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Editor’s Intro: Cults are not cults because they’re small, or weird, or sexual, or a documentary tells a tale about ’em. Cults are cults if they remove free choice, open communication, accountability, if they prioritize money or worship over honesty and safety. There will always be bad actors in any community, any restaurant, any office, any club, any group. That’s not an excuse, it’s humanity. It takes more than a few bad actors to make a cult. It takes a system set up to corrupt, cruel, abusive ends. ~ ed.
This is one perspective. Sexuality, Female Empowerment, Money, Fame…in the US? A recipe for trouble.
“It was good. Never looking down. And right there where we stood, was Holy Ground.” ~ Taylor Swift
Maybe you’ve heard of a Turn-On Event? Or scrolled through Netflix’s documentaries and saw “Orgasm, Inc.” or you have a friend who learned the practice of Orgasmic Meditation. Or maybe you haven’t. That’s ok.
Women’s Studies Alum. OMer. Paralegal. Journalist.
That’s the chronological order in which I became these things.
From 2010 through 2016, I invested over 10 grand into a Female Orgasm Startup, called OneTaste that developed the clitoris-centered stroking practice of Orgasmic Meditation (or OM for short).
Just as I entered OneTaste, the founder of OM, Nicole Daedone was making her TED talk debut. You see, Nicole refined and publicized the art of clitoral stroking, by weaving it into a meditation with a structured container for women’s safety. Not only did she make it a consent-based, accessible, trademarked product, she also added a Coaching Program to proliferate OM out into the world.
She dared us to look at female sexuality with fresh eyes and a sober mind.
The recent legal case against OneTaste brought me back into the OM Community after being gone for 10 years. I’ve been reading the legal pleadings, Criminal and Civil. I’ve been watching the OneTaste Federal case, with a trial date set for May 5 in New York, gain traction and lose traction. More and more media outlets are covering the case and company with mixed journalistic integrity.
What I can say is that like orgasm, this case is messy and chaotic. But I trust that this case will be examined and stroked until it gets to the truth.
One thing I know about law is that it acts on precedent, which is yet another reason this case is messy. This is historically challenging when it comes up against the startup industry.
In service to OM, I’ve decided to share some of my favorite, most impactful Orgasmic Meditation memories. I think that’s the right thing to do here; get personal. So here we go:
>> Learning Orgasmic Meditation: I’ll never forget the shock of hearing that Nicole and Rachel were arrested. These women taught me Orgasmic Meditation. In one of my earliest OMs, Rachel sat right beside me in a position where she could have eyes on both my stroker, my clitoris and talk to me face-to-face. It felt like she was made to do this work. She was firm in her role, she set me at ease and guided my breathing. I understand now what a privilege it was to have her coach me in 2011. Rachel always made me feel held. Completely. She brings her whole heart and I always respect that about her. My first OMs were so powerful that I wrote about them in nuanced detail, and then they were read and shared within the community after getting my consent to share them.
>> Orgasmic Energy: I kept hearing women talk about how they cried in an OM. But not me. I’ve never cried during any sexual act. I didn’t cry in an OM for the first two years I OMed.
Then, when I had multiple 15 minute OMs in one day, something unfroze in me. The floodgates of my limbic system opened wide. I could not stop crying. Some stuck, frozen energy cracked open, dislodged, and was cleaned out by orgasmic energy. We’ve barely tapped into the power of female orgasm. It’s not just pleasure, it’s pain relief with healing properties keeping energy moving. I believe OM is part of the currently messy, healthcare solution. Two of the most substantial benefits that I notice when I OM, are 1) I have more energy and 2) I’m less hungry all the time.
>> Coaching Desire: I have much gratitude for my OM Coaches. Initially, they got me to slow the F down. The mainstream moves way too fast. I was moving too hurriedly through life, through my day. They even held space for me when I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be in the OM Coaching Program. I didn’t really know what I wanted for my career in my early thirties. They didn’t apply pressure on me to stay. So I quit. I enrolled in law classes a year later. In the 10 years after I left, OneTaste came under fire by former staff, with media takedowns asserting OneTaste was guilty of coercion and accountable for people’s decisions, triggers, or lack of skills. I think that’s highly unfair to shift that level of blame to a business. I came to OneTaste as an adult and I left as an adult. I wasn’t coerced, I was mindfully asked, “What do you want?”
>> San Francisco OM House: Aside from finding OM partners and being close to the OneTaste classroom, Women’s Circle was the big draw for me to live in the San Francisco OM-Friendly House. Imagine an organic food menu and Men’s or Women’s Circle built into your rent? My community knew I was commuting to work, so they always got my name on the board so that I wouldn’t miss a big, yummy, dinner plate after a long work day. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.
