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The seductive poison of female ’empowerment’ Could you tell the difference between a sex trafficking cult and a wellness organisation?

Allison Mack was the celebrity face of a sex trafficking cult. Credit: Jemal Countess/Getty Images

Allison Mack was the celebrity face of a sex trafficking cult. Credit: Jemal Countess/Getty Images


November 3, 2020   5 mins

The weirdest thing about the Nxivm website — which doesn’t exist anymore — is how not-weird it looked. Instagram-style squares floating in clear white space showcased beautiful scenes of the organisation’s centres in the US, Mexico and Canada. By clicking on one of them, you could learn more about the Nxivm mission to “raise human awareness, foster an ethical humanitarian civilization, and celebrate what it means to be human”. You might even recognise some of the faces working the room — hey, isn’t that the woman from that Superman show, Smallville?

If that intrigued you, you could sign up for one of its “Executive Success Programs” (ESPs for short), which promised to help you overcome your “limiting beliefs”, or the “Jness” scheme for “female empowerment”. The centres also don’t exist anymore and nor do the ESPs or Jness or any of Nxivm’s other vowel-light offerings; in fact, the entire organisation was wound up in 2018, because Nxivm was not after all a benign vendor of self-improvement snake oil.

Nxivm, as two new true crime documentaries explore, was a sex cult in which women were enslaved, trafficked, abused and branded. The brand was a design consisting of the letters “KR”, in tribute to Nxivm’s founder and leader Keith Raniere (or “Vanguard”, as Nxivm inductees called him). In 2019, Raniere was convicted on seven counts including sex trafficking and child pornography; he’s currently serving a life sentence.

At what point in the Nxivm process might you have realised something wasn’t right? Perhaps in the very first session you went to, when you were made to relive some traumatic experience in front of the audience in order to achieve a supposed “breakthrough”. But maybe you would have been reassured by the celebrity endorsements (Allison Mack, the woman from the Superman show!) or the general sense of good intention.

Perhaps, it was as you were completing your first course — but then, these were very expensive and you’d wanted to get your money’s worth. (One ex-member says she spent $145,000 on classes over the years.) Or perhaps when you were invited to join the ultra-elite secret society DOS, which stood for “Dominus Obsequious Sororium” — a bastardised Latin phrase roughly meaning “master over the slave women”. The woman inviting you would be someone you looked up to in this organisation, someone you trusted, a friend.

In any case, once you were in, you would be too compromised to think of getting out, because DOS members were required to hand over “collateral”: naked pictures or exposing information. Anyway, who would you turn to? Nxivm taught its members that anyone who criticised it was a “suppressive”; if you were close to friends or family, you would be commanded to separate from them in order to resolve your “dependency issues”.

When you were set a target weight that meant only eating 500 calories a day, or punished with cold showers, or given the task of “seducing Vanguard” in order to overcome your “limiting beliefs”, it would be too late to even think about saying no. By the time you were subjected to the brand, nothing beyond this would make sense to you. The next time, you’d be the one holding it.

The point is, Nxivm worked like a ratchet. To progress up each level of the organisation, you had to swallow more than your dignity would easily allow you to take back. And this is how every cult and every scam works (before Raniere got into the self-improvement racket, he was plying regular pyramid schemes) – by pulling on that thread in your chest where all the shame is. You obey your “master” and pay tribute to “Vanguard” (Vanguard!) because if you stop believing in it, all the humiliation and the crotch shots and the pain will be for nothing.

It’s not really possible to brainwash someone, if by brainwashing you mean to take control of their psyche wholesale and force them into actions against their will. But you can, by a process of habituating shocks, force someone to surrender their sense of self over time; to give up any relationships that would challenge the values you want them to hold; to do things, not against their will, but because they know in advance what they have to do to win approval.

Nxivm’s real genius was to use the jargon of female empowerment to guide this process. After all, what kind of woman is most likely to be attracted to the idea of being “empowered”? Ones who, by definition, don’t feel very powerful. Ones who, for whatever reason, are going to be particularly vulnerable. The cult taught a gospel of “self-victimisation” — if you felt like a victim, you could liberate yourself simply by deciding whatever had happened to you wasn’t that bad. It sounded like a way to shrug off trauma; it was, of course, a way to make women feel wholly responsible for whatever was done to them.

