OneTaste

Everything you read about in these reviews is true in some sense, both good and bad.  If you are on the shy side the practice will break you out of your shell and give you a rush, at least in the beginning.  You will meet interesting, if a bit single-minded people.  On both sides you may have the chance to fiddle around with someone well above your pay grade, at least for 15 minutes, if you are into that.  People will push you and test your boundaries, if you are ready for it.  

Ignited Man I found to be a very good course for the money.  Note that it was interspersed with and followed by a sales pitch, not so carefully disguised as a "coaching session."  Magic School I felt was an honest attempt to expose the participants to as many traditions as they could pack into the time available.  

If anyone tries to talk you into the coaching program as a career path, first of all, sleep on it.  "The Deal" will always be there later.  If it matters, ask around and find out how many of the people around are actually making a living at this, and how many are working on the side to scrape together gas money.  

No doubt the program works for some people.  Go in with eyes wide open, evaluate everything you hear, and take the opportunity to learn how to say no. There is definitely something to learn here.  In the end I walked away, but you will have to make up your own mind.

I participated in countless "turn ons", oms, and even took the "Intro to OM" course all the way back in the summer of 2015, and my experience with this group left me with a very bad taste in my mouth.

Many of the women in this group were extremely toxic. I had voices raised at me a number of times, doors slammed in my face, and was taken advantage of emotionally a couple times. When I expressed my concerns, someone even told me something along the lines of "if a woman uses you, it means she likes you".  Basically they just kicked pebbles at the pain. They would also take advantage of people's emotional vulnerability to either scold/shame them or try to sell ridiculously expensive $13,000 p*ssy stroking courses. Read some of the other reviews if you need further proof. They encourage women to use their sexual appeal to extract money from a man. It's a terrible place to come if you value your mental health,  or have any shred of self-respect. If you have any history of trauma, this place will add more to the mix, especially if you're a male.

Don't get me wrong. There were also some exceptional people in this group and I do have a few good memories. The "hot seat" activity in the turn ons was great public speaking practice. Unfortunately, the negatives vastly outweigh the positives.

Be very wary of One Taste. They lead with promises of deep connection, sexual wellness, and vitality. I very much enjoyed the practice of OMing itself (One Taste did not invent this practice, btw. They appropriated it. It's from the 70s). It would be a great practice to adopt with a partner or even a trusted friend. But beware of the community and the OT staff/devotees. Keep your wits about you, think critically and analytically about their messaging and motives at every turn. Think for yourself. Own your instincts regardless of social pressure. Don't get sucked into the vortex.

I regularly attended OM circles for about a year because I was fascinated by the practice and wanted to see what it could do for me and my life. My instincts kept me on the fringes, on the outside looking in at the train wreck, so I got to know and care about many in the community, while Staying on the other side of the glass, so to speak. My resistance to being sucked into the fold did not stop OT from attempting to pressure me, directly and indirectly, to fork over mega cash to 'go deeper' by investing in their trainings and courses. They did this directly w phone calls. Indirectly, they did this by making a show for all to see of how golden, loved, connected, tight knit, popular, coveted and 'turned on' the people who were 'on the inside' of the community were. They made people feel special and interesting, but would turn cold on you if you didn't fork over cash for the next expensive program. This was an effective strategy that caused many people to try to buy their way to the love, affection, and fitting-in-ness of the seeming cool kids club. Beware of this tactic. It's a farce. The people on the inside are not liberated. They are dying inside. They feel stuck. They are usually in debt. They are stripped of their self esteem and independence. They are emotionally abused, belittled, pressured. I saw it time and time again.

I implore you to either stay away from OT altogether, or stick to the OM practice alone, and not get sucked into the toxic, manipulative inner circle for your own sake.

It would be accurate to call that inner circle (the regulars involved in their trainings, classes, or working for the company in any capacity) part of an active cult. I have multiple friends who got caught up in taking their expensive classes, going into debt, being pressured to abandon their personal and sexual boundaries, immersing deeper into OT culture. It is abusive, insidious, and rife with social control and utilized the manipulation of both spiritual and personal growth principles, just like other cults. I know 6 separate individuals whose lives, finances, and mental health were destroyed through their involvement in OT. It has taken years for them to rehabilitate. Years.

