Buddhist Monks Warned To Stop Using Social Networks To Flirt With Girls

from the friend-to-buddha dept

Wed, Mar 5th 2008 9:14am — Mike Masnick

You certainly see some bizarre stories about older cultures adapting to newer technologies, but this might be one of the most bizarre. Thai officials are apparently warning Buddhist monks to behave themselves on social networking sites and to stop using them to flirt with women. If there ever were a quote I didn't expect I'd hear, it would probably be this one, from Ladda Thangsupachai, head of Thailand's Cultural Surveillance Centre.

"Instead of using the Net to flirt with young girls, monks should find ways to preach Dharma and lead them in the right direction."

Maybe they just haven't found the right Facebook apps yet.

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Filed Under: buddhist monks, flirting, social networks, thailand

27 Comments

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jameth, 5 Mar 2008 @ 9:39am

mmhmmm
New MSNBC show around the corner, "To catch a Predator Monk"

Should be a big hit
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Mr. Fix it, 5 Mar 2008 @ 9:45am

i don't see the problem, if those monks were in the city square flirting the quote would have said:

Instead of waisting ur time in the city center to flirt with young girls, monks should find ways to preach Dharma and lead them in the right direction.

for once the Internet isn't being blamed for the problem its recognized as a medium of communication.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2008 @ 10:00am

I see that there are only 2 comments here at this time. I can honestly say that if it were priests flirting with girls there would be several thousand bashing the priests. What a bunch of self righteous hypocrites’ here.
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Self Righteous Hypocrite, 5 Mar 2008 @ 10:06am

girls vs. boys.
I wish the priests would start flirting with girls, and leave the little boys alone!
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Greg, 5 Mar 2008 @ 10:11am

Re:
Wow, what a stupid comment. You've just blanket insulted everyone that DID NOT bash buddhist monks and called them hypocrites. Perhaps some of those people would not have bashed priests for similar behaviour? Hmmm, giant sized chip on your shoulder maybe?
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Ima Fish, 5 Mar 2008 @ 10:18am

Re:
Maybe it's because priests don't stop with just flirting.
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yogi, 5 Mar 2008 @ 10:23am

No one noticed this?
What the hell is a "Cultural Surveillance Centre"? I'm seriously troubled that such a function would even exist. Sounds nightmarish to me.
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corruption as you will, 5 Mar 2008 @ 10:23am

Thailand's monks are well known to be some of the most corrupt Buddhists on the planet. There are many great religious folks there- but then there are the ones who drink and womanize in secret. There is always one scandal or another. Monks are human too - - I like the observation that at least the internet is not to blame...
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2008 @ 10:25am

Re: girls vs. boys.
Over 2/3 of the United States Catholic Church sex scandal had to do with priests having sex with women, too many times nonconsentual, too many times with underage children. Get the facts straight. The only reason the homosexual element became the assumption is because that's the kind of brainless over-hyped drivel that sells newspapers. Easier for the Church (and the public) to blame the "sinful gays" than to admit their true abuses of trust, abuses of authority and ethical wrongdoings.
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Wolfger, 5 Mar 2008 @ 10:34am

bad translation
It actually said, "Instead of using the Net to flirt with young girls, monks should find ways to preach Dharma and lead them in the direction of a hotel."
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2008 @ 10:43am

Re: corruption as you will
I've been to Thailand. I imagine it is very difficult to be a "good Buddhist Monk" there.
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Alimas, 5 Mar 2008 @ 10:53am

Re:
Well, the Christian followers kind of have a much longer, more widespread and more commonly known history of abuses than the Buddhist monks do, don't they?
This seems proportionally accurate to me.
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UnAnonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2008 @ 11:24am

Re: Re: girls vs. boys.
So you are saying 1/3 of the church is gay thus justifying a Priests abuse of young boys? Get off your rainbow horse and realize any press is good press when it comes to exposing sexual abuse. Maybe someday we'll see equality in exposing these types of issues, but in the meantime give us straights a frickin'' break and quit blaming us for all the media hype! It's not like there aren't any gays in the media business, so why aren't they speaking up or better yet starting their own news service?
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2008 @ 11:25am

cultural misunderstandings
This word "monk", it does not mean what you seem to think in means. In Thailand a large majority of young men spend some time nominally studying as Buddhist monks, it doesn't remotely imply a vocation in the way that entering a Catholic seminary would in the West. In Thailand this story would be about as shocking as "College frat boys warned..."
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BlowURmindBowel, 5 Mar 2008 @ 12:13pm

Doesn't suprise me in the least..
Although it does remind me of the monk from that silly japanime about half demon dog-kid...

Inu-Yasha I think...? That monk was a horn-dog!
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sniperdoc (profile), 5 Mar 2008 @ 12:33pm

Thai women...
Well if I recall Thailand all that well... most GOODLOOKING women aren't.

To explain... most goodlooking women there are men. Either Boob-jobbed or just Cross-dressing ones. The first common mistake of every US Service man that has gone there... so I wouldn't doubt if it were men they were flirting with.

CHECK THE PACKAGE FIRST!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2008 @ 12:54pm

Re: Thai women...
HAHAHAHAHA that's frickin hilarious!
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alex, 5 Mar 2008 @ 1:17pm

thai buddhist monk
in thailand, it's a tradition for teenage boys to become a monk for a year or 2.. the believe is that then his parents can go to heaven.. most these boys get back to their normal life afterward.. some may goes on to become monk for the rest of their life... so i guess, this warning is for those boys mostly. but it's also true that some monks are indulging in worldly things when they shouldn't.. hence the agency monitering their behavior..
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Le Blue Dude, 5 Mar 2008 @ 1:31pm

Bah
If priests were allowed to fornicate and/or marry, they would not abuse underage kids. But if they're not allowed to have sex, odds are high they're going to go after people who won't reveal it and hurt them. Kids tend not to reveal this sort of thing.