If you participated in the Jness course, you would learn that the way to thrive as a woman was to accept that men are “linear and logical” while women “lack structure” and need to submit. If you went one stage further and took the “Society of Protectors” relationship training in the belief that this could help you understand men better, you’d actually be subjected to a schedule of physical and psychological humiliation: the aim, the women were told, was to show them what a male upbringing was like and teach them that they couldn’t “get away with things” because they were female. The effect, of course, was to drill women into accepting the deeply sexist belief that women are inferior and exist to serve men.

But the complicating point here is that the people who did many of the worst things in Nxivm were not men. Raniere’s second-in-command was a woman, Nancy Salzman. She pleaded guilty to offences, as did her daughter; so did Mack, the Smallville actress, who was in the layer directly below Raniere in the DOS structure. Mack recruited several female slaves of her own, including India Oxenberg, daughter of Dynasty star Catherine Oxenberg. India (whose documentary Seduced: Inside the Nxivm Cult attempts to make sense of her own experience) had another three slave women under her. The roles of victim and accomplice overlap and blur, though the power all draws up towards Raniere, whose sexual desires were paramount.

Clearly, fear is the reason most of these women collaborated, but for some of them that fear was surely mixed with a less creditable motivation: because, if you want to talk about “empowerment”, the moment you hold a cauterising iron over another woman’s skin is pretty undeniably a moment of power. Sometimes, knowing how it feels to be a victim is no guarantee of compassion for the next person to take your place — it just means you know that you really don’t want to go back there. Subjects of social media pile-ons can become fervent participants in attacks on other people. Trafficked women sometimes make highly efficient brothel madams. Being bullied is a wonderful education in how to bully.

It doesn’t take a cult to make women hurt other women, degrade other women, believe insulting things about women as a whole, take the side of men over women. Women do this kind of thing to themselves and each other all the time — in the name of religion, or politics, or sexual liberation. Give up any claim to power in your own right, and grasp at the next best thing while stamping on your sisters’ fingers. The weirdest thing about Nxivm, when you strip out all the lurid horrors, is how not-weird it looks.


Sarah Ditum is a columnist, critic and feature writer.

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Andrew Best
Andrew Best
3 years ago

Some people are just fools.
A healthy sense of scepticism and not believing snake oil salesman is an absolute must.
If it’s to good to be true, it is not true.
And yet we are told every day to listen to celebrities about politics, the environment, the law, how you live your life etc etc etc.
Maybe they are just human and have no more insight in life than your local bin man and you sure as hell would not listen to him and he would have more experience of the trails and tribulations of life than a celebrity.

devonny00
devonny00
3 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Best

Blaming the victims is not the answer. It is not so much a matter of being a fool, though we are all fools at times, but rather a matter of trusting.

Val Cox
Val Cox
3 years ago
Reply to  devonny00

Fool me once…

Ned Costello
Ned Costello
3 years ago

This racket seems to bear a strong resemblance to Scientology if you ask me.

CYNTHIA VG
CYNTHIA VG
3 years ago
Reply to  Ned Costello

And EST

Stephen Crossley
Stephen Crossley
3 years ago

Although an interesting insight into this particular cult the article felt like a missed opportunity to address some of the wider issues. Questions such as:

Why do so many of these cults seem so appealing to women in particular?

Although Mr Raniere’s motives are obvious, what drives the women in the cult to be so cruel to their fellow female participants and what do they get out of membership that makes them continue to recruit others?

How has the false promise of “empowerment” in the title of the article been used to manipulate women and girls in mainstream society?

Although Nxivm is a particularly horrific example of mass manipulation and cruelty it must be very difficult for law enforcement to shut down an organisation whose members join voluntarily and pay many thousands of dollars for the privilege.

devonny00
devonny00
3 years ago

Why do so many of these cults appeal to women in particular?
If we are discussing empowerment, this is an issue that women are still working with. There still is not equality.

What drives women to be so cruel to one another?

