Powered by Orgasm: The Rise and Fall of a Sex Cult - with Ellen Huet

Summary

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

Episode Title: Powered by Orgasm: The Rise and Fall of a Sex Cult - with Ellen Huet
Release Date: January 30, 2026
Guest: Ellen Huet (Author of Empire of Orgasm, journalist at Bloomberg)
Main Theme: An investigative deep-dive into OneTaste, a sexual wellness startup-turned-cult that built an empire on orgasmic meditation—uncovering the charisma, control, coercion, and downfall of its founder, Nicole Daedone.

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Episode Overview

Tim Harford interviews journalist and author Ellen Huet, whose book Empire of Orgasm chronicles the rise and fall of OneTaste, a controversial “sexual wellness” startup built around “orgasmic meditation.” Through anecdotes, investigation, and trial coverage, the episode explores how charismatic leadership, the wellness industry’s language, and cult dynamics can coalesce in modern guises. The story warns of how vulnerable people can be drawn into exploitative systems that promise fulfillment but demand profound personal sacrifices.

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Key Discussion Points

1. The Beginnings of OneTaste (OM) and Nicole Daedone

• Orgasmic Meditation Experience: The episode opens with vivid scene-setting at an OMX conference, describing a mass group event involving 350 “nests” and ritualized public sexual acts, promoted for their “healing, pleasure, and spiritual transformation.”
  • “Connection is the new religion,” Nicole Daedone declares as she’s greeted like a rock star. (04:56)
• Nicole Daedone’s Background:
  • A charismatic and unusual figure, Daedone grew up with familial trauma: her father—a convicted child sex abuser—shaped her understanding of sexuality’s dangers and its supposed healing potential (08:29).
  • “She has often sidestepped the question of whether her father abused her...she has at some point told them that her father had sexually abused her.” (09:08–10:03)
• From Hippie Commune to Startup:
  • Nicole adopted and rebranded Californian group-sex practices into orgasmic meditation, styled herself as a visionary founder, and framed OneTaste as a scalable, wellness-oriented startup, not a commune or cult (11:09–14:10).
  • Smart branding: Naming the practice “orgasmic meditation” (OM), using startup language, and positioning herself as a woman leader to build trust.

2. Life Inside: Community, Coercion, and Sales

• Urban “Compound” and Communal Living:
  • Residents lived together (often two to a bed, in halls divided by curtains), assigned bedmates, conducting “sexual research.” Basic privacy was stripped—communal bathrooms and showers; bed assignments changed frequently (17:10–19:33).
• Blurring Lines: Employee, Resident, Customer:
  • People worked for OneTaste (mostly in sales), lived communally, and paid for ever more expensive courses.
  • Courses often promised alignment with the company’s semi-divine concept of “Orgasm with a capital O.”
• Predatory Sales Tactics:
  • Sales staff leveraged intimate disclosures from clients (drawn out during workshops) to upsell more courses, sometimes costing up to $180,000 (20:29–21:39, 29:20–30:09).
  • “They would use that personal and sensitive information about insecurities or problems…to then sell them the next course.” (20:32)
• Sex as a Sales and Retention Tool:
  • Female employees were pressured to be “practice partners” with male clients, to ensure they had a good experience and make future sales; this was not explicitly called sex work, but the dynamics matched (21:39–22:52).
    • “If you were a OneTaste employee, it was often expected that you would put your body on the line to advance the company.” (21:48)
    • High-paying patrons were provided “handlers” (female employees expected to live with them and provide daily sexual services).
• The Philosophy of “Aversion Practice”:
  • The idea that doing things that make you uncomfortable is the path to liberation—used to justify coercing members into extreme or unwanted sexual acts.
    • “If you felt a strong aversion, you were told the more spiritual and sexual liberation or power you could get by doing them.” (24:18–24:40)
    • Assignments could be extreme (e.g., “have sex with 30 people in 30 days”), with shame as a tool for compliance (24:47–25:59).

3. The Cult Dynamics: Control and Entrapment

• Why was it so hard to leave?
  • For many, OneTaste became their life: workplace, home, social world, and “church” (26:05).
  • Members were taught they’d be “spiritually ruined” if they left.
    • “Some part of your soul will always come crawling back.” (15:38, echoed at 26:05)
• Mainstream Success through Wellness Marketing
  • Endorsements from big names (Tim Ferriss, Khloé Kardashian, Gwyneth Paltrow) and the lure of fixing intimacy and sexual dysfunction, especially in a shame-filled world—a “quasi-mainstream wellness practice” (27:31).

4. The Fall: Investigation and Federal Charges

• The Tipping Point
  • Ellen Huet received a PR pitch from OneTaste in 2017; journalistic investigation revealed how the glossy image hid widespread manipulation and abuse (05:54, 30:58).
• Legal Reckoning:
  • After Huet’s articles, the FBI began investigating (32:14).
  • In 2023, Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz (sales head) were charged with federal forced labor conspiracy (32:14–33:07).
• Trial Insights:
  • The legal question centered on whether the psychological, reputational, and financial manipulation used at OneTaste constituted illegal coercion.
    • “If you’re not freely able to say no, then you cannot freely say yes; you cannot consent.” (34:21–35:58)
  • After a five-week trial, both women were convicted (35:59); their bail was immediately revoked (36:25).
  • “There was a noticeable sense of shock. The two women were led out a side door and they have been in a federal jail ever since.” (36:27–36:40)
• Ongoing Influence:
  • Despite leadership convictions, OneTaste rebranded (“Eros Platform”) and offers online courses; Daedone’s social media is still active, her followers loyal (36:44–37:11).

