Reflecting on the Cult Grift

So media Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast that you're listening to or like watching right now. I think like ten percent of the audience watches, but it's impossible to tell because streaming numbers are famously opaque. But you know what's not opaque? Our guest for the podcast today, the great Jamie Loft is here to help us finish the epic saga of One Taste, a Bay Area orgasm cult that went way too far Jamie, welcome back to the show. s So good to be here. I am famously translucent. It is nice to not be opaque H Yeah, I do wonder who's watching. but usually I feel like if someone is watching, they'll let you know and they'll let you know exactly what looks wrong about you. So I'll get back to you with with the numbers Good to know We also have on the podcast today our producer Sophie Liicherman who is not showing up through video because you don't need to you just need to justify that to you. You maniacs watching the show. You don't need to know why Sophie's not going to be on video. She's not. with it? Yeah, we don't need another subreddit about if I'm safe or not guys. Yeah. podcan listeners, you can just continue ignoring. twenty twenty six, I'm not of course I'm unsafe J me wre Are you excited to conclude this epic story? because we had a little bit of a break, a longer one than we usually do between the first two parts and the third. So, you know, I expect things have been building up edging, if you will as we wait for, you know, the conclusion here. I liked it did feel kind of like method podcasting that you sort of left me hanging on the edge of something thrilling for like ten days. and now I'm I'm ready to u what what is like Is enlightenment this feeling of knowledge coming? Like what is if knowledge is coming, what is that? That's enlightenment. Nirvana. It's interesting. They come to the longer one taste goes on, the more Nicole Dadone, who is again, like the leader of all this. gets everyone referring to orgasm as if it's like mana in like a like a like a role playing game or something, like your orgasm is low or you've got a high level of orgasm. your power your orgasm is powerful. So like your they refer to orgasm not as like biological thing that happens, you know, sometimes, but as like, This this mana p that you build up over time, both through like o womimming, through like receiving it, if you have a vagina or through giving, you know, o womimming, you build up your orgasm level. and it's almost like this mana pool that helps you gain powers. That's kind of how she thoughts. was time. And that's sort of what you were doing for us and for the right. I see That' right That's I wanted to raise your mana. Yeah One of my favorite things about cult stories is just like the moving goal posts And how you're like, oh, you thought that was coming. Well, actually there's a secret different kind of come that there is a huge financial barrier to ac It's part of this, like cults have to be all consuming. They have to like fill every space in your life. Colults don't want you to have like hobbies or, you know, outside stuff going on. So you know, if it's a cult like scientology where it's supposed to be all consuming, you've got this totally different way of looking at the world and psychology in the mind easier, but if you come in with like this really narrow focus like Nicole did where it's just about, you know, kindaingus basically, you really have to you have to get creative to make that all consuming ' most people just it's not an option to have oral sex all day every day for that to be like your only behavior So you really have to work to make that Ething. Yeah, you should never you should never start a cult around something that is free to do Right Yes. it's It's going get difficult quickly if people figure out they can come for free at their house. Although, you know, Jamie, people have always technically been able to come for free and yet one of the most reliable ways to make money is assisting them in that. So that's true. That's true. And I will say you cant say what all about Nicole, but she certainly has gotten creative with it so far. She's creative. She's creative I have never heard quite of this Yeah This is an IiHart podcast Guaranteed human This is Janna Kramer from Wind Down with Janna Kramer. So why do they call it a dishwasher? Well, don't worry, it's not a trick question or anything. It's just because it washes dishes. If the filter and the dishwasher itself are dirty, those dishes aren't actually getting clean. 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She uses his money to lease a warehouse. and Nicole mandates everyone's gott to live together. Now, we're all living in this fucking warehouse. This will be the first of two different warehouses that are like communal living spaces And initiallyice warehouses warehouse could mean something. They're in the bay? You know, it's off of what what's it called It's off of Folsom Street. So it's not like a it's an expensive area. like it's fairly expensive real estate. fromom the videos, it's like a warehouse, but not a bad one I have spent time in San Francisco warehouses that are living well, Oakland warehouses that were living spaces. This seems like one of the nicer ones, right? Okay. So around fifty people move in at first and they have to give up most of their earthly possessions to do so. Once they all live in the warehouse, clothhing, basically, most things are communal and borrowed or shared People will borrow and take each other's clothes. If you complain that someone's like takaking all of your clothes or taking your stuff and that you don't feel like it's equal, you'll be sort of critiqued or attacked for being too obsessed with attachments. Nicole starts having these she'll go through a couple of different names, but they're all there's these various different sort of group meeting structures that she'll do where everyone sits around in a circle and like critiques each other. This is all downhill from Sinnonon and the game that they played where everyone gets in a circle and insults each other. There's different versions of this, but it's a way radical honesty approach where it's like I'm actually I'm being abusive towards you for your self improvement Be I have a lot of clou work Yeah yep, yeah. So people who complain that like, hey, all my clothes have been taken by someone else will be critiqued as being obsessed with attachments. You don't want to be too obsessed with attachments. you know We're doing this for the betterment of humankind. you know, Why do you care that everyone's taking your shirts? Everybody sleeps. There's one giant central main room with like a dozen or more beds crammed together. like it has to be like twenty beds, twenty something beds for fifty people crammed together. And like between two and three people for a bed, it kind of seems like. I think it's usually couples, but it does at least from some interviews, it seems like some people are doing You know, thruppplles or forsoms too. Again, at this point, you've got a few dozen, maybe around fifty full time members who have like really devoted themselves completely to the cult and then a few hundred people in the Bay Area who are kind of taking their courses. Some of these folks are casual, maybe once or twice a year, they'll do a thing. Some of these folks are more regular, You know, they're coming in every month or even every week to do a variety, Maybe they're doing a mix of yoga some OM classes, whatever. And that's kind of how the cult is limping along at this point in times.. So weve fifty people like full time in the warehouse. Yes, full time, living together, completely committed. And then a few hundred people who are like paying money. and you wouldn't even call those folks cult members, right? 'cause the cult has a business side So it would be accur to say there's maybe fifty or some members and then a few hundred customers, right? think that makes sense for San Francisco Nicoult is not at this point financially self sufficient, but it is making enough money that Nicole only needs like donations from rich people to kind of seal the gaps. So periodically, you know, probably a few times a month, she'll be like, okay, we need X thousand dollars. so we've got to find one, two, three wealthy donors were willing to put in this much money. And generally what she's doing is kind of, hey, you remember you took this last class, We've got another one. It costs like five grand, but I know you're really attracted to this cult member. She'll be in the class. Don't you want to get right? That's kind of how This is and that's not quite prostitution, but that's like on the edge Right? Well, especially Yeah she has too much, she has all the power in that situation. And also I'm assuming that, you know, at least some of the timees she's lying about that. Oh ye for sure for sure. So yeah. so in a way, that is trafficking, isn't it? Yeah. there's definitely trafficking or trafficking adjacent to it's going get a lot more direct at this point. It's a little you know fuzzy. And she always framed this I'm still enjoying the idea of all of the like ike the few hundred people who are just sort of like one toe into the cult. I think we both live in cities where that is the case for about half of the residents. I'm like, yeah, I've probably go a cou a cou of times. Yeah. Yeah. A couple times a month, I'd probably go to a place that I'm gonna read an expose about in a couple years. I don't know easily. Like I said, I'm not a one hundred percent sure I haven't been to parties with like a bunch of one tasted people Look, because I got high a lot in the Bay Area around this time.. I mean, it's like we're never gonna move into the warehouse, but you