Patriarchy and the acceptance of it. The core belief of this cult is that men are dominant over women.

John Jones
John Jones
3 years ago
Reply to  devonny00

So when women actively abuse other women, the real problem is….
Men.

Of course it is.

If women wish to be equal to men, the first step would be to take responsibility for their own behaviour, rather than continuously complaining about your “victimization”, particularly when it is women abusing each other.

A Woodward
A Woodward
3 years ago
Reply to  devonny00

It’s up to women to free their minds, not men.

Johnny Mardkhah
Johnny Mardkhah
3 years ago

Apart from the sex-slavery, it sounds like the Church of Scientology; but they are just interested in your money. Then, they enslave you by setting you against their critics.

s williams
s williams
3 years ago

Yes and Scientology also keeps a hold through its recordings of auditing sessions where you reveal your deepest darkest secrets. The recordings can serve the same blackmailing purposes as compromising videos and pictures.

vince porter
vince porter
3 years ago

“It doesn’t take a cult to make women hurt other women, degrade other women, believe insulting things about women as a whole, take the side of men over women”. Just insert people where “men” and “women” are used. It is not a gender thing. It is universal.

Adrian
Adrian
3 years ago

Tidy article

Stan Konwiser
Stan Konwiser
3 years ago

The exploitation of perceived victim hood certainly resonates with the Leftist’s approach to claiming the support of minorities and LGBTQ communities in politics. The use of intersectionality, cancel culture, shaming and implied violence creates the concept that those groups must support the Leftist views or be defenseless against the villainy of the Right. Submission and unquestioned compliance is required. There is no sexual demand made, just deliver power to the leadership.

Sound familiar?

Dan Poynton
Dan Poynton
3 years ago

I was with you, going up the road of seduction within a cult until the bit when you get to join the Master Over The Slave Women course and willingly hand in naked shots of yourself as collateral. Doesn’t the road suddenly become rather untraversable at this point? I’m not blaming these poor women, but I still don’t quite get it.

juliabaytree
juliabaytree
3 years ago
Reply to  Dan Poynton

It’s like walking in quicksand, he deeper you get, the more difficult to get out.

Dan Poynton
Dan Poynton
3 years ago
Reply to  juliabaytree

I hear you. It’s easy to believe one would fare better in such a situation, even though to me it seems such an extremely reckless exercise in trust, especially given that the victims seemed to be “successful” intelligent women. Perhaps it is also because I am not a woman, and simply cannot understand the deep underlying craving women can have for validation from men? (God knows I have done equally stupid things due to men’s equivalent needs for validation from women)

David Morley
David Morley
3 years ago

Just curious – are women more prone to this kind of thing than men?

David Simpson
David Simpson
3 years ago
Reply to  David Morley

No, but possibly the techniques are different. Any weak, needy personality is vulnerable to this kind of manipulation – you could characterize the whole of society, or any organisation, as an abusive or exploitative cult, to the extent that it uses people, manipulates them, and abuses them – it’s sort of what human beings, at our least impressive, do. And sometimes it’s quite hard to spot – “The weirdest thing about Nxivm, when you strip out all the lurid horrors, is how not-weird it looks.”

Kiran Grimm
Kiran Grimm
3 years ago
Reply to  David Morley

Probably. Many women (particularly from the middle classes) are fascinated by the prospect of status and power ““ either personally or by association with men who have power. The idea that women who are drawn to a cult are simply weak, emotionally needy victims underestimates the both the women and the prospect of fulfillment the cult promises.

Stanley Beardshall
Stanley Beardshall
3 years ago
Reply to  David Morley

Well, if you take a look at any women’s magazine (Cosmo is among the worst), you will find female editors and feature writers who purvey demeaning and exploitative drivel to their “sisters” for profit. Any levelling up of the sexes will not arrive because of so-called feminine-friendly publishing….

