We were invited to an interview in LA...then they booked Orion Taraban instead

Transcript

Courtney: Hello everyone and welcome back. My name is Courtney. I’m here with my spouse Royce. Together we are The Ace Couple, and today we’re giving a little storytime ranting about our least favorite brand of online creator hybrid for you. Our story starts back last summer where we got an email invitation to appear as guests on what we were promised was going to be a very large podcast. This podcast is brand new. It has not released yet. They’re about to start recording.

Royce: At that point in time.

Courtney: Correct. And in this pitch, we were told, here’s who the hosts are going to be. They are very large online creators. Now, these are two people whom we had never heard about before. Never heard their names, never heard of their YouTube channel. But we were given links to some of their current work and told that they have over 25 million followers and over 16 billion views. And before taking it any further, it seemed like a very interesting prospect. We were told that it would be an “in-person podcast episode exploring our advocacy as an asexual married couple in the public eye” and the, quote, “powerful ways we have changed mainstream assumptions about love, intimacy, and what a, quote, “successful partnership truly looks like.”

Courtney: So at first, that seems— like a very enchanting offer. People who have a very large platform who seem to really respect our work and want to learn more about it. But the window in time in which they gave us to record was going to be technically possible, but very, very tight and difficult, uh, for where we were at that point in time. I think what we determined was it was very literally going to have to be, like, the week between when I was having surgery to get my gallbladder removed, and then I had some sort of work engagement the following weekend and the weekend after that. I was going to be at a workshop. It was gonna be very, very tight. But also, we’d never heard of these folks, so we wanted to do a little bit of our own research because it’s not totally unheard of that aces have been invited onto interviews only to get trapped in very bad faith discourse.

Royce: It was also a little more daunting because it was in person and would have involved a— decently long flight. Like, we’ve done podcast collaborations in the past, but it was always virtual.

Courtney: Oh yeah, they were fully like, we need you to get out to LA for this. But if a platform truly this large was interested in talking about us in this capacity, we thought it could be a positive thing for our community visibility. So I first started, uh, looking at who these creators were and also asking just all of our friends and our colleagues in, in around our, uh, sphere if anyone had ever heard of them. And at the time, nobody had. And I did, upon looking up their YouTube channel, have a couple of immediate reservations.

Courtney: Like, a very recent video of theirs was like, oh, we went to a prison to dance with hundreds of prisoners. This is the world’s happiest prison. And that’s— not a good look. That’s not a good look. I, uh, have been learning a lot more and engaging with abolitionist ideology and activism work over the years. I really don’t love— here are some YouTubers with multi-millions of followers who are saying, “Hey, this is the happiest prison ever, ’cause look at all of these prisoners dancing that we’re filming to put on the internet.”

Courtney: However, I’m not someone who’s going to rule out anybody and everybody for who I am and am not willing to talk to just because they are clearly not politically aligned. I think there is a big benefit to getting information and visibility out about the a-spec community and the challenges we face and our personal stories. To a wider audience. We don’t only want to always be preaching to the choir. So— so dug a little deeper, and there were a couple of posts that seemed, like, a little critical of Elon Musk these days, which I’m like, okay, that’s— that’s something, that’s not nothing. Because I remember saying at the time, in just talking to some friends of ours, I’m willing to speak to Republicans. I’m not willing to speak to Nazis.

Courtney: So I specifically tried to find if either of these two had ever spoken about the queer community specifically and what it was that they had to say. And I did find— a video that was talking about trans women in sports. So I said, okay, here we go. Maybe this will be my deciding factor. It was not great. It made it very clear that we would not be politically aligned with these people. But it was trying to take a middle-of-the-road stance, like, “Yeah, trans women probably shouldn’t be in sports because that wouldn’t be fair, but we should still respect trans women, we should still, you know, treat them nicely and with care.” And I was like, I hate that we’re at a point in time right now where there are actively people in our government making our policies, making our laws, who are saying much worse than that.

Courtney: So while we’re seeking guidance from our friends and trying to decide what we want to do, we said, well, first and foremost, they want us to come out to LA. Let’s make sure they’ll pay for our plane ticket because we certainly are not going to pay out of pocket to travel this far to— talk to these people. So that was my first email response, was, does hosting us cover our costs for travel to get to LA? And I said, if it does, then we just have a few standard questions we like to ask before agreeing to an interview. And the response was, surely we’ll cover your expenses, just let us know what questions you need to ask and we’ll get the whole thing scheduled.

