Female Researcher undertakes research on Ayuhuasca with NVM Shaman (while trying to be politically correct and ignoring her instincts) and is later sexually assaulted - Sexual Assault in the Amazon

CakeSprinklesUnicorn · 2021-12-10T23:51:34+00:00

The article discusses the story of Lily Ross, a Harvard Ph.D researcher who set out to research Ayuhuasca in the Amazon. She chose to study with a shaman in a remote village, who had her ingest Ayuhuasca and brugmansia, both of which caused her to become drugged. She ignored her instincts when he asked her to strip to her undergarments, as she was afraid of offending him and didn’t want to present her “western-morals framework” as an obstacle to her research. He later sexually assaulted her while she was under the influence of brugmansia.

“Lily K. Ross was a Ph.D., a Harvard Divinity School student, highly educated and equipped with all the feminist education one could hope for. Ross set out for the Amazon, alone, to study with a shaman in a remote village and work on a project for a nonprofit that equipped indigenous villages with media equipment and training. Ross had been in the psychedelic research field for years, experimenting with hallucinogenics for the healing of trauma and other psychiatric conditions. This field of study has shown some very promising results, especially in the area of PTSD. Because of the positive results that some psychedelics can have on trauma and addiction, psychedelic tourism has exploded in places like the Amazon, where local shamans administer ayahuasca in healing ceremonies. But these ceremonies are unregulated and, as Ross found out, can be dangerous. The Cut published a very extensive article about Ross’s experience and the booming industry that is psychedelic tourism.

What happened to Ross when she got to her destination is horrifying. The shaman asked her to strip down to her underwear for a cleansing ceremony. He then brushed her body with some sort of liquid medicine called Brugmansia. Because he did this to others, Ross talked herself into thinking it was okay. She was the only female, however. Afterward, she was told to get dressed and wait thirty minutes. During that time, the liquid, which was a potent drug, took hold and Ross found herself almost paralyzed.

“I knew in the back of my mind that you’re not supposed to take your clothes off and go into the private place with the shaman for the healing — that’s how creepy things happen,” she told me later. “But then having seen him do these baths with these men, I was like, All right, I think I can actually trust this.”

Brugmansia is known to have qualities that make a person exceptionally suggestible. It was during this time that the shaman returned and implanted the idea into her vulnerable mind that Ross was in love with him and was going to stay in the Ecuadorian village with him and have his babies. Ross reports that he raped her at least six times during her stay in the village.

Whenever Ross felt a red flag or a prick of fear she would suppress it and instead repeat the mantra that all universities teach American kids: “Do not let your Western-morals framework impinge on the practices of other people.” This is a dangerous philosophy brought to us by liberal feminists who want us to ignore our basic animal instinct to survive in order to be politically correct. Do indigenous women have such hangups about their own safety? According to the report in The Cut, the answer is a definitive no.

But most indigenous women won’t drink ayahuasca with a shaman they don’t know unless they’re accompanied by a family member or friends…Peluso, the anthropologist, said that having sex with someone who is incapacitated is not acceptable in a local context, and that it was also “not normal” for the shaman to tell Ross to take off her clothes for the plant bath: “No indigenous woman would ever let a man do that.”

Why are Western women so susceptible to this kind of assault?

“Sexual assault is not acceptable [in Amazonian cultures]. But there’s a kind of sexual harassment that is considered — I don’t want to call it normal, but in the range of possibility,” she told me. “Local women see shamans as men, as humans, as flawed beings. Western women go down there and they don’t understand this, and on top of it, a lot of them think these shamans are like gods.

The local women of Ecuador recognize what liberal feminists do not. Men are flawed. Danger is everywhere. It’s better to be with a group than on your own. Don’t let a shaman get you naked. These are basic truths that Western women should know, but they don’t because liberal feminism has made it a sin to understand the true nature of what it means to be a woman. They’ve scoffed for years at the idea of the “weaker sex” and insisted that anything men can do, women can also do with the same amount of confidence and safety. Except it’s just not true. There are no stories of men being raped or groped on ayahuasca trips. This is an experience that is unique to women, especially Western women who have been spoonfed a dangerous ideology. Our women have been taught to drop their defenses, to trust that they are equal to men. Hell! We tell them that a 5’4″ woman can kick the crap out of a 6’3″ man who is twice her size and full of muscles. We see it in the movies every day. It’s a fantasy.

The truth is that the majority of women are and always will be at a physical disadvantage in comparison to men. Your safety is your responsibility because when you end up alone in a dark room in a foreign country with a bad man, it won’t matter how many times you’ve read “The Feminine Mystique.” That bad man is going to rape you if he wants to and there’s nothing you can do about it at that point.

