Tibetans and their public attitude to sexuality in the Dalai-Lama incident

Molière's Tartuffe: "Cover this breast which I cannot behold:
Such a sight can offend one's soul. And it brings forth guilty thoughts."

“As someone who grew up in one of the refugee schools run by the Dalai Lama’s sisters, I have seen him in action up close and from afar. After a lifetime of studying his work and observing his interactions, in addition to having lived in a cultural milieu where the tongue is only ever associated with food and speech, it could not be more clear that there was no sexual or malign intent in his exchange.” How to Judge the Dalai Lama Incident, Tenzin Dorjee, 08/05/2023.

I have great sympathy for the Tibetan people and their cause. At the same time I believe that the religious heritage of the Tibetan culture, that has been of great support to the Tibetan people and diaspora since the Chinese invasion, may be weighing down too much on the further evolution of the Tibetan people, and especially the Tibetan youth. It must be hard to kill a father (Freud) when he stands for everything "Tibetan". It seems to me too much a case of putting all eggs in one basket, which is very risky.  

Regarding the Tibetan reactions to the Dalaï-lama viral, there are many arguments I can hear and understand, even though I wouldn't agree they fit this particular context. I believe that arguments that invoke the Amdo eat-my-tongue tradition greatly exaggerate its relevance and importance, and I really can’t take seriously the argument that in the Tibetan culture “the tongue is only ever associated with food and speech”. That’s nonsense. Other Tibetan reactions blamed a Western influence that oversexualises or hypersexualises everything it sees. Religion still seems to have too big an influence on publicly stated Tibetan views of sexuality. Yet since 1959 Tibetans in exile in India and elsewhere have access to the same culture as Indians etc., including Bollywood and Hollywood movies. When they refer to "Tibetan culture", they surely don't think it's a culture set in time and that should be used as an ultimate reference. 

There also seems to be some confusion about the "Amdo eat-my-tongue prank" and the habit to tongue-feed young children when they receive their first solid food, chewing the food first and then feeding it in their mouths with one’s tongue, like a mother bird does.

“Pema Rigzin is president of the Tibetan Cultural Society of Vancouver, and he's met the Dalai Lama on several occasions. He was also born and raised in Tibet, before moving to India and, eventually, relocating to Canada. [...]
"It's very normal in the Tibetan culture that grandparents give kisses or even chew food for the little ones," Rigzin said in a phone interview with CTVNews.ca.”

“ In our culture, when a child is born, the parents first chew the food and then feed the child with their tongue.” Free Press Journal, Goa: Tibetans in state protest controversial Dalai Lama video; cry defamation

Apparently, in Amdo (also see Jigme Ugen), when there is nothing left to tongue-feed the child and the child requires more food, an elder or parent may stick out their empty tongue, saying “eat my tongue” as a prank.

“Tibetan elders often tease their grandkids, coaxing them for kisses at each feeding. When eating tsampa (roasted barley flour), they may say “Dang po O chig tre dang” (“First, give me a kiss”) gesturing to their cheeks, their nose, and their lips, before sticking out their tongues in jest to finally say, “Da na la gas med. Nga’ che le za” (“Now, I have nothing to give you. Just eat my tongue”).” Tibetan Review, The Defamation of the Dalai Lama: An Intercultural Analysis[1]

Was this really what the Dalai-lama had in mind? A prank associated with a Tibetan custom of tongue-feeding very young children? That is quite a specific combined reference in order to exclude any notion of using a tongue for anything else than for food and speech.  

This explanation doesn’t hold because it is based on a mixture of two different reactions from different cultural milieus. It plays on both the revulsion of a non-Tibetan child/young teenager when an adult sticks out their tongue suggesting they suck/eat it, and on the appetite of a very young Tibetan child claiming more tongue-fed food, and feeling no revulsion at all, on the contrary. We need to distinguish between the tongue-feeding of young children, and possibly the “tongue prank” when there’s no more food left.

From the traditional Tibetan point of view the prank would be to stick out an empty tongue, saying “since this is all that’s left to eat, eat my tongue”. Are older Tibetan children (e.g. the age of the Indian boy) still tongue-fed and is this prank still being played out on them? Is this really such a widespread and obvious thing among Tibetans? Apart from that, we should not forget that the Dalai-lama told the boy “suck my tongue”, after a progressive series of giving a hug, asking a kiss on the cheek, a kiss directly on the mouth, followed by “and suck… my tongue”. 

The reaction of any child/teenager that has never been tongue-fed as a very young child, and who is told “suck my tongue” by an adult would be to pull back immediately and to feel revulsion. That’s the point where this gesture, as a prank, would have worked and would stop or ought to stop, or it would no longer be a prank... In the case of the Indian boy, after the boy pulled back initially, the Dalai-lama continued to stick out his tongue and kept approaching his head nearer to the boy. It seems to me there is something awkward with this insistence, even from the “Tibetan Amdo prank” point of view, since the prank already worked.