Courtney: So, okay. We did have some friends who were more online than we are who had dug a little deeper into this guy’s history and had just found some, like, association of having worked with other problematic people in the past, um, and stood up for them at— in, in various capacities. And so we took all of this into consideration. We took it under advisement. It was very much like creators that we have no knowledge or history of whatsoever, and we were trying to decide if internet history and association in work capacities with other people warranted, uh, changing our mind about it and whatnot. But it was a very, very illuminating time because even though we did not ultimately get on to this podcast, just our personal friends and family had like the entire spectrum of advice.

Courtney: We had people who said, absolutely do it, definitely go. We had people who said, under no circumstances should you go. We had people who are like, well, maybe so. And I think it was completely evenly split across the multiple people we consulted about this. So that didn’t help very much. Thanks, guys. So what it ultimately came down to, we said, we’re going to ask the questions we’re most concerned about. And— if they give us the right answers, we will go to LA and record this the week after my surgery.

Courtney: And those questions included: Is this podcast being approached from a place of believing and respecting asexuality? I said we currently have no interest in debating someone who is trying to prove that we don’t exist. I asked, will other aspects of queer identity be respected alongside asexuality? I said, for example, Royce is agender and uses they/them pronouns. Will this be respected by the hosts? And we said, oftentimes when asexuality gains visibility outside of our own bubble, our community gets— attacked online. Will the hosts publicly stand in solidarity with us if our community faces harassment from their podcast audience? And they— ghosted us. One email earlier, they were prepared to buy us plane tickets to go out to LA to record this podcast, and I asked those specific questions and we did not get a response.

Royce: Whoops.

Courtney: Whoops. And if they had answered those questions kindly, I was prepared to do it. So that’s our personal story time to start off today’s saga. Because although they ghosted us for asking those, I think, fairly reasonable questions— so who did they actually record with? Who were the kinds of people they were inviting on to be their guests when we’re the kinds of people whom they ghosted? Well, turns out one of the folks they invited is— my nemesis? I can’t say, like, the definitive nemesis of mine. I have many nemeses? Is that the correct plural for nemesis? I have enough of them by now, I really ought to learn.

Courtney: So, of my many nemesi— Orion Taraban, who online goes by Psych Hacks, is terrible. And we hate him. And he appeared on this podcast. Now, they did give us, when they were inviting us, a list of other folks that had already agreed to be guests. His name was not on that list. So I don’t know if this was a name they had already signed on and then decided not to tell people that they were inviting, that he was also going to be on here, or if they spoke to him after ghosting us. I had seen this fellow online before. It’s not uncommon to see people casually refer to him as, like, the redpilled psychologist. He’s got a good-sized following online. He has 1 million subscribers on YouTube. And I imagine that’s why— of all the podcast episodes that have so far been posted on their channel, his episode is the most watched by far. It has almost a quarter of a million views, so still not a massive, massive reach.

Royce: What are some of the other episode view counts?

Courtney: Well, when they first started posting, we had, uh, 100,000, but then the very next one was like 2,500, and then one was 12,000, and then one was 3,000, but when you look now, the one that was posted a month ago is like 92 views. The one posted 4 days ago is 200 views.

Royce: Huh. Okay.

Courtney: So clearly these two creators were not able to leverage their previously larger platforms to springboard onto this new podcast project. As of the time of recording, they only have a little over 5,000 subscribers. And they’ve clearly put a lot more work into this than we ever have. They have video, they have a recording space, they have brought people in, they are doing everything in person. For the most part, we set up a microphone at our kitchen table whenever we feel like and talk about whatever we want to for however long we will. But the point of this is not to be shady about how this podcast seems to be a flop on the whole. There are, in fact, creators out there with videos— only a few hundred views who actually have really great valuable insights and they just fail to actually find their audience or do the marketing, uh, necessary to get there.

Courtney: But the proof that their content is bad is that they invited Orion Taraban, aka Psych Hacks. To give you just an idea of this man and his content and this episode on their podcast, it’s entitled “A Psychologist’s Take on Delusional Female Entitlement in Dating.” Now let me tell you the description of their podcast. The description of their podcast says, “We are here to make you believe in love again.” Our podcast is an invitation to rethink what’s possible in love, intimacy, and relationships. Through honest conversations with top experts, inspiring couples, and thought leaders, we explore fresh ideas, tools, and mindsets to help you navigate dating, deepen connection, and create extraordinary relationships that nourish your heart and soul. Whether you’re single and seeking or a couple looking to grow, this is a space to open hearts. Conscious minds, and anyone with the courage to make love the most desirable adventure to their life. And then they invite this fucking guy on and call the episode “A Psychologist’s Take on Delusional Female Entitlement in Dating.”

