Media Perception and Final Thoughts

So media Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast where we have uncomfortable conversations about sex and sexuality and the nineties, the Bay Area and the early two thousands. It's gonna be awkward for everybody. Hitting a lot of quadrants, hitting a lot of important quadrants there. Hitting a lot of big cues, big cues, a lot of Robert cues Jamie Loftist, our wonderful guest, back in the saddle again to talk about the orgasm Colts. How are you doing, Jamie? It's great to be back in in the medical saddle that makes you come Oh, okay. well yeah. I was like sad a weird choice today, buddy. Okay. Look, we're all struggl. I gott to say not sound like It's it's weird, especially like Again, this is all so adjacent to like things I've done and were a part of my youth, that it's really kind of weird to me. Like the reaction everyone else has to like the and then they're doing like public sex demonstrations in front of crowds of people's like, no, I've been doing a bunch of those actually. Yeah, there's a lot of fine people at these events Mhm. There's good, you know, I We did we had one we did an event one year where like the theme was because there's different one every year, bad idea. And so like my roommate who is a lady and is a bit older than me. I think she's like thirty, wanted to do like a demo on like how to use like different like safe sex objects and stuff like that because it's like a big five day camping trip where a bunch of people are having sex And she was like, well, there should be an option for people to learn that. in addition to the weird kink camps that teach you how to use like a fucking S. Andrews cross or a whip or whatever. The problem was that the structure we had for it this year was also made to kind of meet the theme of a bad idea. So it was a big like pyramid tint shade structure thing with like a huge bed thing at the bottom, but the top was like a disco ball that we had made by cutting up hundreds of pieces of glass and putting them into like a paper mache ball. and they were just kind of glued on and it's like a hundred degrees. And so as it heats up, as people are like cuddling or doing the safe sex demonstrations or whatever in there Pieces of like jagged glass are just like falling down. And we'd put up like a tiny little net to catch it. But again, it's supposed to be a bad idea. So we didn't wanna protect people too much. We just made sure people were warned. By the way, it rains glass inside inside the. This sounds like a saw trarap. What are you talking about Very few people got cut. It was a really nice week. It was a really it all at jigsaw's tracks. We were wrong. It was a good time and there were like maybe four to five stitches required as a result of the shattered glass disco ball It was a great week I had a really good time I got bad idea tattooed on my fingers because of that week. It was great. Wow. I got electred twice from. dead I was like the lore drop at the end I nearly killed a man with a flamethrower. It was an awesome week. U Wow. accccidentally got Tarantina, let's move on. This is an IiHart podcast Guaranteed human Is Jenny Garth from I Choose Me with Jenny Garth History is full of mysteries. Like how people ever survive before modern laundry detergent? Luckily, Tidee's here with boosted stain fighting for cleaner, whiter, brighter, and fresher laundry versus tide simply. No wonder it was America's number one detergent in sales last year. If it's got to be clean, it's got to be tide. Tidee is a proud sponsor of the Eltonjohn Impact Awards, honoring those who have helped shape a more inclusive and compassionate world artistry, advocacy, and unwavering commitment to equality. You won't want to miss the Elton John Impact Awards podcast available on june first on the IHart Radio app and everywhere podcasts are heard Let's talk about Payroni's disease, or PD. It's not widely talked about, and some men may feel reluctant to bring it up, but it's more common than you'd think. PD can happen when scar tissue builds up under the skin of the penis, causing a curve with a bump during an erection that for some men may lead to pain during intimacy and impact mental health A trusted urology specialist can help diagnose PD and walk you through your options, including non surgical treatment. Visit talkaboutpD. com Lugging for something new? Try fencing, the Olympic and paralympic sport that mixes speed, strategy, and fun. 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So If you type the words welcomeed consensus orgasm, which is the remember the group that kind of descends from the Moorehouse community, the welcomeed consensus, If you type those three words into Google, as I did You'll be presented with the Amazon page for a video titled Delliberate Orgasm, expanding female Ogasm volume one. It currently costs one hundred thirty two dollars on Amazon Two point five yards. fifeen reviews. two point four. Really L. Ooh, the color the cover is haunting The cover is in like one. It looks sixty please Like it's a naked woman and like a man who's like straddling her and has a hand around her buttocks, but he's wearing jeans She's completely naked and he's fully clothed in jeans. If ye, it looks like a cropped Guantanamo picture. It's herrific. It looks like some shit from Grape. Thank you. I hate it. G hundred. You have to really want I actually do have to remve the financial barrier. Not just anyone should be able to look at that You have to be a pervert with M people are not ready. I also love that it's under the special interests section of the TVD categories for Amazon This is indeed a special interest Full jeez. So you're like, let's be clear, no one's comfortable. Nobody's having a good time. No one's having what you would call sex, right? Rw geneans on goan skin now for not it's That That lady's gonna chaf. Yeah. Everyone's chaving. Now this is one of several video guides published by the Welcome Consensus by the time that Nicole Deone found it in nineteen ninety eight. She had dated Irwan for a while, and while that didn't last, her interest in deliberate orgasm did. She pressed Irwan to connect her to more training. and rather than send her to Moorehouse, he advised that she look into this splinter group instead. Is this pre u like huge This is pre operating theater coming No, they're doing that. likeike the the Morehouse had done that. Remember they'd done that thing where they said that like it's a three hour orgasm. Like they had done some demos like that It largely as like PR things to like bring people in. And the welcome consensus did, it wasn't that big, but they did do live demonstrations, right? One of the things that they because the welcome consensus is totally about orgasm and pleasure And they declare it our birthright because we were conceived in orgasm. That's like the motto of the group, essentially. And to bring in new members, they do live demonstrations where a woman would be masturbated for an hour And they also sold really risque merch. Like they're very proud of how horny their merchandise is. They have t shirts that brag, life is too short for mediocre sex The welcome consonsensus didn't call new members marks, inststead they used the term benchmarks because it's just a little different than the cult. sounds less antagonistic one. This is the burger King of the Moorehouse. Like It's the Burger King of orrgasm, cults, folks. That's what the welcome consensus is. Life is too short for mediocre sex is pretty Yeah. very good shirt. It's a pretty good sureort if it's not attached to a ct, maybe, I don't know Nothing's gonna nothing's going to get me in the door like some fugly weird merch. So I was like, I Until then I'm like at what point would I entertain going through the doors? and it is the fugly shirt? It's the fugly shirt. Yeahah, that's what they knew Yeah. So the welcome consensus, again, they call new members benchmarks, but it only costs eleven dollars to visit. They've got a they've got a compound obviously that's elsewhere in California, but they've got a clubhouse in San Francisco and they do like weekly game nights there. And these are games that have been invented by the group that are And you know, those like card games that are like, do you and your spouse want to communicate better? This card game will have you talking better and you know, however long it takes to play or whatever like that, right? Like that kind of thing. Those are the sort of games that they're playing. These are like games' created to aid in communication and intimacy and that are also usually You know, we did our episodes on Sinnonon, right? Like