5. What is a Cult Today?

• Cult Characteristics in Modern Disguise:
  • Not every group is “a cult or not”; it’s about how many cult-like characteristics they display (charismatic leader, overarching belief, high demands, exclusivity) (37:11–39:38).
    • “You might have a high-demand religious group with 17 out of 20 cult characteristics, and a startup with four or five.” (37:26)
• Cults Evolve with Society:
  • Modern cults might not look like old stereotypes; they can resemble startups, wellness brands, or even AI relationships (38:38).
    • “If we’re not aware that cult dynamics can show up in vastly different forms today...we’re going to be blind to noticing where these dynamics show up.” (38:38–39:38)
• Case Study: OneTaste’s Attempt to Woo Zappos’ Tony Hsieh:
  • Employees sent to Las Vegas to seduce influential figures for endorsement/funding—even encouraging sexual relationships as job duties (39:59–41:12).

6. The Cautionary Lessons

• Everyone is Vulnerable:
  • “Often people think, I would never join a cult...But if there is something you yearn for, and the right person comes along at the right time, people should be humble about the idea it could happen to them.” (41:24)
• Simple Litmus Test:
  • “If someone says, ‘I have the answer,’ that’s not a problem. But if they say, ‘I am the only one with the answer, and if you don’t follow my path you will suffer,’ you should be concerned.” (41:24–42:20)
  • Tim Harford: “If you’re asking yourself, ‘Am I in a cult?’—you’re in a cult.” (42:20)
• Media’s Role:
  • “If you're in public relations... do not send your pitch to Ellen Hewitt, because she will break you.” (42:28)

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Notable Quotes and Timestamps

• “Connection is the new religion.” — Nicole Daedone, as described by Harford (04:56)
• “She puts herself—a woman—as the leader, which I think helps a lot with the public image… makes it seem more approachable and trustworthy.” — Ellen Huet (12:41)
• “Some part of your soul will always come crawling back to me.” — Nicole Daedone, recounted by Huet (15:38)
• “If you were a OneTaste employee, it was often expected that you would put your body on the line to advance the company.” — Ellen Huet (21:48)
• “Personal growth is largely the rationale that many of these suggestions and actions are taken. It was this idea that if you were to do this, you would understand yourself better.” — Ellen Huet (23:53)
• “If you’re not freely able to say no, then you cannot freely say yes and you cannot consent.” — Unnamed trial witness, paraphrased by Ellen Huet (35:58)
• “If someone says, ‘I have the answer to what you’re seeking, and I’m the only one—and if you do not follow my path, you will suffer,’ then you should be concerned.” — Ellen Huet (42:20)
• “If you’re asking yourself, ‘Am I in a cult?’ You’re in a cult.” — Tim Harford (42:26)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Explicit content warning and scene-setting: [01:40–05:54]
• Nicole Daedone’s history and founding of OneTaste: [06:05–14:10]
• Communal living and sales practices: [17:10–24:40]
• Cult-like control, leaving OneTaste, and wellness industry reach: [25:59–29:20]
• Cost and financial exploitation: [29:20–30:09]
• Bloomberg investigation and FBI involvement: [30:58–33:07]
• Trial, verdict, and aftermath: [33:22–37:11]
• Cults in the modern world and evolving forms: [37:11–41:12]
• Key takeaways and cult warning signs: [41:24–42:47]

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Conclusion and Final Takeaways

Ellen Huet’s investigation reveals OneTaste as a cautionary example of how the language of wellness, self-actualization, and startup culture can be used to obscure manipulation, coercion, and cult dynamics. The story serves as a warning that cult-like forms of control can adapt to modern times, piggybacking on the latest trends and deepest vulnerabilities—even in surprising, “progressive” settings. Ultimately, vigilance and humility are crucial: no one is entirely immune to being seduced by belonging, transcendence, or the promise of transformation.

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For Further Reading:
Ellen Huet’s Empire of Orgasm is available wherever books are sold.
Cautionary Tales’ previous episode about Tony Hsieh is referenced for additional context on “cultish” startup culture.

Transcript

[Ellen Hewitt]

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[Tim Harford]

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[Dr. Maya Shankar]

There are moments in each of our lives that seem to change everything. An unexpected diagnosis. The sudden end of a relationship. The loss of a job. As our lives veer off course, it can feel like time is dividing into a before and an after. I'm Dr. Maya Shankar, a cognitive scientist and my new book, the Other side of who We Become. When life is all about how we navigate these inflection points, the Other side of Change pairs singular real life stories with scientific insights to help us find meaning in the tumult of change. What if we saw the hardest moments in our lives not simply as something to endure, but as an opportunity to reimagine who we can be? I'm thrilled to share that Booklist gave the Other side of Change one of its coveted starred reviews, saying it's impossible not to be moved. The Other side of Change is out now. Get your copy today, wherever you like to buy books.

