Former members of an 'orgasm cult' alleged they were told to have sex with prospective clients. An investigator says a federal human-trafficking law could have been violated.

Insider/June 29, 2023

By Lloyd Lee

Former members of a group that has been dubbed an "orgasm cult" have accused the organization's leaders of pushing them to have sex with prospective members, which could potentially allow the ex-workers to seek legal action through a novel use of federal human trafficking laws, an attorney said.

Two leaders of the organization called OneTaste, which sparked a craze in the early 2010s called "orgasmic meditation," were indicted in April for forced labor conspiracy.

The indictment accuses OneTaste's founder, Nicole Daedone, and the group's head of sales, Rachel Cherwitz, of a "years-long scheme to obtain the labor and services of a group of OneTaste members ... by subjecting them to economic, sexual, emotional and psychological abuse, surveillance, indoctrination, and intimidation."

One element of OneTaste's "forced labor scheme," according to the indictment, was recruiting and grooming "OneTaste members to engage in sexual acts with OneTaste's current and prospective investors, clients, employees and beneficiaries, for the financial benefit of OneTaste."

Daedone and Cherwitz have pleaded not guilty to the forced labor conspiracy charge.

Former OneTaste employees and members echoed these accusations in a Netflix documentary that was released in November called "Orgasm Inc." The documentary chronicled the rise of OneTaste; how it attracted interest in part through live demonstrations of clitoral stimulation; and how it devolved into a cult-like group as it expanded.

Former member Elana Auerbach recounted in the documentary how the courses that involved stimulating a woman's clitoris often had a heavy male attendance. In order for each man to have a partner, OneTaste relied on current women members to participate in the courses.

"There were, you know, 10 men and two other women who had signed up," Auerbach said in the documentary, adding that women could often take the course for free or at a steep discount, whereas men had to pay in full.

"They were paying for it, so if there's only two women, we need eight more women to pair up with these other guys. Where are they gonna come from? So, that would be us," she said.

Despite the allegations, former OneTaste members have not sought legal action against the organization or its leaders.

One attorney whose practice focuses on sexual abuse allegations against religious groups, cults, or "spiritual communities," told Insider that the former members can seek some form of civil legal reparation through a federal law called the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (TVPA), which states that whoever forces or entices a person "through fraud or coercion" to "engage in a commercial sex act" is in violation of the law.  

Carol Merchasin, an attorney at McAllister Olivarius who leads the firm's sexual misconduct in spiritual communities practice, said that it's often difficult to hold religious groups or cults accountable.

She argues in her paper about applying (TVPA) to cults that these groups may cite "religious expression through the First Amendment" to operate as they please, and US law currently offers scant ways to bring a lawsuit "claiming coercive control."

But perhaps "the biggest legal obstacle," she writes in the paper, is the statute of limitations, which sets deadlines for victims to file a lawsuit. Some states, including New York and California, have enacted laws that provide sexual assault survivors a brief window to pursue cases even after the statute of limitations expired.

"We don't have enough resources and we don't have enough tools in the legal justice system to go after these cults and spiritual communities," Merchasin said.

The solution, according to Merchasin, could be through a nascent application of the federal human-trafficking law, and she turns to a case that was made against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein as a prominent clue.

In 2018, a Manhattan judge allowed a lawsuit accusing the disgraced film executive of violating the federal sex-trafficking statute to proceed in court. Plaintiffs argued that Weinstein had promised some form of career advancement before they were sexually assaulted.

The trafficking charges were dropped after accusers agreed to a $17-million settlement, but allowing the case to proceed in court at all offered victims such as the former OneTaste employees an avenue for a civil lawsuit, even if women weren't moved across state lines as is often the case, Merchasin said.

The attorney argued that "if you entice, recruit, harbor or obtain, in our case, in these cult communities ... to engage in what the law calls a 'commercial sex act," then OneTaste could be scrutinized through the federal trafficking law.

In this case, "commercial sex act," doesn't have to have anything to do with money but something of value, Merchasin said in the interview, meaning that the law doesn't have to be limited to prostitution.

At OneTaste, former members accused the leaders of encouraging them to have sex with co-workers or members to settle work arguments or heal from trauma.

Merchasin added that the "forced labor" element, as seen in the federal indictment, is an important part of the sex-trafficking claim.

Prosecutors alleged in the indictment that Daedone and Cherwitz encouraged employees to "incur debt" and that members often found themselves relying on the organization to provide shelter and other basic necessities.

When these victims have no money "it's one of the ways that you get control over people ... it makes it easier to be manipulated," Merchasin said.

Attorneys for Daedone and Cherwitz did not respond to a request for comment.

OneTaste's current CEO, Anjuli Ayer, told Insider in an emailed statement that she purchased the company "because my own life was transformed after suffering severe illness, and I watched others experience the same. I wanted all people, especially women, to have access to what I have gotten to experience. I intend to continue, no matter what, to make Orgasmic Meditation readily accessible to anyone who wants it."

"OneTaste would vigorously defend itself against any attempt to develop 'novel' legal theories in furtherance of building a profit-motivated, yet baseless mass civil action against the company," she wrote. "The facts speak for themselves. We are confident that the conduct of the business was consistently in line with the law, and with our principles of women's empowerment that over 35,000 in-person participants experienced."

If you are a survivor of sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline (1-800-656-4673) or visit its website to receive confidential support.

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