because that's comes out of the self help movement that all this stuff is related to. A big thing in Sinnonon is these sessions where people sit around in the circle and like insult each other. And they're definitely influenced by that. They've got some games that are like , we'll sit around we' talk we'll tell someone honestly something about like themselves. but it it's usually supposed to be positive But often there's like a negative side too. Yeah That's how there I used to work at now closed comedy theater and we would teach stand up sketch and improv, one of the most evil things you can do. and on in the stand up classes, The first day would always be just that to be you would have to get on stage. I never took it, but I watched Each student Who just wants to put themselves out there stands on stage and every other student says they What are some assumptions people might make about you? This is in Boston, Massachusetts. you're hearing some really nasty stuff. Wild stuff. Yeah U And then you're just told like, so, you know, maybe that's something you might want to play up on stage. You're like it's just u u. anyyone who I don't know, the radical honesty movement, I'm just like Please less Dastrous. We need to lie more. We need to lie more to each other You know, Really for our protection. Yeah I don't want to know. It's not that we need to lie when we need just know less about each other. It's not lying just to not tell someone everything. And we don't all need to tell someone everything, you know? Um mostost of these games are again, just kind of yeah, like dark secrets, like tell me the darkest se thing that turns you on or stuff like that. L that's a lot of like the kind of games that they're playing. and doing so in public is really frightening, but also kind of thrilling and cathartic. And it creates this sort of stressful bonding experience that other self help groups, like, you know, this is all of them are doing something like this in this period of time And even kind of still into the modern day, everything's just kind of synonon when you get right down to it Um Now the founder of the welcome consonsensus, RJ Testerman, which sounds fake, was a cowboy coded dude. He's always wearing like a fucking cowboy hat. He's in like his fifties and he's what people will tell you about RJ and the cult is that he's really good at calling people on their bullshit And here that phrase means he's really good at psychologically abusing people, right? Like That's what that means. Yeah. RJ was attended to by four women who were his lovers and also helped run the group. This was specifically framed more as polyamory than as polygamy One thing everyone who lived at the group's ranch was plenty of sex and a near total escape from the real world New members, like Nicole, were promised that they too could escape the grind of regular life if they just gave themselves over to the cause. They then got to live on an organic farm, growing their own food and orgasming at least five times per day. You really are not allowed to do it less. You're not allowed was gonna say to do it but that's a hard limit It's not sounding like there is an opt out. Okaykay. No Now, can you lie? Of course. They're not checking. but Oh yeah you can lie. Yeah. Okay. Eone does. So the WC framed their sex work a as sexual experimentation. again, just like the Morouses, like we're really more researchers trying to learn like, you know the scientific secrets of sex that have been locked away And their goal is to create like an elite level sexual experience. They were actually more as much as they were inspired by their self help groups, they're inspired by like fine dining restaurants, like the French laundry. That's very much how they like build themselves. This is like oras. It an orgasm. Yeah, a Michelin star Cup. Yes So, Nicole was an instant fit. In short order, she'd paid fourteen thousand dollars for a two week class on how to feel and acknowledge her orgasms Hewitt notes that in her bio for the group website at the time, she wrote, Orgasm is the thread that weaves my life together. There is nothing but orgasm as much as I want That's really how a lot of the stuff in the later cult that she's gonna make is gonna sound. Like they talk about it like fucking mana, right? Like they're wizards and this is their magic power is orgasm. Like like it's a quantifiable thing. L it's not like a moment that happens. It's like a quantifiable kind of energy you just have with you and like do a Duins with It's kind of it is kind of like almost I mean, I know it won't be for long, but it is almost kind of sweet how they're talking about orgasms as if it was their idea and they're the first people to think of this. Yeah, no one else fig this out So the older group members noticed right away that Nicole was very good at winning new recruits at convincing people to join the group and to pay money One of first gets was a young woman named Allison, who was referred to the group by Erwon after meeting him at a rave againgain, there's a lot of like After parties for Burning Man and stuff that people are being like recruited for to some of these groups and shit. Like that's that's like a thing and Irwan is kind of the thing I get is that he's kind of like their floater. Like he's probably, I think, a good looking guy and he's going out to like parties and stuff to find women like Nicole and Allison and, you know, talk them into showing up at a place like this Um So Allison meets Erwan at the Rve, and shees to the Wlcome consonsensus. and at her first meeting, she meets Nicole. And she tells Nicole, oh, you know, I just got awarded a bunch of stock at work. so I just cashed in like hundreds of thousands of dollars. And Nicole is like Cash register signs, right? So she starts flirting with Allison and Allison falls in love with Nicole, even though she'd always considered herself straight before. And I think this has a lot to do with just Nicole is very charismatic She's very good at making you feel like you're the only person in the world and she's very good at making you feel that like Doing things that feel good with Nicole are also like revolutionary acts that are helping humanity. you know, That's kind of Nicole's superpower. Yeah So We've talked about like we talked about the Greeks, we talked about, Mhouse about how they went from like, you know, when women orgasm, it's so incredibly powerful. and they've used that as a way to like say, obviously that means women always want it, right? And the same thing happens to the welcomed consensus, right? P the book of Orgasm, or sor per the book Empire of Orgasm. P the book. You think that's bad. Yeah.. They invoked biological generalizations about the way female mammals in estris send non verbal signals to attract mates In humans, they argued, this manifested through emotions. Women can therefore emit emotional calls and induce men to respond When men are feeling turned on or at peace or enraged, that's because they're responding to a call that a woman is putting out Right? Now this means that women are responsible for men's arousal for how men feel. R. And men are not. responsible for they responsible for making sure that they're taking care of. And that's actually feminism when you think about it, Isn't it? ladays? Yeah. Yeah Yeah, and as is the case with any group that dedicates themselves to reimagining human relationships while fucking on an isolated farm, they spiraled into madness as time went on. As researchers, the group decided to experiment with violence and whether or not that might be a healthy way for people to express emotions honestly. The way How this happens is like RJ and a bunch of the men are like, I get angry and just want to hit women sometimes. Maybe that's good. Like that's literally the thought process here. And at this university, we're choosing to explore things we already know and they already do Yeah. it's fucked up. So one example Ellen Hewitt gives is a male member of the Welcome Consensus who gets into an argument with a female member and punches her hard enough to knock her to the ground And she goes to RJ to complain and he says, Hey, you need to cop to whatever it is you were doing that made him angry or I'll beat you up myself. And this is liberating Right? Yeah. Beause that means you're powerful and that's me acknowledging you're powerful. That's me acknowledging your power Yeah. So RJ This won't surprise anybody was an aging drunk who went crazy with power and was as likely to give his followers pain as pleasure when he was doing these orgasm sessions. Sometimes if he was angry at a woman that he was like stroking, he