Benedict Waterson
Benedict Waterson
3 years ago
Reply to  David Morley

Women are socialized differently, in general, perhaps with more emphasis on social conformity than men. They seem more susceptible to forms of mass behaviour as a result. It would be less common for women to go against the prevailing social grain than men, so maybe they’re more likely to go along with this sort of cult groupthink stuff, gravitating towards high status signalling. I think, according to Wikipedia, they’re more susceptible to mass hysteria, for example

Sarah Packman
Sarah Packman
3 years ago

I agree, and I think there’s a physiological (nature) component as well with the dominant hormone oestrogen versus testosterone.
It resonates with me that men generally support each other whilst I find that women (the majority) seem to compete for male attention and will often ‘side’ with men in order to curry favour. I personally believe that is why, despite 100 years of the vote, we still don’t have 50% of the power and influence. As a woman myself, it’s so hard not to despise how pathetic some women are. Alison Mack simply embarrasses me.

A Woodward
A Woodward
3 years ago
Reply to  Sarah Packman

Totally agree. Women could rule the world tomorrow if they really wanted to. Most of them don’t. Likewise women tend to marry someone of a higher status, and then wonder why we are in second place in society. Doh!

John Jones
John Jones
3 years ago
Reply to  A Woodward

Or maybe you are not really in “second place in society ” at all, given the female penchant for hypergamy, marrying men who can provide resources to finance a lifestyle in which women can choose to work fewer hours at paid work, and then complain that they don’t get paid as much, when in fact they don’t earn as much, an important distinction.

A Woodward
A Woodward
3 years ago
Reply to  John Jones

Well quite. It’s a strategy, and a very successful one. But not an acknowledged one, as many people believe evolutionary psychology akin to nazism. Instead it’s best to gripe about the world not being fair.

Neil Colledge
Neil Colledge
3 years ago

Attacks against women are despicable, as are instances of genital mutilations, instances of forced marriage and honour killings. As ancient as these practises may be, they fill me with revulsion and represent cultural dysfunction (to me at least) ….. The millennial battle of the sexes should not be expanded into the simple-minded, one-trick pony of one sex being better/worse than the other. It should even less be relegated to a battle between the political right or the identity politics of the political left. Like everything else it should be about good people and bad people. If a woman behaves badly, she deserves less of life’s blessings. The same is true of a man who behaves badly. If a woman behaves well, she has earned the right to more of life’s blessings. The same is true of a man who behaves well. Can we not finally recognise that the world needs men AND women. Each sex has strengths and weaknesses that the other does not. If animals can accept this simple, eternal truth in their lives, we (who supposedly are more advanced) should also be able to. As a man, my role should (arguably) be to lead the family, without being patronising or being a bully …… equally my role should be respectful and loving, without being weak and/or a pathetic wallflower ….. above all focus on being a good person. In the eyes of God we are equal. We have all sinned and been sinned against.

John Jones
John Jones
3 years ago

As I read the article, I couldn’t help thinking that this cult was just a confluence of two others: Scientology and feminism.

Scientology feeds on some people’s neurotic fears that there is something wrong with them, promising insights that will allow them to find their true selves, unencumbered by the chains of socialization that are imprisoning them. Thus, “empowerment ” is the result of uncovering those hidden “barriers”, liberating the authentic self buried beneath, becoming “clear” in Scientology jargon.

Feminism feeds on that same neurotic need for “liberation in this case from the “patriarchy”, and the “unconscious biases” that psychologically imprison women, preventing them from finding their authentic self free from male control.

The irony, of course, that in both cases, the true believer always finds that rather than freedom, she is expected to conform to a new set of controls and restrictions. Many others have pointed out that feminists believe that women should be free to control their own bodies- unless they choose to use their bodies in ways that don’t conform to feminist ideology- they suddenly the woman has a “false consciousness” that requires some form of retraining.

A Woodward
A Woodward
3 years ago

If you are someone who is prepared to trade your dignity for ‘approval’ then you probably need a permanent chaperone in your life. And please don’t vote.

Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
3 years ago

It is an incredible true story but really highlights deception and the enticement to evil. This plays out on many levels such as drugs will make you feel good. Illicit sex sounds better than married sex but in the long run you lose. Maybe it is an overflow of the feminist movement who continually seek power where this was a means to get the power they sought where in the end it oppressed them. We live in evil days where many fall for the current deceptions. I am glad I am married to a submissive wife who is not a feminist and who sees me as leading but I am reminded to love her and not dominate her and she certainly speaks her mind on many things.