Royce: Yeah, was this just an obvious— a viewer count grab? They were like, oh no, this isn’t as big as we thought it would, quick, get someone with some subscribers.

Courtney: I don’t think it could have been that—

Royce: Go for clickbait.

Courtney: I don’t think it could have been that quick because they gave us like a span of a few weeks that they were recording, so—

Royce: Oh, right, right.

Courtney: I’m sure they recorded plenty of these episodes before even launching the first episode.

Royce: Yeah, if they rented some space, maybe they just did a bunch of them back to back.

Courtney: That was my assumption. Could it have preemptively been a strategy because this is a guy who already has a million subscribers of his own, perhaps, but I don’t think you’re attracting the audience you’re claiming is your target demographic by having this guy on here. And this is not just them. This is this guy. This is how his videos tend to read. Like, his episodes, you go down and you’ll see things like, “Let men solve their problems. He’s not your girlfriend.” “His money is my money. Modern slavery.” With like, a picture in the thumbnail of a woman holding a wad of cash. “Sex isn’t special. Feelings don’t count.” “Become a monster. Owning your darkness.” And “She Takes and She Takes: Why He Feels Used.” Just to name a few.

Royce: There’s a clear theme there, although you already referred to him as the Red Pill Psychologist, so—

Courtney: I didn’t say that. Other people said that. But yes, you, you may look at titles like this and think, this guy sounds like a misogynist, and you’d be right. Having seen some of his clips and videos before seeing that he made it onto this podcast, I more or less knew what to expect. But I did decide that this was going to be the one and only episode of this podcast that I was going to listen to beginning to end. And we’re gonna talk about some of the things I heard.

Courtney: So early on in this podcast, he talks about how men want young women. He said women peak at 22 to 23 years old. And when the host kinda seemed taken aback by him saying that, he doubled down and said, “Well, actually, this is the oldest it’s ever been.” And he’s referencing some kind of survey where, you know, apparently this survey has been going on for 60 years about what men want. And apparently 60 years ago, 19 was considered women’s peak attractiveness. And so he’s like, yeah, I mean, 22 to 23 might sound bad, but it’s— this is the oldest it’s ever been.

Courtney: And what is his takeaway from this? His takeaway from this is that it is so easy for young women to date. He says it’s so much easier for young women to date than it is for young men because women actually want maturity in their relationships. While men want youth. So the two sexes, men and women, are fundamentally at odds. And yes, of course, this is a guy who is talking about cis-hetero relationships. So that is the framework, uh, we are coming at from, which is already, as we know, very limited.

Courtney: But he always tends to take a stance of, well, If there are so many men out there who say that they don’t want a woman who’s over 23 years old because they’re so much more attractive when they’re younger, all these men can’t be wrong. It just is what it is. If we pretend like women can be just as attractive in their late 20s or in their 30s as when they’re in their late teens, early 20s, we’d just be lying. Because this is actually what men want. So let’s stop lying to ourselves. And let’s just not challenge any patriarchal or misogynistic structures that have led to this culture. And let’s just accept it for what it is and figure out how to move within this framework.

Royce: Did the host push back on any of this at all? I’m refraining because everyone listening to this knows that everything that this guy is going to say is dumb, and it kind of feels like a waste of time to point out every single thing.

Courtney: They didn’t push back much, at least not yet. There were a couple of timid— I would describe their attempts to push back a little bit later on in the episode, so I’ll get to those. This is a guy who talks about the sexual marketplace. Everyone has a price. Everything comes at a cost. Relationships are fundamentally capitalist exchanges. And there’s no use trying to find a different structure, this just is how it is. So he gives an example and says, a woman at 38 is too expensive for men. She’s too expensive because she wants too much from him, and she doesn’t have as much of what men want. Because a 22-year-old woman has what men want. So a 38-year-old woman is just too expensive. Put a pin in that word expensive because— oh boy, does that get even darker.