[Tim Harford]

Pushkin. A warning before we start. This episode of Cautionary Tales contains explicit sexual content. Indeed, it begins with it. You have been warned. It's not suitable for children. Ladies, please find your nests, instructs the voice over the tannoy. Gentlemen, walk up to the stage. Please wash your hands and find your supplies. It's August 2013, and hundreds of people in casual business attire sporting coloured wristbands and lanyards mill around San Francisco's Regency Centre looking for their places. But this is no venture capitalist gathering. This is not a digital marketing conference. Attendees have paid $395 to be here. They've attended lectures and demonstrations, and now many are going to participate in this headline event. 350 nests. Blue yoga mats covered with grey blankets have been arranged across the floor. The women disrobe from the waist down and lie down with their legs butterflied out. Their male partners settle on cushions beside them, put on latex gloves and dip their fingers in lube. This is OM X, or to give it its full title, Orgasmic Meditation Experience. The conference on the medical benefits of Female orgasm attendees have been promised healing, pleasure and spiritual transformation. This is the largest OM group yet. The conference staffer wearing a blue Powered by Orgasm T shirt tells the group. You are history in the making. The mass stroking begins. Later. The tall blonde woman who made all this possible struts out on stage in strappy heels as Black Eyed Peas I Got A Feeling plays across the speakers. The crowd greets their sex guru like a rock star. Connection is the new religion, declares Nicole D. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to Cautionary Tales. Attractive and charismatic, Nicole Dadone was the co founder and face of One Taste, a sexual well being company which celebrated the power of female orgasm. As well as headquarters in super liberal San Francisco, One Taste had branches all over America and even in London and Sydney it was promoted on Gwyneth Paltrow's goop platform. Thousands attended the weekend long OMX conferences and even more watched Nicole spread her message in lively TEDx talks. But for all the talk of pleasure and freedom, control and coercion hid beneath wan tastes, glossy veneer. Here to tell me about the rise and fall of the sex cult is the Bloomberg journalist who uncovered its secrets, Ellen Hewitt. Ellen, welcome to Cautionary Tales.

[Ellen Hewitt]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Tim Harford]

You have written a book about all of this Empire of Orgasm.

[Ellen Hewitt]

I have.

[Tim Harford]

Goodness me. All about One Taste, all about Nicole Dadone. How did you first come across her story?

[Ellen Hewitt]

Well, in 2017 I was working at Bloomberg News as I do now and I was based in San Francisco and I was covering startups. That was my beat. And one morning I received a pitch as I do dozens of times a day and this one caught my eye because it was about orgasmic meditation, which is an inherently eye catching subject. Yeah, you know, I was curious and I ended up responding to the pitch and hearing what they were offering which was basically, hey, this is a fast growing woman led wellness startup. Yeah, you write about startups. Are you interested in potentially doing a story on us? And I said maybe. And I took a first meeting with the leadership of the company and heard the initial pitch which was like doing orgasmic meditation every day is really good for you. We are the whole foods of sexuality. We're the organic, good for you version of sexuality. We think our practice can heal the world.

[Tim Harford]

Yeah. And it's kind of like yoga. Like you're going to go to a yoga studio except you're going to masturbate or you're going to be masturbated. Right.

[Ellen Hewitt]

Someone is going to touch you or you will Touch someone in their vision for the spread of orgasmic meditation, or om. Om. They viewed OM as a pillar alongside yoga, meditation, other core aspects of modern commercial wellness. So I heard the initial pitch, and I decided to poke around a little on my own, as journalists like to do. And I ended up finding first one and then several and then more. People who said that their experience at Onetaste had actually been quite different from the public image of the company at the time.

[Tim Harford]

Yeah, but just sticking with the surface of the story for a moment, just to get people to come together in a room. No pun intended. There'll be a lot of that, I'm sure, to gather together in a room and then in public to be touched and brought to orgasm. And there's like dozens of other people or there's hundreds of other people. To encourage a bunch of people to do that, I think requires a certain kind of person. So tell me about Nicole Da Don.

[Ellen Hewitt]

Well, Nicole Da Don is a fascinating person, and she is undoubtedly the main character not only of the book Empire of Orgasm, but of the story of Onetaste. Like, she is the charismatic leader, she's the visionary, she's the guru, she's the creator of this community and the entire story. She had an unusual childhood. She was born in the Bay Area and grew up in the 70s with a single mother. And her father was this sort of far away figure who only visited occasionally and with whom she yearned to have a closer relationship. And what's most important about his history is that he is a convicted child sex abuser. He was incarcerated for child sex abuse related crimes once when Nicole was young, like under 10 years old, and again when she was in her 20s. And he actually died in custody that second time before he was ever convicted. And she has spoken about her father's criminal history as being an inspiration for her wanting to show the world that sexuality, which can have this dark and dangerous side, could also heal in equal measure. But she has often sidestepped the question of whether her father abused her. People who had known her when she was younger told me that she had at some point told them that her father had sexually abused her.

[Tim Harford]

Yeah.

[Ellen Hewitt]

She additionally, later on in her life, reshaped the story of her father's abuse to frame it as something that she, as a child, had either instigated or wanted or tried to set in motion in some way. And if you speak to experts on child sex abuse, they will say that although this is kind of a shocking idea, it is not uncommon that people who have experienced something like this will find ways automatically to reframe it such that they did feel some agency. It's obviously a sensitive subject, but I think it's an important way to understand what drives her. She then spent her life, especially her 20s and honestly the years after as well, living in pursuit of extreme experiences, intensity, often in sexual situations, as a way of understanding oneself.