would stroke her clitoris so hard that it like was agonizing. And then like when someone would be like, Hey, you're hurting me, he would accuse her of refusing to surrender And it was not like he regularly would like literally just slap or otherwise hit his partner's generals during these. if he got angry at them. So again, these are not Like nice times a lot of the time, right? No. I'm sure that's super shocking to hear Um I don't know so one. say more. No. notot great. So and this is all happening in group set. this is like there's no a lot of witnesses. Yeah Lots of witnesses. That just reminds me of that Samantha Jones quote from Sex of the City when they're at the massage store and there's a bunch of women there that are not actually shopping for massageage but they're shopping for vibrators. And she looks at this woman and she goes, not that one. That will burn your clit off. T Okay Perfect, okay Wow She's always with us. She's always with us ahead of the times. Alison, not long after Nicole convinced her to join became the target of RJ's Ire. And there's like an evening where they're like there's several a bunch of people hanging out at the property and Arja gets really drunk and he tells Allison, like, get down on your hands and knees. and he pulls up her skirt and he starts whipping her with a wriding crop U and just like screaming and cursing. He's just like a maniac, right? Nicole does nothing, even though Allison is very clearly frightened And that's kind of something Nicole takes with her is that this person who I thought was into me and was like it convinced me that this was a safe place brought me into the situation and said nothing when this happened, right? It's I mean, I know this echoes a lot of cults, but it feels very Nxium adjacent in the way that you' being weaponized to recruit other women. This is and happening at the same Nicole's cult is going to happen at the same time as Nxium. I mean this is two Ni I think it get started in the nineties some But they're very similar movements. Yes. There's a lot that they have in common U Nicole would later brag when she starts her coult that she was one of the only women RJ never tried to hit, which like I don't know what that says. Yeah. In two thousand one, after three years with the Wlcome Consensus, Nicole decided she had reached the peak of what they could give her. Their top training course was called Validation. In to pass, you had to complete a three hour orgasmic stroking session and do a one hour public demonstration. To even attempt this, cost one hundred thousand dollars Nicole doesn't have that kind of money. So she goes to Erwon and is like, Hey, man, You've just come into an inheritance, why don't you pay for us both to have the hundred thousand dollars class And Erwan pays initially, but then he like gets cold feet and he backs out and demands a refund of the money he'd put down. and RJ refuses to refund his money. So Eirwan sues the group and accuses them of prostitution and says, and he had been part of this, right? Erwan was. But heays just magic selling He can't getund. Yeah Yeah. So journalists start converging on the community. they get a bunch of bad press And that RJ iss kind of getting old at this point. So he just backs off and they really reduce the recruitment efforts. He eventually decides I'm just gonna to like kind of fade away, right? Like like I'm too old for this shit. I don't w want to have to like fight the outside world Grift Ands the abuseive Grift was good while it lasted. Yeah. ye And that's when Nicole kind of decides it's time to leave, right? It's time for me. She can see like, okay, the welcome consensus is on its way out. It's time for me to start my own orgasm colt slash training program. And we'll talk about all that once we finish these ads Guys don't like talking about ED, but if something's been off in the bedroom You're not alone, and you don't need to wait longer than you need to take action Getting real treatment is simple and through Hyns, it's one hundred percent online At some point, you've got to stop blaming stress, sleep or just getting older. If bedroom performance isn in question, it's probably crossed your mind to do something about it Good news, you don't have to jump through hoops to fix it. 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Don't miss the Elton John Impact Awards podcast available on june first on the I Heart radio app Everywhere podcasts are heard This ad is brought to you by Viv Healthcare, the makers of Devato Dolutigravir Lamivudine If you're living with HIV, do learn about Divato. Deivato is a complete HIV treatment by prescription only for some people twelve and older Your doctor will determine if Devata is right for you Most HIA pills contain three or four medicines, Devado is as effective with just two No other complete HIV pill contains fewer medicines than Devato It is unknown if Devato is safe and effective if you have HIV and hepatitis B. If you have Hp B, don't stop Devato without talking to your doctor, as it may get worse or harder to treat. Don't take Devato if you're allergic to its ingredients, or taking dephetalide due to serious or life threatening side effects. 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It may also lead to anger and frustration, depression, lowered self esteem, and even withdrawal from sexual activity and physical intimacy Because of this, some men could feel embarrassed or reluctant to talk about PD The actual cause of PD isn't always known. In some cases, it may be linked to a minor injury or repeated injuries during sex or other physical activity The good news is, PD is treatable. If you notice a curve with a bump, a trusted urology specialist can help diagnose it and walk you through your options, including non surgical treatment To learn more about Pyroid's disease, visit talkaboutpd. com U too find and start her own cult, Nicole knows she's gonna need money, right? And she does not have any. So before she leaves, she finds a married couple, Rob and Carol Candall, who had recently joined the welcome Consensus. Yes, yes, very good name. Carol Candle Yeah, K A N D E L L. They want to spice up their boring one percententer corporate life, right? Rob is a successful businessman. I think he's I don't know if he's like rich or just upper middle class, but he's got money. and he and Carol had lived at this point a pretty standard life. like they get married. Rob is very successful, He works his way up the corporate ladder and then kind of when they're in you know, their thirties with middle aged age ins sight, Rob is like, o my God, like we're boring, right? And so he goes to Burning Man with his wife and they take mushrooms and he decides he wants more out of life than just like making money. And that's what brings Rob and Carol to the welcomed consensus, right? Okay. And Rob is Bea Nicole spots immediately that this is the guy I need to bring with me when I leave this ct And that's because he's going to be the model for the kind of dude that she is going to fashion her entire life around soaking for cash Unfortunately, you don're often going to do that by like making other women ill that guy's weird and sick desire, so he pays her, but that's coming in a bit. What she sees right away with Rob is that Silicon Valley is filled with dudes who spend all their, you know when they were in school, they were always studying. they were big nerds. They didn't spend a lot of time partying, they didn't do a lot of dating. and then they start working and they're workaholics and they don't spend a lot of time dating too. you know if get married They probably feel like they never got to sow their wild oats. They didn't get to do enough partying, they didn't get to have enough sex, right? And they wind up bored and feeling like life is passing them by. And she sees that in Rob, and she realizes this kind of guy will do anything to prove to himself that he's not just another middle aged middle class white guy with money, right? And the point This personality profile too is like there's always an element of like revenge to having access to a lot of sex and that it's an owe to you, you're getting it back. Yeah I never got it in high school, right? And yeah, definitely, a big part of what he feels is that like I will do anything to have sex with a lot of young women, right? That's what Nicole sees in Rob, right So she first enters Rob's life when he goes to a benchmark gathering and she walks in wearing this elaborate sexy costume. He would later describe it as like a moment from a movie where the music changes to mark an important plot point because all these guys want