Trauma, victimhood and for-profit spirituality on display as sex cult trial winds down
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BROOKLYN (CN) — At a 2009 event in Stinson Beach, California, Nicole Daedone disrobed, lay on a table in front of an audience that included potential investors and a New York Times reporter, and loudly orgasmed for an hour while a man stroked her genitals. Her right-hand employee, Rachel Cherwitz, ushered viewers to touch Daedone’s thigh and feel her “energy” during the performance.
It wasn’t a typical demonstration of what Daedone calls orgasmic meditation — a ritual usually performed for just 15 minutes, in which a “stroker” digitally stimulates the genitals of the “strokee.” The Stinson Beach demo, as it was called throughout the federal criminal trial against Daedone and Cherwitz, included music, chanting, occult rituals, something involving live snakes and personal readings.
Cherwitz read a first-person telling of Daedone’s life story aloud to the group.
“I arrived on this planet with a good deal of potential, and by my 10th birthday, I had learned that both my mind and my body were special enough to get me whatever I wanted,” she read.
The impact of Daedone’s statement may have been dulled by the event’s intensity, but her account of a traumatic childhood—including abuse, attempted murder within her family, chalking up the violence to her “lawless Sicilian” roots, and entering sex work at 16—could explain her controversial views on sexual assault, which prosecutors say underpinned a scheme to exploit employees for sex and unpaid labor.
Daedone, the 57-year-old founder of a Bay Area company called OneTaste, and Cherwitz, 44, its former head of sales, each face one count of forced labor conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Throughout four weeks of testimony, prosecutors sought to prove the pair targeted and exploited victims who had experienced sexual and other trauma; indoctrinated them to hold Daedone as their guru and sole path to enlightenment; and coerced them into round-the-clock hours and unpaid sex work by threat of public humiliation and shunning.
Employees also organized logistics for OneTaste events and catered to Daedone’s needs — making her bed, cleaning her bathroom, bringing her water and driving her to hair, nail and tanning appointments. Daedone sometimes referred to them as “sacred prostitutes.”
Daedone ultimately sold her shares in the company for $12 million in 2017.
Defense attorneys argue that OneTaste was a sexually awakened community where open relationships thrived and people signed up because they wanted to have their sexual boundaries pushed.
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