NEW YORK _ Accused "sex cult" leader Keith Raniere believed some women never had an orgasm until they were raped, and said there was room to question whether child sex abuse was wrong, according to an FBI agent.
Raniere, who led the Albany, N.Y.-based NXIVM organization, shared his notions in writings directed to a women's group, said Michael Weniger, an FBI special agent who testified Friday at Raniere's sex trafficking trial in Brooklyn Federal Court.
In one NXIVM class called "The Human Experience," Weniger said, there was a segment called "rape as a metaphor for orgasm."
"There are even some women, they never had an orgasm in their life until they were raped," Weniger said, quoting Raniere. "In a sense it's the very act of sex. The issue of it being bad or inappropriate does not exist during rape."
Weniger also shared Raniere's views about sex with minors.
"If someone comes from a country where adults orally stimulate children and they find out, according to American culture, they have been abused, have they?" Raniere pondered, according to Weniger.
The answer is "yes," Weniger said, quoting Raniere. But "the abuser is our culture, our society."
What's the harm, Raniere said, according to Weniger.
"Where is the injury if an adult has sex with a child and (the child) enjoys it?" Weniger said, quoting the NXIVM leader again. "What is the difference between the child being tickled and being stimulated?"
Prosecutors have said that Raniere's sex slaves included a 15-year-old girl, who was the youngest of three Mexican sisters who were part of Raniere's harem.
Weniger said agents confirmed the girl was underage with pictures of nude women found on Raniere's hard drive.
Weniger said the Mexican girl had an appendectomy when she was 16, and the photos of her pre-dated the scar she got from that surgery.
"These photographs were taken before the appendectomy surgery in 2002," he said.
Raniere is accused of helping himself to a group of brainwashed women who were recruited for his sexual pleasure, with some branded with his initials. He's pleaded not guilty, saying his encounters with the alleged victims were consensual.
