CNN Panelist Defends ‘Playful’ Dalai Lama Telling Young Boy to ‘Suck’ His Tongue as Room Cringes: ‘As Sexual as a Bowl of Rice’

Rolling Stone columnist Jay Michaelson found himself the sole full-blown defender of the Dalai Lama during a CNN panel this week discussing a controversial video in which the spiritual leader told a young boy to “suck” his tongue.

In the video, a young boy asks the Dalai Lama for a hug. The spiritual leader then tells the boy to kiss him on the cheek and lips and then tells him to “suck” his tongue, sticking it out. Both the Dalai Lama and the rest of the room laughed, but the video earned quite a few cringes on social media and a CNN Tonight panel led by Poppy Harlow was no different.

There was one defender in Michaelson, who has met the Dalai Lama multiple times, calling it “one of the most powerful experiences” he’s had in in life.

“The Dalai Lama is a very playful human being and we may see this in a weird, kind of gross sexualized way, but this is about as sexual as a bowl of plain rice. There’s nothing sexual or erotic happening in this encounter,” he said.

Michaelson argued Tibetan culture does not view the tongue or such a joke in as sexualized a way. He said the Dalai Lama was showing the same “aura of love and kindness” in the video that the journalist has personally seen.

Harlow pushed back, arguing the body language in the video paint a picture that the boy is uncomfortable. The Dalai Lama even moves his head closer at one point.

“The boy doesn’t want to do it,” she said.

Evan Siegfried, Somm Consulting president, stuck to the body language point too and called the Dalai Lama’s apology for the incident completely “bungled” as the statement did not actually refer to any of the spiritual leader’s specific actions.

“Shouldn’t the Lama have read this boy’s body language? Watching that video, I saw the boy recoil and seem unsure. Yes, we didn’t get to see his face. Maybe he was smiling, but at the same time the Lama should have also been respectful there,” he said.

The Root senior reporter Jessica Washington also called the video uncomfortable and said it should spark a conversation about children having “autonomy” over their own bodies. Fifth Column podcast co-host Michael Moynihan meanwhile summed up his feelings in blunt fashion.

“I know it’s not sexual,” he said. “Can I not overly intellectualize this and just say that it’s kind of gross?”

Watch above via CNN.

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