Selfish as hell, but humans tend to be. And really fucking bad for the kid, so I mean thy deserve the punishment they get for fornicating with children... but maybe we should attack the cause as well as the problem?
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duh, 6 Mar 2008 @ 11:11am

that better be a joke
If priests want to fornicate and/or marry, then they shouldn't be priests. Men don't need priesthood to be good people anyway. Why take up a supposedly sacred profession if you can't handle it? It wasn't as if those men were tricked into becoming priests then just afterwards told "oops, I forgot to tell you, priests can't have sex". They very well knew what they were getting into. Those bad priests would still be bad even if they were free to have sex or get married. The problem lies in their values, not in the limitations that they "promised" to comply with. Some scumbags even choose to be priests just to have access to naive women and children and escape the heavy hand of the law.
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Carlos Serna II, 7 Mar 2008 @ 1:41pm

Buddhist monks flirts
It's hard to believe that! really? They are real Buddhist monk's?
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Kumara, 1 Aug 2008 @ 3:02am

Re: that better be a joke
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Dissilusioned buddhist, 26 Aug 2008 @ 11:27pm

Many monks deserve no respect.
I once was proud of being Buddhist, the cleanest name in all the religions, once that boasts :not a single drop of blood spilled. yet today I am ashamed, by the numberless sex scandals by the most important pillars of Buddhist monks. since a child I was idolising them, now I feel lied to and disrespectful to them. I am not wrong in my judgment, most Buddhist monks deserve very little of the amount of praise and respect that you give them. There is a quote more popularly used in todays buddhist community; the hooks in hell hanging up buddhist monks and nuns are bending. In other words, they are piling up so much, due to their misconduct and abuse of the peoples money and faith.
I am a self confessed disillusioned buddhist.
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jessica, 5 Mar 2009 @ 11:38am

stupide
you are so stupid !! dont you ever say that bitch !!! i am fucking bhuddhist you hoe bag bitch ass ... i should put how to catch a bitch and kill them !!!
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chudai gand lund, 13 Oct 2009 @ 9:36am

but why
but why they doing this i am not able to understand.
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Erik Young, 22 Nov 2010 @ 4:56pm

Thai Monks Marriage To Thai Police Organised Crime World
Less than three weeks ago I wrote an email confirming my intent to
commence a campaign to turn the Thai Buddhist Monks on their heads
and find out just what some of them have been hiding behind their
orange robes...I had found a monk in one temple just south of the river between the Taksin Bridge
and the Thon Buri district of Bangkok looking at hard core sex pornography in his room (door wide open) at 7.30pm one evening..
.... and look what fell from beneath their orange
robes...... I wrote to some Buddhist monks and warned them of my
intentions........
The Royal Thai Police knew about the 1700 Dead Foetus
issue/business for more than five years. Perhaps over 50,000 babies
have been killed in the past few years.
How many of the mothers of these aborted babies have died due to
poor medical standards for the abortions? Where are their bodies?
There are a number of girls I knew who disappeared, perhaps for an
abortion, whom I never ever found again. These girls have not been
seen for years by anyone, I walked over 15,000 kilometres of the
streets of Bangkok and Pattaya and other cities trying to find
these girls and others who vanished without trace. Nobody wanted to
help with the problem, not the locals nor the Thai police.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/207261/hundreds-of-foetuses-found-at-thai-temple-police

I knew about this problem and I got a member of The Royal Thai
Police to come to a house where I thought someone was being abused,
abortions in unmedical surroundings off Chalong Kreung Road
Bangkok.. However the policeman refused to enter the property, he
seemed to know about the place. He was from a police station
opposite the large hotel off Chalong Kreung Menam Hotel that
fronts onto the river near Soi 85 Chalong Kreung. I know another
location near Soi Satthupradit 42 where something similar may have
been going on behind some large red Chinese style gates.
The Royal Thai Police refused to assist claiming the home owner was
a Judge in The Thai Courts. The home owner declared to me he had
been appointed a special position in the Court by His Majesty The
King of Thailand. I did not believe him and wrote a letter to The
Principle Private Secretary of His Majesty King Bhumibol advising
the King's secretary of these claims. I believe the man was
possibly using the address for abortions, there was a constant flow
of young girls coming and going from this property. An upstairs
room always kept windows sealed, never opened the shutters.
It doesn't come as a surprise that one Thai-English dictionary
translates Tamluat as Satan's Police.
According to one long time case-worker in Thailand in 2009, despite
the trainings, many policemen still consider sex with teen-age
children �to be OK�. Only a handful of police officers across the
Kingdom are trained on the proper treatment of children in police
custody. http://www.thailawforum.com/sex-crimes-in-thailand-part3-3.html
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Brotheboob, 12 Nov 2011 @ 1:04am

Don't cut foot to suit the shoes!
I think that it's not sensible. That's not the point which does not allow the monks stop using Net. Sometimes,the monks can use Net to broadcast the Dharma or to teach all the buddhists in order to get out of the sin. don't cut foot to suit the shoes, it's not the good way, right?
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