to feel like they're the leading man in a blockbuster film. And like finally, like my life is turning into a movie. I'm no longer going to be like this boring slub working a job, right?? And Nicole sees that and se's like, that's just what you tell them. You just tell him, this is a great adventure. L you're the protagonist of life. We're going to make like this like that's forever now as long as you stick with me So for the moment, Carol needs to be around too, because Rob is not willing to immediately dump his wife. and Nicole manages to convince them both that she can provide a more exciting and lucrative future for them than the welcomed consensus. So she poaches these two and two other students before leaving and they all move into Rob's house in San Francisco, while Nicole tries to figure out do to differentiate her grift from the ones that had come before her, right? She knows she wants to do something like the Mrehouse and the welcome consensus, but she wants it to be her own thing. And she wants it to be something that can last and will not wind up pissing off a bunch of like newspapers and stuff, right? She has to make like somehow, how do I make it work and how do I make it palatable for like people in the nineties who are less sexist than these dudes from like the sixties and seventies who had started the other orgasm cults. Right. Or at least a different kind. Yeah, or at least a different kind. So before she figures out what her grift is gonna be, while, they're all still living at Rob's house, she knows she wants to launch a food donation charity called Fill Up America. And this is not an act of charity. This is something she had learned because both the welcomed consonsensus and the Mooore House people did this, right? Where they had food donation charities and they would take food donations The purpose of these were not to give out food, it was so that you didn't have to shop Right? You take you make yourself known as like this is who you donate food to. and people donate food and you take out the good stuff and you use that to feed everyone for free at your commune. And then you give away the bad stuff to like a food pantry or something like that. Like that's literally what it is. And that's what ault is doing. It's very unethical. God That's so horrible. Yeah. where it's like a gigantic shipment of like soaking wet PBNJ. Yes. Yes, Yes. And you got out all the good shit. Yeah. I have I have to say like the future sex cult having something called Fill up America is so funny ill up Americany really funny. That's gross. It's nasty. It's really gross. You had to know that, Nicole. This was like the year two thousand one. L we weren't that in the fucking. you what you fill up America nasty It says a lot about Nicole that she's like first, E before I know what the grrift is, when I know what the cultt's gonna be, before I have any like members or any classes, we've got to have our fake food charity so we don't have to pay for groceries Yeah Now, Nicole starts writing her own guide to what she called orgasmic meditation, which pulled back from the multi hour sessions the welcomed consonsensus had worked up to She realized it was a lot more marketable to sell clistoral stroking as a fifteen minute meditative technique. somethingomething you can plug into your morning routine without much fuss. She specifically says, I want this to replace coffee for like young professional women in like the Bay Area and stuff. Like instead of your morning coffee, you have like your morning fucking fifteen minutes. I do She already, I will say bas other than like she's it's a better hook than what Vic is saying. It's a way better hook muchicker Cy with coming is A great p. genius. It's genius in a way. yeah. Yeah not Hey guys, did you know my wife could come? Should we start a business? Like she has learned And what tells you how ahead of the curve she is is like in like twenty sixteen, you would have written this as like a joke startup parody like the health and wellness culture and the the body optimization culture in the in the valley in the bay. This is like two thousand one or two, right? She's really ahead of the curve. She sees part of San Francisco before it's as much of a meme as it's kind of a comm pre gp. Now there is conflict arises pretty quickly between her and Carol. Carol is convinced that Nicole wants to make convince her husband to abandon her because that is exactlyol what Nicole is trying to do. get out of there get out of there Carol gets pissed and she's like, Rob and I are leaving, We're gonna go stay at a nice place in Jersey for like a couple of weeks, and you need to be gone when we get back. So Rob and Carol fucking bounce. And before they leave, Nicole is like, you'll regret it. Your life will be nothing but boring once you get back home if you leave us And that says like she leaves, her little nascent ct leaves and they try to find a new place to be. And Rob and Carrool come back and they do kind of miss the cult. They are like, oh it is really boring without Nicole. I'm just kind of like making money and living in like the Bay. I kind of want to be back in a cult. It's a lot more fun than my life. So there's not a lot of good movies out right now. We'd like to read take ac and party Yeah We took an improro class and it wasn't fun. We wanted call didn't fix things. This is two thousand one, but is this two thousand one O so Be Or after Were probably after nine eleven now, I don't know. All right. All right. I just want to I just wanted to understand the cultural vibes of the time Sure. So she Nicole calls Rob few weeks you into this and is like, hey, you guys want to like come over and take acid? like we're staying at this new place. Why don't you all party? And like They do and soon they're back in the group. And she eventually talks Rob into leaving his wife. And she basically does it by pitching him like, look We're gonna create this new tech savby community of orgasm entrepreneurs, and we're gonna to sell this technique to all of these rich people in the bay and all these beautiful young women in the bay. And I want you to be basically a human billboard, Rob. You're gonna have endless access to women's bodies as you just kind of like help us afford this while we're getting off the ground And Rob agrees. Rob is on Okay, Rob agrees. Yeah. That's Yeah Rob takes the deal ultimately does leave his wife I was trying to like drop myself into the experience of someone making like telling me to my face they're an orgasm entrepreneur Yeah, I don't know that she uses that word, but that is what they're doing, right? They're starting an orgasm business. And I do I do that guys like this would feel so comfortable just letting them. I'm a bit of an orgasm entrepreneur you could say. And then my glitterist would just fall off right there So around the same time that all this is happening, Nicole has started gathering a koterie of oldlderm men to her, right? that shes at first she's going to use for money and then for like some of their knowledge and advice Um, and in all of these cases, she's kind of like You get the some of it times it' spelled, but sometimes it's not. but she's kind of offering up her body in some cases to these men that she needs something from in order to get pieces that she needs to complete this cult And that's gonna be relevant because of like what she's going to do later, right? But that is an aspect of this that's not always directly discussed, but sometimes it's even just like these old guys just wan to like spend time and feel like they're influential to this young hot woman. Sometimes they are getting something physical from it The first different version of the Elizabeth Holmes playaybook Exactly, exxactly. My hot young ward Yeah And the first of these men was the former moorhouse founder, Vic Baranco, who by this point was old and dying and was living in Hawaii. He had just a handful he' basically And Again, morehouse still exists, but he'd kind of given up control and had just retreated to this like nice place in Hawaii with a few of his closest followers, right? Be he knows he's not going to last much longer. And he just wants to enjoy life. of less And she thinks that she convinces him over a couple of days and who knows what goes on to make her his heir so she can take over after him and like move Morehouse into a new age. But that was just a lie. Like he he never meant that. And she eventually realizes that she's been had and he was just kind of screwing around with her. And so she leaves with her followers from the Mrehouse compound and they rent another place in Hawaii for a while and they start