Orgasmique: Le business OneTaste

This documentary did a good job of exposing a wolf in sheep's clothing, One Taste founder, Nicole Daedone. However, like with many "cult" documentaries that are in vogue, it ends with lazy tabloid "this could happen to anyone" scaremongering instead of doing the investigative journalism to expose the common threads that left the victims they interviewed more susceptible to falling prey to this type of brainwashing. In this case, the documentary could have explored our dismal sex education for women in particular, our cultural shaming of female sexuality, our epidemic of child sexual abuse in all sexes, and our failure to teach both trauma recovery and critical thinking skills. Some friends and I attended an introductory One Taste lecture describing the "Om" meditation in the late 2000's and because I had expert knowledge of my sexual response from a young age from women's health books and had training in critical thinking skills, I immediately recognized the cult tactics of groupthink and gaslighting--and I saw the glazed look in the women's eyes who were devotees. It was truly creepy.

Documentaries on cults should examine how our culture at large grooms people to be vulnerable. But every time we try to have that conversation, it's seen as "victim blaming" rather than what it really is...empowering to avoid victimization. Documentaries like this have a responsibility to look at the bigger picture, instead of just creating more fear about how any of us could be next which, in my experience, is not true.

I have seen quite a few documentaries on cults and most of them, if not all, involve people that are in search of something, they feel they are an outsider for whatever reasons.

They also involve a main character who is usually a predator of some type. I wish they would have had more information on the background of Nicole Daedone to get a better idea of her motivation to take advantage of "needy" people.

Some of her victims, usually women, are so fragile and needy that they are very easy to lead astray, others take some time. The get lied to and buttered up and told they are loved and it totally messed them up mentally.

Another thing they have in common is the leader ,aka head predator, usually gets away with it!

I really hope all of these people can recover.

I was in OneTaste and it absolutely messed me up. People who harassed and violated me were welcomed in the community without even a pause. We were encouraged to always be friends and "stay connected". Imagine being told that after someones literally violated you. I heard of it happening often within the community. The leader cares more about money and herself than anything else and publicly condoned this behavior. It took me a lot of therapy to start having healthy relationships after I left. And yet, she still has a strong following. I think this is an important doc for anyone who'd like to be aware of cults, cult leaders and those in the sex positive space in general.

This documentary about Nicole Daedon and her OneTaste Company is interesting but completely misses the mark on its attempt to portray Daedon as a scammer and con artist. While there is clearly a cultish aspect of the personality and the work of Daedon it is not veiled. She is person that promotes female sexual empowerment and enlightenment through female orgasm. She also charges a lot of money for her programs. So what? The people that joined did so of their free will and were free to leave any time. Furthermore, it seems that the program was transparent in its focus on sexuality as a vehicle for self awareness. People's buyer's remorse or embarrassment over paying upwards of $30,000 doesn't;t make this a story of corruption or fraud. I thought the story is interesting but I felt like the documentarian was trying to manipulate the story.

What happened here? A compelling story about a sex cult that teaches women and men about increasing orgasmic pleasure goes soft when it comes time to deliver. Even from a technical standpoint the film is poorly executed and rife with cliches. I feel for the people who were victims of Onetaste but the majority of the film actually celebrates the cult instead of exposing the predatory nature of the leader Nicole and her close followers. The extremely cliche b-roll shots of people laying in bed "thinking" and staring out a window with tears welling up are almost comical at times. With that said, it's interesting enough to learn that something like this existed and thrived with celebrities and the tech elite of Silicon Valley. Give it a watch if you are looking for some cheap entertainment (or to listen to in the background). HOWEVER.... what you won't find here is the savvy documentary style that Netflix has nailed so many times before. Shame.