know, not out of the question that maybe you've been to the warehouse. You don't I've a few've been to a couple of warehouses. You're an open minded guy. Yeah, ye, I'm an open minded guy. I love a warehouse, you know. I've maybe What have I done stand up at? Marbert Evans I love a warehouse. I love a good warehouse. I love a good warehouse. Yeah So and this is kind of so you know on one side, you've got Nicole reaching out to these folks who are like regular, wealthier customers. These are Bay Area tech bros generally who have a good amount of money. So she's got a list of these guys who she's like, okay, we need money. I can reach out to these dudes and maybe that'll bring in five or ten grand that we need. And then on the other side, within the cult, she frames this often as like a game where like she'll go to a specific member and be like, hey, so we're doing a class and it's a high dollar class. I'll give you a free ticket. But I'm going to have to parton you up with so and so because he really likes you you know, do you want a free class, right? And she would she would ask you to do her like a favor often for you, right O a favor for them. And so even outside of the classes, she's sometimes saying, hey, this guy needs, you know, I want to convince him to sign up Would you do me a favor? and favor is a a hand job generally. Usually when she uses that term, that means like I want you to jerk this guy off for me outside of the class now we're really now we're yeah, come on. No, this isn't so the line is been This is kind of and from a very early point, two thousand five six, she's regularly, it's not always, but she's pretty regularly crossing the line into prostitution, right? Well thiseds like certain Epstein tactics to me is like It's not just you're recruiting someone to go to a second location it's being trafficked to go give a hand job to get to a second location to get them into the class where they'll then be going down on you for an hour or for three days or whatever, depending on the kind of class that they're doing. Depending on how the warehouse you are. ye Yeah ye, how in the warehouse you are. And yeah, that kind of over time, this just becomes a major part of how one Taste gets by. Certain moneyied men will pay for group workshops where many of the other seats are taken by other people paying for seats, including women. There are women in the Bay Area who pay for these seats and they get paired up with these guys too But a decent number of seats and holes kind of if we haven't sold. Oh, there's twenty four slots in this. We only found fifteen people and most of them are men. So we need to make up the difference with a lot of young females from the cult, right? The ratio is off in the cult. Yeah. We gota get the r Right So by two thousand eight, the constant struggle to keep the lights on in one taste because again, they're never quite in the black has made had made Nicole desperate, right? She likes the lifestyle, but it's also not quite working. And there's I think she's aware of the risk. I think she knows, I've crossed the line already and we're still not profitable Maybe I should either leave or try to like sell off my position in the cult to a mark, right? So she starts wondering has this thing run its course? And just as she's wondering, like do I need to cancel or do I need to end things, a savior appears. And that savior is the New York Times. one of the reporters calls and here's I've heard there's this Bay Area company that's, you know, in orgasm classes and they're teaching people how to do orgasmic meditation sounds like a great story. And Nicole is like, come on by. we would love to have you. Now, I've quoted a couple of times in preious the previous episodes from that New York Times article And what I really want to emphasize to you is that this is a bad and irresponsible piece of journalism. The Times does not come in There's a couple of lines in there where they're like, some people say this is problematic and there's a couple references to they may be blurring some lines, you know regard' crazy to hear about the New York Times both sizing an issue in which there is a clear right side be. That's so interesting No They treat this like it's a cool tech company They treat this like it's between somewhere between that and like an interesting new, you know kind of alternative healthcare thing, like like cold plunges or something. It's very much written like that. or like when that dude was talking doing all those classes I'm like, I can be submerged in the cold. We did episodes on them for crazy periods. It's like that sort of thing where they're treating it like a fucking Malcolm Gladwell book. like Oh she made you know, Yeah, she says science tells us this about orgasms. you know, they're just trying to be more scientific. Right. That's how it's. these are researchers how like I mean the New York Times is its whole own iss But how like East Coast journalists often talk about like West cooast trends where they are just like, they're just kooky. They're just weird over there. Check out these freaks and you're like, no, those are sex criminals. No is bad Theyre wed a problem.ivuff. Yeah. And so as a result, the article winds up working as an advertisement for One Taste more than anything else. And it even features, they take photos of OM sessions of like women being stroked in and other like otherwise masturbated in these in these different clinic classes that go on, but like really work safe. So you'll just get like Sophie's going to put one on screen for those that you can see. And it's this like beautifully lit phot of just like the top half of a woman and she's she's like, it's it's reversed so like her head is facing down and so you can just see her head and she's got this like expression of ecstasy. She's wearing like a black shirt or something it has her hands like kind of folded across her chest and she's lit so that like it almost looks like her face, just her face is glowing. She kind looks like a vampire coming back to life. Wow little to have this picture taken of you. Oh my God. I the In the article, the framing of it, the title of the photo is inner Bliss at a one tasted Uurban retreat center, a resident practices or gasmic meditation partner not shown partartner and not shown. Yeah So first of all In the article, the Times describes Nicole as a literal quote sex diva And here's Sophia'll show you again,'s photo. Nicole's right in the center. This is her giving a class. She's like, well lit, seex Eiva. Nicole Don, One Taste founder says women will experience freedom when they own their sexuality. God, How proud was the writer who came up with the phrase sex diva that they had to write down? God, God. fuck It's an interesting photo to choose because it almost looks like a like Like a like a Ted talkalk Great Sophie P a pin in that So the article was a massive hit for One Taste. Suddenly journalists, including a lot of like local TV news journalists in the Bay Area, are crowding in to get the story on One Taste and most of them are covering it in positive ways. They're kind of beused. Look at this kooky thing. but it's like G no, like these are not generally wondering is this all like a sex cult that she's just like trafficking her members to rich tech guys in order to keep the lights on, right? That's not really asked, you know. And she's still like playing into the whole, I mean, what has kind of beenriking to me about a lot of the marketing we've looked at is that she's getting she's got the girl boss scam of like making it seem like this is good for women and women' center This is empowering there. this is empowering going with it. Yeah Be this is always framed as like, did you know, this very large percentage of women have never had an orgasm never had an orgasm with another partner,? And then from there to like, so that makes this a health issue, right? And that makes this And then there's all this like, and here's what we've learned about the health benefits of orgasm. And so there's always this like underpinning of actual statistics and actual stuff And as a result, it gets covered as if it's just part of the broad sort of body hacking, body optimization stuff that's going crazy in the auts. And so in very short order One Tase starts picking up some really like mainstream partners, Audible sponsors one of their podcasts. They have like an erotic poetry open mic night and like audible sponsors turning that into a podcast. They always, oh my God, every cult is trying to get stand up comedians in the door. someome of the worst people that come in your door There Oh the never forget. I came very close. I was nearly persuaded in twenty fifteen to go to a scientology open mic Oh, that would have been amazing They have refreshments, they have refreshments. It was really denting. Awesome. I know. man. I know. My career would be in a better place, I'm sure. I still have that time. That sounds great. Yeah. So Cult members were very active on social media and specifically like a lot of like local social media, like in the Bay Area. So there's a lot of like posts about like, was at this great house party? Here's some crazy pictures and you'll see these like giant cuddle puddles of a bunch of young women and like thirty percent of the cuddle puddle will be like shlubby, Bay arerea engineer looking dudes, right? These are all very much framed as being like, hey, are you like a nerdy guy with a lot of money who lives in the bay area and maybe he's not good with like women This coult There's lots of young women who are good to go. All you got to do is pay to take a class, right? That's very much what the messaging is to these guys. And a lot of new members are drawn in, a lot of new male members in particular are