When documentary filmmaker Sarah Gibson learned about OneTaste, a San Francisco–based sexual wellness company, she was surprised that she’d actually heard of it before — at least part of the story, anyway. In 2014, a friend of Gibson’s bought three classes offered by OneTaste to explore the practice of orgasmic meditation (OM). For Gibson’s friend, the experience was positive and liberating. It wasn’t until 2019, when Gibson and producer Erin Lee Carr were contacted by Lena Dunham, that she learned not everyone shared her friend’s perspective: “[Lena wanted to] make a film that [could] speak to the broader issues of the ‘wellness industrial complex’ and unregulated alternative healing modalities.” Gibson says she became “obsessed” as soon as she started digging into the story, and the disconcerting experiences of certain OneTaste members eventually led to Gibson’s latest documentary, Orgasm Inc: The Story of OneTaste, co-directed with Sloane Klevin, produced by Marissa Díaz and executive produced by Dunham, Carr and Michael P. Cohen.
“I had chills going up and down my body,” Gibson tells Tudum of when she first heard about the darker side of OneTaste. “I was like, ‘Holy shit. I need to tell this story.’ ”
OneTaste’s controversial founder Nicole Daedone began OneTaste in 2004, but it remained in relative obscurity until 2009, when The New York Times ran a feature on the company in its style section. Interest in OneTaste exploded from there: In 2011, Daedone gave a wildly popular TED Talk about female orgasms that pushed the brand even further into the spotlight, garnering attention from investors and celebrities alike. OneTaste marketed itself as a path to fulfillment, promising members they’d learn how to have a 15-minute orgasm. The documentary includes extensive footage of OM meetings, talks and events, along with some of Daedone’s own OM sessions and interviews with former members. It also describes the fallout of a 2018 Bloomberg article written by journalist Ellen Huet, which first reported the allegations of former members who described being pressured into sexual activity and significant debt. Daedone has since left OneTaste, and the company has been renamed The Institute of OM; it’s currently under FBI investigation for sex trafficking, prostitution and labor law infractions. (OneTaste denies these claims. In October 2022, former OneTaste members signed a petition against Orgasm Inc with concerns that their privacy would be violated).
Ultimately, Orgasm Inc is about something far more complicated than a controversial company and its leader; the documentary offers a platform for former members to tell their stories, shedding light on their experiences and abuses that may have been otherwise swept under the rug.
“We wanted to tell the story of OneTaste and what they were preaching and selling, and also give voice to the people that bought into it and had both positive and less positive experiences,” Gibson says. “I think a lot of people assume that the people who opt into these situations aren’t intelligent, but it’s often the opposite. It’s very intelligent people who are curious and looking for solutions to better themselves.”
Klevin agrees, and says that the most striking aspect of trying to tell this story is how much empathy she had for everyone who got caught up in OneTaste’s teachings.
“I come from a humanistic approach to filmmaking,” Klevin says. “I get drawn into establishing empathy with characters, and I want to really lean into their stories and their experiences. OneTaste offered so much community, love, connection and acceptance... you can understand how people could get swept up in something like this and eventually get hurt.” Klevin says that was the impetus for former participants agreeing to be interviewed; they wanted to warn others that though OneTaste promises catharsis and healing, certain aspects of their practices have caused immense pain.
Knowing that these stories were so nuanced, Gibson and Klevin used a cautious approach to their storytelling: “The footage featured in our film was all legally obtained by us and much was already public and had been distributed by OneTaste themselves, or on Youtube, or in past news reports. No one’s rights have been violated by the footage we used. When there was more sensitive footage included, we used it sparingly and took immense care and responsibility to edit and crop as to not exploit or sensationalize it,” Gibson said in an email.
“It was important to convey the large numbers of people attending these activities and use the footage to provide context about the culture of the organization. Our ultimate goal was to create a film that allowed those who came forward to tell their accounts — not to generalize it as every members' experience, but to give them a space to voice their own personal stories.”
The filmmakers hope the main takeaway from Orgasm Inc is empathy for the people involved: “These are highly intelligent, really self-aware people,” Klevin says. “[The film is] not about good and evil. It’s about people who were trying to find meaning in their lives and were also really hurt and confused at the end of it.”
