Original subtitles

♪♪

-In the beginning, it was really sweet and innocent.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-I'm powered by orgasm.

-And over time, it felt scary.

♪♪

-In 2004, OneTaste emerges onto the scene

as leaders of a new sexual revolution.

-I believe at some point

you will hear yoga, meditation, and orgasm.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-The group promises to change women's lives

through Orgasmic Meditation, also known as OM.

-What is OM? Take a class...

OM community, OM supplies.

-Here was this group of people, these women,

talking about their pleasure.

It was revelatory.

-Orgasm can do for physical connection

what the Internet has done for us

in terms of virtual connection.

-Who wouldn't want to jump into something

that involves everything you could possibly want?

-But allegations of abuse of trust

have recently surfaced among the community.

-I had no idea what I was getting into.

They wanted people to be committed.

-I left my children.

I wasn't there for my children.

I chose OneTaste...

over my children.

♪♪

-We're going to play three games tonight that are

all communication games, and each of them

is designed to give you a flavor

of a part of the Orgasmic Meditation experience.

-The first meeting I went to,

they would invite people up to the hot seat

and ask them several questions,

and it almost felt like they could see through everybody.

-Someone raised their hand and asked me if I masturbated.

Which obviously made me very uncomfortable.

But on the other hand,

it felt sort of exhilarating

to have people show such deep and intimate interest

in me as a person.

-The Orgasmic Meditation practice

is a very clear practice... Like, they have a set of

guidelines of what you do, there's about 15 or so steps.

-All the men were new, all the women were new.

Nobody knew what the heck they were doing.

-Just the idea of, like, dropping my pants

i-in front of a stranger...

You know, I actually almost left.

And then at the last minute, I basically was like,

"[Bleep] it," you know,

"I'm here. I'm going to do the thing."

♪♪

Before OneTaste, my life was complicated.

I was coming out of a difficult

and challenging marriage.

♪♪

I had devoted myself to being a mother full-time,

and I didn't know who I was outside of "Mom."

♪♪

I had a lot of...

feelings of...

of desire and passion.

But then when it came to the act of sex, um,

I didn't find it that pleasurable.

So I signed up for a class.

♪♪

-OneTaste first launches in San Francisco,

where it quickly finds a market for its program

of daily Orgasmic Meditation,

a wellness practice focusing on female orgasm

developed by founder Nicole Daedone.

[ Chime resonates ]

-San Francisco is home to what may be

the cutting edge of female sex-ploration:

the OneTaste urban retreat.

I mean, it kind of looks like a yoga class.

- Doesn't it? - Turning sex into

a spinning class? - More and more people

are flooding in than ever before because I think a lot of people

are discovering that a lot of the rules that they believed in

aren't working.

♪♪

-OneTaste always had very, like, clean, professional branding.

It makes it so easy to just, like, jump in.

-The whole arena of orgasm is so dark and weird and scary.

It needed to just be out... Out in the open.

-I would go on these dating apps and websites

and try to find, like, this ideal person.

And then you go out there and meet them,

and it's just sex, and that's it.

I wanted more of that kind of understanding of intimacy.

I didn't know anything about OneTaste.

It just sounded interesting,

and it sounded kind of fun to go to, like, a meetup event.

-When I walked in through the door for my first class,

I felt at home.

All of a sudden, I went from knowing nothing

to being in a room of 50, 60 people

who all wanted to talk about the same thing.

Orgasm, specifically women's orgasm.

-When I first heard about OneTaste,

I had never had an orgasm.

I felt like I was broken.

I was willing to try anything.

-Although the emphasis is squarely on female pleasure,

Orgasmic Meditation, or OM,

is a partnered practice,

typically between a man and woman.

The woman is called the strokee

and the men are brought in to be strokers.

-One of the exciting things about that organization was,

you know, compared to, let's say,

men teaching other men how to relate to women,

it... you got it straight from the woman's mouth.

-OM, like, you learn as a stroker,

you learn how to actually, like, use your own body as

a barometer to know if it's, like, kickin' or not,

in the OM, right?