Andrea X
Andrea X
3 years ago

Sorry if I am being dense, but is the author reviewing? I have found a link to a new HBO series, but she says there are 2 documentaries on this subject.
In any case, the article doesn’t seem much of a “review”.

Sister Rosetta
Sister Rosetta
3 years ago
Reply to  Andrea X

It’s quite clearly not a review. It’s an examination of how cults use normal language and the human desire to grow against them. Fraud and abuse basically.

edwinmorris
edwinmorris
3 years ago
Reply to  Sister Rosetta

Sounds like Boris Johnson’s techniques.

Andrea X
Andrea X
3 years ago
Reply to  Sister Rosetta

Indeed, but why is it categorised under “review”?

bocalance
bocalance
3 years ago
Reply to  Sister Rosetta

Fraud, abuse and the desire to believe in something.

Scott Allan
Scott Allan
3 years ago

“Dominus Obsequious Sororium” does NOT translate to “master over the slave women”. This is the type of gaslighting that really pisses people off. It translates to “the obsequious sister/s”. Obsequious is used to describe over attentiveness and self capitulation to authority. It describes a choice to be and act submissively. This is far from the master and slave dynamic the author tries to prescribe.

We all have choices. Take some responsibility for them! I have no doubt that this was a cult that used tactics to manipulate and assert for self-interest of its apex leaders. That is very true for every institution. But each of us has a choice to join or not to join.

This author cannot pretend to have any first-hand knowledge. This is total backseat quarterbacking after the game is played. More importantly it is a destructive Neo-Marist hit job to describe men as evil and women as victims. Bullshit baby! I knew and worked on set with Allison Mack. She is no fool and no slave. She may have been beguiled over time by the cult leader. But to paint this repetitive media picture of all women being treated like handmaids is insulting and destructive. Please write about things you have first-hand knowledge of and not gossip form other hack reporters.

Sarah Packman
Sarah Packman
3 years ago
Reply to  Scott Allan

The problem with whining about men being portrayed as ‘evil’ and women as ‘victims’ is:
1. 96% of prison inmates = male
2. Number of sex-cult leaders who are women = 0
3. 98% Rapists = men
4. Number of women murdered each week by their partners or ex-partners(UK only) = 2 (4 during lockdown).
5. 98% paedophiles = men
6. Demographic that brought down the entire banking system in 2008 = men (mostly white)
7. Russian Oligarchs = men
8. Western Oligarchs (Gates, Soros, Zucker etc) = men
9. % rapes that are taken to court? = 5%
10. % of those successfully prosecuted? = 5%

When surveyed, what did men most fear that women would do to them? Answer: laugh at them.
Same question to women? Answer: kill them.
So maybe tone down the righteous indignation.

John Jones
John Jones
3 years ago
Reply to  Sarah Packman

What a load of misandry, combined with confirmation bias, a jumble of sexist nonsense.

You have not actually addressed any of the points made by Scott, just attempted to deflect from his argument with a list of miscellaneous statistics. Here’s one for you, 95% of Muchausen by proxy abusers are female. That’s the psychological perversion where women hurt their own children to get attention. What does that say about women in general?

Well, nothing. You can’t generalize from that fact to a general claim about women in general, anymore than your list of male-bashing facts bears on a general condemnation of men.

And by the way, you’re the one who needs to tone down the “righteous indignation”.

Dan Poynton
Dan Poynton
3 years ago
Reply to  Sarah Packman

Ah Sarah, but the fact that you imply biological differences, which are the fundamental cause of men’s violence and power-hunger, “evil” goes to the heart of the problem. Do we call women “evil” when they are found lacking in these qualities when it comes to defending our family or country? Or when they are unproductive for 9 months because they are carrying child? Believing that men can be as naturally peaceful and nurturing as women is the same as believing that a person who has a p***s (or the remains of one) is a “biological woman”. Let us be tolerant and loving of each others differences, so we can improve the conditions that vilify men for being men, and thus perhaps improve the the statistics you list.