Courtney: He says these very horrible things, matter of fact. As if we should just accept them. And then he kinda does the thing that Scott Galloway sometimes does where he’ll say something that like, almost does have a good point, but he sandwiches it in between the really bigoted views. Like, he starts questioning, uh, marriage as a social structure. Which actually, like, you do have points. Marriage is not for everybody, it shouldn’t be for everybody, and— I actually think that if that was a conversation that these podcast hosts were interested in exploring, we have a far more factual stance on marriage questioning than a guy like this has, because we have often talked about and are willing to continue talking about how our laws and government and social structures and tax structures are set up to incentivize a very specific kind of family. Specifically, two monogamous married people with an intention of having kids. And it does actually lead to discrimination for single people, whether they’re single happily and of their own volition or not. There are instances of housing discrimination of not renting to single people. These are real political issues that more people need to be talking about.

Courtney: But this guy says the only reasonable reason to get married is to start a family. And his reasoning is something that I think can appeal to a lot of people, but it’s not rooted in policy and discrimination and challenging systems necessarily. It’s rooted in— I think a very emotional standpoint, because he’ll say things like, “In marriage, you expect your spouse to be your only sexual partner, to be your only romantic partner, to be your best friend, to be your financial accomplice, to be your emergency contact, to be your—” and he’ll go down the list and say, “It’s just not practical for one person to actually be all those things for you.” Which I think is a very cynical view on a podcast that is not framing itself as a cynical view of love and relationships.

Royce: Yeah, I mean, there’s a note of something in there, a kernel of truth, but I, I assume it’s not going to be approached in good faith. Like, a lot of couples want that. They want all of those things to be true, and they, like, work together to make it happen. And there are also other people in other relationships who intentionally have a different dynamic because those aspects of their life don’t line up, whether that is an open marriage or a poly queue of some kind, or just a close network of friends and family to help out with some of those other aspects of life.

Courtney: Exactly. And going back to the issue of marriage as the current institution that it is, there are polyamorous people who do want the same legal protections that come along with marriage and don’t have access to that, because because at this point in time in our country, marriage is reserved for a monogamous relationship, at least legally on paper. And I do think that is a problem. But yeah, he, he gets very cynical with it because he’ll say, I’m sure you love your friends, but you don’t make your friends sign a contract promising to be your friend forever.

Royce: Well, if friends commonly lived with each other for 20 years and then separated, they would probably need to start drawing up friendship contracts to deal with all of the joint possessions that just accumulate when you live alongside someone for so long.

Courtney: Honestly, yeah. And I did find it interesting because the, the two hosts are, um, if I didn’t say it before, they are a married couple. And the man in this relationship responds to this, uh, no, and says like, no, I actually don’t love my friends. He said that the reason why he wanted to get married is because he needs a partner in order to feel love and tries to explain how he’s sort of incapable of accessing love with his friends. And I found it very interesting because his wife sitting beside him was like really shocked by that. She was like, “What? Really?”

Courtney: And he also claims that by meeting her, he discovered love, quote, “late in life.” At 31, let me just tell you, if we were the two sitting across from them, we’d probably have a much more nu— nuanced conversation about what is love, what are the different types of love. It is okay if you do not feel these things. It is okay if you don’t even feel romance. And some people feel them very situationally or rarely. And these are conversations we could have and dig into that. closer. But no, they got Orion. So they ask him, well, okay, so if women want mature men but men want young women, what to do? And they quote him from a previous interview he did. They said, now, once upon a time you said that women should bring out their nastiest, sluttiest side to seduce a man. And he responded, he’s like, yeah, saying that got me in trouble, so I actually switched it to women should be giving the richest, creamiest milk they possibly can.

Royce: That’s worse.

Royce: Coutney:

Royce: I’m so glad you said that because both of the hosts shuddered when he said that, and they said the same thing. They said, no, that’s worse. Also, also, we don’t have time to get into that today. But please, listeners, put a pin in the milk analogy for when we— hopefully in the very near future. We are so busy right now. And this is a topic I care to do it the right way. But we are going to talk about sexual politics, we are going to talk about asexuality, and we’re going to talk about veganism, and we’re going to talk about animal products as metaphors for sex and desirability. So please put a pin in that milk analogy.

Royce: So, so by “do it the right way,” you mean we’re going to have a multi-part episode?

Courtney: Absolutely. I’m already thinking 4. We’ll see, we’ll see what happens. It’s been a while since we’ve had a good 4-part episode on a very important, complicated political topic, don’t you think? I know there are some listeners out there who are rolling their eyes being like, “Guess I’ll skip those,” and there are others who are like, “Yes, yes, more of that!”