like planning out like what is our what are we going to do? L what is our course curriculum going to be? And they start writing out Obviously taking these ideas from Warhouse and the welcome consensus and throwing in some of their own, mostly Nicoals. And they're putting stuff together. They move back to San Francisco, where they meet the next of these older guys, who's a forty five year old former musician named Don M's his longtime girlfriend had recently died from some sort of cancer and Don is just deeply depressed He's certainly not a rich guy, but he's got a house of his own and he's got some amount of money, and they really just need a place, right? Nicole had known him when she was in her early twenties and had been partying and doing a lot of drugs. and you know, he's a musician, so they'd kind of known each other. And she'd latched on to him like ten or so years ago, even though he was a lot older, and he'd avoid getting entangled with her then because a friend of his had told him, quote She's a monster But she shows up a decade later. He's really lonely and sad and she's like, Hey, we're doing this like fun thing. We're gonna start an orgasm business. Can we like do it in your house? And he's like, o, hey, I guess why not?. She doesn't critically, she doesn't say it's orgasm business. We're doing like a self help thing and we're going to come up with like a new training program to sell people and start a business. Can we do it in your house? right? Right. And orgasms are what? they're like the Zenu of the operation. L the way.bs the way.. Don, Yeahah Don's going to have to wait to learn that orgasms are what this is all about. Okay So while he's out working because he's still like a handy manan or something, theicoleinner friends are at his house writing courses on orgasmic meditation and clitoral stroking Don is kind of only dimly aware of like literally what they're doing. He's mostly just happy to not be lonely, it kind of seems like to me. And he starts to become aware that like whatever they're doing during the day Nicole seems to be flirting with him And Donwn is a smart enough guy to know like, well, that can't be genuine. L I know like I'm way over the hill. I don't feel good anymore. Like this is she's got to have an angle in this, right? I'm greasing like Yeah Yeah So one day, she tells Don is in the room, but Nicole is talking to Rob. and Nicole tells Rob, I should marry Don. I think that would be really good for the group if I married Don And she doesn't even say this to Don And they end up taking acid later and he kind of gets pissed about this because again he's grieving and he's like you shouldn't joke about stuff like that. And he like kind of leaves for a while, but he comes back And she keeps pushing him to spend more time with them and to party with them and kind of flirting with him more. And even after they eventually leave his place because Rob gets a new place near San Francisco. She's like, Don, why don't you come with us and stay for a few days? And he's like I know something's going on here. I know this isn't on the up and up But I am old and sad and I kind of want to take drugs with this hot young lady and her oras c what might be an orgasm cult, right? He was going through a hard time. Oh I was going through hard. Yeah. Yeah. She plies Don with LSD and he winds up spending like more than like weeks there and her followers pitch him on what they'd started calling the Institute of Monastic Understanding They like because the acronym is I am you, right? Yeah there's you see you. G Nope Yeah. So their food charity is in full swing by this point and they start recruiting people who volunteered to help them bag and distribute groceries, right to join the cult These people are hearing about the orgasms. Don still is not People come and go from the property including Don's cousin, William, who Don like calls Will up and Will comes down for a few weeks. and he writes a fictional book about his time there and about like falling in love with these like LSD cultists. And Hewitt includes some lines from it in her book. and this Don's cousin's writings give a pretty compelling glimpse inside the minds of these older men that she's bringing in, and like, ' this going to be relevant the whole growth of this cult? This is what's always going on in the dude' heads.Quote. Think of it, the endless excellent sex, the lively intellectual conversation, the intense tripping, all the new people I was meeting, and just the entire unknown adventure of it all. And this community more happened in a week every week than would happen in three months back in the old world My other life, that place when I had an American Express card, a lifetime ago Right We don't even have to think about money or work, it could just take drugs and have sex. Yeah Right, But then also positioning that, I feel like so so like crucial to these kinds of gryifs is to not make it just sound like what it is, which is like drugs and sex and the illusion of power and access and all this stuff and being like, this is a spiritual mission and you're doing the best at it No that that is what I got out of the events I used to go to as a young person because they were they were totally honest. It was like, no, no, for like five days, we're going to do drugs and have a bunch of weird sex and there willll be a bunch of art and music to dance to. But then we then you go home Then you go back it done. go and then you go home. And if you have a nice time, that's great, but crally it does not make you great You do But you're not God and you haven't figured out the universe, you've just learned that doing drugs and fucking for five days with your friends can be a pretty good time. Which like you knew already before you did it. Well if you disinfected those cuts from the glass that was falling from the ceiling. sa glass cut Who ever got hurt by glass? other than the people U So Don agrees eventually to marry Nicole, knowing it's a bad idea. and Nicole admits to him At this point, after he says, let's get married, she's like, by the way, this whole thing is all about orgasms. This is an orgasm que that we're doing. And he's initially pissed, but at this point, he's agreed to marry her, right So ye. And he forgives her and they have a weird wedding where she kind of ignores him until they're married. and then she tells him she turns to him and she says, A, you've just married everyone in this room. And it's all of the other c remember, it's horrible time for Don. And her followers jokingly make Don a shirt that says indignant man kidnapped by loveove Colult, like a fake headline as a joke that I love Like they are really poor like Don is he's getting fucked with but also they were just saying what was happening, man. L I don't know. It's like at some point, well, I don't I don't even know this Catch a break. And they're bullying him. And they're bullying him. and I think his attitude is kind of like I bought the ticket I took the ride, you know? Like he's not the ultimate victim. His story is just very funny to me. Yeah, it's just like at some point it just gets weird where he's like, well, yeah, it's just like someone acting like they're wearing handcuffs when it's like, no man, you own the house This is your house? Yeah You are not trapped here. He's like, Well, there's nothing I could do Sir So the group still going by IMU starts offering courses for money. And so for the first time, people start paying them and attending, but they're not a lot of people. This is not a big group yet. and they're not teaching orgasm at first in these classes. doing the stroking or anything of that. Instead they're teaching Nicole's philosophy, which is a bunch of warmed over bullshit from like the middle of the last century. And basically like basically Nicole's attitude is like life has no inherent meaning other than the one that you give it, which sounds like it could be fine, right? People take that in healthy ways. This is often the case with the Nicole' stuff There's a way you can interpret that healthily But what Nicole means by that is that If you have a bad experience, that's because you're choosing to frame the thing that happened to you as a bad thing and you don't have to do that. And the point that she will tell in these classes to illustrate what she's saying is that You know, When I was a child, I used to think that my father had molested me. But now that I'm a mature adult and I've done a lot of work and gone through all of the coursework and stuff on this, I know now I seduced my father. I was the one with power. So she's just teaching Sarv. like that's Yeah, yeah, ye That questest