too ...
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ex-l

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Re: The Brahma Kumaris make your penis shrink

Post10 Nov 2008

Southeast Asia: Koro

Penis panics in southeast Asia have become known under the term "Koro" (which means "head of the turtle" in Malay). Some anthropologists have referred to Koro as a culture-bound syndrome, but it is phenomenologically related, if not identical, to penis panics in various cultures. Koro most commonly describes the extreme fear that the penis is retracting into the body, including the idea that such retraction will bring about death. It can also refer to beliefs of "genital theft" or some kind of sorcery which has resulted in the loss of the penis. Sometimes the testicles are also believed to be affected.

Koro also tends to reflect a certain xenophobia among some groups, whereby foreigners are often blamed as the ones behind the "attacks". Although Koro goes back to ancient times, beliefs have evolved to better suit modernity. Whereas in the past the causes were usually identified as supernatural, e.g. sorcery, a recent Koro episode in Northern Thailand placed the blame on Vietnamese Communist agents who supposedly put chemicals in the water supply. Sufferers may resort to extreme physical measures to prevent the believed retraction of the penis. As well as affecting individuals, Koro-like syndromes can often occur in an outbreak of mass hysteria.

Koro has been successfully treated with a course of alprazolam and imipramine (which are psychiatric medications, the former used to treat anxiety disorders).
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Mr Green

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Re: The Brahma Kumaris make your penis shrink

Post11 Nov 2008

Mine never went away, something the Sisters did not get their hands on.
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ex-l

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Re: The Brahma Kumaris make your penis shrink

Post11 Nov 2008

mr green wrote:Mine never went away, something the Sisters did not get their hands on.

Yeah ... we know. Its simple. There is no money in it, is there?

koro.jpg
koro.jpg (11.95 KiB) Viewed 15297 times
Ommm ... say Baba and it will make me disappear.

On a serious note ... how many other case, or similar cases, litter the ranks of the Brahma Kumari followers unspoken?

How many women are in loathing about their bodies and body needs? Its never spoken about, is it? One cure fixes all ... more Yoga, more "Remember Baba". That is it, is not it? This is why I keep asking about Indian women's experience but I never realised how whacked out some of the Indian guys were getting.

I read an article recently of that other Mount Abu guru, Osho, where he was speaking about how his cult was not the 'sex cult' but all other religions were because they fetished sex through forbidding it. Basically, he claimed that by chosing something that all humans were going to fail on, to some degree, and then use the guilt induced thereby to control us. It sounds logical. His line was ... "How long are you going to want to do push ups for?" Get it over with and get on to the next thing.

In a 1968 lecture series, later published under the title "From Sex to Superconsciousness", he scandalised Hindu leaders by calling for a freer acceptance of sex. I think this was one of the reasons he was forced to leave Mount Abu. I wonder if the BKs had any hand on it?

This runs in opposition to the Brahma Kumaris line that doing something more only encourages the sanskar to deepen. I am not sure about this now. I think that it is sensationalised to an unnatural degree within the BKs and used as a tool of control and to ensure that the movement gets the most out of the individual follower during their average few years commitment ... that and having to keep up a facade for the 'Hare Smiths' and 'Hare Jones' in the ashram next door.
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alladin

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a matter of choice

Post11 Nov 2008

From the point of view of someone who pursues brahmacharya, retraction, disappearance, shrinking or failure of the phallus, is a blessing on the path to holiness.

We are all aware that "being old souls", BKs have a heavy burden of unsuccessful relationships with the other sex and therefore belonging to an organization where being asexual gains sanctification, is a temporary solution or an escape from frustrations and conflicts.

From the point of view of mental and physical health, my opinion and corroborated by various articles of both conventional and alternative medicine, repression (Yes, I am aware that sublimation or transformation of it would be a different story altogether, but does the BKWSO teach a way to achieve that?? They are busy in doing proselytism and strengthening taboos and guilty feelings, certainly not in exploring sensitive matters) of sexual drive and avoidance of such activities, may results in illnesses and particularly in tumors related to the reproductive system, i.e prostate cancer in men, breast's in women, for which there's plenty of evidence amongst the BK followers. Sorry but I don't remember if this matter has been discussed elsewhere in the Forum.

On a lighter note, I can confirm that cursing a woman to become infertile, having handicapped children or a man to become impotent is common to many cultures, like the "maraboutage" in French speaking Africa. Due to desire for revenge, or envy. But guys, you should be happy if that's what happened to you. The effects of evil eye can be countered by engaging a more powerful sorcerer. Greater problems occur when the woman, sick of her husband's infidelity, grabs a machete and chops the culprit's sacred object off!
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ex-l

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Re: The Brahma Kumaris make your penis shrink

Post11 Nov 2008

In this case, I am pretty sure that the therapist would not know about the true nature of the Brahma Kumaris relationship to penises as the "sword of lust" although we all have a sneaking suspicion that a few of the Sisters have one under their saris ... on a metaphorical level.

Personally, I think the BKs are beyond similar sexual divisions based on biology - although the movement is awash with very basis psychological problems - and we should look at make and female tendancies within the soul, e.g. 'male soul' in a female body.

I often wonder at the kind of horror stories they used to speak about themselves, about the actions and experiences of girls as young as 15, like Lekhraj Kirpalani's daughter, being married off in loveless arranged marriages for the sake of family business to mature men some as old as 50 years old, as her husband was. Sure the sex was rape of a kind but rape by the community not by the individual male, in my opinion. I think in this there must be a key to both Lekhraj Kirpalani's and the Senior Sister's attitudes towards Brothers. And remember that fixation they had about (masculine) men with facial hair.

I wonder if Janki, or any of them, ever enjoyed sex during their marriage?
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paulkershaw

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Re: The Brahma Kumaris make your penis shrink

Post12 Nov 2008

We are all aware that "being old souls", BKs have a heavy burden of unsuccessful relationships with the other sex and therefore belonging to an organization where being asexual gains sanctification, is a temporary solution or an escape from frustrations and conflicts.

It may interest some to note that a few 'New Age' teachers claim to be new or first birth 'souls' to planet earth and many of them share that the joys of using your body, including sexual processes, is exactly where we humans need to be.
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driedexbk

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Re: The Brahma Kumaris make your penis shrink

Post12 Nov 2008

I could not refrain myself from posting this article that just came out. I figure we need to be fair in reporting all research done that pertains to the formal comportment of the members of this cult. Excess amount of coffee is consumed by many of the members of this cult.

Voilà ...

http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/b ... ch-co.html

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http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/hu ... easts.html
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http://www.taste.com.au/news+features/a ... asts+study
http://www.wptv.com/content/aroundthewe ... 9ba6272a53
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,443731,00.html
http://www.themedguru.com/articles/coff ... 14737.html
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joel

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Re: The Brahma Kumaris make your penis shrink

Post16 Nov 2008

My "failures" in celibacy were all quite memorable. Indicative to my current thinking rather of healthy adult functioning!

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