I know of two separate people (acquaintances) who were socially pressured to get married to other members. This kind of behavior is always justified by some version of motivational, inspirational, social-norm rebelling NLP mumbo jumbo line about 'Acting in the moment on your true desire' or some other crap. It is astonishing how kind, talented, intelligent, successful, capable people can be cajoled and tricked into doing so many things against their better judgment. The general consensus about cults is that they somehow prey on the "weak-minded." This is pretty much nonsense. Anyone call fall prey, due to the power of things like our own cognitive dissonance, desire for belonging, the power of social pressure, etc. You're not immune, I'm not immune, and none of us are any better or smarter than those who got sucked into this scheme.

OT often uses clever, catchy discourse and vocabulary to normalize, encourage, legalize, and trivialize problematic behaviors.

OT and it's leaders will often pressure, embarrass, intimidate, and humiliate its community members. Then they'll call it something absurd like "that was just a hard stroke" or explain that the staffer just publicly attacked you and your character because "they are riding you hard cause they see your strength, power, and potential for awakening." BARF.

Trust your own mind, gut, sense of wrong and right, and discernment of how others should be treated at all times. And never trust them.

Update: I find Eli's response is super creepy

I went to a few events and quickly recognized the tone and verbiage as that of something that started  with great intentions, but in my opinion, is rife with unhealthy juxtaposition. (Mainly profit and self improvement and sexuality) I felt uncomfortable due to some of the other people's behavior. It seems their intentions weren't purely expressed, and are more interested in the sexual side than the emotional exploration side. While sexual exploration is healthy, I find it can be triggering for some and it's a tightrope one walks when navigating this world. Unfortunately, a misstep can do a lot of damage. I find it concerning how costly things get and can understand how people see the pyramid or cult vibe that's been described in other reviews.

Exercise caution if you're really interested in exploring this world, and take care of yourself. Follow your instincts.

OneTaste is a company that teaches genital stroking in a technique called Orgasmic Meditation. They have events called "Turn Ons" which are modeled after the Mark groups of the 60s by the sex commune Morehouse. (They were called Mark groups because the people who attended the events are 'marks' to be conned.) If you go to one of these events to 'learn' you will get the hard sell a few days later from their staff.

No matter how eager these OneTaste people seem to be your friend, no matter how much they seem to have something you want, they are salespeople first and will drop you like a hot potato if you don't buy expensive workshops and coaching sessions from them. Nobody will admit it's like a pyramid scheme, but that's what I saw. I was involved with this group for over a year, took 2 classes and even some private coaching sessions from them. And this was the #1 complaint from many people. Many leave. Bad for business.

OneTaste has a sex class for about $6000 and their coaching program costs in the $15,000 range. The basic OM class is about $195 at last I heard. You take this one-day class, the "How to OM" class, to learn their technique of female clitoral stroking. It's like learning a new form of sex. This part is actually cool. Orgasms, what's not to like?

The uncool part is that the staff and coaches are focused on liberating you from your money and protecting their status in the organization, and if you criticize them you will be kicked out. This is getting into the culty part. OneTaste promises women better orgasms, but getting past all the sales, emotional manipulation and starry-eyed fellow culties is a big turn off. It's a good place for older, or shy men, to pick up on women who would not normally consider becoming sexually involved with them. The gender balance can be a little skewed older, white male.

Bottom line: Look elsewhere to expand your sexual education. Don't put your faith in sex gurus or their acolytes. Their main goal is to make money teaching sexual techniques with a veneer of psuedo spirituality. Trust yourself. Remember that the teachers are salespeople first and foremost, not your friends. Also remember that as soon as you quit paying for expensive classes, or quit recruiting new customers for them, you will be of no interest to them.

One telltale sign of a culty pyramid scheme is the range of the reviews: people who've drunk the Kool-Aid are encouraged to put up a supportive review, and it's *always* five stars, isn't it? They are rewarded for building the pyramid underneath them. Stay away!

There are other groups all around the Bay Area doing the same thing, with more care and honesty. Find them.

I am called today to share my experience with both One Taste and with OMing. I write to protect other women with a trauma history from going on the unguided journey that I have experienced.

I completed my How to Om intro training Dec. 16 in San Francisco. The workshop was skillfully led; my concept of sex and partnership is forever upgraded and expanded.