That's Okay, okay. that's very upsetting. like Yeah. That's really I mean, especially because it's upsetting, yeah becausecause you're like, I mean, it's like the mom you you got to feel for her that it's like If she does if she does believe it, that's really tragic and really fucked up Yeah. that said, I think I don't That I think this is maybe she believes or not, but I think this is consciously she's doing this because she knows what she's going to be doing to the people who are her followers, right? And she wants this is a really good thing to convince everyone to believe at the baseline before you start doing the other shit she's gonna to do. that if you think something's bad, it's because you're interpreting it as bad. It's like almost like a group tactic. Like you've just taken a course on why everything that's about to happen to you is actually okay is fine Good, Yes U Yeah, and obviously that that really like sends a message to her followers early on In two thousand three, after Carol leaves and Don marries Nicole, Nicole brings a new guy into the fold, a new old guy. This is Ray Vetterling Ray Vetterlland had been a protegege of Vic at at the Mooorehouse thing. and he was like the almost famous version of a cult leader. Like he'd been pretty big in Morehouse. He'd done some cult stuff of his own, but it had never really taken off. He'd like done he'd made some money. He'd done okay, but industry minry' a t ministry. He's a working cult leader, Ray is, right? Don't take it personally, man. It couldt put hiss on one leg at a time Yeah, exactly. ye. But Rin knows the business, right? Rin knows, if you're going to start a cult, here's the things you want to do. Here's how you build the curriculum that you're going to sell and all this stuff And so she brings him in and he writes down a lot of his best tips and tricks and he helps her kind of plan the cult she's going to start from the ground up U And this is kind of a situation where Ray is both going to get physical access to Nicole's body. He's going to be doing all of these physical orgasm demonstrations where he's like stroking her. but he also he gets to like He gets to kind of live through her because she is young enough and has enough energy to start a successful cult and he doesn't anymore. And I think that's a big part of it for Ray, right? So he writes out a document for her, laying out how this orgasm cult ought to function. Per the book Empire of Orgasm, quote, some of the lessons were nuts and bolts practical. Teachers should be in couples, ideally in their early thirties. Youag enough that twenty year old students won't see them as mom and dad making out. Host a law a day longong intro course twice a month. he said, and use a short demo of a woman in orgasm at the end of the class as a safe show stopper A format that one taste, that's her later cult, would employ for more than a decade. The minute one woman sees another woman getting off like that, they want to be there too, Ray wrote Right? So they spell this out all very directly. And his pitch to her as to like why this is going to work is that Mrehouse had failed because it was too patriarchal. It was too trapped in the seventies and eighties, right? People today didn't w want to hear like a fucking dude with a mustache talk about how much he's getting laid. They want the illusion at least of feminism and gender equality. And they want to be told that what they're doing isn't just because they're horny. It's because it's going to optimize their health It's going to make them more powerful. It's going to make you smarter. It's going to make you faster. It's going to make you better able to compete in the cutthroat tech industry, right? That is such a like nice it's the same sexual crime but being positioned by a woman who claims this will optimize you will optimize you. eating their drinking of the right juice. Yeah. Yeah. suuper funny. I mean, that's like that is even though it is funny and a great pitch, replacing like it's so Silicon Valley. brain to be like, I come instead of drink coffee and it saves me time and it actually releases more chemicals. It saves me eight minutes a day. Right. Yeah. Look at how many emails I've sent. It's the same as the AI thing, really, right? Look at how many more emails I send than everyone else. I'm productive They all like they're all in a language I don't speak, but they something And that's what matters. That's what that's all that matters in business Ray has in this document, he writes, he has a line that is one of my favorite things from this Since we are not yet selling the God hustle, what do we do? What we have to sell is an organically healthy lifestyle with sensuality and intimacy. Ray's really good at this ike race honestly a great mind the in the con business Wow, um You know who else is a great mind when it comes to conning people? You. Yeah. and the sponsors of this podcast 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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In some cases, it may be linked to a minor injury or repeated injuries during sex or other physical activity The good news is, PD is treatable. If you notice a curve with a bump, a trusted urology specialist can help diagnose it and walk you through your options, including non surgical treatment To learn more about Payroid's disease, visit talkaboutpd. com Lugging for something new? Try fencing, the Olympic and paralympic sport that mixes speed, strategy, and fun 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 Find a beginner class for your kids near you at tryfencing. org. That's tryfencing. org And we're back So Ray wrote that anyone showing up to their classes was by definition, missing something, right? This is like because this is something mean, Nicole knows a lot of this, but Ray's kind of writing out all of his lessons. And one thing he writes that anyone's going to show up to like optimize your life fucking orgasm class is missing something, right? They don't have everything they need. They're not fully happy otherwise they wouldn't be here. And the one thing that Americans are more likely to miss than anything else is intimacy So if you can create situations that fake very sudden, very intense intimacy with a large number of hot people, you can make a fuck load of money becausecause people get addicted to that and they'll pay any amount of money to keep being around it. And all you have to do is be brutally honest about what they're doing wrong. At which point they'll listen to whatever you tell them is the right way to do things, right? Because they want to stay there, they want to keep having these experiences. They want to keep feeling that they're having revelations and stuff because they're just doing things that feel good for their body and that's nice Um And people can't accept that. People can't just accept it like Oh, maybe I like having sex in like a fucking weird group situation, which is a perfectly fine thing for people to do if that's what gets you off But they can't just accept this feels good. It has to be optimizing me. This has to be unlocking a secret hack in my brain. Otherwise it's a waste of time because I won't make more money at Apple, right? And literally that's the fucking thing. And it's like going back to the fucking twelfth century is like a ciswoman orgasming has to have some sort of like crucial productive function where it just nothing can just feel good. And that's that's really what drew me into to like the fucking events that I like these little burn events that I went to was like the whole the whole pitch was like, you know what sucks capitalism. You know, it doesn't suck, doing drugs with your friends in the woods And like whereere's the was not like the hedonism is important. Where's the hedonism? This shit sucks They had that back in Moorehouse, but it got really again, if there's also a guyle for the experience. Yeah. That's the other important thing is that and there's not like a guy. Like it's just a bunch of people hanging out. like no one's getting rich off of this As soon as there's a guy and as soon as you're paying thousands of dollars, like things get very quickly problematic Um And but if you're paying thousands of dollars, then it can't just be something that feels good. becausecauseuse like actually feeling good can be really cheap Like I had to sit on the couch like with my partner and we both have a real like feel really nice like watching a movie, but nobody makes money off of that. You can't be a fucking Yeah They can't be worth anything. They have a meeting at the beginning of every day. Do not tell people they can just come