“I’ll have what she’s having” (a presidential pardon)
THE FORMER HEADS of an alleged female “orgasm cult” are making inroads with pro-Trump media outlets—an alliance that could be crucial now that its leaders are facing the possibility of federal prison terms.
The story of once-booming female “orgasmic meditation” startup OneTaste appeared to come to an end earlier this month, when a jury in Brooklyn convicted founder Nicole Daedone and head of sales Rachel Cherwitz on a count each of forced labor conspiracy.
OneTaste, founded in 2004, purported to teach a sort of meditation through instructional demonstrations, which often featured a woman being brought to orgasm by another person’s fingers. But employees have claimed they were coerced into performing sex acts as part of the orgasm program, though the question of whether their fears of losing social status in the group if they didn’t perform acts genuinely qualified as “coercion” hung over the trial.
The allegations against OneTaste were chronicled in the 2020 BBC podcast series Orgasm Cult and the 2022 Netflix documentary Orgasm Inc.
As its leaders now face potential twenty-year prison sentences, OneTaste may have a second life as a MAGA cause célèbre. That’s because Daedone and her legal team have been pitching themselves as victims of exactly the kind of prosecutorial “weaponization” that the Trump administration has vowed to eradicate.
Seriously, the list of unsavory connections, apparent backchanneling, and MAGA media inroads is kinda shocking. Come along for the journey...
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