Several of the negative media reports on OneTaste focus on the so-called “aversion” practice. This is something they claim OneTaste encouraged. For example, Ellen Huet writes in her June 2018 Bloomberg Businessweek article: “‘Aversion practice’ is the company’s teaching that you gain power and expand your orgasm — within the group, a broad term for sexual energy — by performing sexual acts you don’t want to do, or doing them with people you find disgusting.”
This is wildly inaccurate. The practice of exploring aversion originates with Buddhist philosophy and enjoys a long and venerable history with applications to every area of life, from personal relationships to business. The idea is that if you are willing to be with what you would rather avoid, you can experience a greater range of freedom. Dogen, a thirteenth-century Japanese Zen master, said, “Flowers fall with our attachment, and weeds spring up with our aversion.” Buddhist teachings hold that while attachment causes suffering, our aversions can cause us just as much suffering.
This concept is also well known and commonly practiced in cognitive behavioral therapy, sometimes referred to as ‘exposure therapy.’ It is simply the exercise of facing, in a controlled way and with support, the actions an individual finds scary or overwhelming. A classic example is someone who seeks treatment for gephyrophobia, a fear of bridges, where they go over a bridge with someone and slowly work their way to being able to travel over by themselves without having a panic attack.
The methodology works by decoupling a patient’s fear from the action or thing. It is widely accepted in psychology that exposure therapy delivers far more impactful results in treating phobias and trauma than traditional talk therapy–including sexual trauma.
“Exposure therapy (systematic exposure to the traumatic memory in a safe environment) has been demonstrated to be quite effective with adult women who were sexually or nonsexually assaulted in adulthood as well as with women who were sexually abused in childhood. Supportive counseling does not appear as effective as exposure therapy, but is better than no therapy.” — Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 2001
The BBC podcast and the VICE episode about OneTaste also inaccurately describe this concept. VICE goes so far as to incorrectly describe what OneTaste taught as “aversion therapy.” OneTaste has never provided or purported to provide therapy, though it did work with licensed therapists on occasion to provide training to its staff and students.
OneTaste never forced anyone to do anything. We made suggestions which people were free to take or leave. Personal growth inevitably involves choosing to face and confront aspects of ourselves and other people that we find uncomfortable. That is exactly the type of opening to growth that OneTaste students came to us to experience.
OneTaste only suggested exploring sexual aversions with great care. You can watch thousands of interviews with leaders in every sphere of life, who will say that their willingness to do things they may not have wanted to do but they knew would help them become the best in their chosen field and become the person they wanted to be, was what propelled them to success. However, when it is suggested that this might also apply in the realm of sexuality, there is a predictable outcry.
This kind of reflexive revulsion to sexuality leads to an application of unmeetable double standards to a business that focuses on sexuality as a healthy and important part of our lives. However, we never pressured or coerced people to have sex or OM with people whom they didn’t want to. OneTaste students were responsible for finding their own partners, and any exploration of aversion practice was purely voluntary.
In May 2013, a student wrote a post on an online forum for fellow students describing her experience doing “aversion practice”. She said:
“So I have a game for a week leaning into aversion. I’m a pretty tough cookie when it come to aversion. I’ll eat anything, jump off anything, and try any wacky strange out there workshop, exercise thing etc. Everyday for the next week I am to txt my mystery gamer five aversions I have. Last night I txt my five aversion and sadly was not able to complete my “leave my room messy and not clean it meticulously before I went to bed.” Today we got into some real juicy stuff. I am fine leaning into aversions and pretty open person when it come to any experience. The place I get snagged is that I can jump off a 70 foot cliff into the ocean, scale a mountain, and would probably jump at any chance to pet any large carnivore however, I’m terrified of mingling, naked people I don’t know, and singing and other semi benign things. Basically, I will do anything as long as it does not put me in a vulnerable place in connection or in front of people I barely, sorta know.
I just spent the last twenty minutes walking around singing “Girl on Fire” by Alicia Keys and Empire State of Mind by Jay-Z with my head phones in turned up loud enough that I cannot hear myself and loud enough people could hear me in all my splendor. A little back story…. I have always been terrified of singing, especially in front of people. When I was little somebody told me I was tone deaf and I took it to heart and completely stopped singing because my voice was “broken”. Once in college it was required of me to sing a simple set of lyrics of an African song for my dance class to pass. I never got a word out because by the time I stood up and opened my mouth I was crying and shaking so hard nothing could come out. Walking around the city was exhilarating. I noticed and saw a lot about myself. At first I just kinda hummed the words of Girl on Fire, and made excuses like oh this street isn’t good enough I’ll wait till there is a busier one… Even this caused jolts of electricity to buzz up and down my body.
As I began to sing a little louder and a little louder I noticed the places I couldn’t help but get quieter, a group of swanky looking hipsters, five attractive black men eyeing me as I walked past, the frowning Latino lady all of them my voice shrunk and I had to focus on my throat to keep it from closing up and strangling me. Then I made contact with this group of older black men — they smiled pleasantly as I got closer. Not the “hey mama what’s your number smile,” but a simple connected smile. I kept my eye contact and continued to sing as I walked past them. My face was buzzing, the lump in my throat was practically strangling me, and the heat in my body felt like it would melt the concrete. When I finally passed and broke eye contact it was like a wave crashed down around me and I felt light and fuzzy, the world felt soft. No jokes, or laughs followed, no cat calls or yells telling me how terrible I was. I survived and it felt so damn good to be seen in that vulnerable place.”
This post is from a person who has been critical of OneTaste. We have included it to show that even critics of OneTaste clearly understood the notion of experimenting with aversion and how non-sexual exploration of aversions was a powerful part of personal growth. However, it is a perspective that has not been included in adverse media about OneTaste.
Here are some examples of some students who engaged in aversion practices over the years:
A woman felt she was superior to others and demonstrated this through her expensive clothing. She had the idea to explore this by wearing only donated clothes for a month.
A lawyer with a tendency to work too hard and not take care of herself was invited to walk a dog for 30 days to allow herself to enjoy her life more and be less at the mercy of her intellect.
A brilliant academic who tended to fade into the background and be invisible in social settings was invited to wear a ninja suit to playfully draw attention to her invisibility while making her more visible.
For a woman who had a distrust of men, we arranged for ten men to each tell her a secret of theirs so she could feel their vulnerability and their intention to be available for connection.
A man felt like he was overly aloof and withdrawn from most people. He challenged himself to go to meals with people three times a week.
A man who was extremely loquacious was suggested to speak minimally or not at all for a week to see how it affected him.
Aversion practice at OneTaste was a philosophical exercise that had nothing to do with coerced sex. It was a practice directed at personal development and individual growth.
