Sathya Sai Baba preaches a more strongly puritan view on sexuality than the Victorians at their extreme. In line with his strict instruction to students to be celibate (until married), he claims he is pure. This is taken to mean chaste and celibate. However, there are much evidence that causes one to wonder whether the word celibacy is interpreted in India as meaning 'sex between males and females only'. Sathya Sai Baba's claimed sexual and personal 'purity' is contradicted most strongly and widely by accounts from Western boys and males youth who tell in convincing detail how they have been sexually molested by him, including orally and worse. The whole matter of sexuality is avoided like the plague by Sai Baba in in all his countless discourses and in all reported group interviews. Only from private interviews (behind what has been called 'the doors of shame') is sexuality by him reported. That Sathya Sai Baba shows a massive preference for young men and boys is uncontestable, as anyone who has been to a week or so darshans could see for themselves. This is also the case in group interviews, where he has frequently been reported as selecting a fair boy for close physical contact throughout the interview, a boy who he later takes behind the curtain or door where none in the group can see or hear him. I have personally seen this happen to one Swedish, one Danish and one Indian student boy.

Some photos help to illustrate his close relations to boys and young men:-

   

The group on the right were taken in 1993 to see Sai Baba by one of his US devotees, Hal Honig of New York, about whom diverse reports of cover-up of homosexual behaviour have circulated. Speaking of genital oiling by Sathya Sai Baba, one of the whistle-blowers, Glen Meloy, wrote:- "...I first heard of the practice from then dear friends of mine, a Mother and Father of one of the California boys in Hal Honig's group in 1993 who had his genitals oiled during the same time period when the murders were being committed at the ashram."

The following was stated by Conny Larsson of the Sathya Sai Organization 'VIPs':- "...many of the victims have personally talked by phone to these people, when we tried to understand what was happening with us, but they all told us that this was "Divine" and we had to put up with it. We have talked to leaders as the American leaders dr. Goldstein, Phyllis Krystal, Hal Honig, Jagadeeshan, Gruber, Piculell, Meyer etc. and many, many others.
They have all expressed the same opinion "it’s divine"." Conny Larsson knew Hal Honig, reported he knows him to be homosexual, having formerly visited his place in New York: address 222 Central Park South, New York, NY 10019 Tel. 212-245-5799

In 1987 I (Robert Priddy) was walking past the temple gate late in the evening, near to 9 p.m. (one is supposed to be in bed with lights out by 9 pm in Prashanthi Nilayam ashram). The veranda was lit up and two young boys were sitting quite along waiting outside the interview room door, which also gave access to Sai Baba's rooms. A few attendants were standing under the porch, guarding the temple... one came towards me to shush me away. I wondered why young boys were awaiting an interview so late in the evening, and the thought of the rumours of sexual impropriety with boys by Baba did cross my mind briefly.

At an interview in 1987, a Swedish boy called Willy G. who I had met during my first visit and on several other occasions in the organization was called to sit very close to Sai Baba. Baba played with his hands and fingers like perhaps young lovers do with one another, and also kept patting him, clapping his head, putting his arm round him. I had no suspicions them, though I thought that strange and exaggerated. That went on intently in periods - very noticeable. He later took Willy into the private interview room alone and closed the door, staying there for what seemed a long time. When they emerged, it struck me that Willy looked quite confused and not at all glad, which was not what I had expected. Though I used to have a good talk with Willy in previous times, he had become very uncommunicative. Though Willy had been to many private interviews and was loaded down with trinkets, a ring, a watch, a bracelet,he left Sathya Sai Baba after a couple of years. He had soon broken all contact with the Sathya Sai organization where he had been a active youth worker. That a person who had been apparently 'blessed' by so much contact with the the world avatar, gods of all gods etc. whose attention countless followers longed for endlessly, could actually give it all up and leave speaks volumes and allows one to draw but one conclusion... he was sexually abused.

Sai Baba did much the same with a young Danish man I knew quite well (called Michael S. - full name withheld) and I have later heard similar reports, especially one by Barry Pittard where he saw Sai Baba relating to Glen Hart (see here). which is like a description of what I witnessed. In the light of the massive number of allegations of sexual molestations by Sathya Sai Baba, and not least having now been told by two persons I knew for years (Conny Larsson and Mark Roche) how they were induced into oral sex by Sai Baba, I am now convinced that these were grooming or introductions to sexual encounter.

In 1992 I came to know a Belgian Professor at Prashanthi Nilayam, G.M. Spileers from Merelbeke, Belgium. He was not convinced of Sai Baba's divinity and had heard accounts of him being a homosexual from persons he knew. The lady who accompanied him did not know what to think either. They were eager to know more about Sai Baba and asked me much, including any clarification I may be able to offer on the alleged homosexuality. I assured them that it was unthinkable that Sai Baba was a homosexual. I admitted that it had crossed my mind, but that I had found it simply too unreasonable that a person, worshipped by so many prominent people and Indian who had close access to him, could be involved in anything like that. I was convinced that he was surely celibate, as he claims and insists all young men should be until married. (I now know that many Indians consider celibacy only to mean refraining from sexual intercourse with women! Meanwhile I have come to hear from various informed sources that sex with boys is something one does not mention or consider to be anything important and a considerable proportion of people do not think to be abnormal. However, homosexuality in any shape or form is illegal in India to this day).