Courtney: So why do women have to give the richest, creamiest milk? Because, he says, you’re in a competition. You’re in a competition where sex precedes commitment. He says, “for a woman to believe that commitment will come before sex—” is very expensive. It’s very expensive because your competition is giving out free samples. And you can’t really charge when your competition is giving it away for free. He says, you know the old saying, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? He says, that’s not even— enough. We have to take it a step further. It’s more like, why would you buy the cow if you still have to pay for the milk?

Courtney: And this reminded me of, I think, one of the first times I ever heard this guy speak. And I had to go look up this quote because I wanted to get— from a different podcast, I don’t even know which one it is— I wanted to write it down verbatim because this conversation has been so seared into my brain ever since I heard it. The fact that people are taking men like this seriously. It was a conversation between 3 men, Orion being one of them. The first man says, “If the price of sex today is 5 units of attention—” So 5 units of attention gets you 1 sex today, and 5 units of attention gets you 1 sex tomorrow. “Would you not assume—” That on day 10 of this transaction, you would be ready with your 5 units of attention, but all of a sudden, it doesn’t get you sex because maybe your partner is on her period or she’s tired or something else has changed? Says one asshole.

Courtney: The second asshole points out, yeah, that’s the danger of, you know, disclosing your pricing. He says— this was the quote verbatim— he says, “so you should hide your pricing as leverage and power.” But then Orion chimes in and says, “but you can’t do that. The pricing is revealed in the behavior.” Quote: “most of the negotiation happens behaviorally. In the beginning of the courtship process, that’s functionally what a man and a woman are trying to know.” negotiate.

Courtney: How much do I have to give you to have sex? How much time do you need? How much understanding do you need? How much effort do I have to put into the date? How much money do I have to spend? Oh, you’re an old-fashioned girl, so you need 3 of those dates? You need 5? That becomes the anchor point for sexual intimacy. And make no mistake, the man is there because he wants to have sex. That’s why he’s taking a woman out and listening to her stories and buying her drinks. So the question is, how much do I have to give to get access to your body? And a lot of men, if they could get it more cheaply, would agree to that transaction.

Royce: Old-fashioned is 3 dates?

Courtney: That’s what I was thinking. The fact that he talks the way he does, like— When I was a younger asexual woman, during the period of time in my life where I, like, desperately did want a romantic partner, or at least thought I did, this was exactly the dynamic I feared. And there are allosexual women who also have this exact same fear. This is not an ace-specific issue. But this guy is really just out here saying like, yeah, don’t— kid yourself, women. That man is only listening to your stories because he wants to have sex with you. That’s just how it is. It’s not a problem. It’s just how men are. And you need to be realistic and understand that. So maybe you should have sex with him sooner.

Courtney: I’ve said this before and I will continue saying it. Do not trust anyone who is giving blanket prescriptive advice for how much sex to have. Whether they’re telling you to have a lot of sex, whether they’re telling you to have little sex or no sex, do not trust anybody who has a blanket assumption of the right amount of sex to have. Period.

Courtney: And the woman co-hosting this interview does at this point express concerns about that. She does express concerns about men who only want to have sex. And she says, well, what about this thing that happens when a woman has sex earlier than maybe she wants to, and then the man leaves her because he got what he wanted. Which is, again, very real concern that a lot of women have.

Courtney: And this guy goes on a tirade about how no, the sex is not the reason that, that woman gets ghosted. Women don’t get ghosted because they put out. They get ghosted because they were too expensive. She was either difficult or she was boring or she made him wait for 2 weeks. He probably really liked that 20 minutes of sex. But now that he’s had it, he can now assess if hanging out with her was actually worth it. And that’s why women get ghosted, either because the sex isn’t good enough or because she was just too difficult. She made that poor man wait 2 weeks to have sex. He said, I don’t want to wait to have sex for 2 weeks.

Courtney: What the fuck? People take this man seriously. He is allegedly a licensed clinical psychologist. And like, first of all, how internet therapists are not constantly embarrassed by their behavior, I— it’s beyond me. Even the ones who don’t have takes this bad. But it really is rhetoric like this, and the people who take it seriously, that often puts ace people off of dating entirely. Especially ace people who are very romantically inclined and do want partnership like this.