Like, is there sensation or not?

♪♪

-It was definitely the most intense period of my life,

most fast-paced period of my life.

And I'm glad I did it, but I'm glad I'm not in anymore.

-I was a little nervous. I was really nervous, honestly.

There's, like, a narrator

or kind of instructions going on, as well.

-Now, make sure your container of lube

is nearby and open as we start the OM.

♪♪

-I got undressed from the waist down.

I laid down and parted my legs.

-It's kind of a weird, crazy experience

that we're all about to have.

-If you are the stroker, establish contact

with your partner by beginning to massage

her thighs and calves gently but firmly.

-He takes his hands and places them on the inside of my thighs.

-Place a nickel-sized amount of lube

on your left forefinger and your right thumb.

-He put his hand on my clitoris,

and they started a 15-minute timer.

[ Chime ]

-Gently reach up under her clitoral hood.

Nuzzle the tip of your finger gradually to the back

of the pocket formed by the hood.

-And then he just started to stroke it.

-This stroke should be neither a whisper nor a shout...

Stroke like a warm, wet kiss.

[ Woman moans ]

-It felt a relief.

I felt excited.

I felt everything.

-Notice what you feel in your finger

and how her clit and her body respond.

[ Moaning echoes ]

-Over the next 15 minutes,

the pairs are instructed not to look at each other

and to focus on their bodies instead.

In OM, the goal isn't climax,

but to ride the wave of sensations and connect

with their partner's orgasmic energy.

♪♪

-I felt this... This jolt of electricity.

Your body's just, like, all, like, hot and bothered

and such an intense physiological experience.

Like, almost like you're having sex or making out.

-It was crazy to hear how many different sounds

that the women around me were making.

I just felt incredible about myself

in a way that I never had before.

-One of the senior staff members said

my orgasm kind of sounded like an orchid

that was just blooming for the first time

in 150 years.

-Hold the pressure there so that all of the energy

that's been building during the OM

is pushed back into her body.

Now your OM is complete.

-I was like, "That was [bleep] amazing."

Like, "That was incredible, terrifying and incredible."

And then all I knew is, like, I want to do this again.

-When I left the first event,

it sort of had this guise

of being a place where you could be safe,

but it wasn't really.

-San Francisco, gotta love it. [ Laughs ]

So this is downtown.

That's where it used to be, just right there.

-Inside the main centers once operated

by the sexual wellness group OneTaste,

members gathered in groups

for a clitoral stroking practice called Orgasmic Meditation,

otherwise known as OM.

-This whole idea of OM,

Nicole really highlighted

how different it was than sex or foreplay.

It was just like a connection to another person

where you could feel your orgasm.

-She may or may not go into climax,

but that's not the point. The point is to feel

that connection throughout and to get that kind of

deep saturation and pleasure in her body.

-Ohh.

-They had that perfect blend

of being very direct about who they are

and what they were offering and also trying to normalize

something that sounded so crazy.

If you could sell that, you could sell anything.

-Though it starts out focusing strictly on the OM practice,

what OneTaste ultimately offers

is a full life-coaching community.

-Both of us are not just discovering who the other is,

but we're discovering who we are in the process

of that connection.

-All based on the central idea

that orgasm is not a singular event,

but an enlightened state of being to master.

-We had this big mural, like, right outside

that was like a Venn diagram

to attract people into the community

and get people interested in, "What's OneTaste?

Hmm, that sounds interesting." It was, like, powered by orgasm.

You're like, "Huh?"

It's right by Twitter.

And just down the street is Dolby.

And then down that way is Uber and Square.

-At the time, OneTaste HQ is located

in one of the hottest districts in the city.

-We had tons of tech workers jump in... tons.

-Founder Nicole Daedone is here

to bring OneTaste to the masses.

And by 2016, she succeeds...

with new centers and pop-up events

in cities around the world.

Attracting powerful endorsements

and influential guests.

-Of course, we've got to be aware of the pleas...

We don't... It doesn't just happen.

We aren't born knowing all the secrets.

