The piece in question is by Ellen Huet, published on June 18, 2018, titled “The Dark Side of OneTaste, the Orgasmic Meditation Company.”
The BBC and VICE TV have referred to Huet’s Dark Side story as the foundation for their reports on OneTaste.
Netflix featured Huet in its documentary, “Orgasm Inc: The Story of One Taste.”
The Dark Side landed Huet a book deal with Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Her story also inspired the FBI to launch a five-year investigation into OneTaste – begun shortly after the Dark Side story appeared. This investigation led to a one-count indictment of co-founder Nicole Daedone and former executive Rachel Cherwitz for forced labor conspiracy. However, the indictment failed to produce a single count of forced labor.
Defendants Rachel Cherwitz and Nicole Daedone stand charged with forced labor conspiracy.
The US Attorney for the Eastern District of NY’s eight-page, nameless, victimless indictment is Huet’s story as if seen through a glass darkly.
Anjuli Ayer was one of three investors who bought OneTaste in 2017.
Before the indictment, Huet wrote to Daedone and OneTaste CEOs past and present, Joanna Van Vleck and Anjuli Ayer, on September 29, 2020.
In her emails, aimed at persuading the women to interview for her book, Huet acknowledges her Bloomberg story lacked a certain nuance – despite having interviewed both women at length before the story.
Using the euphemism “not every prominent” for “non existent,” Huet wrote:
“Hi Anjuli and Joanna,
“…I imagine you both might have some trepidation about talking to me for this book. That’s understandable, and I don’t blame you at all.
“I want to acknowledge a few things about the stories I wrote in 2018, especially the first one in Businessweek. The stories focused heavily on the negative side of the company and on members’ bad experiences. ….you both had sat in interviews with me and provided me with many other resources who could speak more positively about the company, and that side of OneTaste wasn’t very prominent in the story.”
No Space to Tell the Whole Truth
Bloomberg reporter Ellen Huet
Huet explained that her editors wouldn’t allow her 5000-plus-word story to portray the company in any positive light, partly because the Bloomberg “magazine publishing format” didn’t provide her with enough space.
She wrote, “[W]e had a hard cap at a certain number of words and a mandate to focus on news. The editors believed lots had been written already about the benefits of OneTaste’s teachings, and wanted to focus on what hadn’t been reported before. But I didn’t have a chance to get into all the nuances, the history, the philosophy, and more.”
Huet’s editors were correct. Before her story, OneTaste had fair and balanced coverage, such as the New York Times, The Today Show, and Deepak Chopra’s The Chopra Well.
Accentuate the Negative, Eliminate the Postive
Huet revealed her editors censored her, allowing her to write only the negative side, even if it lacked research and, as it must, excluded balance.
Huet wrote similarly to Daedone, the woman who co-founded OneTaste, using “featured” as a euphemism for “included.”
“Hi Nicole,
“… I want to acknowledge a few things about the stories I wrote in 2018, especially the first one in Businessweek. The stories focused heavily on the negative side of the company and on members’ bad experiences. . . voices that had more positive things to say about OneTaste weren’t featured in the story.”
Huet Talks About Her Opinion of One Taste
In her emails, seeking to interview OneTaste leaders, Huet expressed a view that did not appear in her Dark Side story.
Ellen Huet
Huet wrote to Van Vleck and Ayer:
“I’m writing this book because I believe that OneTaste and OM are immensely powerful. I think the world built around OneTaste is fascinating, and many people have told me about how OM has improved their lives in immeasurable ways — both before I wrote the first article, and even more since then as I’ve done more research.”
Huet also expressed her feelings to Daedone, an opinion entirely contrary to what readers would be led to believe who read her Dark Side story. Huet wrote to Daedone:
“I’m writing a book about OneTaste because I believe that what you created — OM, the company, and your push to share it with the world — is immensely powerful. I have a lot of respect for what you’ve built.”
Bloomberg Breaking News
Bloomberg made a video, featuring Ellen Huet discussing her story.
As an additional incentive to persuade Daedone to interview, Huet explains why Bloomberg Businessweek magazine articles lack fairness and balance compared to a book. Huet also points out that the uncorroborated stories from the five sources she used in her story without telling the other side, are considered “breaking news” at Bloomberg.
Huet continued, “A book is very different from a magazine article: way, way longer, not focused on breaking news, but focused on nuance, and with room to tell all sides of a topic.”
Huet adds, “I want to tell a story that includes the good stuff too: the revolutionary ideas, the bold optimism, the deep bonds and love among members, the way that rethinking sexuality helped set men and women free….”
Huet Doesn’t Need OneTaste
Ellen Huet
And in a similarly dark passage to what her editors shaped her dark side story to become, Huet tells Daedone that she does not need her cooperation.
She wrote, “I’ll be writing the book whether you choose to participate or not, and it will be the definitive telling of your company (and by extension, of many parts of your life). I will do my best on my own to make it as fair, accurate, comprehensive, and nuanced as possible. But this is also the best opportunity for you to shape the narrative about OneTaste…”
Fuller Truth Versus Less Full
She adds a promise:
“The more you’re willing to share about your experience and the more you’re willing to help me understand it, the more the book will reflect a fuller truth.”
Huet, writing similarly to Ayer and Van Vleck, said, unlike the time she interviewed them before,:
“This time, I will do my best to incorporate what you tell me into the larger narrative.”
“My goal,” she adds, “is to write a book about OneTaste that is fair, accurate, and comprehensive, and I want to get the story right.”
Trustworthy?
Jackson Howard is the senior editor for Ellen Huet’s book on OneTaste, expected to be published in 2025.
But how can the OneTaste women know that what happened to her Dark Side story won’t happen with Huet’s book?
Her editor is Jackson Howard, senior editor at at Farrar, Straus and Giroux and its imprints MCD and AUWA (headed by Questlove).
How can the women know that Huet won’t later explain that Howard did the same thing as she said Bloomberg editors did? Howard’s job is to produce books that sell.
OneTaste executives declined Huet’s invitation to interview.
But Huet sent a follow up message to Daedone, admitting her Bloomberg story was “reductive or sensationalized.”
Praise for Daedone or Manipulation?
Huet, in a follow up email to Daedone, wrote:
“Your message, and the practice of OM, elevated women and their power in a way that I believe threatened the status quo and shook people. It also filled a void that many people had been seeking to fill that hadn’t been touched in a long time. Many people weren’t ready to see it for that, but instead reacted with fear…. I’m deeply moved by your vision and dream of changing and healing the world for the better through this company and this movement. The book is on a very different scale than some of my past reporting and is specifically aiming to capture a complicated topic, not tell a reductive or sensationalized story.”
Huet promises well, but like wind and clouds without rain, I’d be a little suspicious of the good it might do to talk to her.
The proposed title of Huet’s book on OneTaste, which seeks a fuller truth, not one that tells a reductive or sensationalized story, is according to her publishers, “Wild Love, Sex Power and Loss in a Wellness Empire.”