[Tim Harford]

Interesting. How was it that Nicole got onto this path of sexual wellness and this idea of orgasmic meditation?

[Ellen Hewitt]

In her late 20s, she met someone who was a student at a different community called the Welcomed Consensus. And this person taught her the Welcomed Consensus stroking practice, which was called deliberate orgasm. And it's essentially a man stroking a woman's clitoris in a way that is meant to not just provide sexual pleasure, but also be a sort of meditative, shared connective experience. So she joins this group for several years. She also studied a little bit with the group that preceded it, a group called Morehouse. Both of these groups were selling courses on deliberate orgasm. And they're both based in California and a little bit closer to what you might imagine, like a kind of hippie commune. Like there's a male leader, they have a compound, everyone lives together and there's a lot of like free flowing sex among the members. In one of them they even like had a farm and grew vegetables and raised chickens and that kind of thing. And when she's at these groups, she learns the basics of this stroking practice and she learns a little bit of how you could run a community based on this practice. But she pretty quickly decides if she's going to do this, she's going to make it her own thing. And she does a few things that are pretty important. One, she puts herself a woman as the leader, which I think helps a lot with the public image, makes it seem more approachable and trustworthy.

[Tim Harford]

Yeah, by women, for women, that kind of thing.

[Ellen Hewitt]

Yeah, totally. And she rebrands it as orgasmic meditation, which is very smart because it quickly and immediately positions it as part of this spiritual adjacent wellness movement which is just taking off at the time. It's in the mid-2000s.

[Tim Harford]

Yeah, but the noun is meditation. Right. Orgasmic is just a kind of, just a modifier, a detail.

[Ellen Hewitt]

Totally. And you know, even om, the abbreviation for orgasmic meditation is om, which you know, you might hear as a mantra in like a yoga class. And the basics of om as she defines it are there's a stroker and a strokee. The man strokes the woman in this very prescribed manner for 15 minutes. Exactly. And during those 15 minutes, the only Goal is for both partners to reflect on, notice, meditate on the sensations in their bodies. So again, for anyone who's done sitting meditation, that sounds familiar. You are generally supposed to not have any particular goal other than to notice.

[Tim Harford]

Yeah, it's familiar in some ways. In other ways it's seems very new.

[Ellen Hewitt]

In other ways, it's very different. And to be clear, the man stays clothed and the woman generally gets disrobed from the waist down. And then the last thing she does is she makes it a startup. You know, she's based in San Francisco in the mid 2000s. She is just at the right time to be framing this pursuit as a startup. And she's the founder and like, it's a fast growing company because all around her in San Francisco, that's exactly what other people are doing and they're seeing lots of success.

[Tim Harford]

That's very interesting because, yeah, 30 years prior, if we were the 1970s, this would be a commune, right? It would look like a cult. It might even describe itself as a cult. You'd have a guru. But no, now it's a startup. We're just through the dot com bubble. Google, I think, has just floated. Facebook is about to be launched. You know, it's that moment. And yeah, startup energy. Love it. And she calls it One Taste. Why that?

[Ellen Hewitt]

Well, One Taste comes from a Buddhist saying, which is something along the lines of, just as the ocean has one taste, the taste of salt, so too does truth have one taste, the taste of liberation. When they stumble across the phrase one Taste, I've been told they liked it because it's a little suggestive. It's got this Buddhist flair. But what's interesting is years later, Nicole is giving a lecture to her students and she actually proposes an alternative reading of the name One Taste, where she says, you know, there's a reason we call it One Taste, which is once you get one taste of what it's like to live this way, there's some part of you that will never rest again. And basically some part of your soul will always come crawling back to me. That suggests that she understands that part of what she's selling is this hook, is this sense of like, you're going to love it so much, you're going to let me control you. I found it a very revealing and foreshadowing moment.

[Tim Harford]

Yes. One taste is enough.

[Ellen Hewitt]

Yes.

[Tim Harford]

Goodness me. Well, after the break, we will find out just what Nicole expected from the people she reeled in.

[Dr. Maya Shankar]

There are moments in each of our lives that seem to change everything. An unexpected diagnosis, the sudden end of a relationship, the loss of a job. As our lives veer off course, it can feel like time is dividing into a before and an after. I'm Dr. Maya Shankar, a cognitive scientist, and my new book, the Other side of who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans, is all about how we navigate these inflection points. The Other side of Change pairs singular real life style stories with scientific insights to help us find meaning in the tumult of change. What if we saw the hardest moments in our lives not simply as something to endure, but as an opportunity to reimagine who we can be? I'm thrilled to share that Booklist gave the Other side of Change one of its coveted starred reviews, saying it's impossible not to be moved. The Other side of Change is out now. Get your copy today, wherever you like to buy books.

[Tim Harford]

We're back. I am talking to Ellen Hewitt, the author of Empire of Orgasm. Ellen we talked about the way that Nicole Des had this kind of startup energy. Didn't look like a normal cult, but they did have a kind of compound, didn't they?

