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Inside a Secretive Group Where Women Are Branded
NYT ^ | 17 Oct 2017 | Barry Meier

Posted on 10/19/2017 11:19:33 AM PDT by Rummyfan

ALBANY — Last March, five women gathered in a home near here to enter a secret sisterhood they were told was created to empower women.

To gain admission, they were required to give their recruiter — or “master,” as she was called — naked photographs or other compromising material and were warned that such “collateral” might be publicly released if the group’s existence were disclosed.

The women, in their 30s and 40s, belonged to a self-help organization called Nxivm, which is based in Albany and has chapters across the country, Canada and Mexico.

Sarah Edmondson, one of the participants, said she had been told she would get a small tattoo as part of the initiation. But she was not prepared for what came next.

Each woman was told to undress and lie on a massage table, while three others restrained her legs and shoulders. According to one of them, their “master,” a top Nxivm official named Lauren Salzman, instructed them to say: “Master, please brand me, it would be an honor.”

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


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To: Veto!

Half the population is below average.


21 posted on 10/19/2017 11:51:07 AM PDT by NorthMountain (... the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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To: C19fan

I was speaking of the leader of their local group.


22 posted on 10/19/2017 11:51:43 AM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: C19fan

Doesn’t he look like a villain from central casting? I mean, if you wanted to cast someone in the role of Creepy Cult Leader, he would get a call.


23 posted on 10/19/2017 11:53:17 AM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: Rummyfan

Article is something you might find in on a smut site. More and ore what we see as news is sexual exploitation to one degree or another, or entanglements and degradation. And frankly women themselves ‘feed’ it daily and rarely oppose it.


24 posted on 10/19/2017 11:53:48 AM PDT by caww (freeen)
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To: Army Air Corps

Over/under probability of 99% one of his motivations was to get some.


25 posted on 10/19/2017 11:55:03 AM PDT by C19fan
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To: C19fan

I think that you have put your finger on it.


26 posted on 10/19/2017 11:57:51 AM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: Army Air Corps

Not a conservative woman in the bunch, guaranteed.


27 posted on 10/19/2017 11:58:32 AM PDT by wheresmyusa (FTUN)
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I hope Laz does not read this article or he might open his own “Women Empowerment” cult.


28 posted on 10/19/2017 11:59:04 AM PDT by C19fan
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To: caww

They tapped into the “50 Shades of Gray” demographic.

I wish we always had a budget surplus and an idiot deficit in this country, but sadly it is the other way around.


29 posted on 10/19/2017 12:01:49 PM PDT by Cecily
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To: NorthMountain

“Half the population is below average.”

Funny, but there’s something not right with the joke.


30 posted on 10/19/2017 12:03:01 PM PDT by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: Rummyfan
It sounds much like the Stonecutters from The Simpsons:

The initiation ceremony consist of several tasks:

1. Leap of Faith (the blindfolded candidate has to jump from a height of about a foot)

2. Crossing the Desert (the candidate has to walk between to lines of Stonecutters, everyone paddles his rear end with a bat)

3. The Unblinking Eye (the candidate has to walk between to lines of Stonecutters, everyone paddles his rear end with a bat)

4. The Wreck of Hesperus (the candidate has to walk between to lines of Stonecutters, everyone paddles his rear end with a bat)

5. The Paddling of the Swollen Ass ..., with Paddles (speaks for itself).

After completing these tasks, the candidate has to give an obligation: “... and by the Sacred Parchment, I swear that if I reveal the secrets of the Stonecutters, may my stomach become bloated and my hair be plucked of all but three hairs.”

31 posted on 10/19/2017 12:03:44 PM PDT by SERKIT ("Blazing Saddles" explains it all.......)
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To: C19fan

You know he will.


32 posted on 10/19/2017 12:04:23 PM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: Rummyfan

Any weirder than Skill and Bones?


33 posted on 10/19/2017 12:06:27 PM PDT by KarlInOhio (The Whig Party died when it fled the great fight of its century. Ditto for the Republicans now.)
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To: wheresmyusa

Agreed.


34 posted on 10/19/2017 12:07:12 PM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: ifinnegan

It’s not a joke.

In a large sampling of a population represented by a well behaved Gaussian distribution, very nearly half of that population has a value less than the mean of that population. Technically, half the population has a value less than the median (rather than the mean), but the difference between median and the mean will be negligible.


35 posted on 10/19/2017 12:10:50 PM PDT by NorthMountain (... the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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To: Michael.SF.

Dat’s racist!


36 posted on 10/19/2017 12:12:07 PM PDT by Rebelbase (There are only two genders. The rest are mental disorders.)
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To: Cecily

Yes indeed!


37 posted on 10/19/2017 12:16:07 PM PDT by caww (freeen)
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To: Rummyfan

It’s a cult. Sometimes people fall into one without realizing it.


38 posted on 10/19/2017 12:16:17 PM PDT by colorado tanker
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To: Rummyfan

Funny.

These women pretend they live in a 19th amendment world, then behave like they are living in the 18th century.

They are not empowered.

They need caretakers...


39 posted on 10/19/2017 12:20:11 PM PDT by Vendome (I've Gotta Be Me - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH-pk2vZG2M)
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To: C19fan

No Ma’am?


40 posted on 10/19/2017 12:30:58 PM PDT by JohnnyP (Thinking is hard work (I stole that from Rush).)
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