at their house. Do not tell people Don't tell people that. Don't let them know they can just actually find love and companionship without like pay money because that you start a conversation with someone and see what happens. Don't tell them that shit. Don't let them know. Don't let them know So Don and Nicole and their little group are living at Ray's place at this point, right? They moved into Ray's house and they're helping Nicole explore how to make her they're basically prepping that they're going to be doing these public orgism demos and they're they're train right They're They're like preparing for like these marathon public orgasm sessions, right? And this means that Nicole every day is lying down in a room full of mirrors while Don and Ray and R's in his seventies, masturbate her at the same time. And Ray is supposed to be kind of like teaching Don how to do it. because the idea initially is that Don will do this because he's her husband in the, uh in the actual like public classes and ole is she's not, you know, she's she's having these with a lot of her followers like they're all sing They're these masturbation techniques. And Nicole is keeping a blog in which she writes about her experiences in lurid detail. And this is going give you an idea of how she's because she you can't ever talk about it like sex. You should never describe the sexual sensations or what you're seeing or doing in a sexual manner. You don't want it to be hot You want it to sound like a fucking poem or something, right? Like because that makes it not gross. So for an example of that, here's one description that Nicole wrote about how it felt to be masturbated by Ray, this elderly cult leader. The laughter welled and welled inside of me. I became swollen with laughter, and then like champagne pouring over the sides of the bottle, tears began to flood me, right And again, the key here is that there's nothing about sex in there, right? That makes it seem profound and also marketable. Some Lonadel Ray ass s like, whatever. wrriting sex poetry is fine. but if that's like shared rule, then it starts to feel kind of like dissociative. But also that makes it feel very different from these prior cults. There's no guys going. And this is so hot, isn't it Like because they're not they're being like, no, it's like champagne pouring over the sides of a bottle. You know it just feels more intellectual and thus safe, right? Right. That's the basic idea And part of the idea here is that like while she's being stroked for an audience, she'll call in like people to put her hands their hands on her and describe how they felt. And the idea is that like this is such like a powerful spiritual thing that like everybody is affected by it in the room, right? And that gets everyone to buy into it. and it makes them feel connected and included and helps make it an addictive experience Soon she's got like twenty or so followers, but she's not making money off of this and she feels like the group is incomplete until one day, Ray is like, Hey Don's not working for like the sex demo stuff. Nobody's gonna w want to watch Don do this. I think you should bring Irwan back Because Irwin's hot and he's really good at doing these these demos. Don can him in Rak. Fucking Don. He's so fired from the manipulative sex local theater tp. It's so sad. And Don, he's growing increasingly disillusioned. He hears over one day he overhears Ray and Erwan talking ' she brings an airwan and Ry and Airwan called Donna a throwaway person He o in in. There's like a Eugene Levy and best in show quality to Don to me. He' just like's really funny. Eugene Levy twenty years ago, would have been the guy to cast for Don? For Don. like, Hey, so people, you're really bringing down the vibe at the sex cult Don. So Don flips out and Don leaves. Nicole divorces him, and by the time she and Erwan do their first public demo in front of an audience of forty, he is all but forgotten. By pub. Bye Don. goodood for you. Bye Don. Be Don. This first public like stroking demo happens in August of two thousand three Hew' boook describes the scene in detail. And I don't feel the need to tell you what Irwand did to this woman's Vulva step by step I appreciate that Ellen does. Her book is very good. You learn a lot about this group and exactly what they're doing. We don't need to talk about that. You get the idea, right? What's important is what he tells the audience after Nicole has a massive shuddering hour long orgasm in front of a crowd Pure euphoria You can have as much of that sensation as you like. You can feel it in your body as much as you want. If she can do this, so can you. And then he invites audience members up to touch Nicole. And this works like gangbusters, right? People love this. They tell their friends. soon more folks are signing up to go watch the orgasm class, right? doing like a hornyna A Braamovic thing. It feel like's Performance art It's yeah yeah yeah. And he's like the maatrie. He's the he's the, you know, guy with the microphone Yum, come first come all And that's going to be a problem. Right? Because o She got into this to be the one, right? She's the cult leader. If Erwan is like the star of the show because he's actually doing the demonstration and talking and she's just kind of like mutely Not mutely, but like she's not making like she's not speaking. She's supposed to be having an orgasm, right? She's kind of a secondary figure in the demo. That is not gonna to work for Nicole. One of my fav has details to add here is that this man's name is definitely Erwin, but Robert keeps calling him herow on like the grocery And I ER WAN. And I've been enjoying it the entire time, but I think But I think we're about I think we're about the last of this man and I wanted to get it in. We We're not we're not everyone's not going to be around all that much longer Because Nole Nicole is basically as soon as this first demo goes the way it does. Nicole has like a team meeting, like a cult meeting and she's like, you guys gott to choose him or me. Like she has enough she's got the instincts where she's like, if I let this get established is the way we do things He's going to be the cult leader Right? And I don't want that. That's not okay. This is such a Silicon Valley approach to cult leading. It's it is It is veryery much. This is like like Payal Maf shit. Yeah. Yeah. It's the PayPal Mafia with weird orgasm fucking teachings So so he's nuked. He's gone. He's nuked. Yeahah. the Ct picks Nicole. Nicole wins and Erwon leaves the picture. Erwin, whatever you want to call him. Ray is kicked out Erwin, whatever. Your prices are high. Rayro ds, sorry And Ray gets kicked out right after that, not long after that because Nicole no longer needs any old men like hanging around the She's figured things out. Yeah. The Grift is now ready. This is a fully operational battle station. The Grift is now ready for the prime time So Farewell, of youer sorry. I just like that she's kicking out all these people. like all the boys elderly. so far Yeah In March of two thousand four, Nicole finally settles on a name for what they were doing one taste, it was taken from the title of a book by a philosopher and attributed to a statement by the Buddha Just as the Great Ocean has one taste, the taste of salt, so also this teaching and discipline has one taste. O the taste of vberation Yes, one taste, the taste of liberation. He's talking about that's Buddha talking about, I guess Buddhism. Oh yeah ye. But she's like one taste because you have one taste not puss Yeah, they're not doing that, Jamie, but when you have one taste of the life we offer you, you'll never want anything else for yourself, right? That's how it's supposed to feel, you know? On july thirtieth, two thousand four, the One Taste Urban Retreat Center opened in San Francisco's Folsome Street, which is probably the most sex positive neighborhood in the US at the time. There's a big street fair on Folsome. that's like a bunch of leather daddies and like some really depraved public sex acts. If you really want to see some shit, go to the Folsome Street parade. San Francisco in the two thousands is still like kind of hanging on too. St pretty coolool. Yeah It' pretty cool Yeah Mhm Nicole and her followers ran their orgasm demos there. But they also like this is like a big warehouse basically, and they've got like several different businesses that they operate out of it. They've got a yoga studio. they've got a massage parlor. They've got like a cafe that sells fucking frozen yogurt ' it's two thousand four And they're also hosting workshops, not just the orgasm stuff, but they've got some