Leaders of women’s sexual wellness company OneTaste convicted of forced labor : NPR

This story mentions sexual assault and includes descriptions of sexual acts.

Two former executives of the sexual wellness company OneTaste that promoted the practice of “orgasmic meditation” were convicted this week in federal court on forced labor conspiracy charges.

Company founder Nicole Daedone and former head of sales, Rachel Cherwitz, were found guilty on Monday of what prosecutors described as a “coercive scheme to obtain the labor and services” of OneTaste employees, using “economic, sexual, emotional, financial, and psychological abuse, as well as surveillance, indoctrination, and intimidation.”

A Brooklyn jury deliberated for two days before returning the guilty verdicts.

Here’s what to know about the company and its two former executives.

The jury convicted them of forced labor conspiracy

From 2006 to 2018, Daedone and Cherwitz were found to have manipulated multiple young women into performing degrading sex acts for the company’s benefit, including sexually servicing potential investors, prosecutors said in a statement after the conviction.

In charging documents, prosecutors accused Daedone and Cherwitz of purposefully recruiting people with “prior trauma” to participate in the program. OneTaste members were under “constant surveillance” in communal homes, where they slept in shared assigned beds and ate and worked always in groups, prosecutors said.

The former company execs also coerced their employees into working long hours with little to no pay and intimidated them into financial ruin in order to pay for expensive OneTaste courses and retreats, prosecutors said.

“The jury’s verdict has unmasked Daedone and Cherwitz for who they truly are: grifters who preyed on vulnerable victims by making empty promises of sexual empowerment and wellness only to manipulate them into performing labor and services for the defendants’ benefit,” Joseph Nocella Jr., U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.

“I commend the witnesses who testified at trial notwithstanding the trauma that they experienced at the defendants’ direction. It is my hope that the just conclusion of this process will bring them closure, and that future charlatans think twice about exploiting human beings in this manner,” he said in the statement.

Daedone and Cherwitz each face up to 20 years behind bars.

The company gained attention for “orgasmic meditation”

Daedone founded the San Francisco-based OneTaste in 2004 to promote its practice of orgasmic meditation, in which male participants were encouraged to digitally stimulate female partners for 15 minutes, and the woman was encouraged to practice mindfulness.

Sexual reciprocity was not required.

In a 2011 TedX talk posted to YouTube, Daedone describes discovering the practice at a party when a man approached her and performed a similar act on her, sending Daedone on a journey to fine-tune what would become OneTaste’s trademark guidance.

In the video, Daedone presented herself as a pioneer of women’s sexual liberation to cheers from the crowd. The video has been viewed more than 2.3 million times.

The company trudged along in relative obscurity for its first five years, until a 2009 profile on the front page of the New York Times’ Style section launched it into the national spotlight.

Allegations of abuse emerged

With the brighter public profile, however, came increased scrutiny on OneTaste.

In 2018, an extensive Bloomberg Businessweek exposé drew a dark picture of the company that purported to promote healing through sexual pleasure.

Around the time of the Bloomberg profile, Cherwitz resigned from her post as head of sales. Daedone had already stepped down as the company’s chief executive in 2017, having sold her stake in the business for $12 million, according to prosecutors.

A Netflix documentary, Orgasm Inc: The Story of OneTaste, followed in 2022, though key evidence described in the film was later found to have been fabricated.

Following the Monday guilty verdicts, attorneys for Daedone and Cherwitz vowed in a statement to appeal the decision.

“This case raised numerous novel and complex legal issues that will require review by the Second Circuit,” Cherwitz’s attorneys Celia Cohen and Michael Robotti, and Daedone’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean said in a statement.

“We find inspiration in our clients, Nicole and Rachel, who have shown incredible strength throughout this entire process.”

OneTaste still operates as a sexual wellness company focused on the practice of orgasmic meditation, though the business has since rebranded itself as The Institute of OM Foundation. The group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Despite her conviction, Daedone is still featured prominently on the company’s website.