You are a part of the new sexual revolution.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-Now OneTaste events play to big venues

that feature live OM demos,

often performed by Nicole herself.

♪♪

[ Cheers and applause echoing ]

-OneTaste really strived

to be, like, this religion for people.

Like, this is your dedication to yourself.

You don't need church because this is your church.

[ All shouting ]

-I just found myself spending more and more time

with OneTaste people

and less and less time with my pre-OneTaste friends.

-♪ You have made orgasmic magic ♪

-The feeling of being surrounded by so much love

and welcome and value

became part of the addiction.

♪♪

I grew up in Ohio.

My family was pretty normal, but my dad died when I was 19.

After my dad passed, I didn't really, like,

feel like I fit anywhere.

I felt very alone.

-In cities around the world, devoted members

independently organized and moved into OM houses,

communal living spaces where they could immerse

in Orgasmic Meditation practice as a lifestyle.

♪♪

-As soon as I moved up to San Francisco,

I talked to the OM houses and I moved right in.

OM houses seemed like really co-op, good spaces

that people could, like, nourish themselves in and grow.

I think the first room I lived in

was just right on this corner, and at times there were

12 people living in there,

and we had guests come on top of that.

So it got crowded in there for sure.

-Living in the OM house was kind of like being

in a spiritual-ish reality show.

Everyone was so emotionally open.

-It was kind of like a little experiment lab, you know?

It was a research lab for us.

-Alright. We're doing a little bit of research and development

for how to spoon for [bleep] morons right now.

-So, 7:00 AM, we would go downstairs, um,

pair up with someone, do the OM practice twice.

There's always two OMs.

Two people would usually cook breakfast

while everyone else would clean the house.

-Justine, what's good about your morning?

-Um, making a nice big cup of tea.

Just wrote some fear inventory and eating an amazing breakfast.

-They put you in a room with someone

who is kind of opposite you

to basically push your buttons and see what happened.

-While some OM houses were run by OneTaste,

most were operated independently by resident.

And managed by so-called "OM Moms,"

senior female members of OneTaste.

-We had a house mom in the OM House who put me

with a very large older man

to share a bed with.

And he had so much trash in his room

that the side of his bed was just full of empty bottles.

I had to take that as a challenge and thrive in it,

thrive no matter what was happening to me.

-The whole principle of this was stay connected

no matter what... It was like, okay,

if you're having very strong feelings,

negative feelings about someone, like, have an OM with them.

♪♪

-And they kind of just made it so, like, normalized.

Like, why not? Everybody does that.

It's, like, everybody's doing it.

It's just like a handshake. It's like a high five.

-You're also, you know... You're getting hits of oxytocin

is what you're doing.

If you're OM'ing one, two, three, four, five

times every day, you're gettin' high.

-Inside OneTaste, Nicole's followers start to explore

their deepest emotions, fears, and traumas.

-I just want to be with you, the human being,

and I want to know every single aspect of who you are.

-When she locked eyes with me,

it really felt like she had unlocked something in me.

-So to get where I want to go,

I need you...

to get there.

So then I have to become an entirely different person.

If I realize the depth to which I need another human being

to go to the most profound place I want to get to.

-This wasn't someone just on a pedestal preaching

what they thought.

She'd been in the trenches.

She was my mentor, you know?

I looked up to her.

♪♪

-OneTaste is not merely going mainstream.

It's racing up the list of the fastest-growing companies

in America.

-I was in the OM house the entire time I was with OneTaste.

My kids at the time were living with their father.

There was so much encouragement

of me being a part of OneTaste

and doing courses and going deeper

and practicing on a really obsessive crazy level.

Like, I didn't have a life outside of OneTaste.

-My friends back home expressed a lot of concern.

They felt like if I didn't leave OneTaste,

then the person that they had initially become friends with

was gone forever.

-It's just a strange thing to tell your friends.

Like, "I share beds with people in this community

and I connect with older people."

It's just a very strange, alienating world to be in.

But I wanted to be one of them.

-I have no idea, like, how much I really spent.

