In the world’s largest Muslim majority country, thousands of Indonesian pilgrims travel to the Gunung Kemukus, otherwise known as ‘Sex Mountain’ in Central Java, to have sex with strangers as part of a religious ritual
Dateline video journalist, Patrick Abboud, whose story is set to show on SBS, got to uncover the incredible life on top of the mountain, given unusual access to what goes on.
Mr Abboud says every 35 days you have to perform sex seven consecutive times for the ritual to work.
The ancient ritual dates back to the 16th century and is a regular meeting of ritual believers participating in sexual acts, with the view that it brings good luck and fortune.
From married men, housewives, government officials and prostitutes, there’s a variety of people who participate.
Continue for video after the cut....
And for a country and religion where sex out of wedlock is taboo, Mr Abboud says the idea of a mountain top sex ritual for Muslims in Indonesia seems very strange.
While Mr Abboud, who was fascinated by the ritual, said the only problem is that there is more men than women and in turn it has become prime territory for commercial sex workers.
He even got propositioned himself by a sex worker whilst filming but said he quickly declined the offer.
He said seeing inside doings of the religious ritual, it seems very controversial.
'I think there's a growing contradiction with Sex Mountain, there's the prostitution, so how it is possible this is all being condoned by the government and religious leaders,' he said.
'The one thing is the problem of sexually transmitted diseases, there's health clinics set up at mountain.'
'I talked to a doctor and he said most sex workers have sexual diseases and men don’t use condoms, so HIV is on the up.'
The Dateline video journalist was lucky enough to follow some pilgrims to the mountain and talked to them about their experiences.
'It took a lot of convincing, as it is adulterous, I followed them, some came by boat or motorbike, from right across Indonesia and I had access to friends and people before they got there.'
Mr Abboud followed a female pilgrim called Mardiyah who was a widow and for two years had struggled financially.
Living in a small Javanese town, she had just completed her mission of having sex seven times when he was there.
'She said business become better and made more money, it's maybe proof it does work,' he said.
'I met a male pilgrim called Gepeng, and his friends but he didn't want to kiss and tell.'
He did however feel what needed to be mentioned is that the religion was not specific of Islam.
'It's not something to demonise the religion,' he said, 'it's not strictly Islam as we know it.'
'You'll never find any ritual like this in any part of the Muslim world and Indonesia, Javanese interpretation is much more liberal.'
-DateLineSBS
___________________________________________________________________________________
What do think ?
Drop your comment...thanks!
No comments:
Post a Comment