[Ellen Hewitt]

They did, and it was quite urban. It was in San Francisco's Soma district. They had a cluster of several buildings on one block in, in the center of the city, one of which was more of their storefront. They had a yoga studio where they sometimes held classes. That one also had for a while a cafe where they sold like frozen yogurt, which was a very late 2000s, early 2010s thing. And they also had a residence down the street called the Warehouse, which was their first foray into communal living, which ended up being a central tenet of life within the Onetaste community. You know, you could take a few classes and then go on your merry way. Or if you decided to get more involved in the community, as many did, you might leave your old job and start working for one taste of the company. And you often moved out of your old home and moved into a communal residence. And at its peak, the Warehouse had enough beds to fit roughly 50 people, keeping in mind that each bed would have two people in it. And so part of what it meant to live at the Warehouse was to kind of immerse yourself in this experiment of up close sexuality, not just orgasmic meditation, but also just sex. And people were assigned bedmates and told sort of who to sleep with. And sometimes those bedmates would switch around, people would refer to their various sexual partners and they often had multiple at a time as their research partners. So there was this sense that life within the warehouse was a grand scientific experiment, and you were doing sexual research. You were sexual research pioneers. There were not really rooms. There was an enormous hall full of beds and a loft space with beds. And the beds were simply divided by very thin curtains so you could hear the sounds of everyone else having sex or hanging out or doing whatever in the warehouse all the time. Even the bathrooms did not have privacy. There was one bathroom with a group shower with multiple shower heads and two toilets side by side, but no stalls or doors. And so people were really confronted with the closeness of their neighbors. And for many of them, it was actually quite an exciting time in which they were living this truly unique life that very few other people experience.

[Tim Harford]

So are these people customers? Are they employees?

[Ellen Hewitt]

It's a good question, because they tended to be multiple of those categories. Often people would work for the company, usually on the sales team, because that was the main way that the company brought in revenue was by selling increasingly expensive courses, not just on how to do the om practice, but how to live a life aligned with the philosophies of omniscient and how to get in touch with this semi divine spiritual force which they called orgasm with a capital O. And they would also be customers of the company. So they would be taking these classes at the same time that they would be selling them. And then they were also residents. They would live with and around other OneTaste practitioners, employees, members, whatever you'd want to call them. So there were layers to how deeply you would get involved in the company. And onetaste's mission was to bring Orgasm capital O to a billion people.

[Tim Harford]

Give us a little glimpse of the exploitative sales tactics.

[Ellen Hewitt]

Many people have described to me that the sales practices within OneTaste were quite predatory. And in part because what onetaste was selling was such an intimate experience, they often had access to very personal information about their customers that people would share during communication, games, or coaching sessions. And many former sales workers have also described to me that they would use that personal and sensitive information about insecurities or problems that someone might have in their life or their marriage, and use that information to then sell them the next course. So if you knew that, for example, someone was insecure about his ability to connect with his partner, you might say, oh, well, if you take the ignited man course for $3,000, that's going to really help fix your relationship. And, you know, many former sales workers have described to me feeling a little icky about using this information in that way, but nevertheless doing it because they Knew that bringing in good sales numbers was so socially rewarded within the company.

[Tim Harford]

To what extent were they part of the offering to other people who Nicole was hoping would sign up?

[Ellen Hewitt]

If you were a OneTaste employee, it was often expected that you would put your body on the line to advance the company. Let's say OneTaste is hosting an Introduction to OM course, and there are men who have signed up for the course, but they have not come with a partner. And at some point, maybe the course offers the chance to try the orgasmic meditation practice, and these men need a partner. There was this pressure for female employees to then step up and be willing to be stroked by these customers in order to help them have a good experience and potentially, hopefully, buy more courses. And in general, if you were working on the sales team, again, people have told me that there was this implicit understanding that you would use this prospect of sex to bring in customers. You would flirt with them, you would put attention on them if they seemed like they were going to buy a course, and if they weren't, then you would quickly move on to, like, another target that seemed more ripe.

[Tim Harford]

This is sex work, but just not being described as sex work to the people who are being asked to perform it.

[Ellen Hewitt]

You know, many people have described to me understanding that that was the dynamic. And then there were even times that sex and finances became even more closely intertwined. In the early years, at one taste, the company was struggling to turn a profit and cover its expenses. And Nicole met this man who was a Silicon Valley investor who had plenty of money because he had sold a company to Motorola in the 2000s, and he was willing to loan the company money, pay for some of their business expenses. And in return, there were also one taste, female employees who were asked to take on the role of being his quote, unquote handler, which meant living with him at his home, doing various housework, and giving him a sexual service every day, usually a hand job.

[Tim Harford]

This is not being sold as sex work either to the person paying for the service or to the person providing the service. It's kind of being smuggled in under some other guise.

[Ellen Hewitt]

Personal growth is largely the rationale that many of these suggestions and actions are taken. It was this idea that if you were to do this, you would understand yourself better. You would have personal transformation. This was really the goal that many people were oriented toward.

[Tim Harford]

And this links into the. The idea that actually, the more uncomfortable it's making you, the more important it is that you do it.

[Ellen Hewitt]

Yeah. Within one taste, there was even a name for that philosophy, and it was called aversion practice, which suggested that the more that you could do acts that you felt a strong aversion to, then the more spiritual and sexual liberation or power you could get by doing them.

