The Bikram Rape Charges: The Power of Speech and the Costs of Silence

Excerpted from an article by Carol Horton, Ph.D. Read the whole article here.

We’ve heard a lot about “yoga scandals” in the past several years: John Friend, Kausthub Desikachar, and most recently, Bikram Choudhury. Given that five separate lawsuits accusing Bikram of “rape, harassment, assault, discrimination and false imprisonment” have been filed, however, simply labeling it a “scandal” seems insultingly misleading. After all, we’re not talking about a prudish moral panic here: these are serious criminal charges.

There was an enormous amount of outraged discussion and contentious debate over the “Anusara scandal” back in 2012. There has been very little public discussion of the Bikram case, however, at least in the formerly fermenting yoga blogosphere. It’s a curious situation, as the pending charges against Bikram are much more serious than the parallel set against Friend. One might imagine that the level of public outcry would increase in tandem with the gravity of the allegations being made. In fact, however, precisely the opposite is true.

Read the rest of the article here.