A former employee of alleged sex cult OneTaste described in graphic detail Wednesday the “hands on” courses offered by the sick wellness start-up – including how she was expected to orgasm “with anybody off the street.”
Becky, an alleged victim of the so-called “orgasm cult” whose full name is being withheld, took the stand in Brooklyn federal court as the first prosecution witness in the trial against OneTaste founder Nicole Daedone, 58, and her former head of sales, Rachel Cherwitz.
As an employee — making a meager $2,000 a month — the then-23-year-old Westchester County native was expected engage in orgasmic meditation — or OM –with other members of OneTaste and with potential clients, she testified.
“The expectation was I would be open to OMing with anybody off the street,” Becky, now pregnant and in her late 40s, told the court.
“I had to be turned on at all times,” she said, later adding, “It was really frowned upon to say you weren’t in the mood.”
OneTaste was founded by California native Daedone in San Francisco in 2004 as a wellness company promoting female empowerment — and, controversially, “orgasmic meditation” for women. It grew to have locations in New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Denver.
But prosecutors said the cheeky start-up hid a dark side, with its leaders allegedly recruiting vulnerable victims with past trauma, forcing them into sex work and other unpaid labor and leaving them to rack up debt.
Becky said she joined in 2011 and eventually got a job in sales for the company the next year — to help her pay for the pricey lessons she had to take as a member, which put her back between $15,000 to $20,000.
“I was the perfect mark,” she told the jury. “That word mark was used quite a bit for people who are easy to sell to. It comes from con artist language.”
She added: “I was young, idealistic and open to sexuality being talked about openly.”
“I was really, really lonely and I really wanted community. I was sexually confused enough that this fit all the pieces for me.”
One employed, she was expected to “say yes to everything” and work round-the-clock, Becky testified.
Victims were promised healing and enlightenment through the program, which included performing sex acts they sometimes found disgusting with other members and potential clients, prosecutors said.
Becky described vividly how she was taught about OM, where there would be a one-on-one session with a “stroker” and a “strokee” with one person stimulating her genitals for 15 minutes before the pair shared what they felt.
In a “mastery course,” participants would also explore anal play, S&M and bondage, she said.
“They were hands on,” Becky said of the classes.
One time, Cherwitz encouraged her to OM with an “older man, who I definitely wouldn’t ordinarily engage in sexual activity with,” Becky alleged.
“We laid on cushions and a blanket, I undressed from the waist down, legs spread, he’s sitting next to me and he strokes me in a specific way on my clitoris for 15 minutes,” she testified.
Becky called herself a “perfect mark” because she was young and impressionable and said she started working for OneTaste because she got into so much debt taking coaching classes.
Then, she moved into a OneTaste house in Harlem where she was never alone and had to text if she even wanted a 10-minute break, she said.
At the house members were forced to sleep in bed with other people and wake up at 7 a.m. when they would have their first OM.
They then did Bikram yoga and ate breakfast before spending the rest of the day, sometimes until midnight or 1 a.m. and even on the weekends, working on getting new clients.
During this time, Becky described how she was cut off from her friends and family because they had so much control over her — all of which contributed to her staying in the cult for so long.
She eventually quit the group in 2014 when she was 27 and broke.
The experience left her traumatized and with issues in her sex life and in relationships that she spent years working on in therapy, she said.
“I came in with very little in savings and I left with absolutely nothing,” Becky testified.
“It’s really hard to be in this room right now,” she added.
During opening statements Tuesday, Brooklyn federal prosecutor Sean Fern said victims, “worked because they were told doing things they found sexually disgusting was the path to freedom.”
In reality, the company was grown “on the backs of unpaid or underpaid labor, much of that labor included serving OneTaste investors,” Fern said.
Daedone and Cherwitz are charged with conspiracy to commit forced labor and face up to 20 years behind bars if convicted at the roughly six-week-long trial. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Daedone’s lawyer Jennifer Bonjean, painted OneTaste as a health and wellness company like any other — like “yoga with a twist,” in her own opening statement Tuesday.
Bonjean insisted all the members engaged in consensual acts and were now older and embarrassed about what they did.
“At the time, they were having a blast,” Bonjean said. “Grown people made grown decisions they don’t want to stand by.”
OneTaste was featured in a 2022 Netflix documentary called “Orgasm Inc” that addressed some of the alleged criminal allegations. And before the company’s 2018 demise, it was featured on Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop website.
Media exposes about the company’s alleged dark side lead to its eventual downfall.
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