drawn in by posts from residents of the warehouse talking about these wild sex parties and you know these we're doing we've got a party and they'll throw parties like on the beach Here's a one taste party on the beach. Come on, like show up You know, people are being plied with drugs often at these events. They're being plied with sex to get them to pay for and come in and take classes and stuff I watched an interview with and I think this actually was from the Netflix documentary. I've watched a couple of interviews, but I watched an interview from one of these members who joins during this period of time. And this is like a middle aged nerdy engineer dude who discovered onene taste via these posts. And at first assumed his quote was like, oh, this either has to be fake or if it's real, they'll never have me Right? But when he showed up, he found out that he in fact had what they wanted most. One night, I was living on a boat by myself and the next I was living with like forty people sleeping in a bed with my research partner. I was like this nerdy tech guy by day and at night I'd go home and be in the middle of this craziness. And that's the appeal. You can keep being because they they don't want you to quit your job if you're like making a lot of money in the tech industry. You can keep being your nerdy tech guy by day, but you don't you get to actually be cooler than that. You got a secret life where you're researching orgasm magic with like beautiful young women and living in this like free love compound. And so your life is a lot more exciting than the other fucking engineers at Google or And the fact that all of this is because it's like the wish fulfillment thing is very clear. She couldn't have chosen a better location To find this particular kind of guy? No perfect. And also the Silicon Valley, but the Silicon Valley detail of corporate sponsors for the sex cult It's is. M Mhm. It's perfect stuff. And you know what else be a corporate sponsor for a sex cult Oh, I have a feeling I know products and services that support this podcast. Some of them may have been. We've had audible ads before. Like we've shared at least one advertiser with this sex cult. God. Let's to more than one, let's be honest Mm More than one, almost certainly Anyway God, what if it's what if it's what if it's an ad forredict pills? What if it's an ad forredict pills? It there's good chance it will be an. I know I know This is Dr. Joy from Therapy for Black Girls. If you could enjoy your spotless space without so much scrubbing, wouldn't you Of course you would. Well, I've got you The Daom Power wasash dish spray cuts through the mess and gets everything clean in half the time. 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It's like chess meets cardio, quick feet, quick decisions, and a satisfying beep when you score a point Kids, teens, and adults can start any time, no experience needed, and many clubs have loner gear Coaches teach fundamentals and safety from day one findind a beginner class for your kids near you at tryfencing. org. That's tryfencing. orgot We're back and we're all hoping that the ad you just heard was for Dick Pills. 'cause they do we do have some Dick pills sponsors. Wn't that be fun? Wouldn't that be a good time everybody. You know, comedy.. Comedy Love it. So Nicole spent the first few years of the Colt's life sharing spaces with everyone else. She's living there initially at the warehouse But after a few years, around two thousand ten or eleven, I think is kind of when this starts to happen U She decides there's too many demands on her retention. Now coincidentally, this is shortly after She starts sometimere in two thousand six or seven. Oft on seeing and then eventually dating seriously, this Silicon Valley entrepreneur and multimillionaire named Rese Jones, right? Now Rese this guy's pushing fifty. He's not in great shape, but he's just sold his company to Motorola for a shitload of money. So this guy has spent the first chunk of his life building up and he finally cashed out And he's like kind of over the hill and looking to recapture his like youth now that he's got a shitload of money. and he stumbles into one taste for the same reason a fly winds up in a Venus fly trap, right? It's made as a trap for this guy. Reese Jones, excellent name for an insecure multiillionaire C couldn have myself. Had to be a race. Yeah. hadad to Yeah. And just o God, yeah, the idea of conceptually, I feel like we encounter them all the time. A fifty year old guy that's like, you know, I think I'm ready to settle down. I think I'm ready I think're ready. I was like, wow, huge, huge. You've really just figured it out, haven't you? Yeah I think I'm ready to settle down with a building full of trafficked people.. So Reese, yeah One taste is losing money badly during most of this period, and Nicole needs a rich mark like Rhese to prop everything up. He gives them like a million dollars. He's absolutely critical to their survival during this period of time. So Nicole starts dating Rhese and this is going on from like two thousand six or so to like twenty eleven. And she's over this period of time spending more and more time with him less and less time at the warehouse around her members. She's going on vacations with him. She moves out of the warehouse and into a mansion with him because she decides that it's way better to live like a multi millionaire than to live with her colleagues at the masturbation store An another classic cult moment where you're like, and now the leader has decided that personal space does matter only for them For the leader. Yeah. Yeah. So from this point on, she no longer lives full time in the communal spaces with her cult members who are still technically researchers, but are starting to look a lot more like her workforce twenty eleven was the big shift year for One Taste, where it goes from being a weird self help cultty thing to a Silicon Valley body hacking startup Nicole publishes, I mean, and this is there's a couple of big moments that kind of delineate this shift from the past where One taste is very much like a descendant of these previous kind of orgasm woo cults that we'd talked about, right?. And there's not much to differentiate her from that until she publishes a book called Slow Sex, The Art and Craft of the Female Ogasm. and that happens like right as One taste is sort of maturing to be more of a service provider and more of like a body hacking thing than a we're researching you know, the future we're researching orgasm magic too, we're selling courses on on orgasmic meditation, right? As that shift happens, it's kind of signposted by she puts out this book that sells very well called Slow Sex. and it's framed as that a guide for both men and women and dedicated to quote, the orgasm, M each of us find ours now. Right? kind talking again of like of orgasm like it's magic. One of the bookjacket quotes for Slow sex is by Ian Kerner, a sexuality counselor and New York Times bestselling author of She comomes firstirst. Ian said No Slow sex is No dude No. Oh my. Slow sex is the real deal on pleasuring a woman for any guy who wantsces fifteen minutes of sexual fame toone offers practical and inspired guide to the orgasmic big leagues fifteen minutes of sexual fame. What The male feminist has clocked in. This is why more than one of my female friends has given me a taser Yeah. Oh there's a lot that's like just the Yeah, it's wow She comes first. Wow. She comes first. She tayses second and you get you you you really see a lot in terms of who the real customers are here because it's always framed as we're doing this for women. This is foreign by women But that quote is like Yeah, for any guy who wants his fifteen minutes of sexual fame, Do you want to feel like a big shot? You know to feel like you're the best at like sex and pleasure, right? Like you're a fucking sex god. Like that's what will'll make you into is that That's like really what one taste is selling This slow switch to an orgasm is not something that happens for women, but at them in this way that feels really like that u I don't know.ress It almost like it feels rememiniscent to me of like a Justin Baldoni playbook of like, I'm me respecting wom women is a business that I have And it is marketed at men, but it's for women and I just happen to be financially benefiting from it. Yeah. Sophie, I told you to put a pin in this, but the moment that most embodied the evolution of One Taste into Silicon Valley startup, was Nicole's Ted Talk Nicole D Done, Orgasm, The cure for hunger That spe. And Sophie's got to play you a long clip from this fucking Ted Talk that shows you how Nicole is pitching this to like a mass audience. This is her gearing her pitch to like the biggest possible group of people, right? So here is like the mainstream focused look at this Okay, se Diva. I just want to give it for the non Netflix Watchers. She's wearing what I can only describe as like o yuck Pak like Epress. It looks like twenty eleven in there. That's Exress blazer with like with like a with like a ooh, is this a tank underneath in purple Yeah,s a serious woman would never show her arms. So she's wearing a peaceful blazer. But a little bit of cleave is how, okay, sorry. So I figure we're ted, peopleople we're fast, we're savy we're smart. so I'm just gonna to break the ice first us, okay My topic is female Orgasm. He for blos God So that said, I want to thank the people of TEDEx for having me on this stage. This has been a dream of mine that I thought was absolutely impossible. That we could have a relevant, intelligent conversation about female orgasm was just a distant dream for me. I just fell in love with this practice. That's what happened for me. I gave nearly ten thousand