Powered by Orgasm: The Rise and Fall of a Sex Cult - with Ellen Huet
Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
Pushkin Industries
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 30 January 2026
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Run by the charismatic Nicole Deadone, OneTaste billed itself as a sexual wellness startup celebrating the power of female orgasm. But behind the celebrity endorsements and promises of healing, lay a darker reality. When Bloomberg journalist Ellen Huet began to dig into the organisation, she uncovered financial, emotional and sexual exploitation of its members, many of whom would call the company a cult. Huet, author of Empire of Orgasm, joins Tim to discuss why we should beware people promising pleasure, and what we can learn from the rise and fall of OneTaste.
This episode contains explicit content from the beginning, and is not suitable for children.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:04.0 | There are moments in each of our lives that seem to change everything. |
| 0:08.3 | An unexpected diagnosis, the sudden end of a relationship, the loss of a job. |
| 0:13.4 | As our lives fear off course, it can feel like time is dividing into a before and an after. |
| 0:19.5 | I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist, |
| 0:22.6 | and my new book, The Other Side of Change, |
| 0:25.3 | Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans, |
| 0:28.0 | is all about how we navigate these inflection points. |
| 0:31.2 | The other side of change pairs singular real-life stories |
| 0:34.4 | with scientific insights to help us find meaning in the tumult of change. |
| 0:39.3 | What if we saw the hardest moments in our lives, not simply as something to endure, |
| 0:44.1 | but as an opportunity to reimagine who we can be? |
| 0:47.4 | I'm thrilled to share that booklist gave The Other Side of Change one of its coveted starred |
| 0:52.4 | reviews, saying, quote, it's impossible not to be moved. The other side of change, one of its coveted starred reviews, saying, quote, it's impossible not to be moved. The other side of change is out now. Get your copy |
| 1:00.0 | today wherever you like to buy books. Pushkin |
| 1:13.6 | A warning before we start, this episode of cautionary tales contains explicit sexual content, indeed it begins with it. You have been warned. It's not |
| 1:30.4 | suitable for children. Ladies, please find your nests, instructs the voice over the tannoy. |
| 1:39.2 | Gentlemen, walk up to the stage, please wash your hands and find your supplies. |
| 1:53.0 | It's August 2013 and hundreds of people in casual business attire, sporting coloured wristbands and lanyards, |
| 1:58.0 | mill around San Francisco's Regency Centre, looking for their places. |
| 2:02.6 | But this is no venture capitalist gathering. This is not a digital marketing conference. |
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