I knew it was, like, a range, but I didn't actually add it up,

and I still haven't actually added everything up.

-Full dedication to the sexual wellness group OneTaste

means total immersion in their program.

-We have managed somehow

to get this field re-saturated again.

-All based on the vision of founder Nicole Daedone

and her Orgasmic Meditation practice.

But devoting to her expanding range of courses adds up fast.

-The mastery is $3,400, and then there's, like,

a "Nicole Daedone Coaching Circle,"

and that's $1,200.

$40K. So, I mean, this might have been what I spent.

♪♪

-I spent about $100,000, all in all,

in OneTaste courses.

And it makes me so sick.

That's a lot of money.

Like, that's a lot of [bleep] money.

-You as a woman, your power is surrendered.

That's how you create the man you want.

-And the prescription is just OM.

-It's... It's OM, and, you know,

and then there's all of these other crazy practices I do

that you can check in with.

But... - Okay.

-The leadership, including one of the group's top

salespeople, Rachel Cherwitz,

encouraged members to continue their OneTaste education.

-Okay. Hello out there!

We talk about this idea about being the difference,

and we have a program that I think in a way

most potently gets people in touch with it.

And that's our coaching program.

-Every event, Rachel would pitch the coaching program,

which was a $15,000, year-long training program

to become an orgasm coach.

-So, we are welcoming and ushering in

the next leaders in our orgasm movement.

-The coaching program was really that, like,

entrance into being part of them.

You felt like, okay, I'll be a leader next.

I'll be, like, something bigger.

- Hello... - Hello!

[ Cheers and applause ]

-I told Rachel that I was interested

but probably couldn't afford it, and she told me,

"Don't worry about it.

If there's a desire, there's a way."

By the end of the chat with Rachel,

I was handing her my credit card.

-And you get a copper necklace that says,

"Remember to remember."

That's basically $11K right there.

I mean, it really is a powerful symbol for me.

-I was literally going to the food bank,

and I basically had

$300 in my bank account,

and someone convinced me that I should

take that money and put it towards a class.

-In response to these claims, OneTaste asserts

that arrangements to fund participation

in its programs were the decisions of individual members

and they did not use overly aggressive sales tactics.

♪♪

-As soon as money came into the picture,

things started to quickly devolve,

and it became not just about Orgasmic Meditation...

It was other classes.

♪♪

-Every technique that anyone ever taught you,

like, let that go.

You have to take the cock all the way back.

And the thing is, there's a pleasure point.

It's a clit where your entire body

starts to go into a state of orgasm.

After years of OM, my relationship to cocksucking

has dramatically shifted.

-According to some members,

the deeper they'd go into the OneTaste program,

the further their focus strayed from the original promise

of female empowerment.

Members were encouraged to perform acts

that made them uncomfortable

in a practice known as aversion therapy.

-It was supposed to... Like, the whole thing was, like,

oh, feminine orgasm and it's the feminine.

Okay, that's kind of like where you start,

and then you continue to grow your practice in other ways.

♪♪

-You should go into experiences that you dislike,

because that was the way

to be reaching the next level of your freedom.

Like, that's the thing that's blocking you

from being completely free as an individual.

-You would have situations

where you have to have sex

with this many people this week,

even if we don't want to.

-Or, like, this person has to do a blowjob

every day with a different person.

You know, just like an offering almost.

-OneTaste claims that members

who chose to explore their aversions

did so voluntarily, were never pressured,

and that activities were always suggestions

and not instructions.

-As a young man, Rachel would set up women to OM with me

who were identified to have money,

typically slightly older women.

♪♪

But very often you would see, like... it was usually

a young, attractive woman

somehow encouraged or paired up with a guy who had money.

-They really tried to, like, make me have a lot

of different OMs with a lot of different people,

and I went to one of the leaders and I was like,

"A lot of older people are asking me to OM,

and I don't feel comfortable."

-Something that we play with at OneTaste

is that perhaps...

"no" means "not right now."

-I thought that a space that was supposedly

women-positive would be safe.