One of my short-term 1080 roommates and I, worked unofficially on OM science together. We came up with a more accurate definition of the female sexual response: Segorgement or Segorged. It combines secretions with engorgement. Traditional science fixates the female sexual response as simply arousal and secretions, but often leaves out the clitoris, which engorges with blood if the erectile tissue in the clitoris is stimulated via gentle stroking, such as in an OM.
>> Ignited Men: At the time, because I was so wrapped up in my own limbic system undergoing construction I don’t think I fully appreciated the way the menfolk staff at OneTaste handled any misogynistic attitudes I witnessed from new male clients that walked through the doors. They were keen, observant, empathetic and skilled at handling unaware men with warranted downstrokes and reprimands. And, they were also transparent around it, earning the title “Ignited Man.” This is one key factor that enabled me to stay and study as long as I did. I would never last long in a climate steeped in misogyny. Ignited Men felt like futuristic men to me. It made them attractive and compelling. It’s the Divine Masculine at work. The OneTaste women added to safety as well: a Turned On Woman in her power can uniquely wrangle and temper male aggression, which stems from the builder-hormone, testosterone. Ignited Men empower Turned On Women who can then face and handle toxic masculinity, or anything else—but it’s not constantly put on her to do it all by herself all the time.
Now that I’ve taken criminal law, I know that OneTaste could itself be a victim of unannounced male predators that act out of violence and exploit the curriculum. In fact, as an educational institution, it suffered much less sexual assault than college campuses, simply due to being such a controlled environment. At OneTaste, men were checking the men—it was not all put on women to defend themselves all the time—like social media platforms irresponsibly do today. This ethical OneTaste model, I feel, is one that the mainstream needs to adopt.
>> Startup, Not Cult: Due to the volume of sensationalism, getting the mainstream to comprehend that OneTaste is a startup and not a cult, is not easy. The Orgasm, Inc. mockumentary on Netflix did OneTaste zero favors.
But how do know I wasn’t in a cult? Easy. The answer is orgasm. The mainstream needs orgasm, not just us miners of it. Orgasm is for everyone.
What the mainstream doesn’t know, is how much energy it takes to hold Orgasmic Energy. It’s consuming. One needs healthy breaks from enormous energy. Coming and going on my terms kept me grounded in myself and the door open to an energy one should never abuse. In this provocative undertaking, I do think it is wrong to compare OneTaste to the NXIVM cult, where women were branded on their skin. Seriously? We got a “Remember to Remember” necklace.
>> Recognizing Sexism: OM philosophy sharpened my senses to recognize what sexism feels like. Over the years, I’ve sharpened my ability to handle unethical behavior inside and outside of the workplace. OM doesn’t just empower women to be assertive, it makes us into powerful, Turned On Women, hormonally! Nicole gave women like myself tools and permission to embrace literal woman-spreading, a cultural norm only available to men. Obviously, this will be triggering.
>> We Knew it was Unprecedented: There’s no precedent for this case. This is a new precedent of company-wide-consent that the law has never seen before. It’s the first. So, maybe it’s criminalized and labeled a conspiracy because how could you get everyone to consent in this way? It must have been brainwashed or forced, is probably the prosecutor’s logic. Instead of simply acknowledging that everybody did, in fact, consent. There’s no conspiracy, no crime, no victim because there was collective consent at a dedicated startup. OneTaste just failed to document daily consent videos by staff, that’s the only thing they may have done wrong. Morning OM, then make your consent video. You don’t need to conspire when you have full consent. A first, in business and now in law. History has been made at OneTaste. I believe we should acknowledge it, not criminalize it.
An OM begins with, “Do You Want to OM?” That’s literally the practice of getting consent built into the OM product and practice. A woman may say yes or no. It was practiced daily at OneTaste. OneTaste set the precedent for a consent-based product. 20 years later, I still feel it’s the safest and most efficient product on the market to safely explore intimacy. And, to enforce consensual sex acts and respect rejection.
In closing, this unprecedented case in the current, political climate only tells me how still relevant the now fully ratified 1923 Equal Rights Amendment is. A heated ratification deadline debate ensues. The ERA would make it unconstitutional to discriminate on the basis of sex. In a way, the OneTaste case needs the Equal Rights Amendment. It is my hope that Congress recognizes this.
I believe Nicole created a perfect product in OM—despite the media’s inability to always capture this. The attack on women and women’s work is far, deep and wide. It’s as if men get to succeed but when women get to success, they didn’t work, they “conspired.” This should be alarming to anyone employing or raising successful women.
Orgasmic Meditation is life-changing and it was a privilege to be there. It is a privilege to write about it. Please “Remember to Remember” this.
In OM,
author: Jodi Felton
Image: Personal Image/Jodi Felton
Editor: Molly Murphy
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