Is This Human Trafficking?

A deep dive into the dubious case against orgasmic meditation group OneTaste.

(Illustration: Lex Villena; Isselee, Inara Prusakova, Dreamstime, Inara Prusakova)

"Orgasmic meditation." It sounded familiar, somehow? I was sure I'd heard of OneTaste—the company promoting this practice—before, too.

A quick bit of Googling put things in perspective: the group had been a staple of women's and lifestyle media in the early 2010s, back when I myself was working as a women's health blogger. For a minute, every third reporter in New York City seemed intent on bringing us a firsthand account of an orgasmic meditation (OM) class.

OneTaste came back on my radar in late 2024 because of an email someone sent to my colleague Matt Welch. He forwarded it on to me, suggesting this might be my territory. The email explained that OneTaste's founder, Nicole Daedone, and its former VP of Sales, Rachel Cherwitz, were being tried by the feds for a human trafficking crime, despite remarkably little evidence to tether their actions to the charge. The pair were being charged with conspiracy to commit forced labor, but no underlying forced labor charge. What's more, there was a lot of weirdness with the lead FBI investigator and some of the prosecution's evidence.

This was good timing, because I was on the hunt for my next longform story. But I had also bookmarked another email, about a woman who felt pressured by the FBI to say she was a sex trafficking victim when she wasn't. She was suing her lawyer, whom she felt had colluded with the FBI to convince her of her victimhood so the lawyer could make money off of her in a civil suit.

I decided I would look into the OneTaste business after I looked into this woman's story.

Lo and behold, they were the same story, as I soon discovered. The woman—Alisha Price—was a former employee at OneTaste and had lived in communal housing with other OneTaste workers and OM enthusiasts. FBI agents had shown up at her house in 2021 to try and get her to testify against Daedone.

I was getting more intrigued. But what really sealed the deal was reading two particular court documents.

The first was the indictment against Daedone and Cherwitz, filed in April of 2023. It was salacious, but vague—the kind of weak case that prosecutors hope you won't notice is weak because they're thrown in enough lurid allegations—with no suggestion that violence, threats of violence, or any of the usual elements of forced labor had been employed.

After that, I read a motion from the defendants, begging for more information about what, precisely, the government was accusing them of doing. This was filed in early 2024, nearly 10 months after the initial indictment. At that point, the government still hadn't provided details about the alleged crime. A “bill of particulars” would not come until October 2024, more than a year and a half after they were indicted and six years after the FBI started investigating OneTaste.

Here we were with an investigation that had already stretched for more than half of decade, and allegations of a 14-year forced labor conspiracy… yet the government couldn't sustain any underlying criminal charge, nor could it provide any specifics about what this alleged conspiracy involved? That seemed nuts.

I’ve got my next feature, I told my eternally awesome editor, Peter Suderman, who was quickly on board.

Since then, I've read approximately one gazillion more court documents, poured over all sorts of OneTaste materials, and talked to many people currently or formerly involved with the group. Throughout this process, my sense that this case was nonsensical and a travesty of justice grew stronger and stronger.

Now, you can read all about it in Reason. My story—"The FBI's Weak, Weird Case Against a Supposed 'Orgasm Cult'"—was published on Tuesday.

It delves into OneTaste's origins and philosophy, how it went from media darling to the subject of salacious takedowns (including a very deceitful film on Netflix), how the FBI got involved, and how the case against Daedone and Cherwitz has been unfolding.

They're scheduled to go to trial in May, and I imagine that as the trial date approaches, we're going to start seeing more media coverage of this case again, with much of it parroting press releases the Department of Justice has put out.

I hope you'll read my article and learn the real story. It's much more complex—and more interesting—than "sex cult" headlines would have you believe.

And it showcases a disturbing trend in the government’s approach to female agency.

As I write at Reason:

Prosecutors seem to want this case to rest on the idea that the company's bigwigs were mean girls and sex weirdos who used orgasms as tools of mind control.

From the lurid occult associations to the implied sex trafficking allegations, there's precious little substance to this case—just salaciousness, scandal, and the all-too-familiar sense that female sexuality is something to be suppressed and controlled by the state.

Speaking of women and government…

My Sex & Tech newsletter this week—prompted by comments Daedone made to me about yoga—looks at early 20th Century panic about American women being lured to their ruin by yoga, meditation, and "soft-voiced swamis" with "swarthy faces and dreamy-looking eyes." Sexism! Xenophobia! Purity panic! This one has it all.

As always, thanks for reading.