But once your boundaries

for who you were willing to sleep with

became more malleable, it could be molded

into what was ever advantageous for the company

at the time to help meet their goals.

-While the popularity and the profits of OneTaste

were on the rise by 2015,

some inside the community were growing concerned

about its practices

and their participation in the program.

-Nicole had this talk about how old people are really,

really wonderful to have in your life,

and they can provide a lot of orgasmic energy,

and she kind of hinted to how

she was financially supported by them.

-Part of it very often was to get a guy who had money,

even though that was never the advertised reason.

The advertised reason was that it was to help her grow.

-They would specifically go for a lot of very rich tech guys.

-One of those men is Reese Jones,

inventor, venture capitalist, and OneTaste donor.

He was also at one time rumored to be Nicole's boyfriend.

Mr. Jones states that any monetary contribution he made

was a formal loan and interest was paid on return.

-Nicole would often say OneTaste runs on two currencies,

money and orgasm.

It was framed as a way, like, this is part of our growth

to make sure the OneTaste business existed

so we could keep learning and growing spiritually

from OneTaste.

-It's one thing if you want to be an escort,

but it's a completely different thing

when you're secretly kind of being groomed to be one...

and you're paying out money in addition to that.

♪♪

-OneTaste deny that people were expected to perform sex acts

to ensure further funding to OneTaste

through wealthy benefactors.

♪♪

-I ended up seeing someone

who was twice my age at the time.

He really preached this idea that growth is uncomfortable,

and so if you're uncomfortable, you're doing something right.

He would have sex with me,

and I kind of just let it happen.

It wasn't really something that I wanted to do,

but I felt like I had to.

-Something that we play with at OneTaste

is that perhaps...

"no" means "not right now."

So the best thing I can tell you is keep going

and know that if she's still on your mind,

even after she brutally rejected you out of the blue

and you can't believe it,

she still wants you.

♪♪

-There were several older people

that weren't always respecting consent.

They had this thing in the community

called, like, "going off the rails,"

and going off the rails could mean

that somebody, like, fingered somebody instead of OM'ing.

And that has happened many times.

And they don't stop it.

They do not protect the women.

-I feel like, being part of this community,

saying no to sexual things didn't feel like a comfortable

or okay thing to do.

-In its response to the claims,

OneTaste said that it emphasizes mutual consent,

including the use of a traffic-light system

of safe words to protect female participants.

It denies involvement in creating environments

where abuse could take place.

-What OM'ing does is it... You...

And this is what, you know, like, people are like, "Ahh."

It's so beautiful"... Yeah, until you get into

the real practice, and the real practice is,

you've cultivated enough orgasm in your body

that now you can actually feel

the blocks that are in your body,

and they're terribly, terribly uncomfortable.

In your consciousness... [ Stammers ]

And so then the orgasm begins to move through

and it's beating up against something...

That's usually when people are like,

"Mm, you know, I'm kind of done OM'ing."

And that... and for me, that's right when OM'ing starts.

That's the gateway.

-People inherently don't find women to be as predatory,

and so I think in a way, it actually created a space

that allowed for more predatory behavior.

-Beginning in 2014, OneTaste offers devoted members

a new opportunity to partake in a special retreat.

It costs around $7,000.

♪♪

-Magic School was just an extension

of asking this question,

how weird can we get

and have people

be okay with what we're doing?

-In that weekend, we did a shared OM with a partner,

so, like, you provide a male OM and they provide a female OM,

so you're basically, like, jerking each other off,

but they make it seem like it's some special experience.

I just didn't enjoy it. I didn't want that experience.

I, like, didn't know where to put my mind.

-The main ritual of Magic School was where they unveiled

what was called the priestess of orgasm.

-A priest or priestess of orgasm

was, like, the coolest term to be called.

It was something that we all, like, strived to be.

-This was this ritual where

the seven highest-ranking women in OneTaste

got on these seven tables on the stage

with black veils on their faces, and they were totally naked.

And these seven men would stroke the women,

and then every couple of minutes they would rotate.

And, um, yeah, these seven guys were now exalted

as these important men in the OM community.