hours to this practice. That's a lot of hours. A lot But I learned some key things in that time that I am bringing to you. The first is that female orgasm is vital for every single woman on the planet. The second is it's not so bad for the guys either The third and on a much more serious note, is that it roots our fundamental capacity for connection. It's for this reason that I believe But day at some point you will hear yoga to two women who let it so disinterested and orgasm. And you won't hear it. Yoga, meditation, and orgasm So in two thousand four I found One taste Urban Retreat centers with this ining. I think that's better O tasted ye. Yeah. Isn't that great Yes, girl, give us nothing. Oh my God. I love it. I love it. Oh that's peak twenty eleven Silicon Valley hype train nonsense. She's very much she's doing a steve job. She's doing a fucking Theranos. Shes she's really. tryrying to thread that needle and doing it very honestly, very successfully. this this pivot is great And you know what she was giving? she was like, I don't shop at Anne Taylor. I shop at Anne Taylor Lft. This but I really love this is I feel like a common feature of anyt time I'm like watching a Tedx talk for whatever reason that mentioning at the top, like I never thought I would make it here. When I can guarantee you any garden variety narcissist can get a TEedx talk. It is not it is not difficult I never thought I would email a fucking PR representative and show them, hey, look at how many followers I have on social media, can I have a TedX talk? I never thought God like an award and not what every hack and grifter in the aughts and fucking early twentyens did a fucking Ted talk. Like I think we can us olds remember when there seemed to be some prestige around TEed talkalk, But a lot of it was just a You know, a lot of it is how a lot of grifters grifted Particularly TedX, which is likeicularly TedX Yeah. Yeah. Soophie, it was reminding me so much of like how we were encouraged to dress in high school and college where like I'll look at a picture of myself at nineteen and be like, why am I dressed like I'm fifty years old? Why are I wearing business casual to the frash? Wh we all dressed in business casual I should have been dressing like a huge slut and it was just such a missed opportunity. I have the exact same regret, Jamie, But you know what? There's always time could do that I dressed as a huge slut for that period of time, which means I only wore Ed Hardy shirts. My pants, Ed Hardy shirts. My underwear, Ed Hy shirts My Ed Hardy shirts? Actually not from Ed Hardy. Oh anyway, that's the sluttiest thing a man could do at one time at one time. So Jamie and I are out here in our Anne Taylor Lw. That's right, just like older than my mother. There truly are pictures of me as a teenager where I think I look older than I do now. It's so bizarre. I got It was so weird to. I will find a pants suit p I mean, a like a little pant suitir picture that will ruin your day. There was a period of time, ye where we just thought that like everyone was gonna dress like Hillary Clinton, you know Yeah if only if only that had taken over. Hillary Clinton wishes she found this outfit that I definitely got from H and M on sale Yeah you know. So while Nicole was absent from the two different warehouses that her cult members lived in over the years, she was always present in spirit. And by that, I mean Nicole picked who slept in each bed. She had like a seating chart for beds in the commune spaces And she would decide who was sleeping with who and paired with who as a research partner And for all that Nicole, over the years, she would sometimes date women and she would portray herself and one taste is very queer positive because it's the As and the twenty teens in the bay and you have to Despite all that, One Taste's teachings and practice were very heteronormative and very much anti queer in a lot of ways. Well, even what how she was talking about sex and orgasms felt just yeah, like because she's ultimately her customers are men Yes, exactly, exactly So mean well, not, I mean, there are like she does have to get a certain number of like female customers buying in and getting into the ct because she needs to use their bodies in order to further the business. So it is true that and we've talked about this, right? Like in the last episode, I showed you, this was kind of the pitch is she's making it to a lot of these women U but it is they like the money part of the cult is entirely focused at selling to men, right? She has to sell one taste to women to get the workforce that she then basically trafficks to get the money from the guys, right? So there is kind of a two part aspect of it, I guess, which is important to see The name never gets easier to hear. I have to say. No it's always upsetting So as I was saying, men is very heteronormative, like the actual cult's teaching, and Nicole is like kind of a really anti queer past a certain point. Men and women are always pretty much paired together as far as I can tell. and Nicole would even break up existing queer relationships when people joined the group in order to pair them with opposite sex partners U because she doesn't think queer relationships are real. The bleakest example of this is probably the story of two One Taste members, Jamie and Caitlin. They are a lesbian couple who were drawn away hold on. I to tell you I tell you. I didn't think these are fake names. I think these are fake names that I believe ' I found this account from Ellen Hwitt's book Empire of Orgasm. I think she's using pseudonyms for these people, right? I think she's a Bechelcast fan. O she's a Or Bechelcast hater O want I don't this. These are sympathetic people. So Jamie and Caitlyin this Jamie and Caitlyin are a lesbian couple who get into one taste. They're like teenagers, they're young adult, very young adults and they're broke. And so they're both obviously interested in female pleasure because they're lesbians, but they also don't have any money. And so being able to live for free in the bay in this warehouse seems kind of rad As soon as they move in and again, they move in as a as a partnership, as a unit, Nicole tells them, well, this all is about exploration. We're all trying to grow And you're not going to grow if you just stay with the partner that you like and you're not going to grow as a queer woman, you can't grow by just having sex with the people you're attracted to You can only grow by having male partners, that's the only way to grow is a queer one, right? And so you should you need to experiment with your sexuality by letting men Oim you, right? And eventually by having sex with men public, a whimming is all that one taste is about. And in public, o whim is described in almost asexual terms because they really want to avoid the allegations that they're just trafficking and sex. But within the actual commune, people aren't just OMing two times a day in the morning and two times at night. They're being commanded by Nicole to have intercourse, right? When she's pairing people up for beds, those aren't just your OM partners. You're ordered to fuck them And so Caitlin and Jamie are paired with dudes in the cult, often with dudes, you know, maybe who have some money that are that Nicole wants to make sure stay, right? But they're told they have to fuck dudes to level up basically in order to like gain XP in this cult system in order to make your orgasm more powerful You have to do these things that you're physically uncomfortable with because you're not into guys. And I'm going Well at this point, are Jamie and Caitlyn as an ally to both. U A Are Jamie and Caitlin paying for this or are they quote unquote being paid in free logic. Like how what they're being paid, I think, mostly in free because a lot of members do pay, but a lot of the ones who don't are the women, especially the younger women and these two are broke. So I don't think they now it may be because they are getting some money when they're working for the company But it's very uneven and one taste will switch up what you're being paid at the last minute and often you're feeding that right back into the company. So to that extent, maybe they're being given money that they then have to yeah, I'm not sure how it works for every individual person. It's kind of out different for everybody, depending on your position and what Nicole is getting out of you rightight? But to quote from the book Empire of Orgasm, Jamie said that in courses, she heard a repeated message, All women are hungry for cock. If you're not feeling cock hungry, you're not connected to a part of yourself Right? This is very antiqueer Now eventually Both women start having sex with male members of the group. and this is psychologically devastating to Jamie, who started to feel like her desire for her girlfriend or the woman because they' they've been broken up forcibly by now, but the person who had been her girlfriend was wrong She convinces herself to push on because Nicole keeps teaching her resistance is key to growth and she really admires Nicole, and she also needs this place to live experiences, Nicole tells Jamie aren't good or bad for you experperiences aren't good or bad at all, you choose the meaning So if you're deciding that this is an unpleasant sexual experience, that's because you made a choice. You could choose for it to be a good one. Why aren't you choosing for it to be a good one Right Right. Yeah fucking abusive this logic is This is just like yeah, and all under and it still sort of falls under the like early twenty ten' definition of like being pro woman is I mean, you could even extend this to like Cheryl Sandberg logic of like it is your fault that you are feeling oppressed and abused and it is