In 2018, Bloomberg Businessweek published an article by reporter Ellen Huet exposing the toxic culture within One Taste. Shortly afterwards, the FBI started making enquiries into the company over allegations of sex trafficking, prostitution and violation of labour laws. The company has since closed all its physical locations and is no longer offering in-person courses. Co-founder Nicole Daedone had stepped down as CEO the previous year – and after the FBI started making enquiries, she...

This podcast is now the subject of a legal complaint by OM IP Co and the Institute of OM LLC. This episode has been edited to remove reference to an email which was described as relating to a specific incident involving Sam and Cassidy. This has been removed because the email in fact concerned a different incident. As One Taste grew, the tensions inside the company escalated. We hear one especially disturbing story of abuse and coercive control, and hear how members were pressured into...

This podcast is now the subject of a legal complaint by Nicole Daedone, Rachel Cherwitz, OneTaste Incorporated, the Institute of OM LLC and OM IP Co. Even from the early days of One Taste, discussion swirled around whether the company was a cult. Co-founder Nicole Daedone even had a tank top which said “cult” on it in big white letters, and staff were briefed on how to respond to questions from outsiders on the subject. After everything we’ve learned so far about One Taste, in this...

One Taste was all about the female orgasm – but a lot of men wanted to get involved too, whether to learn how to relate to women better or just in the hope of more sex. And because Orgasmic Meditation was born in the San Francisco Bay Area, the home of Silicon Valley, it attracted a lot of men who worked in the tech industry, some of whom were extremely wealthy. Many of the women who got involved in One Taste were younger, and open to trying out something different and new age in the search...

One former One Taste member tells us the story of her experiences inside One Taste. Before she encountered One Taste, she had struggled to orgasm, and mainstream doctors hadn’t been able to tell her why. She says the prospect that she could experience orgasm through Orgasmic Meditation left her “saturated with hope”. Initially, One Taste welcomed her with open arms – but the company soon became exploitative. She was encouraged to go into debt to pay for One Taste classes, to turn away...

Many One Taste members lived in communal houses, known as OM houses. They would practice Orgasmic Meditation together multiple times a day while also working for One Taste selling and running courses. Some people moved in to the OM houses only weeks after their first encounter with One Taste. Some were attracted by the possibility of lots of sex, but others were looking for meaning, purpose or community in their lives. And everyone was captivated by One Taste’s charismatic co-founder...

One Taste sold itself as a wellness company – part of a multi-billion dollar industry selling everything from green smoothies to healing crystals to cryotherapy. The wellness industry has grown massively in recent years. Wellness practices can offer hope and empowerment to people – particularly women – who are looking for connection or meaning in their lives, or who have medical concerns that they feel haven’t been taken seriously by mainstream doctors. But wellness can be a double edged...

One Taste didn’t invent Orgasmic Meditation – but they did repackage it for a modern audience. The idea of “deliberate orgasm” achieved by genital stroking started in the hippy communes of 1960s California. It was a time of huge social and sexual experimentation. One Taste co-founder Nicole Daedone first experienced the practice in the late 1990s. She had a vision of it reaching millions of people and changing the world – so she decided to redesign it as Orgasmic Meditation, making it...

Before we dive into the story of One Taste, we go back to basics on the female orgasm. What exactly is an orgasm? What’s going on in the body and the brain during the process? Why do some women struggle to experience orgasm? And what’s the best way to get there? We find out with neuroscientist and sex therapist Dr Nan Wise, author of Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier and More Purpose-Filled Life, and social psychologist and...

Before we dive into the story of One Taste, we go back to basics on the female orgasm. What exactly is an orgasm? What’s going on in the body and the brain during the process? Why do some women struggle to experience orgasm? And what’s the best way to get there? We find out with neuroscientist and sex therapist Dr Nan Wise, author of Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier and More Purpose-Filled Life, and social psychologist and...

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far explores the rise and fall of One Taste. We learn how to practise Orgasmic Meditation with a former member and his wife, and hear co-founder Nicole Daedone’s story of how she encountered a Buddhist monk at a party who changed her life. And former One Taste members and staff tell us about the optimism with which they joined the project, looking for a sense of purpose, for adventure, or for healing. But we hear how things soon started to go sour, with predatory sales...

Nicole Daedone, the charismatic co-founder of wellness company One Taste believed that orgasm would one day sit alongside yoga and meditation as the self-care self-care practice for the modern empowered women. Except that now the FBI is making enquiries in to One Taste over allegations including sex trafficking, prostitution and violations of labour law. How did Orgasmic Meditation go from hippy beginnings to a sleek, million-dollar operation? How did this wellness practise – touted as...