As Lisa stood nude behind the curtain of the hotel ballroom, waiting her turn to come out and parade nude in front of all her fellow spiritual seekers, she contemplated the journey that had brought her to this place in her life. Lisa was 29 years old and a very attractive woman, with long brown hair usually tied up in a bun, piercing blue eyes, large breasts, a lot of tastefully trimmed pubic hair, and shapely legs. Lisa was a successful computer consultant making in excess of $125/hr. When she had started meditating she was a radical feminist waiting tables for $12/hr--what had brought about such a change in her circumstances?
Well, that was a long story. About 7 years ago, Lisa had been a student waiting tables and studying English. She saw a poster on campus for a meditation club that met regularly. It all seemed innocent enough, and Lisa attended the meditation classes as frequently as she could, learning how to quiet her mind and achieve peace and success in her life through the practice of mindfulness. Lisa's grades in school had improved markedly and very quickly, and so also did her overall level of happiness. She broke up with her somewhat abusive boyfriend and seemed like the world was at her feet.
The meditation poster had advertised, among other things, the practice of 'Tantra'--initially this disturbed Lisa because it had associations in her mind with 'Tantric sex'--Lisa was a staunch feminist and the last the she wanted to do was to give herself sexually to some guru (probably male). Yet she was assured that this was merely a happy, innocent form of Tantra--using all of life's experiences to move towards greater happiness--and really had nothing to do with sex 'unless of course you want it to'. And there
were rumors about the guru--who thus far had remained largely behind the scenes--who ran the whole operation. Rumors about sexual escapades with female disciples on Caribbean islands, among other things. Yet these rumors seemed far removed from the world of meditation--that seemed so happy--that Lisa was entering that she quickly put them out of her mind.
After awhile Lisa was invited to a formal dinner to meet the guru. The formal dinner was held in a formal ballroom at one of the finest five-star hotels in San Francisco. There was an amazing dinner--some of the best food Lisa had ever tasted--more meditation, and a talk by the guru. It all seemed very innocuous although Lisa noticed that she was becoming very entranced with the guru--she was encouraged to stare at the guru, with eyes open, for hours at a time and she noticed she received a very strong hit of energy whenever she did so. She was becoming hooked on the guru, but--thus far--in a completely asexual way. She just liked the energy around him. Yet Lisa could not also help but notice, from her feminist perspective, that many of the other women attending were not exactly dressed modestly. There was a lot of low cut cleavage showing, short skirts, and so on. Yet it was also very fashionable as well--it was certainly not overtly sexual--but it was also not what Lisa was used to as a radical feminist. She herself had word a nondescript, shapeless grey dress which kept her as covered as any woman outside of Islam ever is. Yet the experience of meditation was so empowering that she could not be offended by the sexy outfits worn by some of the other women. Indeed, the women were so stylish that Lisa could hardly be miffed--yet she could not help but notice that some of the women seemed to be, ever so subtly, trying to gain the guru's attention by their sexy dress, and the way they tried to catch his eye (thought he always ignored it).
Lisa found herself wanting to attend more and more of these dinners--they were empowering, meditative, and yet also a bit addictive. And she found herself dressing subtly differently each time she attended. From one dinner to the next you would not have noticed a change, but over time Lisa was becoming a distinctly more sexual being. For the next dinner she took the time to wear lipstick and nail polish. The next dinner after that, mascara as well. Then she replaced her shapeless grey feminist issue uniform with a more form fitting, but still modest, white dress. Then she wore a sleeveless green dress and after that a red dress showing just a hint of cleavage. The it was a sleeveless black dress with very deep cleavage. You would hardly have recognized that it was the same woman.
Meanwhile, Lisa found herself engaging in conversations that--in retrospect probably initiated quite deliberately by the other participants--took place both at these dinners and elsewhere with the guru's more senior female students. These women spoke of the special women's program that this guru had developed. It seemed that the guru, although male, believed that women had been traditionally abused and suppressed--often quite cruelly--by men in leadership roles throughout most of the history of the world's religions. The guru saw his role as a meditation teacher to be one of reversing this historical trend by especially empowering women to become Enlightened. Although the guru also taught men, and very effectively, he was especially interested in the Enlightenment of women because he felt it could greatly reduce war and crime in the world if women were to become enlightened. So he had this special women's program.
Yet it was rarely--or, more precisely, never--indicated to Lisa what the specific women's program actually consisted of. So far as Lisa had seen so far, women and men participated on an equal footing. Mainly the meditation program consisted of these formal dinners, and smaller, more frequent meditation groups--and men and women participated equally in all of these. Indeed, the only people who seemed to enjoy a special access to the guru were the members of the band that occasionally performed after the dinners, and wrote the music the guru wanted everyone to meditate to. All the members of the band were men, and seemed to enjoy a lot of the guru's attention. Indeed, combining that with the guru's androgynous appearance, and you might have even thought the guru was gay.