[Tim Harford]

What sort of things were people being asked to do under the guise of this being liberating for them?

[Ellen Hewitt]

For some people, the acts that were suggested or assigned to them as part of their personal growth could be quite extreme. Like a common example was, oh, your orgasm seems kind of blocked up these days. In order to release it, you should consider having sex with 30 different people over the course of the next 30 days. Or giving 30 blowjobs to different people over the next 30 days. Several people have described to me receiving assignments like that and feeling ashamed if they couldn't go through with it, feeling like they had failed if they couldn't complete the assignment. And at times if people, especially women, if they turn down an assignment to let someone stroke them or something like that, they might be shamed for having a quote unquote golden pussy like too precious for people to touch. And aversion practice, you know, could often leave people feeling pretty scrambled about what they did or didn't actually want to do. And a lot of people have told me just how damaging that was for them and how deeply difficult it was for them to undo that thinking after they had left the company.

[Tim Harford]

So why did people find it so difficult to leave?

[Ellen Hewitt]

The main reason is that it quickly became their whole lives. It was their place of employment, their home, their social community, and beyond that, their church, their sense of connection to the divine, their entire orientation. You know, for many of these people, it just became their whole world. Like there were plenty of people within onetaste who struggled with their families and friends. Really rejecting or feeling like their new life path was a bad choice. You know, that tends to lead people to isolate themselves from their previous social networks. And on top of it, people within onetaste were taught that this path of orgasmic spiritual enlightenment, once you pursued it, if you left it, you would be deeply unfulfilled in a permanent way. People have described to me fearing that they would be spiritually ruined if they abandoned this path that they were on. And you get a sense of it when you think back to that thing that Nicole said. Some part of your soul will always come crawling back.

[Tim Harford]

I think we understand there the strength of this cult like atmosphere. But what is kind of bizarre is the reach. So after about 10 years, so by 2013, Nicole is opening up ohm houses across the US and preparing to host this huge conference, and she's kind of treated like a rock star.

[Ellen Hewitt]

I'll give Nicole credit. She has pulled off a marketing feat that I think many people would fail at, which is making orgasmic meditation an inherently confronting practice that many people don't feel comfortable doing. Making it a quasi mainstream wellness practice endorsed by Tim ferriss, Khloe Kardashian, and Gwyneth Paltrow. I mean, these are the biggest. Well, Gwyneth Paltrow especially is, like, the biggest name in wellness. The vast majority of us seek intimacy, connection, a sense of belonging, like a better understanding of our relationships and our sexual lives. And because it's a little taboo, there aren't that many places that we can go to for advice or guidance. And onetaste was willing to go there. They were willing to say, like, if you want to understand your sexuality, we have something that is going to help you. And. And for many people who might struggle with performance anxiety during sex, or maybe they're in a long relationship and the physical spark is gone, or maybe they're one of the estimated 10 to 15% of American women who struggle to have an orgasm. All of these people, there's this yearning, and so they were really willing to maybe go to some lengths in order to pursue it. And I think that's part of why onetaste was so successful.

[Tim Harford]

Yeah, the whole idea of, like, are we going to bring orgasm to a billion people? I'm absolutely sure that more than a billion people know what orgasm already is, but obviously not orgasm with a capital o. But the rebranding of what is fairly basic human practice as being something super kind of complicated and refined, and you are going to need to pay for our help and to join our community in order to tap into this thing that actually most people could do for themselves is a very clever trick. And people were willing to pay a lot. I mean, really a lot, right?

[Ellen Hewitt]

Oh, yeah. Some of the most expensive intensive courses that onetaste sold cost more than $30,000. And at some point, onetaste was even selling a package called membership, which cost $60,000, which meant that you could take any one taste course you wanted over the course of a year or even at some point, they were selling three years of membership in a package called lineage, which cost $180,000. And there were people who bought it. Like, there were people for whom access and closeness to Nicole or feeling like they were really making a big gesture of dedication to their spiritual path, they were willing to fork over tens of thousands of dollars to do that.

[Tim Harford]

Yeah. And some people are lucky enough that they've got that much money to. To waste, but other people, they're going to crowdfunding websites. They're presumably going into debt.

[Ellen Hewitt]

Yes, that was a big part of it is that many people told stories of Rachel Churwitz, the longtime head of sales at OneTaste, telling them, oh, you want to take this course? You don't have the money. Come with me. I'll show you how to open a new credit card. You can get $10,000 right away.

[Tim Harford]

Is this like some startups that everybody who was involved at the beginning became incredibly rich? Did the staff see any other money?

[Ellen Hewitt]

No. No. OneTaste managed to make it as a business for a while, in part by selling these extremely expensive courses. Nicole did sell her shares in the company in 2017 for about $12 million. By some standards, within Silicon Valley, that's not a huge exit. Maybe some of what she wanted was money, but a lot of what she wanted was control and just the position of being at the top, whether she.

[Tim Harford]

Wanted money or whether she wanted control. It was all about to come crashing down because a PR agency sent a pitch to a certain Ellen Hewitt asking if they'd be interested in writing about this very exciting woman business leader. And we're going to find out how that unfolded after the break. Fear is the virus is trending on.

[Ellen Hewitt]

TikTok, vaccines are poison. Then your yoga teacher says that sex trafficked children are being sacrificed by satanic liberals. But it's all okay.