Courtney: It is a very, very common fear and concern that— they may not be able to find the right allosexual person who could make a mixed orientation relationship work, or they just— will never actually find a large enough pool of fellow asexual dating prospects. Aces will hear the only reason people will go out on a date with you is because they want and expect sex from you. And very often feel “alright, I guess I can’t have this. Even if I really want it, it’s just not gonna be in the cards for me.”

Courtney: And that is a really unfortunate place to be. I’ve talked to many an ace person, and there was a period in my life where I felt like this too. It feels hopeless. It feels impossible. It feels like an insurmountable obstacle. And I’ve even seen some aces in the past try to make the assertion that expressing these fears is somehow internalized acephobia. And I vehemently disagree. I think it is a normal emotional process to go through as a minority sexuality in the system that we currently live in. It doesn’t mean that it’s correct and that all hope is lost. But does it mean that dating and relationships are likely going to be more complicated? Absolutely it does.

Courtney: So then this man goes on to say that, “women are the gatekeepers of sex and men are the gatekeepers of commitment.” But in our world where sex precedes commitment, “men are always going to be running up against women’s gatekeeping first.” And he talks for a while as if dating is like a competitive sport. He’s like, “one’s playing offense while the other’s playing defense.” And I just think that is a fundamentally unhealthy framework to consider any kind of interpersonal relationship. Not even sexual or romantic ones, just like any time you’re interacting with another human and trying to— have a meaningful relationship. If you’re thinking about it like a competitive sport, you’re probably doing something wrong.

Royce: Well, yeah, that’s gonna end up being inherently manipulative. Yes.

Courtney: So when asked, well, you know, how can a woman actually secure this commitment from a man? He says the way to secure commitment from a man is to first be hotter and cheaper than everyone else. And once that’s out of the way, then you— then she must integrate herself into his life in such a way that it becomes, quote, “difficult, inconvenient, or painful to extricate her.” You know, because otherwise, he’ll eventually leave for someone hotter and cheaper, of course. And the woman hosting this interview gets really uncomfortable after he literally says, first you have to be hotter and cheaper, and then you have to make it difficult, inconvenient, or painful for him to remove her from his life.

Royce: Yeah, that’s the marriage trap concept that, like, older conservative thinking people have been joking about for a long time.

Courtney: But he’s like, that’s what you have to do to keep a man. It’s terrible. The woman hosting this says, “gosh, that’s like a parasite.” And he goes, “yeah, kinda!” He’s agreeing with her! And then she starts nervous laughing, and just like struggling to get her words out while nervous laughing, is like, “that is not how I think of women.” And I— this is the moment where I feel so bad for this woman, because— I’m sure by that nervous laughter in that little bit of a pushback, she is probably a lot more uncomfortable than she’s even verbalizing with this fucking man in the room with the things that he is saying. I don’t know who invited this man onto the podcast and booked him, but whether or not she agreed to this ahead of the time, she is now in the room with this man and— if I had to go out on a limb, maybe she’s regretting some choices. Gosh, I hope she would be. I did really feel for her in this moment.

Courtney: And it’s actually so weird to me, uh, in, in the full scope of this dynamic and what’s happening, because they make it clear with little bits of commentary throughout this interview that these two do seem to be a pretty sexually conservative couple. Like, the man here says at one point that had he followed Orion’s advice 8 months before he, you know, met the love of his life, and if he said, okay, I’m going to, you know, quote, practice a lot more, I’m going to go out and I’m going to sleep around, I’m going to have more sex. He says, I think I would have missed out on the woman who ended up being the love of my life.

Courtney: And this is still not like a very respectful framework to use. But he, in their relationship, uses the word body count, he’s like, my body count would have mattered to her. It would have bothered her if I was out sleeping around with a ton of women right before I met her. And I guess that word respect, that word respect is something that he also uses, which gives us further insight to their conservative leanings. Because at one point, while talk— well, he’s talking about people who quote, like, respect themselves. And he uses that to mean, like, people who don’t want to be promiscuous before commitment. So in the more, like, traditional dating structure where you’re assuming commitment is going to precede sex, and Orion’s answer to that is like, that’s not how the modern world works anymore. That’s just not how it is.

