I noticed many visitors come to my blog from English sites. I decided to translate some of my previous notes especially for them. I appologize for my poor English, I tried my best to make it understandable and with no errors.
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sequor (łac.) - to follow; secare (łac.) - to separate
The term „sect” is usually used to describe religion-based communities. Some people use it when talking about group of people following radical rules, which are against accepted regulations and standards. There is no strict definition of this term, however we can define some characteristic attributes of the sect:
isolation – division of the people for „us” - members of the sect, and „them” - all the others,
rules and rituals, breaking existing social norms,
destructive influence on family members remaining outside the sect,
hierarchy among members, very strong position of the leader,
controlling all possible aspects of members lives;
psycho manipulation is intentionally used to recruit new members, usually to make them act against their own good.
Is pro ana a sect? Pro ana has no hierarchy of members, there is no leader with strong position. Sure all Internet communities has their privileged group of members such as admins or moderators. You can also observe some of community members play the roles of authorities. However these kind of hierarchy is not global, and its character is completely different from sect hierarchy. So from this point of view pro ana is not a sect.
Let's take a closer look at all the other characteristics I mentioned above:
isolation – creating closed communities, accepting only selected people as initiates, feeling alienation, or stating that only other pro ana members are able to understand problems and dilemmas involved with pro ana style, sometimes sens of superiority additionally appears – describing non-members as jealous, or too weak to pursue perfection;
rules and rituals – typical elements of pro ana sites are “Thin Commandments” and “Reasons to be Thin”, many of the rules presented there are against social and cultural norms, like “Being thin is more important than being healthy.”, food as evil, or being thin as the only one determinant of success; there is also a list of things to do when you are hungry, how to pretend you eat, physical exercises, and motivations such as fitting too small/too big clothes, checking weight and measuring wrists, thighs, waist every day; all that activities are in fact rituals;
destructing family – parents forcing their daughters to eat are viewed as enemies, not people caring for their children, pro ana as life style should be kept in secret, and the consequences are lies,
control – pro ana controls only one aspect of life – eating, but eating is so important for pro anas, that all other aspects of life are controlled through dieting,
psycho manipulation – pro anas declare they don't want to recruit new members, from the other hand all their slogans like: perfection, control, strength, beauty sounds like advertisement for weak, unhappy, shy and unsure people looking for meaning of their lives. In pro ana they find a way to live, very destructive way of searching purpose of life. In my opinion such slogans are psycho manipulation, however I find it hard to believe that this effect was achieved on purpose. I suspect that pro anas try to convince themselves about pro ana being the best and the only way to achieve success.
As I mentioned above – the term sect is used to describe religious based movements. Let's take a look at pro ana from this side:
personification of the desease – anorexia or Ana – friend, spiritual guide, companion, pro anas write a letter for her, they sound a lot like a prayers, if they haven't experienced Ana's presence yet, that's their ultimate goal and dream;
thinspirations – pro ana sites are full of pictures of thin beauties – models, actresses, but also real girls, these pictures are suppose to inspire an encourage further starving, they remind slavish alters glorying anorectic ideal of beauty;
rules presented as Decalogue – all religions are based on dogmas, unchallengeable rules, pro anas trust their scales without any doubts, and basic rules present as Decalogue, twisting the bible sense and calling them Thin Commandments. There is more Bible motives used by pro anas, like Ana Psalm, based on Bible Psalm 23 describing God as protector and provider.
good and evil ideology – food as pure evil, starving as a way of purification,
symbols of the membership – famous red bracelets, used by anorexics as recognition sign, pro anas encourage to wear them, so they could recognize each other in the crowd.
I suspect there is more such similarities.
Is pro ana a sect? Officially – no, since pro ana activity is restricted to the Internet only. However many aspects of pro ana activities is very similar to the way sects act. And this is very disturbing. Knowing the power of sects in recruiting lost people looking for the purpose of their lives and something to believe in, think how dangerous pro ana can be.
