Ruwan Meepagala’s first involvement with an international sex cult began with a Ted Talk.
Lacking in confidence from a young age, he’d become hooked on self-improvement videos online, watching them two or three times a day while eating lunch or dinner.
By chance, Ruwan clicked on one lecture entitled ‘Orgasm: The Cure to the Hunger in Western Women’ and was immediately drawn in.
The video, which was made by Nicole Daedone, founder of sexual wellness company OneTaste, appealed to him as he’d always felt inhibited and unable to connect with women. Although he was in a relationship at the time, it wasn’t a happy one and the then-23-year-old struggled with erectile dysfunction.
When an email promoting one of OneTaste’s orgasmic meditation courses arrived in his inbox, Ruwan was even more intrigued.
The practice, which helped people achieve a sense of bliss by genital stroking, started in the hippy communes of 1960s California, but in the 00s Nicole had rebranded it as part of her sexual wellness company, which went onto become a multi-million dollar business endorsed by Kim Kardashian and Gwyneth Paltrow, with offices in Los Angeles, New York and London.
Feeling he had nothing to lose, Ruwan signed up for a session in New York in September 2012, getting tickets for him and his then-girlfriend – who didn’t show up on the day.
An orgasmic adventure
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Instead, Ruwan nervously attended the 90-minute session alone. There, attendees asked each other personal questions and games where they were encouraged to tell other something they wouldn’t normally share.
‘I thought I would learn about sex and connection but instead I experienced group vulnerability for the first time. It scared me – but also excited me,’ Ruwan, 37, tells Metro over Zoom from his home in New York.
Within weeks of the course, a OneTaste rep had called him up offering a $50 discount on the $150 How-to OM [orgasmic mediation] course. Feeling he had nothing to lose, Ruwan signed up and found himself taking part in his first genital stroking exercise with a bunch of strangers.
At the session, the young man watched as a woman lay spread-eagled on a white sheet on a massage table with her vulva exposed, while Nicole stroked her and brought her to orgasm.
Later, he was partnered up with a woman who would be the ‘strokee’. She climbed into a nest of yoga pillows and together they followed the ten-step process, which included consent, applying latex gloves and lube and eventual climax.
Afterwards, the group listened to a sales pitch for a year-long course to become an orgasm coach.
Ruwan left feeling unconvinced but organisers assured him he had to try OMing ten times before deciding if he liked it or not. It was like yoga or lifting weights, they explained – you only got the benefit from repetition. Because he’d already spent $100 on the class, Ruwan decided to keep trying.
‘I felt that I had discovered this alternate world that could potentially be the solution to my problems. All the OneTaste people seemed so confident, intuitive and magical, I felt part of a fascinating, secret community,’ he explains. ‘But the actual practice of orgasmic meditation, I just didn’t get it. Even months in. I didn’t understand the point of what we were doing or why.’
Finding validation
Twice a week there was a ‘secret free event’ for those who had taken the class, called an ‘OM circle’ which Ruwan joined, as well as a secret Facebook group called the OM Hub. Instantly, he was a hit and quickly became booked up as a ‘stroker.’
‘I felt this was a sign I was on the right path. I’d tried the marines, motivational speaking, sales jobs… but never felt I was really succeeding,’ he remembers. ‘The validation of the OM community felt like I had finally found “my thing”.’
To keep women feeling safe, it was rare for men to take on the role of strokee, but later in advanced courses, Ruwan was allowed to letwomen massage his genitals within a strict 15 minute time limit.
Within six months, he was invited to move into a OneTaste residence – a Manhattan penthouse with hardwood floors, exposed brick walls and a private rooftop courtyard, and daily OM sessions.
Rent included meals, so Ruwan, who had just lost his marketing job, jumped at the chance to move in.
‘I’d lived with strangers before but when you add on the sexual layering, it was very bizarre,’ he admits. ‘Eventually I learned to enjoy it, because there’s a lot of fun and excitement, too.’
While he leaned into the community at the time, looking back, Ruwan feels that he was manipulated from his very first session.
‘Even their intro event was based on emotional vulnerability. Part of their indoctrination was giving legitimate and helpful life advice, mixed in with philosophical statements that you had to think about. So by the time they suggest you spend a lot of money, you’ve developed a certain trust that they can see reality better than you can,’ he explains.
He remembers telling one organiser that he’d struggled with depression and felt empty. They then persuaded him to sign him up for the discounted ten-month Coaching Programme for $11,000, which Ruwan paid for by credit card.