on you behave the right way to be exceptited in this environment And there'ss of all there's bits of the secret in there, right? You just have to change your attitude and you can change reality. you can see both how people don't necessarily pick this out as poisonous initially, but also how rununning with this logic, the Obvious instate of this is that like there's no such thing as rape ever. If experiences are not bad or good There can't be such a thing as rape. You are choosing to be raped if you're raped because you're choosing to interpret that as a bad experience. This is directly in those words what Nicole will eventually be teaching her followers, right? And that am so I know that's really bad. That is, yeah, that's fy horrific. It's soly, really horrific Oh God. and it's like that even in the way she's like the number of like pressure points she's attempting to attack is like she's sort of telling people to dissociate You're also telling them that like the failure to do so or the failure to feel pleasure where pleasure doesn't exist because it's abuse is a personal failure But it also sounds like she' like, well, if you don't like it, then just Pretend you' a person who likes it. Yeah, pretretend you're a person who likes it. Why Why can't you do that And you'll'll, yeah, I mean, yeah, we'll keep talking. So. In time, Jamie becomes a coach and she starts to see success in the organization. And this success, the fact that she's moving up the ladder, so to speak, validates is like the first she because again, this is a young queer woman who doesn't have a lot of life experience. who' I think had a pretty rough ground And so this is like the first validation she's gotten as an adult person. So she becomes extremely loyal, even though this is she's been horribly abused by this cult, which is a common cult story, right? Sure ye. then In twenty twelve, Nicole calls Jamie and Caitlin in for a little one on one And she informs them she's breaking up with Reese, the Silicon Valley millionaire who had kept the cult alive through its bad years, but she still owes him a lot of money from all the you know, because he's calling in basically, you know, the loans he'd given them. The amount of like discarded one taste guys at this point could like unionize She hasn't I don't fully understand the financials here She does not discard him. Some reports I've said suggest that she repays him by twenty twelve that she's repaid him for like the million dollars that he loans the Ct But that's when this is all happening. and that doesn't entirely line up with this because this suggests she's still getting some money from him in twenty twelve. I don't fully know. And I don't claim to know at which point was Rhese giving the Colt money, at which point was Rhese receiving money Whatever the case, at this point in twenty twelve, she still wants to keep Rehese in the fold, even though she's breaking up with him, right? Because she tells Nicole, I'm not going to I have to move to Los Angeles because I have important work to do there, which is she's trying to find more rich guys, right. But Rehese needs a handler and I've been his handler for the last, you know, several years And in my place, I need you two to be Reese's handlers so that I can move on to Los Angeles And here's how Ellen Hewitt describes what happens next paused Everything she learned up to this point had primed her to say yes to the position and to do so willingly, idolizing Nicole Becoming accustomed to having sex with men, and to having sex with any kind of man, getting off on any stroke, being told that she should provide anything to help the company. Plus, being asked to be Rehese's handler felt like an honor. Jamie knew that only a few women in One Taste's history had held the same position. They were often Nicole's confidants, an admired group. She also knew the unspoken threat. The consequence of saying no is that you would be ostracized, ignored, and stripped of all your power in that world, Jaamie said So I want to be clear, that last bit, the fact that if you displease Nicole, if you like wind up on the outskirts, you'll be kicked out, you'll lose everything that you've gotten from this world, that is something she directly tells people during lectures after everyone has experienced orgasmic meditation when folks are in you know this powerful cathartic afterglow She will tell them, this is a direct quote from one of her sessions. That's why this place is called One Taste. Once you've tasted being inside of yourself and knowing yourself, there is some part of your soul that will always crawl to get back. The truth is, if you get kicked out, your soul will never relax again She's very direct about this.. Yeah, I mean, and she's also like just describing chasing a dragon. Chasing a high. And one of the things when this becomes a cork of people say, no one was ever forced to have sex with anyone. No one was ever forced to stay and they weren't. They were just heavily coerced and basically told that life will be like a gray coloress hell of an experience if you get forced out of this group because you won't fuck this rich guy, right? All right, you're like, well, yeah, maybe then in that case, we should expand the definition a little bit. By twenty twelve One taste has totally come around to becoming like seen as a tech startup to fashioning itself that way. Her followers in public face and communications are talking less about all the crazy parties and a lot more about how Nicole is like a philosopher, but also like a Steve Jobs figure, right? What is she selling though? actly. Or has power magic God, okay I guess I guess it's at least we're not having children overseas manufacturing our guesss. Sure. Sheeses. In the years after twenty twelve, you know, One Taste finally gets into the black, right? It had been struggling. It had been utterly reliant upon these like infusions of cash from these rich dudes. And that's not really the case. I mean, kind of after twenty twelve. it's profitable after twenty twelve. The money is still coming from like rich guys were paying for sex, right? Sure. But not one richich guy Not one rich guy and not her saying, hey, I need a loan. and it's her instead selling courses to these guys, right? So it's no longer loans. L like it is a profitable business after this point, in fact, a quite profitable business. One Taste not only repays ReES, but it starts to succeed on its own, raaking in millions a year, and they do this. They make this switch in large part by copying something Nicole had seen from the yoga industry During the first part of the twenty first century, a lot of yoga studios begin offering teacher training. Now this qualifies somebody to teach a different kind of yoga. Most attendees who do teacher training don't become yoga teachers because there's not that many yoga teacher jobs. And so it's often they're doing it for self improvement. It's being pitched as like, oh well, you take the teacher class because it makes you that much better Right? And these your expense and there's and I'm not if you do if you like that's fine, right? Whatever. There are some cults within yoga, but also it's fine to pay money to get better at a thing that you like to do, rightight? I'm not I'm not shitting out of nice to receive a gentle touch from a beautiful woman. This is what I mean when it's like we all got our toes in the cult. Right. a little bit. Pace So she takes that idea and moves it over to one. So she starts selling teaching courses. And this is like, this will certify you to teach OM and to do classes of your own, right? And there's often more advanced because there's inless layers and inless. every teacher always wants to be. You have to be up on the latest thing. So every year there's a new class about the stuff that you have to get to stay certified. and it's another five to ten thousand dollars, right? These are multid day courses. Again, these a lot of these are hugely expensive And I'm assuming that the teacher the teacher training also includes abuse Well, yeah, I mean, yes, like that that like big Yes Now, Nicole had offered a coaching program since twenty twelve, and this is takes off. It's successful. they make money of it. So increasingly One Taste pours all of its efforts into either hosting coaching classes or selling them. Right? They recruit a huge crop of students in twenty twelve. and eventually they are going to license or whatever more than thirteen hundred people as OM coaches, each of whom have paid probably well in excess of ten grand to get to that point, right?. In some cases, much more The company starts turning a profit in twenty thirteen, and before long they are making a surprising amount of money. Nicole begins bringing in celebrity guests to provide a sheen of legitimacy. They start doing cult events. They have these like one taste mastery for which are like these big, you know, they're these confferences and stuff for the One taste family, for all the people who wear coaches because now there's one taste houses in different states they're starting to fill up and people are doing classes outside of the Bay Area. So they're doing these courses and she's hiring celebrities to like talk to everybody at the start of these like three day and five day events for one event in twenty thirteen, She hires doctor Jocelyn Elders, the former attorney general who tells students, you are part of a new sexual revolution Great. Thank you, Jocelyn. Why don' I'm sure she just cast the jill away It is always wild hearing these celebrities that you that cult manage to bad for things like this. good it's a good reminder that people are desperate for attention and refuse to do even a basic level of research Of course not, that's offensive. So I want to