Prevention is worth way more than a cure. Girls, be smarter than this. Never ignore that voice. The first rule in self-defense is to always, always listen to that voice that says “get out of here” and “this is not normal.” Do not be nice. Do not care if you hurt someone’s feelings, or upset them, or insulted them or their culture. Get out first and ask questions later.

Ross survived to tell her story, which should be a warning to others that your safety should be your number one priority whether going on a research trip in the Amazon or out for drinks with friends. Be aware, don’t go alone, get trained in self-defense, watch your drink, don’t allow anyone to give you anything you haven’t agreed to take (and if you’ve agreed to take it you’d better know what’s in it, what the dosage is, and be under competent supervision), and listen to that voice that will save your life if you don’t ignore it.”

lakat17 · 2021-12-11T00:52:52+00:00

This is where cultural relativism obscures violence against women in other societies. she was thought that it was not “PC” or intellectual if she imposed her own values into the interaction with a male from a different culture. This may hold true for men in general, but in almost every modern culture, men oppress and take advantage of females in thier culture. I’m not sure if describing men as “flawed” perhaps capture the reality of Amazonian women under male violence. How these women know these men are flawed shows they experience male sexual entitlement systematically. Male violence is universal , don’t feel shame to defend yourself in any culture or any part of the world your in. I can’t help but think that if she built relationship with women, they would have let her know how male shamans are.

onceuponasea · 2021-12-11T01:10:25+00:00

I know the woman who went with lily to that ceremony. So scary. I implore any woman to be careful of going into these type of spaces. A friend of mine knows a lot of these folk bc she’s into this scene a lot; some ex military guy ran a retreat where he administered amphetamine to the entire group without them knowing (they thought they were just taking Tobacco) the woman died and he blamed it on her “demons” he’s still running around holding these ceremonies. There is a huge dark side to this scene.

spicyspa · 2021-12-11T03:38:04+00:00

A lot of people feel that they can't judge because indigenous peoples have been harmed. However, this is about individuals, not indigenous societies at large. There are scrotes from all ethnicities and we should act on that knowledge.

I know a lady who went on a lot of these Ayahuasca retreats and while she did fine and benefited from it, she's insufferable. That alone makes me give this stuff a pass.

ShieldMaidenLagertha · 2021-12-11T06:28:17+00:00

This is crazy. I had no idea Brugmansia was used like this. I grow it as an ornamental plant. It produces huge pendulous trumpet shaped flowers that are intensely fragrant at night. It is exceptionally beautiful in an unreal, otherworldly way but I’ve been warned it’s incredibly poisonous. Leave it to scrotes to turn it into a rape drug….

vaguelinen · 2021-12-11T07:38:26+00:00

It’s so sad that women seeking enlightenment and healing look to men when our fellow women have more power in their pinkie fingers.

I’ve had a wonderful reaction to Shirodhara which I had in a lovely spa in India where it was just me and the female therapist. Afterwards she gave me some fresh ginger tea and told me to daydream in the garden just outside the spa so they (the spa staff) could still keep an eye on me. It was warm and nurturing and safe.

europoor24 · 2021-12-11T13:43:55+00:00

"Do not let your Western-morals framework impinge on the practices of other people" - This is very very american. As a non-american, let me tell you men especially see americans as some of the dumbest people around and the women as "easy". Male misogyny and entitlement is rampant everywhere, but not only are women socialized to be overly nice and from birth have their boundaries trampled on, but it seems like americans especially are taught to be overly pc even in contexts where safety is an issue. The other day an american woman literally defend child marriages out of some twisted "respect other cultures bs" she had been learning in her university courses.

fds_throwaway_4_u · 2021-12-11T00:23:05+00:00

Wow men fucking suck. All around the world, they all fucking suck.

JadeBaby2211 · 2021-12-11T00:15:15+00:00

Psychedelics as medicine holds a lot of promise, but the stories of sexual assault under the influence are only going to increase. I'll never do ayahausca because it really makes you too suggestible, and bad "shamans" are everywhere, looking to take advantage. I will literally only do mushrooms alone, in my room, maybe a lower dose with people I trust and have vetted. I've been curious to see what the culture around psychedelics has become since it's been researched in earnest, but its still full of so much bullshit.

throwawaynevermindit · 2021-12-11T17:11:32+00:00

Important for free-spirited Western women who like to travel and learn about other cultures (no shade because I am one) to consider this story.

