The Sex Cult Where I Used to Teach

Veronica Monet
5 min readMay 16, 2021
Men who frequented OneTaste were told to use latex gloves during the Orgasmic Meditation practices

One of my closest friends shared this podcast about a sex cult called OneTaste. She knew that I’d be interested, not only because she used to live and work there, but also because I used to teach workshops there.

In the years since I taught at the San Francisco chapter of OneTaste, I became aware of the fact that OneTaste had become a harmful cult. Partly this awareness arose from my friend sharing the many ways living and working at OneTaste had harmed her. But she was not the only one. Other former members of OneTaste also contributed to my awareness of the many ways in which OneTaste was damaging people.

So I already knew that things had gotten pretty dark there. But it wasn’t until I listened to this podcast, that I began to comprehend the true depth of dysfunction and damage that was inflicted on many people by OneTaste’s founder, Nicole Daedone.

It pains me to say that.

Why?

For one thing, when Nicole’s book, Slow Sex, came out in 2012, she was a guest on my podcast. Our conversation was warm and congenial. Although I had witnessed Nicole talking to others in ways that I found concerning, Nicole never did anything harmful or disturbing to me. And that’s unfortunately one reason I chose to ignore my gut feelings about her treatment of others. She was nice to me.

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Veronica Monet

Author, Creative Consultant for award winning documentary, IFS Informed Coach, Certified Sexologist. I write about s-e-x, shame, relationships, trauma, healing.