Following the first OM, I woke up two days later and was so ungrounded I found myself unable to work. I proceeded to become more and more ungrounded as the week drew on. My symptoms progressed to full blown PTSD. The context here is that I am a pre-verbal incest survivor. I have sought therapy for 10 years regarding this and felt ready to take my healing to this next place.

During the OM training, there was no mention of the nature of the journey that oming can often open for women with childhood sexual histories. I assumed there would be a journey, but to offer no forewarning or no roadmap when one is totally available is, in my judgement, wholly irresponsible.

When I called one of the facilitators from my Om training explaining my difficulty, he remarked that it was common. And then he offered OPC as a solution. Clearly, addressing a PTSD response with an offer of a training that does not address PTSD is short sighted. Every option he put forward involved spending money. I found myself grasping around within the community, trying to find relevant support.

I found my way to a coach who serves the oming community. She offered many helpful things. But my concern is that she shared with me that oming ALWAYS leads to revisitation of the original sexual trauma. She offered that I keep oming to help clear the trauma. I did do that, only to find my PTSD symptoms expanding and my ability to work compromised for the duration of a week.

Here's what I think: my circumstance was totally avoidable by upfront information and relevant cost-free solutions. The fact that there is no arm of support for what I'm experiencing is unacceptable. Dealing with incest has left plenty of opportunities for me to grasp in the dark while I experience difficult symptomology; to be in another cycle of it today is a subject on which I must speak.

I hope in the future One Taste can see beyond profit motive and work from their heart to hold a loving and responsible container for its participants.

Nothing is more disgustingly shameless than exploiting peoples emotions for money.
My boyfriend and I went to TurnOn seeking to connect with empowered, open minded people.  We left realizing the whole hour session was a sales pitch for OneTaste's other, much more cult-like expensive retreats and workshops.

Let me break OneTaste sales pitch down:

1. Lure in potential new candidates with catchy title (TurnOn) and low price (just $10!).
2. Appeal to the candidates' senses (nice location, free tea).
3. Encourage candidate to engage on a personal level. (interactive games)
4. Build the candidates self-esteem and empowerment up. ("Your really unique" etc etc)
5. Herd the candidate towards spending money in a way that makes it seem like it was their idea. ("You seem like the type of person that would really get a lot out of this class")
6. Close the deal by making the candidate feel like their both special and like their getting a great deal ("We don't normally let people skip the Om class, but I think you seem pretty in touch with yourself." or "I'm actually authorized to give a discount" etc"

The first red flag should have been their enormous meeting space on market street.  "How do they pay for this?!" I thought.
I soon learned.
We played games in the session which seemed to be a way to rapidly get to know people.  I found it extremely rude that we were encouraged to cut off people mid-sentence with "thank you", when were satisfied with an answer they gave to our question, or if we just wanted them to shut up.  Was this meant to keep the person being interrogated on their toes?  To not allow them to think about their answers?  Whatever the intent was behind encouraging interrupting people, did not seem funny or remotely therapeutic.
Its extremely difficult for me to open up and divulge intimate things, but I took a leap of faith and answered every question honestly and with enthusiasm.  I felt extremely vulnerable explaining dark, unexplored aspects of personality and sexuality to a bunch of strangers.  
You can understand why, when it began to dawn on me that the session was just a sales pitch, I felt very gross and taken advantage of.
Elyna approached me at the end of the session and began to insist that I sign up for the orgasm class.  She was not truly engaged in me as a person, just appeared to be enthusiastically pushing for me to sign up right now for it.  She said that I'd get a discount if I did it right then and there, and that I could skip the OM class.  I'm not one to hastily toss $150 away before I do a little research and sleep on the decision.  Thankfully I have never experienced sexual trauma, but I have emotional trauma (due to abusive past relationships), surrounding sex and my orgasm.  To not even personally engage me to make sure this very intimate class would not trigger buried emotions is transparently careless.
Elyna told me to go ask my boyfriend to sign up with me.  I found him being cornered by Erik and being subjected to a similar sales pitch, except it was for a $500 men's retreat in LA.
He had the same sales methodology.  When he finally turned his attention on me, he continued to push for me to sign up for the orgasm session.  When I said, "I don't know.  I don't really have that kind of money right now".
He looked at me with utter disbelief and condescending said "You don't have $150?"
Like $150 is just chump change that he wipes his ass with every morning.  Yeah.  That's a huge amount of money for me.
He seemed to be getting irritated that we weren't caving to the high pressure sales tactics.  This continued on for a while until my boyfriend finally said "You know, I really might have gone to the retreat if you hadn't laid into me with these high pressure sales tactics at the end".