show you guys an example of an ad for One Tastes Mastery prorogram, which is one of their like really advanced you know certifications. So Sophia is going to play that for us now. Looks like the masterclass logo. I was gonna say That was a very tech logo Master cllass, master, something else in how to open your sex life It's a way for you to research what your actual boundaries are. What's that way you sleep I like to make sure that my whole mouth, my whole tongue sex without boundaries.very is the worirding That' upetting. And it' takeakes sex to a whole new paradigm. I learned how to slow down and actually feel everything that's happening versus constantly being in my A said Yes It was one seion, only aware of the place that it was part of Great. Looks great B. I love that one of their quotes is Sex with the battery trees? No There's at least have threeree phrases present in the advertising that could better plausibly describe assault. Yeah. Energetic engetic sex also feels kind of like a le. Also with all of you I mean, I guess somethingomething that It like feels like a big other than like the techification of this sex cult. It's like been decades since this has been accessible to anyone who doesn't have an insane amount of disposable in. because like the original is going to be trafficked, right? Yeah. Right. where it's like the the the earlier sex cults were likeike at least You could be you could be trafficked as someone who doesn't have a lot of money laying around. Yeah. R. Yeah, the cuts to rooms full of white people with bad haircuts really does kind of pull it all into focus of like What's going on here? God, that's so bleak. It' feel really Yeah Yeah, isn't that remarkable It's so MLM me. It's so Yeah, I it's really upsetting to me. It's upsetting like again, coming out of like the sex positive, you know community, the kink community The idea that anyone could hear the phrase sex without boundaries and not immediately be like, Wha! Wait a second, what are you talking about? What do you mean by that Because that's a dangerous phrase Right. and it feels so That's why it' like going back to the New York Times article, like it's so clearly preying on people who don't have basic a basic understanding and it's just how they imagine like Non vanilla seck to work. Right, Non vanilla sex to work video really, really, really reminded me of Nxiom Yeah, very similar. And I didn't catch this until right now, but honestly, that's part of what's most upsetting to me about all of this is that she's almost set this up to be like a fllyieswb in between people who like are know that they want more out of like sex than they're getting, know that like maybe what they weren't educated, know, they didn't get a good enough educating like what sex could be. They want more out of like their relationships than they feel like they're getting. And there is like a sex positive, a kink community where people like aren't trying to like just take your money and abuse you where you can like learn stuff like that if you're into that. and she's created like the spider's web in front of it to ensnare people, but in a way that is very much different because like if you were to like every kink commute every kink event that I have ever been to And a lot of like education and that starts with boundaries and boundaries setting. And the importance is not sex without boundaries. The important is knowing what your boundaries are and having ways to make sure everyone else knows them and that you're communicating them and that you can like that's what's important. Like it's so Fucked up create this thing that is meant to almost like St in between that and people who are curious in order to ensnare and be That isn't very much what's happening Hey, Jamie, is Barb being naked behind you Barbie naked behind me. No, she's wearing a painted on bodys suuit. Yeah. Oh, Okaykay, great. I was just making sure I used to use her on stage, but she does have a bodysuit painted on the doll Great. Great Thanks for trying Robert Robert Now that I have checked in on Barbie, it is time for an ad. Yeah, we should do an ad break This is Dr. Joy from Therapy for Black Girls. If you could enjoy a spotless space without so much scrubbing, wouldn't you Of course you would. Well, I've got you Dawnpower wasash dish spray cuts through the mess and gets everything clean in half the time. 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Find a beginner class near you at tryfencing dot orgot That's tryfencing d. orgot AirTasker knows your plate is full plates actually, and they're all spinning I need the driveway repaavved and my miniature pony's nails done. Post your task at airtasker. com or download the app Air Tasker, get anything done And we're back So I just just sort of closing the loop on talking about where I feel like truly king communities are our best communicators. and it makes me really sad. like you're saying to see people who are seeking something out and then very likely getting scarred to the point where sex at all is going to be defefinitely traumatized Jum But at least they were parted with ten thousand dollars in the process. Yeah, at least that happens, right? Yeah. so u As the most expensive courses went from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars, and the big money started rolling in, much of what the early members had loved about life in the cult changed. The clitoral massages were still a part of life there, but members now were not called researchers. In fact, there's like a big announcement that like, you're no longer researchers. You're now employees And now in fact, most of you are salesmen. Most of you are like doing calling, right? L your job is to call people and try to get them to take classes, right? Like that's the new business is selling and teaching classes. You're no longer, We did the research, We figured it out, right The experiment's over So they moved to a new warehouse, which has semi private rooms. And yeah, everybody's salespeople now. In order to justify this change, Nicole tells her followers, The universe is made of love. Sales is love. Therefore, the universe is made of sales Okay, honestly, based on the level of cruelty and evil she's capable of, she's half assing it with this one. She's half assking it. That's lazy. That's lazy. I'm sorry If if sales is love and love H Really, Nicole, That's what we're going with, huh?. Now it's a measure of her charisma that no one leaves on the spot after hearing that. S One of Nicole's most valuable members and employees during this period is a young man named Said who first gets drawn into the group because he was in love with somebody. He goes to like a class and he falls in love with someone who lives at the warehouse named Maya And he basically tells Maya hey, I' got a crush on you. and she's like, well, if you're into me, the best way for us to hang out is for you to take more classes here. And eventually he winds up moving in. Now, Said is a really conventionally attractive guy, right? And he starts being used as a lure by Nicole and Rachel who's like her head of sales, this woman, Rachel, and like the other people running the co Said Both is like maybe a way to get off themselves. but also here's a really hot guy. We can use him to bring in both. Tod women that we want to work and join the cult, but also maybe older women who have money to spend on expensive classes, and they want to be paired with this hot dude, right a separate part of internal one taste culture, as I've said before, these like circular meetings where people will, you, one way or the other, the purpose is for you to get insulted and mocked and deerighted and have like a cathartic experience, right? So people will sit around and ask nic whole questions and she'll answer them and like coach them and say, this is what that question tellld me about you, right? During one of these sessions, she focuses on Said and she as Why do you think so many of the women here like being paired with you, Said? And here's how Ellen Hewitt describes what happens next. Because I'm willing to violate them, he started to say. A murmur of surprise shot through the room. As Said remembers it, and then the students started cheering. He was cut off, but he had wanted to say, I know how to violate them in ways they want, to take them to their edge, but I also don't make them feel taken advantage of or left empty or not held afterwards. All he got to though, was violate. After that, everyone started calling him the violator An onene taste executives decided she would call him the fucker. says a lot. both that this they love that term because they love the aggression. That's a bigger and bigger part of it is that like aggression is good. Some violence is good, right? Sex without boundaries. Yeah That is That is not how I thought that anecdote was gonna go. Nope. that is really. I thought I genuinely thought it was going to be people who were get becoming uncomfortable interjecting and being like, yeah, that is what it feels like. But's doubling down and saying like so we're just deep enough in at this point where it is sexually violent and we're andm I'm shocked at how willing they are to say it They're willing to say it. and the craziest thing to me is at least if this is being reported accurately by Hewitt, and I have no reason to believe it's not.ure. The violator is the one being violated here. Right? Be after Nicole hears this, she loves this as a branding thing and she uses Said as she starts calling him their hook Literally they're a hook. because he will pull women into the company's classes and gatherings and there's a lot of women who like are you know, maybe want to explore that kind of thing and maybe want to explore some more aggressive