Seed of doubt
As the months went on, he was asked to attend various training courses and after a year’s involvement with the group, he was $30,000 in debt thanks to the cost of courses and lost earnings.
Ruwan tried to explain it away to himself – arguing that it was no more than a student debt and that OneTaste was giving him a unique education.
‘I knew that I was being financially irresponsible, but it came with a kind of exercise of faith. And after a certain point when you’re insolvent, you just stop budgeting,’ he admits.
Besides, he was comfortable where he was. Everything was provided, bills were paid for, he was fed and living in a great location. And there was a lot of sex.
‘It was fun. They became your family, the only people who understand you, because all your previous friends think what you’ve been doing is weird, obviously. But that’s the basic cult dynamic. You become slowly separated from the real world.’
Ruwan’s real friends and family had become concerned by his involvement they even staged an intervention, where his dad pulled up a powerpoint presentation he’d made with slides containing accusations that OneTaste was a cult.
‘I’d received criticism from various people, but it just made me hold my position more. I became pretty well practiced in dealing with accusations and rebutting them. There was no logical argument that could have worked on me.’
Clouded judgement
It wasn’t until Ruwan started officially working for OneTaste in June 2013 that the seed of dissatisfaction started to take root.
Initially, he was overjoyed to be told he’d been hired with a salary of ‘20% of New York’s revenue’, especially as part of the role involved driving head of sales Rachel Cherwitz around to meetings. The job saw him receive ‘unconditional approval’, something he’d always craved, Ruwan explains.
The reality was he didn’t have an official job title, and would spend his days managing their social media, hosting YouTube videos, editing the company’s blog, working as a coach, an OM trainer, a salesperson or being a face for their PR.
Sometimes he waited months to be paid. When Ruwan challenged higher ranks about it, he was dismissed and accused of having a ‘scarcity mindset’.
‘I was framed as crazy for wanting money’, he remembers.
Runwan recalls Nicole also telling staff members: “Remember, OneTaste runs on two currencies: money and orgasm. Muggles won’t understand what it’s like to be paid in orgasm. But you all do.”
When he totted up the hours he’d put in after eventually being paid, Ruwan worked out he was earning under $2 an hour.
Escaping the orgasm cult
It was in December 2014, two years after his first OM session, that Ruwan finally left the company – but life on the outside came as a huge shock. He had been so enmeshed in the community that he didn’t even know who the mayor of his own city was.
‘When I tried to interact with other people not connected to the cult, I just felt so out of place,’ he remembers. ‘I couldn’t tell if I had done this amazing thing and was just having a hard time integrating, or whether I’d betrayed my spiritual path by leaving the group. I worried that maybe I had ruined my life.’
After two difficult years, Ruwan worked hard to piece his life back together and was working as an author, coach and podcaster in 2018, when a news story came out containing allegations from OneTaste employees. The workers claimed they had been pressured by senior staff to go on courses and retreats they couldn’t afford – something that was all too familiar for Ruwan.
It took five years for Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz to be indicted and at their trial in 2025 trial witnesses testified that they were coerced into performing degrading sex acts, working for little to no pay, and enduring psychological abuse under the guise of orgasmic meditation and spiritual enlightenment.
By then Daedone had already sold her stake in the company in 2017 for $12 million and the company’s current owners, who have rebranded it the Institute of OM Foundation, have said its work has been misconstrued and the charges against its former executives were unjustified.
However, the pair were convicted of forced labour conspiracy charges in June 2025, and Daedone and Cherwitz are now awaiting sentencing.
Talking about the time he spent with OneTaste, Ruwan realises how warped the environment had been. Although he’s aware he was used as a young man to entice older women to spend money at OneTaste, he’s keen to point out he was not the most exploited.
‘Nicole re-purposed the term “Aversion Therapy” as an extreme form of “doing uncomfortable things to help you grow as a person”. In practice this sometimes looked like women being encouraged to sleep with a man who repulsed her as proof they were so developed that they could “open their hearts” and orgasm with anyone.
‘Some female staff members would be encouraged to “love up” certain men with the understanding that this would lead to them spending money at OneTaste. In this case, it was framed as “bringing people to orgasm” as a spiritual practice,’ he explains.
Ruwan insists that while he hasn’t been left traumatised by the experience, he is still rather ‘confused and disoriented’.
‘I wouldn’t necessarily think of myself as a victim. I would probably say that I gained more than I lost, because it did heal a lot of my anxieties, especially in those first months there,’ he explains. ‘But a number of women that I knew from then, some of whom also testified in the court case are still experiencing PTSD.’
Ruwan is author of Orgasm – A Memoir.