-Usually, guys that had plenty of money to spend on OneTaste.

-Nicole always seemed angelic.

She seemed godlike sometimes.

One thing Nicole would say very often

is OneTaste was her vehicle to God.

Leaving OneTaste was really difficult

because at this point, at Magic School,

I could not even have a negative thought about Nicole.

-So all of us were feeling this at once.

"I don't know who I am.

I don't... I'm in the middle of something.

It's not making sense, and I have to stay in it.

So I don't know what I'm doing next."

-It's confusing. Who are we outside of OneTaste?

What is our connection outside of OneTaste?

I don't know.

♪♪

-My name is Ellen Huet, and I'm a reporter.

It's hard for me to really say what Nicole's ultimate goal was.

It's a little hard to know what exactly happened.

The more I learned about OneTaste, I thought,

"Wow, this is a big story,"

and I was definitely interested in finding out more.

-With plans to further expand,

OneTaste leaders launch a media push.

-I think they were hoping that they would get some coverage

from more mainstream business publications

and that might help their business.

I was... I was pretty intrigued.

-But the more Ellen reaches out

to OneTaste members independently,

the more the story takes a turn.

-I was finally ready to leave OneTaste

and really told what was going on behind the scenes,

but I wasn't expecting a lot, because a lot of people

had written about OneTaste before,

and I felt like no one really understood it.

-The more people I talked to,

the more I heard the same pattern...

Having their boundaries pushed physically

or financially or emotionally.

This is a sign that something really wrong happened here.

♪♪

-After investigating for over six months,

the exposé goes to print in June of 2018.

♪♪

-I remember reading the article and almost crying

because it just validated so many experiences

that I had had in OneTaste

that I had never been able to talk about.

-I just started to, like, wake up,

and then it just kind of hit me like a tidal wave.

It was like, "Holy shit. This is a cult."

-I invested all my time and money

into these people.

I didn't care if I was going to see these people again

at a certain point because I was just done.

-I eventually decided I had to leave because there's no way

I was going to spend the rest of my life in... in OneTaste.

-Four months later, OneTaste rebrands

as the "Institute of OM."

It ceases all in-person classes and shutters its U.S. centers.

-Back then, it looked so clean and professional on the outside.

It's super weird to see it now, because it's, like, boarded up

and looks like an entirely different zone.

-If this Bloomberg article didn't come out,

OneTaste would probably have kept growing

and growing and growing.

Yeah, I mean, it changed everything for OneTaste.

-The rebranded group continues to deny any wrongdoing,

but now its activities are attracting

a different kind of interest.

♪♪

-I also started to hear from some of my sources

that the FBI was knocking on their door,

so they were calling them, they were showing up

at their doorstep and asking them questions

about OneTaste.

The FBI investigation is significant because there are,

you know, potentially criminal repercussions for the company.

You know, this could be a crime.

-The FBI declined to comment on

the status of its probe into OneTaste.

However, Ellen makes another discovery

centered around a grievance raised

by a former OneTaste employee.

-One of the most dramatic and tangible things that I found

was that OneTaste had, in 2015,

paid out a $325,000 settlement out of court

to a former employee who claimed that she had been instructed

to have sex with customers and with managers

and that there had been other labor violations

during her time at OneTaste.

And so seeing some of the allegations detailed

in the complaint was pretty intense.

It's definitely a case that other people in OneTaste

talk about a lot.

It was very serious at the time

and something that the company has, I think, really tried

to move past, but something that a lot of people remember.

-At this point, OneTaste is kind of dissolved,

so even if we have all this information,

I don't know if there's anything we can really do

to hold the people that did these things accountable.

-It's like it doesn't really matter how much, like, money

you get or if there's, like, resolution

or maybe legal action against OneTaste.

It's like... those events leave

a permanent scar on your psychology.

And I think there's nothing more damaging

than betrayal in that sense.

It's like... to have people you closely trust

stab you in the back.

-In the year prior to the OneTaste exposé,

Nicole sold the company,

allegedly for millions of dollars.

Nicole's current whereabouts are unknown

to most former OneTaste members.