[Tim Harford]

The great awakening is coming.

[Ellen Hewitt]

What is happening?

[Tim Harford]

Every week on Conspirituality Podcast, we explore the fever dreams that suck friends, family and wellness gurus down the right wing.

[Ellen Hewitt]

Cult spiral in a search for salvation.

[Tim Harford]

We are back, and I'm speaking to Ellen Hewitt, the author of Empire of Orgasm. So, Ellen, you published your first article on the company in June 2018. So what happened at that point?

[Ellen Hewitt]

After that piece ran, OneTaste went into a bit of a hibernation. Like they stopped offering classes, they closed some of their centers. A couple months after the article ran is the first time that I heard from sources that the FBI was knocking on their doors, asking them, hey, can we. Can we talk about what happened at onetas? We want to know more. The FBI interviewed people at length, came back to them, came back with assistant U.S. attorneys. And then eventually, in 2023, the federal government charged Nicole and Rachel Churwitz, her second in command, with a federal crime, forced labor conspiracy. This was honestly a pretty big shock, both for me as well as for the community of one taste, people like. It was never clear whether the FBI investigation would lead to an indictment, but it did.

[Tim Harford]

It's an interesting indictment as well, because the idea of forced labor, I mean, this, I guess, is the question, to what extent was it forced? It wasn't physically forced. It wasn't really financially forced. It was the psychological mechanisms that were providing the coercion.

[Ellen Hewitt]

Yes, that question would become kind of the central question of the trial, which took place this past summer in Brooklyn. And, yeah, the question of forced labor conspiracy is a thorny one, because conspiracy means that two or more people conspired to commit a crime, and then the crime itself that's being alleged is forced labor, which within the federal statute means roughly that you have obtained the labor of someone using an unlawful means. And one of these potential unlawful means is through serious harm or threats of serious harm. And serious harm can be defined as physical, but also psychological, financial, reputational. And this is where it gets complicated. Yes. The central question within the trial, which took place over five or six weeks in New York, and I was there most days, and, like, watching Rachel and Nicole in the courtroom, it must have.

[Tim Harford]

Been an electrifying atmosphere, fascinating.

[Ellen Hewitt]

And a reporting experience that I feel grateful to have gotten to witness, and also quite an emotional one to watch people go up and take the stand in front of Nicole and testify under oath that they felt that she had set up a system that had abused them very seriously. They said they felt like it was a predatory, exploitative company. Some of them called it a dangerous sex cult. And also, many of the people on the stand talked about how at the same time it was complicated, that they had learned a lot from one taste, that they had felt, at times, deep affection for and gratitude for their experience there. It was certainly not a simple thing. And one of the central questions that was debated hotly between prosecutors and the defense was, is it forced? Could they simply have left? And, yeah, I really feel for the witnesses who tried to explain that it's pretty complicated. You know, the defense would try to grill them and say, like, well, were you chained to a desk? Did you have a gun to your head? And they would say, well, no. Like, physically, I could have walked away. At the same time, they felt that the philosophies and the teachings of one taste were so overpowering that they were not really able to freely say no, and therefore they were not really freely able to say yes. In fact, there was a witness who really put out that exact framework. He said he believes that if you're not Freely able to say no, then you cannot freely say yes and you cannot consent.

[Tim Harford]

What did the jury decide?

[Ellen Hewitt]

After five weeks, the jury decided unanimously that Nicole and Rachel were guilty of this crime. And the very next day, there was a bail hearing in which the judge essentially revoked bail. You know, during the two years ahead of the trial, Nicole and Rachel had been free on bail. And after the conviction, the judge reversed that decision and the two women were taken into custody right then and there.

[Tim Harford]

Yeah. Which they did not seem to expect.

[Ellen Hewitt]

I have to say, I was surprised. And when the officers walked into the courtroom, there was a noticeable sense of shock. Yeah. The two women were let out a side door and they've been in a federal jail ever since.

[Tim Harford]

What about the members of Onetaste who have been left behind? What are they doing?

[Ellen Hewitt]

Yeah, OneTaste continues to offer courses. They now go by the name Eros platform at times, and some of their courses are online. Nicole is even, or I should say Nicole's social media accounts continue to post content even though she is behind bars, in part because she continues to have a devoted, loyal following who is interested in continuing to spread her word even if she cannot.

[Tim Harford]

One of the things I find so fascinating about this is the question of what a cult actually is. And in your book, you write, a key quality of a cult is its ability to adapt with the times. Tell me more about that.

