At ‘Orgasmic Meditation’ Trial, Feds Can’t Find a Clitoris—or Evidence of Forced Labor
“And where is he stroking you?”
“On my clitoris.”
“And that is in your vaginal area?”
Welcome to the OneTaste trial, in which two former leaders of the orgasm-promoting wellness company—OneTaste co-founder Nicole Daedone and former head of sales Rachel Cherwitz—stand accused of conspiracy to commit forced labor, in a case that might charitably be described as rocky.
Reason obtained transcripts of court proceedings spanning from May 6 to May 13.The transcripts include the above exchange between Assistant U.S. Attorney Kaitlin Farrell and government witness Rebecca Halpern, which took place on May 7. Farrell returned to clitorises a bit later, this time with a diagram.
They were discussing orgasmic meditation, or O.M.—a 15-minute, partnered clitoral stroking session that OneTaste encouraged as a daily practice. Halpern had been a willing participant in O.M., as a student and later a coach. Farrell showed the court a OneTaste pamphlet about O.M. and asked her paralegal to zoom in on a picture of a woman’s vulva and genital area. After having Halpern describe the practice in detail, Farrell asked if she might use a touchscreen to circle the areas she was describing:
Farrell: So you’ve just made a blue mark in the middle of the screen. What is that pointing to?
Halpern: That’s the clitoris.
Farrell: And then you mentioned the introitus earlier. If you could please circle that.
Halpern: It’s not doing a great job, but up here.
Farrell: And for the record, that’s slightly below the mark you made for the clitoris. Is that correct?
Halpern: Correct.
Farrell: And remind us what happens in that spot?
Halpern: That’s where the stroker rests their thumb.
If you’re struggling to understand what this has to do with labor exploitation, join the club.
Now in the second week of trial, the clitoris isn’t the only thing that the feds seem at a loss to find. Also missing from witness testimony so far has been convincing evidence of coerced or forced labor.
Free To Choose
So far, four witnesses have testified about the alleged harms they suffered while working for or associating with OneTaste. And they have testified that they were able to come and go freely from OneTaste workplaces and from the communal housing where they chose to live. (Employees were not required to live in this housing, but could apply to do so. Many did.)
They have noted that no one ever took away their means of communicating with outsiders—that they had free access to phones, computers, email, and mail—and that they were free to visit family, friends, and places around New York and San Francisco, where the OneTaste centers were located. Some took vacations. Some had outside jobs.
They also testified that they were not tricked into job situations or living arrangements that they hadn’t anticipated. Nor were they trapped by a lack of options—they had other places and skills they could turn to, college degrees, loved ones outside the group.
They also had agency within the organization, accepting and advocating for different positions and conditions, and leaving these positions when they wanted to without threats or backlash from Daedone, Cherwitz, or the company. Halpern even admitted that while she could have been fired for cause (her sales were not good), they instead let her go in a way that still allowed her to get severance and unemployment benefits.
It was not all bliss, according to these witnesses—three women and one man as of Tuesday evening. They had some disagreements with their bosses, colleagues, and housemates. They found some of them volatile or verbally abusive, and some OneTaste exercises off-putting.
But they also found great happiness, fulfillment, and friendship in OneTaste, per their testimonies.
For instance, one government witness—Dana Michelle Gill—said yesterday that she stayed because she found the group’s acceptance of her sexuality “very liberating” and found the practice of O.M. to be “beneficial.” Now, more than a decade after leaving OneTaste, she believes that she deviated from her true values during her time there. And the government wants us to believe this was not only Daedone and Cherwitz’s fault, somehow, but also serves as evidence of their criminality.
Beliefs on Trial
A week and a half into the federal trial, it seems more clear than ever that prosecutors are trying to put OneTaste’s teachings and Daedone’s and Cherwitz’s beliefs on trial.
The government’s whole theory of the case rests on the idea that OneTaste’s teachings around sexual openness and promiscuity, as well as being open and receptive to foreign or uncomfortable experiences more generally, were a form of psychological abuse.
This isn’t just speculation—Farrell said as much in a May 7 comment to Judge Diane Gujarati. “Our theory of the case is that the defendants put some [of] the testifying witnesses, our victi
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