I witnessed much of the history of One Taste, and had many friends heavily involved. Some reactions to the movie:
* I'm glad that they spent the first while in the show showing and talking about the good sides of what One Taste did and was, what drew people to it and what value people got from it, and that they let Nicole and One Taste speak for themselves
* I am happy the movie introduced Nicole's top lieutenants like Rob and Rachel. It could have gone deeper with them, since it seemed to me that they did actually have a lot to do with how things went in OT (for good and bad). But it also seems right that the movie was as focused as it was on Nicole the twisted, broken, cold-hearted, charismatic genius.
* With effort, they probably could have found twenty, thirty, fifty people formerly involved who would have been willing to be filmed spilling negative beans. Leaning so heavily on Chris Kosely, with random unshaved hairs sticking off his head, and the awkward woman who tripped over her words undermined their case, since they are physically unattractive and could just be dismissed as discontented outcasts.
* It seemed wrong that they made it sound like rape was central to what was wrong with or a big part of what went on at One Taste, and repeatedly showed the video of the woman struggling to get a guy off of her (which I imagine may have been a filming of real violation scenario, or may have been play-acting for a workshop). I don't think there was much of it there. It did seem to me that people were sometimes rapidly and forcefully pushed beyond their comfort zones, realizing years later that they consented to something that it might have been healthier for them to have said "no" to. And I have had physical sexual boundary crossing at OT described to me by women who were involved in the community.
But what it seemed to me was the central problem with OT, bigger than any of that, was instead that, so it seemed to me, much of its revenue model was basically based on semi-prostitution, which the movie just relatively briefly touched on. Find hot frisky open-minded relatively young women who are new in town or just went through a break up, love bomb them into involvement with and commitment to the community, help them to feel free alive beautiful and on the side of progress for being extra sexual, and then have them offer access to their sex to lonely affluent men (guys with more money than social skills).
* I could easily have gotten wrapped up with OT, as I said many of my friends did (it was disconcerting to see friends in the movie, as well as the many One Taste regulars who I kind of knew), there was much interface of people, activities, and paradigms between OT and my social world. And I did have the intention for years to study OMing with them and admired the capacity for ease with physical and emotional intimacy and closeness that OT regulars seemed to have. But to me there was always something off-putting about the scene that had me keep my distance, and the revelations of the past few years validated that semi-conscious choice that I made.
