Extreme Ritual in Other Cultures

Lucrezia Magazine
Written by FCK

According to Law Society/BMA documentation: “An individual is presumed to be competent or to have mental capacity to enter into a particular transaction, until the contrary is proved” (1995). Therefore, with regard to ‘sexual violence’, a person must be proven not to be of sound mind in order for consent to be considered invalid. Equally, the phrases ‘extreme perversion’ and ‘brutal, abusive and violent’ are all relative. Take for example the customs and rituals of other cultures, which include ceremonial acts of religion. For instance -
One Thai ritual involves people striking their backs with blades , knives and swords, walking on hot coals , scrubbing their lips and tongues with blades till bloody and even climbing ladders made of sharp blades for good fortune in the year ahead.
The Native American Sun Dance features a dancer being pierced in the chest or back, attached to a sacred tree and then pulling until the piercing rips free.
In the Hindu Kavadi, people wear cages of spears and hooks or even pull religious effigies by hooks in their skin.
Just because it is something we don’t understand, we do not have the right to brand a particular ritual, body modification or brutal-looking image as ‘extreme perversion’. Some people believe that the act of sadomasochism is more an expression of a person’s spiritual ritual, or even a form of guided meditation that provides emotional release from inner pain; others use it as an inner journey, or an endorphin rush much the same as an athlete feels after exertion from exercise. In rape fantasies, the focus is on the feeling of having no control, and the direct difference between fantasy and reality is that ‘nobody wants to be raped, and you cannot rape the willing’. The ethos of BDSM practice is freedom from inhibitions through escapism, appreciation of trust and respect for another person, but instead of embracing those qualities, the government deems such practices ‘extreme perversion’.