Recently, I, like millions of other people on the internet, discovered the online persona of Orion Taraban, whose viral star has been on the rise in the past year. Precious little details are available. His name fits a sci-fi hero more than a living man in the ordinary world, but then again, he lives in California.
He seems to be a PhD in psychology, allegedly from a diploma mill, who has a private clinical practice. He’s built a brand through his YouTube channel PsycHacks where he interviews people and posts short videos focused on relationships and male/female dynamics filtered through his concept of the marketplace of relationships. His appearances on popular platforms for long-form content, such as Soft White Underbelly, have led to a increasing reach and engagement with his ideas.
Like the girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead, when Orion’s advice is good, it’s very, very, good, but when it’s bad, it’s horrid. He’s often accused of “gender essentialism,” an ideology that strictly categorizes men and women based on arbitrary attributes and tendencies. This criticism is false. What Taraban seems to argue for is reality: On average men and women display certain tendencies. There will be individuals who deviate from the norm, but you can reasonably accept as a starting point that most men will tend to behave in certain ways and have certain strengths, while most women will behave in certain ways and have certain other strengths than men.
Women do not show up to dig a sewer line under your house. Trust me, they just don’t. Likewise, few men opt to work in special education. They exist, but they remain rare!
So, no, it is not “gender essentialism” that renders Taraban such a monster. In fact, his gendered advice is some of his more brilliant. He has a short video entitled “How to NEVER FIGHT with a woman: the greatest victory requires no battle.” It’s quite good!
Now, before someone gets her panties in a bunch over the discriminatory nature of the premise, there’s a way to test it out. And while his video is directed at men, you don’t have to be a man in a romantic relationship to try it. Simply employ the technique he describes with the women or girls in your life and, for many of them, it works well! No matter what you say, say it with a warm and positive tone and you will avoid a great deal of unnecessary escalation.
Granted, I am biased, because in this video he describes men as creatures of the sun and women as beings of the moon, which remains one of my favorite allegorical tropes for men and women. But still, the proof is in the pudding, so to speak, and good advice works in the real world.
Like Laura Doyle’s principles in the “Empowered Wife,” this gendered lens zeroes in on common pain points and sources of friction between the sexes and simple, actionable strategies to increase harmony. Doyle has the lofty goal of ending worldwide divorce, and, much to her credit as a feminine and civilized lady, never stoops to discussing carnal relations.
The overarching goal for Taraban? Maybe just getting laid with minimal emotional volatility? He just keeps telling women they “have to be the nastiest, sluttiest version of themselves” in order to secure a man. Many a woman who has adopted this strategy has been left with venereal diseases or a stranger’s baby. Is this an attempt at self-serving mass hypnosis?
Having listened to a small portion of his online offerings, I would venture to guess that he is a de facto materialist and a relativist. According to him, life is like Disney Land, and, just like the Magic Kingdom, there are any number of different ways you could choose to spend your time, all of them valid. If you rode the teacup ride 50 times that is just as good as waiting in a long line for the most ambitious ride. All days at Disney Land are what you choose to make of them, and so it is with life.
Due to this milquetoast approach the fabric of reality and his amorality, Taraban sorely lacks good advice in many facets of human existence. His central thesis reduces all male/female relationships to transactions. I don’t think I’m being provocative to suggest that he thinks of the housewife as a socially accepted prostitute trading hanky-panky for a roof over her head. How dismal! And unnecessary.
While it is true that there is a transaction at the heart of the marriage contract, the traditional institution of marriage had a communal context and tradtions that encouraged more than mere transaction and connected people to meaning that surpassed the success or failure of their individual relationship. Fellow Californian, Caitlin Flanagan articulates these antiquated customs and their benefits well.
If you accept the evidence of a Creator who sustains you moment to moment through the force of personal love, your relationships with other people brought into being by that Creator have cosmic dimensions that surpass the mere laws of attraction and calculated returns. In this paradigm, remaining a virgin until marriage, however hot or not you are, can be a purposeful choice that yields wisdom and good fruit. Taraban in California doesn’t see it that way, of course. With John Donne, he might say:
If then at first wise Nature had
Made women either good or bad,
Then some we might hate, and some choose;
But since she did them so create,
That we may neither love, nor hate,
Only this rests, all all may use.
If they were good it would be seen;
Good is as visible as green,
And to all eyes itself betrays.
If they were bad, they could not last;
Bad doth itself, and others waste;
So they deserve nor blame, nor praise.
But they are ours as fruits are ours;
He that but tastes, he that devours,
And he that leaves all, doth as well;
Changed loves are but changed sorts of meat;
And when he hath the kernel eat,
Who doth not fling away the shell?
In summary, Orion Taraban is a bit of hack, so his YouTube name is well chosen. As even the broken clock is right twice a day, so Taraban’s contrarian investigation of men, women, and relationships yields insights you don’t often come by and some of them are spot-on.
He sadly seems convinced that most people have miserable relationships. There might be some selection bias at play here. While he may hear from countless hundreds of unhappy materialists, it’s unlikely that happily married people are going to seek out his input. For example, a group of women who form their own Empowered Wife support group are not going to be contacting Taraban to hear, once again, how nasty and slutty they need to be. There’s a bit more of an art to being a ridiculously happy wife. All I can say is: Get out of Cali, sci-fi man! Flyover country is still home to many happy marriages.