stuff. Said doesn't want that though. He doesn't actually like being the violator. He doesn't like being called in to do all of these like violent and aggressive Sex acts in order for Nicole to make more money, but she keeps telling him to go do go be the violator again, go do that this other we've got this other woman who wants it and is willing to pay if you'll like spend some time with her, right? And Nicole keeps asking him to go further and further. She assigns him to have sex with a one taste executive named Emma who thought the violator sounded hot And she starts using him to rev her up is her words before speaking events. So she'll make him come in and masturbate her and then she'll go out to like give a speech. On another instance, one of Nicole's top lieutenants, Rachel, who's also ordering Sae to have sex with her periodically, orders him to have sex with another female cult member. He refuses, and Rachel calls him an ungrateful petulant brat, and shouts at him and gets everyone else in the compound shouting at him until he agrees to go upstairs and do it . he's not forced to have sex exactly. He's just berated and mocked and ostracized when he doesn't. right? He is forced to have sex. He is be. I would say he is be, But like but in terms of the people who defend this will be like, well, he could have left. He was a big guy. Why didn't like no one stopping him, right? Be there's not. It is wild how, I mean how Nicole is, you know doing classic. Like she she's going fld Darvo and and then like I mean, like all calls like that there, it seems like a lot of why this is working is not only is she preying on, you know, probably his masculinity. alsoso that Barating is a part of the culture. so no one would flinch at someone being barated that is a part of it. And it's celebrated Yeah, she talks a lot about people needing to have sharp scalpels and that she celebrates that we all have sharp scalpels, which means we're good at cutting each other. It's good to cut each other. We need to do that. It makes us stronger These are this is Nicole's literal language, right? You just want like someone in the room to have a moment of lucidity about like so what is the goal? No Yeah Yeah we start doing this It's Yeah God, that is that's really I mean, it's pretty bleak. Yes, Yep U So like a lot of one Taste cult memb, Saed is also queer. he's bisexual. and at one point he admits interest to a man to Rachel and she allegedly calls him the F word and forces him out of her bed. So again, this is a very like queer phobic anti queer environment too, for the people living in it By the late twens, One Taste was more profitable than ever and had transitioned entirely to depicting itself as a Silicon Valley startup. People who had once been researchers exploring the frontiers of desire and sexual power, are now operating a call center, spending days at a time awake, struggling to hit aggressive sales targets. Nicole successfully convinced many of them that selling and buying courses was the infinite game. She talks a lot about games, right Coming out of these other cults, right? Yeah infinite growth ' we're in Silicate Valley. ' that's Silicon Valley. And anything was justifiable as long as you had to keep the game going, right? per an article in Bloomberg ote, One Tase taught members that money is just an emotional obstacle. It encouraged students to take out multiple credit cards to pay for courses, and some turned to such sites as go fund me and prosper funding for help The first time I didn't cover my credit card bill, it broke something in my mind, says Ruin Mipalaga, who went to his first onene Taste event in twenty twelve at age twenty four, worked for the company for about two years and left owing thirty thousand dollars on his credit cards. I was no longer afraid of debt, he says. Once you break that barrier, three thousandll is the same as thirty thousand. At one point, Mipalaga complained that he and his coworkers hadn't been paid in two months He says he was publicly shamed for having a scarcity mindset Oh, another hot button phrase that's conantly misused. Nice loveove it three thousand is very different than thirty thousand. Very much so. My guy now. ten times Three thousand actually I don't know. It's mindset, sohie. None of if it's real money and you're like in an LLM, you're always being told, what's the big deal? You're gonna to pay ten grand. This will make you so much better. It will open you up. you'll make that much, so much more money than that. Like whenself fully, right, right. It's an investment, you know art that Bloomberg article was published by Hewitt, the author of the Book Empire of Orgasm in June of twenty eighteen She was not the first reporter to write critically about One Taste, but she was the first to write critically about One Taste and have it matter. The vast majority of mainstream reporting on the company, as it was generally described, was bemused but open minded. In fact, if you want a really good study in journalism versus PR, you should read that first two thousand eight New York Times article, The Pleasure Principle, and then Hewittz article Now I think the best example of this is how the Times wrote about Vic Bronco, the Forehouse founder. that's like one of the earlier orgasm cults. This is the guy who liked to crush women's vaginas with his hands when he was in a bad mood. Here's how the time described Vic Morehouse's founder, Vick Baronco was a former appliance salesman who called his philosophy responsible hedonism. By some accounts, mister Barronco, who died in two thousand two, used coercive techniques of mind control It was a huge ego crushing machine, as any valid monastic tradition is, said a man who lived at Morehouse for more than twenty years and did not want to be identified. And like, that's all you guys had about Mh really, that's all you had. The New York Times. That's all you needed to say about them, you thought I The New York Times is stand out for this, but it's God, I mean, it's a lesson that no one ever seems to learn and even I mean, that's amazing that the article that came out eventually did because that had to probably be hard to get through like you just have to have an editor that actually cares about stuff in order to get that done. I don't know. I I'm sure we all have like I have like Th Los Angeles cult adjacent things that you're just like, well, I guess we'll just see if a journalist man get it through at some point. but it's that's thankfully one did, right? Huan did, you know. And not only for this article, she get dozens of brutal accounts inside life of life inside one taste, accounts that the times could have got some of them at least, the times could have gotten Um, but not only do that She forces One Taste in this article to address the worst allegations of abuse. Vlan Vleck, who is the CEO of One Taste in twenty eighteen, admitted to her, We took money from people that we shouldn't have, right? So she even gets just within the article before the backlash to it. she gets them to like, oh, yeah, you know what? this lady has our number enough that we have to cop to some shit So by the late nineteenens, one touch had spread to a number of other countries. This started with Nicole ordering specific offices opened first in New York, and then in Austin, LA, London But also, there's a bunch of independent one taste houses that are being established all over the country P the book, Empire of Orgasm. Almost five hundred one day students would live in thirty three different OM houses. This informal network mimicked the way many Silicon Valley tech startups were metastasizing rapidly from city to city. Uber, Lyifft, Instacart, and other on demand companies prided themselves on blitz scaling and operating with little overhead or liability. To avoid getting dragged down by employment costs, the startups hired drivers as as independent contractors and required them to provide their own cars and equipment Similarly, many of Jue's sales workers were independent contractors paid on commissions It's all the Silicon Valley Grift, right? Yeah, it's a classic drift and it's kind of a creative grift in that there is actually no real product. L the overhead couldn't be lower because what you're selling is salt Hm Yeah Speaking of that When Nicole had established the second warehouse commune, you know they move out of the first on Folsom and into another one. This is the one that has like semi private rooms, which seems like a positive move. But when they move into this place, Nicole makes it be the rule that none of the bedroom should have locking doors And after this point, all of these OM house franchises around the country abide by this rule to disastrous effect Periodically, throughout this long journey, Nicole and her top lieutenants would experiment with broadening the curriculum On several occasions, they attempted to create male versions of the clitoral stimulation workshops, right? where you're trying to teach people how to Give a hand job really well, I guess. And this never works out as a business. Nobody for some reason noobbody wants to take hand job classes It's just so totally funny. It's totally funny. No one interested at all in the Dick version of this. If you tried to tell people that like no, the penile orgasm is actually a sacred and magical, get the fuck out of here. Get the fuck out of here. No like not You can't sell that. I'm sorry nobody No, that's too free. That's too free. You cannot. So if dudes are so screwed up, the only way to make money in that for ways is to make people stop coming. Like you can convince people there's magic in never coming, right? But you can't convince people that like a dick is magic. It's just not. it was We would know by now. we would certainly