Not only is OneTaste a shallow, pale imitation of actual group therapy, it can be extremely damaging.  Do not support this predatory money mill.

It's been a long time since I have had poor customer service that is pushed down from the highest level so as it becomes part of the culture regardless of who you deal with. Think back to Record clubs in the 80's, gyms in the  90s and now OneTaste! It was almost fun for a change. DO NOT give them your real phone number or they will call you repeatedly. I blocked them after 3 calls in one day from various reps.

I went to a free event at OneTaste where they had a speaker that sounded interesting. I had seen the speaker before, but this time they were clearly on a mission to sell services and much of the 1 hour presentation was spent trying to convince us why paying for a weekend intensive will save our smutty souls.

I enjoyed the people the event attracted and generally had a good night, except when interacting with OneTaste folks. Even regulars warned me that every time they took a class or attended an event they were bombarded with pressure sells for other classes. I still considered signing up the night of the event for an intro class because it would at least be memorable, but I wasn't sure I was free any of the weekends. They kept asking me why I wouldn't sign up. I said I had to check my calendar. Then I was asked what am I afraid of and told that finding inner peace can be intimidating and I should sign up for private lessons if I am scared. That kind of shit makes me see red. I don't need your passive aggressive garbage.

I figured maybe I was annoyed because I needed a stranger to stroke my pussy so I adjusted my calendar and sent a message to OneTaste to which they asked for my phone number, I replied do not call me and then my phone rang. I don't want to chat, just take my money. I then heard more bad reviews of the quality of the intro course and wanted to cancel. No response at all to multiple requests. So I called corporate and was told some people are not ready and asked why did I want to cancel when I know its so good for me? STFU and give me my money back. Coincidentally a couple I met at the event had a similar situation when they wanted a refund after being hounded by OneTasters to buy more services before they event attended the intro.

I don't doubt that OM can be transformational, from what I was told it can be an oasis for sexually repressed or damaged folks looking to regain control of themselves and overcome difficulties.  I read reviews on the intro class I purchased from other areas and realized their classes are high on encouragement and low on content which isn't what I need.

I found out about OneTaste in July 2012.  I heard about them through a friend and was immediately intrigued... people who study Orgasm!?  wow, I want to study that!  I mean, what's better than orgasm?!  Exactly.. well I went to a TurnOn, heard about Orgasmic Meditation and jumped right into a summer retreat called OM camp.  It was 3 days of OMing, inter-personal exercises and connection with the other people.  I loved it.

I am a self-identified Lesbian... open minded for sure, but 90% of my sexual experiences are with women.  So yeah, OneTaste is a bit hetero for me... but I worked well within the classes and found my niche as a woman stroker.  I am happy to talk to you or anyone about my experiences through this journey.  Overall OneTaste has been supportive of my identity as queer and wants to be queer friendly as an organization.  They do teach a lot based on masculine and feminine dynamics, but if you are open to linguistics then you'll realize that this doesn't mean man / woman.  We all (no matter what gender) have masculine and feminine qualities that are good to notice.

OneTaste has opened my eyes to more than Orgasm.  Through their classes and coaching program, I have learned more about myself, my life goals, my truth, and "why I'm here".  I've never experienced another self-discovery program like this.  And yes, I'm familiar with Landmark.  This is different and a lot more feeling-based than heady.

Here it is almost three years later and I still love the community, the connections, the practice, and the philosophy around truth telling.  It is refreshing in our American world of production.  It tips the scales of the typical Bay Area rat race and allows me to experience what I really love about life... the electricity, the connection to others, and the approval of being exactly who I am in every moment.

It was with extreme nervousness that me and my wife signed up for an introductory course -- the whole concept seemed a bit weird. However, the experience was indeed transformative.  The need to improve intimacy and communication skills drove us to signing up and we are both glad we did.  After spending thousands on couples therapy (we love each other but something wasn't working), the programs offered by One Taste proved to be able to instill something long absent - an energized optimism.  I don't know at this early stage where it will eventually lead, but I can recommend One Tadte to anyone who desires more in their lives.