[Ellen Hewitt]

You know, the word cult can be a useful shorthand for suggesting to people a group that demands a lot of you or has an overarching belief system and a charismatic leader at the same time. I do try to suggest to people to step away from the idea of categorizing groups in a binary of cult or not a cult, and rather looking at groups and understanding what cult dynamics exist or don't exist within them. So you might have like a high demand religious group that has like 17 out of 20 basic cult characteristics, and then a mission driven startup that might have like four or five. And rather than trying to say one's a cult, one's not, it's like, well, it's actually helpful to understand which qualities they have. And then when it comes to cults adapting with the times, we might have in our heads a pretty outdated idea of what a cult looks like. You know, bearded, male leader, rural homestead, all of its members, like, wearing clothes of same color, like that that did exist. There's a reason we have that image. And yet, if we're not aware that cult dynamics can show up in vastly different forms today and are likely to show up in even more unexpected forms. In the future, we're going to be blind to noticing where these dynamics show up. One of the things that really surprised me this year was I was working on a piece about people who fall into delusional and occasionally even psychotic relationships with ChatGPT, where they spend hours a day speaking with a chatbot and they end up coming to a belief that they have made some momentous discovery, like they've awoken the chatbot or they've connected with spirit guides through the chatbot. And I was shocked and then kind of not shocked at how many cult dynamics show up in these relationships where people believe they have access to special and divine knowledge, a new purpose and a mission. They are isolating themselves from their friends and family in order to spend more time talking to the chatbot. You know, someone even described it as a cult of two. I just want people to be aware that our social world is shifting and cults are going to shift with just really might not look like what you expect.

[Tim Harford]

Speaking of cults, Zappos, the shoe retailer, was sometimes called a cult. And it was quite striking to see Tony Hsieh pop up in your book. We recently did a two part cautionary tales about Tony Hsieh and how tragically that all went. Tony was, I think, a possible mark. They were hoping they would get funding from Tony Hsieh, and actually it sounds like he was a big, probably the right kind of person for them to pick.

[Ellen Hewitt]

Yeah, 2012, 2013, they somehow got wind that Tony Hsieh, you know, was maybe open to learning more about orgasmic meditation.

[Tim Harford]

He's got money, he's into community, he's into happiness. He's the guy, totally.

[Ellen Hewitt]

They actually ended up sending a few employees to go live in Las Vegas and set up an entire Las Vegas one taste office, Pretty much with the main goal of winning over Tony Hsieh. And there's a woman who was an employee at onetaste who is in the book and who has also testified about this. Her main assignment in going to Las Vegas was to find a way to meet Tony, get introduced to him and try to win him over. And she even describes Tony seemed interested in om. He also seemed interested in her, and he made a sexual advance toward her. And even though it maybe wasn't what she would have wanted to do freely, she acquiesced and they had a short sexual relationship because she understood that this was part of her job as potentially winning him over. In the end, he did not choose to have a public association with om or to endorse it in any way. And they ended up closing the Las Vegas office about a year after they started it.

[Tim Harford]

Well, Ellen, at the end of these conversations, I always ask my guests what lesson they hope listeners will take away. What is the lesson that this story teaches us?

[Ellen Hewitt]

Often people think, I would never join a cult. And I think that's a really comforting belief. And, of course, not everyone is equally vulnerable. But if there's something that you yearn for and the right person comes along promising the right promise at the right time, when maybe you're a little extra vulnerable, I think people should be humble about the idea that it could happen to them. And then, more practically speaking, if you find yourself in a group where you're wondering if. If they maybe don't have your best interests at heart. I have heard that a good rule of thumb is if someone tells you, like, I have the answer to what you're seeking, that's not necessarily a problem. But if they say, I have the answer to what you're seeking, and I'm the only one, and if you do not follow my path, you will suffer, then you should be concerned. So it's really not just the promise of salvation, but the threat of exclusive access to the salvation.

[Tim Harford]

My rule of thumb is if you're asking yourself, am I in a cult? You're in a cult.

[Ellen Hewitt]

You know, that's not a bad rule of thumb.

[Tim Harford]

I have another lesson, actually, Ellen, which is that if you're in public relations and you are trying to promote a slightly sleazy sexual wellness business, do not send your pitch to Ellen Hewitt, because she will break you. Ellen Hewitt, thank you so much for talking to Cautionary Tales.

[Ellen Hewitt]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Tim Harford]

It's been amazing to talk to you and Ellen. Your book Empire of Orgasm, is available wherever good books are sold. And you are, of course, still a journalist for Bloomberg. Fighting the Good Fight. Thank you.

[Ellen Hewitt]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Tim Harford]

Cautionary Tales is written by me, Tim Harford with Andrew Wright, Alice Fiennes and Ryan Dilley. It's produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original music are the work of Pascal Wise. Additional sound design by Carlos San Juan at Brainaudio and Dan Jackson. Ben Nadaff Haffering edited the scripts. The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohn, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brodie, Christina Sullivan, Keira Posey, and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you like the show, please remember to share rate and review. It really does make a difference to us. And if you want to hear it ad free and receive a bonus audio episode, video episode and members only newsletter every month, why not join the Cautionary Club? To sign up, head to patreon.com cautionaryclub that's patreon P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com cautionaryclub.

[Dr. Maya Shankar]

There are moments in each of our lives that seem to change everything. An unexpected diagnosis. The sudden end of a relationship. The loss of a job. As our lives veer off course, it can feel like time is dividing into a before and an after. I'm Dr. Maya Shankar, a cognitive scientist, and my new book, the Other side of who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans, is all about how we navigate these inflection points. The Other side of Change pairs singular real life stories with scientific insights to help us find meaning in the tumult of change. What if we saw the hardest moments in our lives not simply as something to endure, but as an opportunity to reimagine who we can be? I'm thrilled to share that book list gave the Other side of Change one of its coveted stages. Starred reviews saying, quote, it's impossible not to be moved. The Other side of Change is out now. Get your copy today, wherever you like to buy books.

[Ellen Hewitt]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.