Courtney: And he does say, using Orion’s language, he says she did withhold sex from me, but I pursued her. And look at us, it worked for us. We’re married now. She’s the love of my life. And the woman, you know, hosting, she clearly had concerns when he was telling her that women had to have sex sooner in order to appease men. And yet, being on this conservative side of sexuality, this couple still ended up sitting down with the red-pilled psychologist who has these views before sitting down with a couple like us, like an asexual couple for whom sex was not in any way a factor in us getting married. It really, on a larger scale, shows how even conservative people with, quote, “traditional views” on courtship still buy into compulsory sexuality. They might have their own set of rules for how to navigate it, but it is still less acceptable to opt out of that system of compulsory sexuality altogether.

Courtney: And it’s just fascinating to me. It’s fascinating that they’re sitting here as a sexually conservative pair of people, saying, “We want to make you believe in love again.” And they’re talking to the most sexually-minded, romantically-cynical man that they possibly can. And so what— what are his views on romance? Uh, Orion actually says himself, “I call myself a romantic in recovery.” He says as a young man, he was romantic because he was isolated. And he was unconventional. I think he uses unconventional to mean, um, anywhere from unattractive to socially awkward. But he basically spins this story about how he got his idea of dating and courting and relationships from like rom-coms.

Royce: Famous for their realistic and healthy depictions of relationships.

Courtney: Yes. And hearing him talk about this, because then he says, you know, my idea of love was, you know, you stand outside of a girl’s window with a boombox, and, and the woman actually gets a little excited and she’s like, oh, did you actually do that? And he says, no, I didn’t do that exactly, but I did things like it. And she’s like, well, I would love a big grand gesture like that. And he’s like, you’d only like it if you, you already liked the person doing the gesture for you. He was like, in my case, if the girl doesn’t already like you, she’s not gonna like it if you show up uninvited to her house to blah blah blah.

Courtney: And it’s like, yeah, yeah, yes. And he’s like, so I learned that doing things like that didn’t work, so I wanted to try to figure out what did actually work. And like, that’s the fundamental issue. It’s not “What works? What do I have to do to get in a woman’s pants?” It should be some combination of, “how do I find the right people who would like me or do like me?” Or if I am just like a very socially repugnant, misogynistic person, how do I maybe, uh, find a way to improve myself?

Courtney: So I, I have some thoughts on that, uh, some we’ll maybe explore in a future episode if I decide to talk about other people of this ilk. But he talks about how at that point when he realized that like the big rom-com third act gesture doesn’t actually work if they don’t already like you, so what can I do that works? He said that he dated like it was his job because he wanted to study this and figure out what actually works. But he’s already sort of given away the game. He said that his idea of, like, why a man is taking a woman on a date is because he wants to have sex. So it really just reads as a guy who struggled to have sex with women when he was young and decided to do a pseudo-intellectualism about it and is like, “Yes, what if I study this? What actually works? How can I actually get a woman to sleep with me?” Which is, you know, fundamentally dehumanizing all of those women. He says, as if it is a brag and/or lending credibility to what he says, that he has been on more first dates than most people have been on dates. And like, I kind of don’t think that’s a flex. There’s a very specific kind of person who would hear that and be like, well, I’m gonna listen to what this guy has to say.

Royce: Well, it kind of reads to me like the entrepreneurial speakers who are like, I’ve run 20 businesses into the ground, but now I’m on my 21st. And, and some people read their books because they’re like, look at this guy’s work ethic.

Courtney: He dated like it’s his job. In framework of dating being capitalism and marketplace, does that mean people who can’t get dates are considered unemployed? Awful. It’s terrible. He says in hindsight that he thinks he was ashamed of his sexuality. He thinks a lot of straight men are. He just leaves it at that. He’s like, yeah, a lot of straight men are ashamed of their sexuality. But then he says romantic love is also, uh, kind of a trap. It’s like a misplaced religion. ’Cause romantic love feels like a kind of devotion. But you really shouldn’t devote yourself to people. Devotion should be reserved for God. Devoting yourself to God. You shouldn’t devote yourself to a human. Not— surely not a woman who farts.

Courtney: And there is a very particular type of man who will learn that an assumption they have, or want to believe, doesn’t work. And instead of trying to actually do deep emotional, intellectual work to view the injustices of the world, to view the antiquated hierarchical structures that touch all aspects of our lives. Instead, look at the problems that exist and say, great, we can’t fix it, so let’s just dive headfirst into this system. This system is a game, and I’m gonna be the best one at playing it. And then I’m going to try to teach everyone else in the world how to also be the best one at playing it.