know A, so pad. Okaykay It's very funny to me. And the reason Hewittt Gibbs, for I like these classes never take off is that One Touch's ability to recruit young women both to pay for classes and to provide the sexual labor crucial to the organization focusing doesn't work They're less interested if there's also hand job classes. That makes this seem like something else If it's all focused on just peopleeople with vagin is being massaged, right? And if that's the only thing that's happening, you can convince yourself this is like really women led and like women positive. If like there's also jerk off classes, that doesn't work. That's just not a good sell. And so the jerk off classes is being completely unprofitable. incidental. Super funny. That's so good. So lot like a lot of these people are comfortable being massaged, taking an OM because they're being told the men are not getting any sexual gratification out of this, right? So if you add any kind of male sexual gratification classes in there, even though a lot of men are getting gratified, that's kind of how the money is being made, you have to hide that stuff So earlier in the episodes, we talked about a guy named Ken Blackman. He was a former member of the Wlcomed Consensus orgasm cult who once punched a lady because he had been taught that violence was a kind of honest communication. Nicole eventually recruits this guy as a teacher because she knew him at the Welcomeed Consensus. and because she's reintroducing a lot of these welcomeed Consensus curriculum about like violence into the One Taste curriculum. And she changes the way they frame it. and her her words, the way she describes this, the term she likes to use is skillful violation. and skillful violation means that You know it's better for someone to push through their boundaries. Even if they say no, So you don't Listen to the know. You violate them even though they say no, because you're skillful enough to know that they actually need to have their boundaries violated. Right? Here is what you're opinions are on this like Is why is it escalating towards such absurd ioliol there's nowhere else for it to go. Right. It' it just escalating it to like how can I retain control? and eventually it just becomes fear tactics That's right. If you're honestly trying to help people be more sex positive or like teach them kink stuff, there is a point at which and it's a pretty quick point at which people are just kind of good to go on their own. You know, they don't want to go to like parties or events or like take specific technical classes on how to use whatever whip or a fucking St. Andrews cross or whatever. but you don't they don't need to keep paying money to a group. they don't need to keep listening to a guru. You kind of give people a basic and they're good to go. if you're not gonna to do that. in order to keep them following, you have to constantly have more new curriculum and eventually that's going to wind up in some really dangerous directions, right? And for one taste, it ends in skillful violation. And she Nicole justifies skillful violation being a thing by teaching that only twenty five percent of human communication is verbal Right? Trained OM experts learn how to read the non verbal seventy five percent of communication's which I'm sure you don't even realize what you' think or what you want., sure sure. So a skillful violator is someone who's been trained enough to be able to read someone's real desires and then be able to force them to experience those Right? att their annual conference OMX one year one t staff wear shirts with penetrate written on the front. No Great stuff. No. In twenty thirteen, a member of an OM house in Austin posted on OM Hub, the Colt' Internal Social Network and claimed that a man had repeatedly entered her room and sexually harassed her becausecause again, the doors don't lock This blows up internally. This is like a causes problems. People saying, shouldhouldn't we be able to lock doors? Who was this guy? Should he even have been there? This seems like a problem. And initially, Rob comments internally and apologizes and says like, we'll get right on it But after that, a bunch of Nicole's lieutenants come in. and I think this is actually racial who comes in and is their due damage control. And one of her lieutenants posts, as a woman, the easier thing for me to do is say I was violated. That way I don't have to look at my part in it Oh, okay. G. Okay. Your part She was in a room that won't lock. What was her part Lake It is insane how regressive it gets Yeah. it getess. Okay Now by this point, Nicole has added a section to her coaching program lecture, where she claims to have seen a twenty thirteen study from somewhere which research in which researchers studied rape victims to see how they'd healed afterwards. And Nicole claimed the women who recovered were the women who took responsibility for the action Right Okay. So this is part of what she's teaching This becomes an increasingly important message for the Cult because in twenty fourteen, a sales meeting was called, and one of Nicole's representives told the company, It's really important that we not break any prostitution's laws while selling courses and attendees say like, oh, That was a moment where I realized they're kind of telling me to prostitute myself, but just not to talk about it that way. othertherwise they wouldn't have brought that up at all. Now, Nicole increasingly lectures about how sexual trauma is the result of not wanting sex enough. And as she taught, if you change your mental state thecept one that accepts sex is always a positive thing, you literally can't be raped. And while she gave these courses, she would talk about how she was sexually abused as a child and explain the only way I healed is that I accepted I had actually caused that situation by coming ono him and also that it was a good thing Right? That it made me more powerful Likewise, if someone expressed a fear or a phobia related to sexual trauma, the solution was to embrace that trauma and find a way to enjoy it. People are encouraged slash forced to participate in rape and bondage play because they'd been raped or subjected to intimate partner violence. As Nicole said, the places you hate are your practice. They're actually your biggest gift They're the places where you get free this line of bullshit it's deeply fucking depressing because it's like not only practicing dissociation through being actively abused. But again, going back into like all of these she's capitalizing on these popular narratives about Cink. by like suggesting that you would only be interested in this if you've experienced extreme trauma and enjoyed dissociated it. Like it's just so it's such horshit. This is so dangerous. It's really bad Yeah. U In twenty sixteen, the company made nine point four million dollars. Gwyneth Paltrow praisise them openly. They do some like goop stuff. Chloe Kardashian hestly about it took that long Tim Ferris does like a podcast thing about them, you know? At the most advanced stage of the grift, one taste was breaking into the mainstream, or at least the mainstream part of the Woo self help world while the public facing part of the company was very much in line with the body modification, self optimization, Bay area culture of the era That's not what's actually going on internally. And inside, there are ongoing experiments that are like verging on occult nonsense. At one point Nicole starts initiating priests of OM and selling like fifteen thousand dollars classes where rich guys can participate in these like drug drenched sex magic rituals and get like certified as priests And I think Nicole's idea because this is this never fully turns into anything. I think the idea at one point was that if this is successful enough, if enough guys are interested, if this proves to have legs, maybe we can apply for tax free status and call ourselves a religion. right? I think Nicole was like exploring and just doesn't quite get the chance to live this grift out. I mean, she is committing enough sex crimes, I think, to qualify as it religion? Yeah. Yeah. you know as well at that point.s She's committed enough crimes to be a religion.. So she is getting much more reckless with everything as the years go on. I found at least one account from a former member who claims Nicole plied these rich tech guys with drugs at these high dollar classes. And you know, these are not only are they basically paying to get into an orgy, but like at one point this one member says Nicole specifically doses a dude with a bunch of LSD try to convince him to donate another two hundred fifty thousand dollars to the company. right? So that's part of what she's doing. I'm honestly shocked at because of how modern this story is that there is no It doesn't seem like any member of the cult who has that there's been no significant whistle blowing incident. Not by this point. Not yet s have come out. But yeah, that's not going to happen until twenty eighteen when Hewitt puts that article out Yeah, but Because the men with money are so core to everything happening here, Nicole's teachings trended towards explaining how it was good for men to be angry and controlling to women. She called this letting out your beast and praised it Everyone was increasingly encouraged to be brutal towards each other, to cut each other up with their skillful scalpels. Nicole also praised intimate partner violence, most of which seems to have been man on woman Women who were beat by their partners were told that they had caused the situation by goading his beast or not understanding his beast enough If they sought to escape abusive situations, they were insulted from fleeing it from his beast rather than meeting it with love