That said, the direction some people are taking with it is weird. This didn't happen because Western women are over-encouraged to think we're "equal to men" and act with confidence. If this woman had been acting with confidence she'd have dipped when she initially felt creeped out. If she had felt equal to him in context, she would have had the guts to question him when doubts crept in. She did neither of those things.

And it didn't happen because liberal feminism has taught us that 5" something women can kick around 6" men. I'll critique libfems until the cows come home but no libfem I know actually believes that lol.

The mistake being made here is not women thinking that men aren't physically capable of assaulting them - it's women being convinced by bad discourse that it's morally reprehensible to even suspect that certain kinds of men might want to rape you, or act on such a suspicion.

It's women being wrongly taught that the social privilege you have based on your ethnicity or nationality not only cancels out, but actually outweighs the power men have socially and physically by virtue of being male, and taught that it's their job to present themselves non-threateningly and non-judgmentally to these men even when they are objectively vulnerable themselves.

This happened because aspects of Western liberal politics lead some Western women to be under-confident in calling out "other" men - men from different races, men from different cultures - for fear of being called colonialist or imperialist or racist. In certain circles, the same circles where people who like to travel and do ayahuasca and get PhDs in anthropology run, women are under a shocking amount of pressure to give foreign and sometimes minority men the benefit of the doubt lest they be accused of bias and small-mindedness. In a way it's the potential dark side of the "white women weaponize their tears" discourse - those of us who care enough to try and avoid leveraging white/Western privilege may sometimes go too far in the other direction and suppress correct instincts about the intentions of men around us, and put ourselves in danger as a result.

I was socialized in these circles myself. I have favored radical feminism over liberal feminism since early college and the peer pressure still had an impact on me - it's no surprise to me in retrospect that the worst attempted sexual assault I suffered happened at the hands of an Arab man, while I was traveling. Even after I ended up locking myself away from him that night, because the circumstances made me reliant on him and gave him an "in" to talk me down, I kept up a relationship with him for quite some time. Was it because I believed I could kick his ass? Was it because I was too confident? Of course not. I wasn't confident enough to act on my suspicions or to tell him to go to hell when I had the chance, because I was afraid of playing into racial-colonial stereotypes of his demographic, and because I wanted to be tolerant of possible cultural differences and misunderstandings. I ended up giving him more leeway than I would have an American man on my own turf.

Of course, men are men. Many of them from ANY demographic would rape ANY woman of ANY demographic if they thought they had a chance at getting away with it, and it's not a hard thing to get away with. Cultural relativism is grand, but it's for things like clothing and religion and foods - not for women's rights and bodily autonomy. If he's creeping you out he's creeping you out, if he's violating your boundaries he's violating your boundaries, if it seems like he has designs on you he probably does - male dominance and sexual abuse of women is not a Western or white invention and strains of thinking that frame it as such need to be slapped down hard. The rest of the details don't matter.

DiosaCordilia · 2021-12-11T00:25:58+00:00

The plant medicine bs is growing and growing especially since COVID and the amount of conspiracies. That's why I left the spiritual community. Also 9 ouf of 10 male "shamans" (aka white crypto jobless weed addicts) are predatory men as you can see here.

moonartemis1989 · 2021-12-11T08:33:36+00:00

Why do women trust these random men from "lesser" known cultures so easily. And it is way better to go with someone then on ur own in these cases

aquietsword · 2021-12-11T01:06:42+00:00

This is important to get out. A lot of women still aren't aware of the "spiritual" shit value male. And the more laws around drug use are relaxed in liberal cities, the more services like this could pop up in the US and potentially put women in a bad situation.

QueensJuju · 2021-12-11T18:06:38+00:00

"Culture" is never an excuse for misogyny because misogyny exists in every culture. Oppression never deserves respect or protection. Whenever someone says, "But it's their culture", I correct them and say, "It's their cultural misogyny, racism, etc".

electroloop · 2021-12-10T23:47:02+00:00

Not trying to downplay the severity of sexual assault, but taking drugs around anyone you don’t know is a bad idea. This news isn’t shocking anymore.

Doesn’t matter if it’s with the guy down the street who’s seemingly “nice”. Doesn’t matter if it’s with a “shaman” and you’re doing “research” on drugs.

Always do drugs around someone you trust. I’m not promoting the use of drugs but if you must experiment or “research”, do it in a controlled environment with people you trust.

albahe12 · 2021-12-11T00:02:48+00:00

why why why must we do this to ourselves?? I will never ever put the blame on victims but I can't understand for the life of me why some women would willingly go and put themselves in such peculiar situations..😞😞😞

Commercial_Place9807 · 2021-12-13T18:36:39+00:00

There comes a point where you can be so open minded that your common sense falls out.

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