Courtney: And it’s something that I think is getting more and more common, and I think it’s getting more and more extreme and more and more detrimental, because I see parallels in this kind of speaking— if I may say something that is perhaps a bit provocative, I think Orion Taraban is the pseudo-intellectual other side of the Clavicular coin. Because we essentially have two men in these examples. We have Clavicular, who as a young man learned that, in the current structure, looks matter. And after probably being hurt, decided to go full looksmaxing. Says, alright, society tells me looks matter, so if that’s the game, I’m gonna be the number one at this game. I’m going to go full looksmaxer, take these extreme interventions, and then— talk about all of these methods to people on the internet.

Courtney: Oriane and others like him take the— intellectual side of that. They aren’t preaching looksmaxxing, but they are using things like— the language of psychology— to basically say the same thing. Their focus may not be on looks, but their focus absolutely is on the behavior. If society tells you sex is important, then I’m gonna play that game. I’m gonna be the best one playing that game, and I’m gonna teach everyone else how to be the best one at playing that game. That is what this is. And we’re seeing more and more of it. And I unfortunately don’t think it’s going to die down anytime soon. So, before we wrap up, since this is their most popular episode by a long shot, what kind of commenters did they attract?

Royce: Well, I assume it’s almost entirely from the person they brought on’s user base.

Courtney: It does seem like it. And there is a loud demographic of people who are just, yeah, agreeing with everything he says, feeling emboldened by the things he says. And then there are people who are like— they had to put a pinned comment on here because of how many people were just being nasty about their relationship. And they did not say very much. The few little things I mentioned are close to everything they said in this particular episode about their relationship and dating and marriage. And there are people that are like, yeah, she’s gonna break his heart because he’s putting her on a pedestal. And they, they had to make a pinned comment that are like, why are you guys rooting for our descent? We might have different views of love, but be nice, basically.

Royce: So at what point in this whole process do you think the hosts regretted having this person on? Because it sounds like the woman present there had that realization during the interview.

Courtney: If I had to suspect— I mean, I don’t know these two, so I don’t know what’s in their hearts or minds, but did she look uncomfortable enough that I felt bad for her in a moment? Yeah. But yeah, to give just like a few of the comments that you’ll immediately see scrolling, uh, young cat emoji is the best, or everything costs too much and feminism has destroyed the family. And then attacking the hosts is wild too, like this comment— and listen, put a pin in this right next to the creamy milk, uh, metaphor. ’Cause we’re gonna talk about this. The way people talk about food and sexual politics. So much more important than most of you probably realize. This guy is the soyest of soys that ever soyed. Holy crap. Yeah, his girl is going to demolish him eventual— eventually. Interesting use of the word soy, don’t you think? I do.

Courtney: For women, marriage is about harvesting a man’s assets, just about universally. Also his skills in protecting her and building a structure for her to live inside of. Or, hahaha, she’s actually surprised that women peak in their early 20s? This just shows how delusional she is. So, not only are they attracting men who just, like, hate women in general, they attracted an audience who hate the two of them as hosts. It really, really was not planned out well. And here we were wondering if they would defend the ace community if we got hatred, but they can’t even defend themselves. That’s how bad they were picking guests for this podcast. They can’t even defend themselves against the hateful, hateful audience. That this guy attracts. I also saw poking through that comment section— a couple of f-slurs. Referring to the straight man who’s married to a woman. Just because he actually kind of believes in love. Imagine that. And since we did not participate in this tragedy, all we can do is bear witness to it.

Courtney: So, on that note, we will leave you all off as usual with today’s featured marketplace vendor, The Plesiostore, where you can find art of animals that don’t exist, and animals that don’t exist anymore. We’re talking mythological creatures and extinct animals. If you head over there pretty soon, you can shop the leftover convention t-shirts that are in the store. I got a really neat axolotl shirt because I have come to the devastating realization that I am in fact practicing tai chi enough days per week that I do actually need to start owning t-shirts and/or other exercise clothes. But there is a wide variety of excellent merchandise here. There are some really fun bumper stickers which I considered. Um, there’s one that says, “Sorry about my driving, I’m thinking of bats,” with some really fun illustrations of bats. That’s— and that’s kind of relatable. We’ve got stickers and pins featuring cryptids, dinosaurs, tote bags, bandanas, even some zines, some little books. Tons and tons of stuff here. Very good, fun artwork. So, as per the usual, we will put the links to find our featured Marketplace vendor in the show notes on our website, as well as the description box if you’re listening on YouTube. And as always, thank you all so much for being here, and we will talk to you all next time.