Sophia Michaels
They were seeking a 15-minute climax, not 15 minutes of Netflix fame, a new lawsuit unsealed this week in Los Angeles alleges.
In a complaint obtained by Rolling Stone, more than a dozen one-time members of the controversial “orgasmic meditation” group OneTaste claim that the upcoming Netflix documentary Orgasm Inc.: The Story of OneTaste will use “misappropriated” recordings of their training sessions, violate their privacy rights, and unfairly associate them with “salacious” and “implied” criminal behavior.
On Wednesday, their lawyer filed a follow-up application for a temporary restraining order, asking a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge to block the documentary’s planned Nov. 5 release. The lawyer, Paul Nicholas Boylan, hopes to plead his clients’ case at a Friday morning hearing.
“These are ordinary folks. They’re just people in a class who thought it would be confidential and private, and it wasn’t. They never agreed Netflix could use their images, and they don’t want to be in this,” Boylan told Rolling Stone.
Boylan declined to share details about his 14 “Doe” clients beyond saying “most” were only students of OneTaste. He conceded a “minority” also worked at some point as paid employees.
According to Netflix, the new documentary features “never-before-seen footage” and interviews that will pull back the curtain on OneTaste, spotlighting an FBI investigation into claims of sex trafficking, prostitution and labor violations at the organization as well as the group’s controversial founder Nicole Daedone, known for preaching the virtues of 15-minute female orgasms with messianic zeal.
According to a Bloomberg Businessweek exposé published in 2018, OneTaste morphed from a Silicon Valley wellness start-up promoted by celebrities including Gwyneth Paltrow and Khloé Kardashian into a more sinister enterprise plagued by accusations it resembled a for-profit sex cult.
“In some members’ experiences, the company used flirtation and sex to lure emotionally vulnerable targets. It taught employees to work for free or cheap to show devotion. And managers frequently ordered staffers to have sex or OM (orgasmic meditation) with each other or with customers,” the piece reported.
Daedone, who reportedly stepped down as CEO in 2017, did not respond to a request for comment sent by Rolling Stone Wednesday evening.
According to the new lawsuit, former OneTaste videographer Chris Kosley shared his library of footage with filmmaker Sarah Gibson before some of it ended up in a sizzle reel used to sell Orgasm Inc. to Netflix. Snippets of the footage was later used for the documentary’s trailer, revealing faces of some of the Doe plaintiffs, the paperwork states. Kosley declined to comment Wednesday night. Attempts to reach Gibson and a representative for Netflix were not immediately successful.
One of the Doe plaintiffs, meanwhile, filed a sworn declaration Wednesday saying they expect to suffer “irreparable damage” if their prior affiliation with OneTaste becomes public information. The plaintiff said they were involved with OneTaste from 2013 until October 2016, first as a student and later as an employee. They said while it’s true they signed releases allowing OneTaste to record them in classes for future teaching purposes, they never agreed to public dissemination of the material.
“In addition to the releases I signed providing only OneTaste the opportunity to video record my participation in OneTaste classes only for OneTaste’s use for future educational purposes, I also signed confidentiality agreements conditioning my participation in any OneTaste class on my agreement that everything that happened in the class would be confidential and private. Everyone who participated in OneTaste classes signed a confidentiality agreement,” the plaintiff wrote.
“Before any OM class began, the instructor obtained a promise of group confidentiality from the entire class, stating that the class/seminar venue is a safe place for all class participants to express themselves without fear that what they said or did would become public knowledge,” the plaintiff added. “The class instructor would ask for a show of hands to see who agreed with this group confidentiality pledge, and would not proceed until everyone who would be attending the class demonstrated their confidentiality/privacy agreement by a show of hands by all class participants. I remember the ‘show of hands.’”
OneTaste’s website still has a landing page at OneTaste.us, but its links divert visitors to affiliated groups such as the Eros Coaching Collective, which sells a three-session OM training package for $525, and The Institute of OM Foundation based in Santa Rosa, Calif.
Anjuli Ayer, CEO of both OneTaste and Institute of OM, criticized the upcoming Netflix documentary in a statement sent to Rolling Stone Wednesday night.
“None of these women signed releases authorizing Gibson or Netflix to view or use their intimate and sensitive material. Netflix and Gibson seem to think no one will care when they exploit women for profit. They are wrong,” she said.
