Breaking down the Mark Whitwell Sexual Abuse Allegations
In case you haven’t been following yoga news:
On January 5th of 2020 a yoga teacher published an article on Medium telling her story about how yoga teacher Mark Whitwell manipulated, used, and sexually assaulted her. You can find that article here:
https://medium.com/@digthyself/breath-to-speak-c5606af5db69
Mark Whitwell is a very well known and popular yoga teacher delivering workshops and teacher trainings all around the world. There have been a number of reports circulating around that he had “creepy vibes” and acted inappropriately around young women, but the article represents evidence that his vibes may have stepped beyond creepy and into criminal.
Jason Brown, a popular yoga teacher and podcaster, then did a special segment of his podcast where talked about his relationship with Whitwell. Now I have seen people trashing Brown over this episode, but I didn’t come away thinking he was apologizing for or trying to minimize the accusations against Whitwell. He seemed genuinely upset and acknowledged that he was one of the many people who facilitated Whitwell’s behaviour by turning a blind eye to it.
You can listen to J Brown’s podcast here:
https://www.jbrownyoga.com/yoga-talks-podcast/2020/1/j-talks-about-christie-roe-and-mark-whitwell
In the comments section of the podcast, Mark Whitwell’s partner, Rosalind Atkinson, stated that Roe’s relationship with Whitwell was completely consensual and that she had been strong-armed into fabricating these charges. Atkinson called the article “revenge porn” and said that it was “not possible” for Whitwell to take advantage of anyone.
I am not sure what she means by “not possible.” Isn’t that always possible? I got the impression that she was suggesting Whitwell is impotent. But you do not need an erection to commit a sexual assault, so I’m left scratching my head on that one.
Also in the comments, Karen Rain noted two important criticisms of J. Brown’s podcast. First, at one point he said that Whitwell would always be a friend. Rain suggested that friends are people we can trust. Would you trust a sexual predator? Damn good question.
I really appreciate loyalty. I like to believe I would stand by my friends no matter what they were accused of. But at what point would it become clear that your friend was not who you believed them to be? At what point do you realize your relationship with that “friend” was under the strong influence of social and economic pressures. If Whitwell was a crucial ally and source of connections to networks around the world, it is very likely that a selfish part of us would want to believe that our friend being a sexual predator was “not possible.”
The second criticism was that on the podcast, J Brown let everyone know that he reached out to Roe and invited her on the podcast. This was a bad decision. Somebody standing up to her abuser and facing the inevitable public backlash does not need this kind of pressure. He could privately reach out and see if she wants access his platform. But making a public announcement put Roe in an awkward situation.
I have never met Mark Whitwell. I have seen a number of little clips from his classes and interviews on YouTube. He seemed alright to me. He has one of those cool old yogis from the 1970s vibes. So I have nothing to go on but what I have read.
It stinks. Really. Things look pretty bad for Whitwell. It seems like he was using a combination of “we are all one” oneness ideology and pseudo-tantric understandings of yoga being a union of masculine and feminine sexual energies in order to establish dominance over his students.
The oneness ideology thing comes down to arguing that there is no distinction between my experience of the world and yours. Therefore if you have a problem or a disagreement of any kind, you must not be seeing the world properly. If we are all one, then there are no problems. Anyone who sees problems is, inherently, wrong and immediately considered an outsider. They just don’t get it.
Oneness ideology is everywhere in yoga communities. It is so common that looking for it is like looking for the air in the room. We are surrounded by it. This notion that we are all one is not only wrong, it is dangerous. It is wrong because your experience is uniquely yours. It is dangerous because any experience that does not fit squarely within the dominant ideology is overlooked and ignored. Just do a little bit of reading about the experiences of people of colour in yoga studios.
The pseudo-tantric thing is a manipulation of medieval hatha yoga in order to provide a spiritual justification for wanting to have sex. Rather than just being a human being who craves pleasure and human intimacy, these pseudo-tantrics are pursuing transcendent spiritual experience.
Medieval hatha yogis did, in fact, seek to unite masculine and feminine energies through sexual rituals. But the rites and rituals of medieval hatha yogis in India are a world away from yoga retreat centres in 21st century Bali. We can study those rituals and learn more about the hows and whys of medieval yoga. It is fascinating. But it is not representative of yoga today. At the most fundamental level, most medieval yogis were part of small cult organizations with a high degree of internal cohesion. Yoga retreats and studios are not cults. They are places of business. The people attending those retreats and studios are from all kinds of walks of life and hold a wide variety of world views.
So pretending to practice any kind of medieval tantric sexuality is nothing short of delusional. If it is not delusional then it must be teachers who are intentionally misleading themselves and their students. This enables them to indulge their passions and yet maintain some kind of righteousness or spiritual high road that prevents them from acknowledging that they are are not special. Whitwell is an old man who wants to feel special, not a tantric yoga master holding keys to spiritual liberation.
The oneness ideology and pseudo-tantra are basically part of a yogic cosplay. People teaching this stuff just want to dress up and pretend to be part of some mystical ancient order of yogis. Which is cool…until somebody starts believing they are ACTUALLY part of some mystical ancient order of yogis and not just some old guy with a penchant for younger women.
A recent blog entry from Whitwell featured a graphic called “Pyramid of Disempowerment in Yoga.” It describes how less obvious forms of domination act as preliminaries that pave the road toward more egregious acts of violence in yoga communities. In Whitwell’s own words:
“The way Yoga is taught today is part of patriarchal patterning that enables abuse. Anthropological studies of rape culture and white supremacy have shown that many behaviors and activities that fall short of outright violence or abuse are actually the supporting grounds for these behaviors and enable them.”
It would seem that either Whitwell was either so deluded by his own spiritual doublespeak that he did not realize he was doing exactly what he was warning against, or that he self-consciously posted that blog hoping to pro-actively respond to the inevitable reckoning that was coming.
My suspicion is a combination of the two. I think, at some level, he must have known that sooner or later somebody would go public and expose him. I also think that this story will not be the last one we hear. I imagine that my friend Matthew Remski might already be doing that research.
Last thing, this sucks. The whole damn thing. It is terrible. But we cannot ignore it and focus on the positive. Focussing on the positive is what enables the Whitwell’s of the yoga world to keep teaching. We need to put a spotlight on this. Study it. Learn from it. Learn how to prevent it. And then make very real changes at the level of yoga studios, retreat centres, and gyms. We need to identify and remove these people from our communities. We cannot just pray for the victims and hope for a better day ahead.