-I don't know where Nicole is now.

-I'd heard various things throughout the years.

They said she's in Thailand, but then I talked to another person,

and they'd say she's in Marin, and, you know,

talked to another person,

they just think she's been in France.

And it's like... We don't know where she is.

-[Bleep] if I know where Nicole is. Bali?

-People were speculating that she went there

because Indonesia doesn't extradite to the U.S.

-I don't think Nicole Daedone is gone at all.

I think she's very good at hiding,

but I don't think she's any less present

in whatever they're doing now.

-When are they going to be held accountable?

When is Nicole going to be held accountable?

Like, there's no predicted, you know, place,

there's no set place that we know she is, and...

-It's like, I'm glad that we're in a situation

where we got out of this, but they just get to get away

and there's nothing they can do.

-In the wake of OneTaste's implosion,

former members of the group are reconnecting

with a shared mission.

-How do you pin them down? How do you hold any of

the people accountable that did all that [bleep]?

I think Nicole's hiding. - She's got a lot of connections.

She's got a lot of people who can help her out,

and she knows a lot of very powerful people.

So it's...

Who knows where she is, really.

-So maybe six months ago, um, I was scrolling through Twitter

and came across an article that Nicole was missing.

I kind of set to work trying to, you know,

find as much out about her on the Internet,

just sort of as a hobby.

-Though Nicole's trail has gone cold,

a tip from an independent writer

offers the most promising lead in months.

-So there's a Zoom call hosted by

the new organization,

and this story is far from over.

But I'm going to send you this photo.

So, she's in the lower left-hand corner.

It's a little difficult to make out.

- Oh, wow. - And the name is almost

cropped out, but you can clearly read that it says "Nicole."

She was present during a recorded Zoom call

with over a dozen former OneTaste executives,

people that are heavily involved in OneTaste.

-That's interesting.

Yeah, and I see so many familiar faces.

♪♪

Is this a new project?

-Every indication that I've gotten

is that they are involved

in a bunch of new organizations.

The most notable of this is a project

called the Unconditional Freedom Project,

and it's a jail ministry which is in North California.

-What are they doing? Are they visiting prisons or they're...?

-Yeah, they visit the prisons in person.

I've had no indication

that there's any sort of OM'ing or anything like that.

But the entire organization is essentially

ministering to some inmates,

the homeless, and other people in need.

-Oh, God. It's just... I'm so insulted

that they're continuing anything

because they are a toxic community

going after, like, vulnerable groups of people.

Really freaks me out.

-That may change with an upcoming FBI investigation.

Um, we don't exactly know when the results of that

will be released, so while that investigation

is happening, it seems like everything is sort of in limbo.

-She's still active, and they are still active.

They do Zoom meetings. Nicole's on them.

-If the FBI investigation continues

and, like, shit really hits the fan,

like, they can act like they're good people

doing all this, like, charity work.

-Yeah, it's the perfect cover, right?

-I don't trust, like, anything that they're up to.

♪♪

-Yes, I do think I was in a cult.

There were so many indicators looking back.

It became less about a group of people

wanting to understand and explore Orgasmic Meditation

into an environment created to coerce and manipulate.

♪♪

-OneTaste categorically denies being a cult

and refutes allegations that the organization

pressured anyone to stay in the community

or to take part in any activity against their will.

♪♪

-I think it's like an innocent kind of way

to look at things to be like, "Oh, she was just trying to draw

this community together to have them learn

a different way to connect with one another."

It seems innocent. That's exactly what they wanted.

That was like their way of cultivating us

to letting down our boundaries with everybody.

-OneTaste put me through the experience

of allowing yourself to be violated,

which I don't think is an experience

that anyone really needs to or should have in their life.

-My biggest regret is the amount of time

I allowed to be taken from me and my children

because of OneTaste.

Like, I... I chose wrong.

That's the hardest part of the whole thing.

The money. Whatever. It's money.

But the relationship with my children

is not as easily fixed.

♪♪

-For seven months of my life, I was part of a sex cult.

♪♪