Here follows a series of screencaptures from the video of the incident. I am sorry for re-using these images yet again to make my point and for the triggering effect it may have on survivors. 

The Dalai-lama pauses after the kiss on the mouth and seems to reflect or hesitate

Then he says “And suck… my tongue”

The Dalai-lama sticks out his tongue…

He approaches his head towards the boy who pulls back immediately.
The “prank” worked, yet the Dalai-lama insists.

Because of the Dalai-lama's insistence the boy approaches his head towards
the Dalaï-lama, while watching his tongue

The boy approaches further

The Dalai-lama makes a very slight movement of pulling
back and forward again. Their heads touch.

The boy starts to stick out his tongue,
the Dalai-lama withdraws his tongue immediately

The Dalai-lama then pushes the boy away and smiles at him

The Dalai-lama taps the boy on the shoulder and laughs out loud. End of the sequence.

There is a clear effort in all the Tibetan reactions and in those of some Western tibetologists and academics to exclude anything sexual from the incident. The Tibetan Chief Minister even declared the Dalai-lama (like other Tibetan hierarchs) "gone beyond sensorial pleasures". It is repeated a tongue only serves to eat and to speak and there are no sexual connotations whatsoever with the tongue in Tibetan culture. Only Westerners who (over)sexualize everything could see anything sexual in a hug, followed by a kiss on the cheek, a kiss on the mouth and “suck my tongue”.

This looks very much like religiously inspired wishful thinking, such as when Iranian president Ahmadinejad explained there were no homosexuals in Iran. The Dalai-lama knows about oral and anal sex, because he regularly declared Buddhism considers these as sexual misconduct. Any Tibetan monk who reads the Vinaya or any Tibetan person taking up temporary lay vows knows about oral and anal sex and what they are not allowed to do as long as their vows last.

For those who really believe Tibetans are exceptions in that field and require proof in writing, there are numerous textual references such as The Tibetan Arts of Love (‘dod pa’i bstan bcos) to the use of tongue and mouth for sexual purposes. Not to mention the Tibetan Tantric literature (e.g. Ragavajra Ganapti). The more daring readers can explore Tibetan erotic or pornographic websites or FB pages explaining in details what can be done with a tongue, quite often written in verse! On a Tibetan Facebook page:

རང་གི་མཇེ་ཡི་སྟེང་འོག་བར་གསུམ་ཀུན་ལ། །
ཁྱོད་ཀྱིས་ལག་པ་གཉིས་ཀྱིས་བཟུང་ན་འདོད་ཀི །
མཇེ་རྒོད་རྭ་ཅོ་བཞིན་དུ་ལངས་བའི་སྐབས་སུ། །
ལྕེ་དང་མཆུ་ཡི་བར་ནས་འཇིབ་ན་འདོད་ཀི ། 

This is not to imply the Dalai-lama is a pedophile or had a malign or sexual intent in this interaction. The Dalai-lama apologized but has not given an explanation for his words and gestures, if there could be one at all. Age and childhood memories could certainly have played a role, but this entails attributing common human features to someone considered a living Buddha. Not everybody is ready to do so. Tenzin Dorjee (How to Judge the Dalai Lama Incident) seems to be open to it

“However, the Dalai Lama is 87 years old. While he is healthier than many of his peers, there is no denying that his is an age of vulnerability where the gradual decline of one’s faculties is the norm rather than the exception. Not only is he hard of hearing, I have learned from reliable sources that his aversion to wearing a hearing aid compounds the problem. In meetings or at public events, he often mishears what a fellow panelist or an audience member is asking, and his assistants can be seen repeating the question to him.

Equally relevant is the sharp decline in his English language competence. When he is in English-speaking settings, he often seems disoriented, struggling to recall simple words that used to be at his fingertips just a few years ago.”

These arguments can be heard and understood if they are not strictly limited to problems of hearing, understanding and speaking English. The gradual decline of a human being’s faculties can go beyond that. But unlike an aging pope a Dalai-lama can’t resign.

***

[1] See also in French, La Libre Belgique, Une énième campagne médiatique de la Chine pour casser l’image du Dalaï-Lama, 09-05-2023, contribution externe.

“Le 28 février 2023, lors d’une audience publique accordée aux 120 élèves de la fondation indienne M3M dont la mère du jeune garçon est responsable, celui-ci demande de manière insistante à pouvoir faire un câlin à Sa Sainteté le Dalaï-Lama. Ce qui se passe ensuite ne peut être compris que lorsque l’on sait que dans la culture tibétaine, il est courant de voir les grands-parents âgés non seulement embrasser les petits enfants, mais aussi leur donner un petit bonbon ou un morceau de nourriture, directement de bouche à bouche. Une fois que l’aîné aura tout donné, comme il n’y a plus rien à donner, il dit “je t’ai tout donné, il ne me reste que ma langue. Est-ce que tu veux manger ma langue ?” Cette pratique est très courante dans la région de l’Amdo, dont Sa Sainteté le Dalaï-Lama est originaire.”