very bay friendly subjects, like conscious cuddling, right? Where again, and you get a lot of like, oh, people think you have to pay to like cuddle with a bunch of people because they don' they don't have any community. like,, that's a bummer. Again, that stuff was just free when I was younger. We didn't have to pay to fucking do a workshop next to a Froyo stand Um So the orgasm stuff was kooky and out there, but for the most part, they blended into the scenery of San Francisco at that time One Taste was a business, and her cult members are also all employees, although they are not receiving regular or sufficient pay for the fourteen hour days that they're putting in. Paste Vally. paid an experience. Paid an experience, baby. Since you mentioned Froo, it does One taste does sound like a pink berry It's ex Froyo name Yeah Yeah It would be funny if they hadn't become a criminal cult, which is where this ends and it had just pivoted hard into Froyo. explaining the origins of a popular frozen yogurt company They're just like wait, so we just realiz Froyo is where the money is. so we're dropping the sex call. We're dropping the sex It's like if we're looking up like the marble slab creamer like, oh, they used to fuck on the slab Wh I didn't guess that Guess the ice cream was a better business I mean Yeah, McDonald's used to just be a guy named McDonald in a bedroom, but then he started serving burgers and you know, one thing led to another Um So Morehouse starts having weekly sessions where they'll again, they're playing communication games to draw in the normies. know instead of calling it the mark group or the benchmark group, she called this the in group A term which I think deeply revealing to the social dynamics that are at play here, because Most people Most of us weren't cool at high school or at any of the schools that we went to. and some people grow up and they enter the wide world and they find their place in it, and we forget that we ever wanted strangers to think that we were cool. Other people don't get over that, and they particularly never get over, a lot of men never get over seeing like the cool hot guys at their high school hang out with the cool hot girls who didn't know they existed, right? That like eats at them the remainder of their lives U And so that's why she's calling it the in group, right? is it's to kind of to be like, you're one of the cool kids if you're hanging out with us, right? Like you're one of the cool kids if you pay for our classes. This is how to be that because we're having lots of fun experimental weird sex It would be very unfair of me, should I should note, just to say that, to talk about because I've largely been talking about what is drawing like these men, particularly these men with money into this group, right? What is bringing them in And it'd be really unfair me to say that and not talk about what the women who are joining the cult are getting out of this. becausecause most of the cult leaders, I think, are women or c members are women, right? And they're women of all ages. They are really heavily recruiting younger women, but there are women who are in like their forties and fifties who are joining too. And so it's important like what how is Nicole reaching them Be I can understand the marketing to middle aged men thing, right. But I don't know like what's drawing these because it seems like a lot of vulnerability, a lot of putting your body on display, a lot of like risk And anyway, I looked into a bunch of like their advertising videos and I found some of those that I think make that a little easier to understand. Soophie's going to play a video for you called Overcoming Depression through orrgasmic meditation And it shows one example of how the cults sold themselves to women I didn't know another way of being. L I was like, o, everybody has this. everybody has these thoughts and feelings, but you have to keep them hidden I see how people are treated for depression now breaks my heart very last thing you need is a diagnosis that comes ono you like an additional sentence because most people who are depressed feel guilty My whole life, I struggled with depression I never felt a lot of joy. L I didn't have a big range of emotions above sadness. home from work and lay on the couch I would sleep, take sleeping fills anything to make the thoughts in my mind startark and to not have to feel what I was feeling I'd takeak an antidepressants, you know, many antidepressants, many anti anxiety medications And the best they did was just numb the feelings a little bit. The thoughts were still there, the doubt, the fear The lack of joy or happiness was still there So it didn't seem like those provided me with a solution I wanted to actually have a What is aimed to heal them in their depression actually just numbs them and has them feel that much more disconnected from life. So okay First off, you see the pitch Are you depressed and sad? We have an answer boy, medication isn't always pleasant and it kind of the diagnosis can feel like an anchor. There's a lot of anti medical stuff in that video, right She describes that like many people are have like suffer both from the dis it's not just depression it suffer people suffer sure, but then when you get on the drugs, it disconnects them. And that's the kind of suffering too, right I guess it's like I it's it's very new Agey bullshit and like trying to separate you from potential tools but also I don't know. targeting Women in their forties and fifties is interesting to me, because I'm wondering if it's connected to possibly You know, like when women hit midlife, they're treated like they don't exist as sexual beings and that that's like not something that is thought about Um, well, in And especially older women in this period would have grown up in a time that was even more sexually restricted.. And people are starting to talk openly. That's kind of part of why like peopleople are so affected by this is like if you're someone in that situation and you like lay down and there's like this hot young guy who like tells you like looks at you and tells you you're beautiful and then starts massaging you. like that I'm not surprised. a lot of people get very addicted to that. and they're like, yeah, this did more for my depression than therapy was doing, right? They would feel like that in the moment and then they get wrapped up in a cult that causes much, much more damage. But it's just the way that they're targeting people is very particular, that was a freaky ad. It's really it's about to get freakier 'opie's gonna to play you continue playing that, but from can you play from one hundred thirty two to one hundred forty seven from the same video, Sophie, Thankk you For depression, many have turned successfully to workgasmic meditation attention training practice with defined procedures in Oome H partner strokes a woman's clitoris for fifteen minutes with no other goal than to feel what is present in the moment Yeah So They did her dirty in that edit. Oh my Godd. Yeah. Um So this is a bummer Yeah, it is a little it's it is a bummer. It's depressing. Now, a big thing that Nicole is doing here is she's recruiting and stocking her events with a lot of attractive young women and some attractive young men. But most of the guys in the group are like closer to or past middle age. And when those other dudes saw that like the guys who were in the cult giving clitorial massages to twenty two year olds who are also like in the cult, or like just playing card games and laughing like close friends with those same girls, their brains go right back to the eleventh grade, right? Only now Nicole is there with an offer, which is pay me for classes and you get to be in the in group, right? R. And they you know, that's kind of part of it is like, yeah, you get to be cool and you get to have this these new cool friends who are all like free with each other's bodies with each other. And people are just so fucking lonely. L this is very appealing to some folks. Right It's a bomber It's not it it is really sad and I know it's like not necessary It does feel like very American to like monetize the idea of community like this Um, And you know, just like whatever, hyper, hyper target people who are made invisible by the culture they're in and being like, okay, you're seen now. you're valid, you're attractive, you're loved. That would be five thousand dollars And then call that community It's just right like, yeah And a big thing Nicole is doing because when she's like recruiting partarticularly the younger people who are going to like be doing most of the work in this is she's a bit older than them