Sluts. They’re the worst, right? Always having sex for pleasure and walking around with visible ankles. Thank god we came up with this foolproof slut eradication technique, where we treat women like garbage for doing totally normal (but gross!) stuff that everyone on earth does all the time! Remember how we used to slut-shame Madonna? That totally worked out. Nobody ever had sex ever again. UNTIL RIHANNA.

Curses! Rihanna (and her vaganna) must be stopped! Fortunately, Drake and Chris Brown are on the case. Michael Arceneaux has a great piece in Ebony this month (somewhat in response to a Russell Simmons piece titled “Get Off Rihanna’s Dick“) detailing the latest wave of Rihanna-shaming, in which the aforementioned famous men, who have famously put their penises in Rihanna, rap about how gross it is that Rihanna lets men put their penises in her. Cool story, bros! (Brown’s lyrics have the tasty bonus of alluding, it seems, to that time he savagely smashed the shit out of her face: “Don’t f—k with my old bitch, it’s like a bad fur/ Every industry n—— done had her/ Shook the tree like a pumpkin just to smash her/ B*tch is breaking codes, but I’m the password.”)

Arceneaux writes:

Meanwhile, as for everyone else so fixated on this notion that there’s a problem with the way Rihanna carries herself and brought this attention on herself: grow up. She could have Mother Teresa’s sex life and would bring about the “starlet or streetwalker” debate from any man with a certain attitude about women and sex.

To “slut shame” is to perpetuate the idea that sex is dirty, and in particular, dirty and dangerous for a woman. That rigid mindset is problematic as it is unrealistic and does little in the way of advancing the way we discuss consensual sex between adults. You know, any day now.

Weirdly, men manage to stick their penises into stuff all the time without slut-shaming themselves into oblivion. Drake isn’t releasing a track about how many chicks Colin Farrell has dropped his panties for (although I WISH HE WOULD BECAUSE HAHAHAHAH). But the problem with slut-shaming goes way beyond the problem of a double-standard. It’s not just that men and women both engage in slutty behavior and therefore no one has a right to throw stones—it’s that there is nothing wrong with slutty behavior (or, as I like to call it, behavior) in the first place.

So why do we target Rihanna’s sex life so aggressively? Well, first of all, she seems to be truly having an awesome time—and women owning their sexual pleasure veers dangerously close to women wanting to own their bodies. And we can’t have that! The more sexual agency you possess, the less of an object you become. That’s threatening to a lot of people. Rihanna’s not even some delinquent heiress with a sex tape whose only job is commodifying her sexuality (although that’s fine too)—she’s an incredibly successful artist who works hard on her craft and in her free time does whatever-the-snatch she wants without apology. And isn’t that exactlywhat we want women to do? Whatever-the-snatch? It’s almost like there’s a right kind of slut (Kim Kardashian?) and a wrong kind of slut (our dear RiRi), and the difference lies in exactly how many fucks you give. Kim Kardashian’s entire job is giving fucks (it’s called maintaining her brand). Rihanna is just whoever Rihanna happens to be that day.

But more importantly, Rihanna is very famous, kind of bonkers, and completely unfiltered. She behaves exactly like any average 24-year-old does (plus a million billion dollars) and she has the nerve and the platform to do it right where we can see it. Most celebrities are so buttoned-up and micromanaged that as far as we know they’re all smooth as a Ken doll down there. Not RiRi! And shouldn’t we be happy about that? There’s an entire INDUSTRY devoted to prying open the dirty little corners of celebrity life and digging out the nuggets that prove the stars are human, Just Like Us. Rihanna just hands it all over, shame-free, and now you’re mad? Is it just the cycle of illusion/hunt/exposure that we like? Gross, you guys.

Whatever the reason, here is my rallying cry: CUT IT OUT. We need to stop shaming celebrities for having sex when celebrities having sex is obviously our favorite thing. Freaking out about Rihanna every time she Tweets some crazy shit about fucking a leprechaun or whatever doesn’t make you hilarious or grounded or moral. It makes you just a couple of clicks above Chris Brown. Because what you’re saying, essentially, is that women’s sexual behavior is shameful and should be hidden and/or mocked.

No. Women’s sexual behavior needs to be accepted so that women’s sexual health can be protected. So slut it up, Rihanna.

by Sharon Cummings

For decades, Wall Street has prioritized profit over the public’s best interest. Power plays, greed and manipulation have historically been rewarded at “too big to fail” financial institutions. In the political arena, our former governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger is only the most recent in a long line of politicians and candidates who interact inappropriately with an employee or supporter, and our lobbying system has systematized legal bribery.

With all the morally bankrupt behavior in our external environment, it’s no wonder we seek sanctuary in like-minded communities, often in commitment to a spiritual practice. Sadly, even our beloved spiritual leaders are not immune to abusing authority. Many (if not all) spiritual groups have witnessed some perversion of power by one spiritual teacher or another.

Some years back, Buddhist author and meditation teacher Jack Kornfield surveyed 54 spiritual teachers and students and found that, “Significantly, 34 of the 39 teachers who are not celibate have had at least one sexual relationship with one or more students.”

Kornfield continued, “Certainly some of those relationships are conscious, loving and freely chosen . . . Nevertheless, some have involved the exploitation of the student-teacher relationship and have, in a number of cases, contradicted the teachings of the tradition.” What Kornfield found was not new, nor has it changed much since.

We expect our spiritual leaders to nurture a sacred space with crystal clear moral clarity surrounding a student’s spiritual development. Students supply the basic foundation of faith and trust by supporting the spiritual practices espoused by the teacher. Both student and teacher commit to each other’s awakening in this exchange.

Additional guidelines or precepts may be agreed upon to protect the sanctity of the spiritual environment. For example, both student and teacher are accountable for upholding the practice of prajna, or “discerning awareness.”

Ideally, we experience a harmonious flow of love and wisdom between student and teacher. If power is misused, the student may confuse compassion and coercion, faith and manipulation, or even sacred and sexual, as internal spiritual centers are shifted out of alignment. A healthy spiritual practice is no longer possible in this dysfunctional environment.

With honest awareness that teachers are subject to the same human temptations as everyone else, James Baraz, co-founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and Jack Kornfield, along with other senior teachers, were prompted to create the Teachers Code of Ethics establishing clear boundaries for student/teacher safety.

Baraz reminds us, “An authentic spiritual teacher recognizes spiritual maturity, ultimately empowering the student to trust their own heart as the highest spiritual authority.” He suggests a simple gut check for a student to see if s/he feels spiritually protected and energetically safe around a teacher: If the body feels uncomfortable or contracted around a teacher or a practice, the trigger must be addressed. Spiritual practice invites an intimate connection with our hearts; intuition, or how something makes you “feel,” may be the best guidance in steering our own moral compass, he advises.

Last month, Greg Smith recounted a disconcerting experience in a “toxic” and “destructive” community to The New York Times, saying, “I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.” The “it” in question was the corporate culture of Goldman Sachs, where Smith had been an executive director. “Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing,” he wrote, clearly disenchanted.

Smith risked isolation in the financial industry for his overt transparency, but perhaps his public disclosure of corrupt practices is monumental in initiating his own healing, and that of the greater corporate culture.

Similarly, when members of a beloved yoga community earlier this year wrote publicly in protest of perceived abuses, it may have sparked greater communication and transparency in other like-minded communities. One interesting difference between this situation and that of Greg Smith is that the exposed leader is likely to experience greater suffering than the whistle-blowers. Perhaps this is more just, or at least poetic justice.

Our challenge in any community in which we feel our trust has been broken is to transform the trauma we feel into a gift that supports our greater spiritual awakening. The pain may be motivation to revisit our intention—perhaps finding we received the exact lesson we needed to evolve. Or the experience may shift our direction toward a new community. We can release our suffering by sharing our stories with others similarly committed to starting a new chapter based on truth and transparency.

Originally published in Whole Life Times