Don't Know Why This Cult Is Orgasmic

Don't Know Why This Cult Is Orgasmic

This week, we dive into a story that starts with wellness, empowerment, mindfulness, and healing and somehow ends with forced labour, coercive sex, cult-like control, and prison sentences. We're talking about OneTaste, the organisation that convinced thousands of people that repeatedly stroking someone's clitoris for exactly fifteen minutes was a revolutionary spiritual practice called Orgasmic Meditation. What began in early-2000s San Francisco as a supposedly progressive movement centred on female pleasure eventually became one of the most bizarre and disturbing cult stories of the modern era. In this episode, we trace the rise and fall of OneTaste, from its founding by Nicole Daedone and Robert Kandell to its transformation into a multimillion-dollar business built around workshops, communal living, and increasingly invasive control over its members' lives. We look at how trauma survivors were recruited with promises of healing, why the media spent years treating the organisation as a quirky sexual wellness experiment, and how celebrity endorsements and TEDx talks helped legitimise something that, in hindsight, had more red flags than a Soviet military parade. This episode blends comedy commentary, offbeat learning, and deeply uncomfortable reporting into a story about manipulation, charisma, pseudoscience, media failure, and the surprisingly lucrative business of selling enlightenment. Packed with quirky insights, weird historical detours, and the kind of random topics that somehow become darker the more you investigate them, it's lighthearted education only in the sense that we occasionally laugh to stop ourselves from screaming. Important links: 1. OneTaste's website - https://onetaste.us/the-world/om [https://onetaste.us/the-world/om] 2. Touchy-feely "researchers" want to build community through the practice of orgasmic meditation — one stroke at a time - https://web.archive.org/web/20090421093822/http://www.sfweekly.com/2007-04-04/news/sex-and-sensuality/ [https://web.archive.org/web/20090421093822/http://www.sfweekly.com/2007-04-04/news/sex-and-sensuality/] 3. The Pleasure Principle - https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/fashion/15commune.html [https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/fashion/15commune.html] 4. TEDxSF - Nicole Daedone - Orgasm The Cure for Hunger - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZjRH1FmxfM [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZjRH1FmxfM] 5. Inside Gwyneth Paltrow's Exclusive Goop Health Summit with Cameron Diaz, Miranda Kerr and Nicole Richie - https://www.wmagazine.com/story/gwyneth-paltrow-goop-health-summit [https://www.wmagazine.com/story/gwyneth-paltrow-goop-health-summit] 6. Onetaste Founder Nicole Daedone Sentenced to Nine Years in Prison for Forced Labor Conspiracy - https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/onetaste-founder-nicole-daedone-sentenced-nine-years-prison-forced-labor-conspiracy [https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/onetaste-founder-nicole-daedone-sentenced-nine-years-prison-forced-labor-conspiracy] 7. My Encounter with the Orgasm Messiah - https://donlattin.substack.com/p/my-encounter-with-the-orgasm-messiah [https://donlattin.substack.com/p/my-encounter-with-the-orgasm-messiah] 8. Great Orgasms – Psychic Energy vs. Physical Technique with Ray Vetterlein, Master Practitioner of Extended Orgasm - https://podcasts.personallifemedia.com/podcasts/230-expanded-lovemaking/episodes/3031-great-orgasms-psychic-energy-vs-physical/ [https://podcasts.personallifemedia.com/podcasts/230-expanded-lovemaking/episodes/3031-great-orgasms-psychic-energy-vs-physical/] 9. Anjuli Ayer: Navigating a Life of Spirituality, Business, and Controversy - https://www.awesomeindia.in/anjuli-ayer/ [https://www.awesomeindia.in/anjuli-ayer/] 10. In 'Orgasmic Meditation' case, did a zealous media strategy backfire? - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/06/nyregion/onetaste-orgasmic-meditation-publicity.html [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/06/nyregion/onetaste-orgasmic-meditation-publicity.html] 11. Recommendation of the week - The Orgasm Cult - https://www.bbc.com/audio/brand/p08xzk5h [https://www.bbc.com/audio/brand/p08xzk5h] Don't Know, Do Care is the brainchild of Ashmita, Sandy, and Prakhar, three friends from different backgrounds and interests. Ashmita works in sustainability, Sandy's an entrepreneur (puke) who'd rather not be, and Prakhar works with Sandy and is just trying to make sense of it all. Three mildly confused friends, one weirdly specific topic each week. We don't know much, but we care just enough to talk about it for up to an hour each week. Don't Know, Do Care is produced by "Ghar Pe Productions", edited by Prakhar and Sandy, critiqued (thoroughly) by Ashmita, and enjoyed mostly by our friends. Thanks for giving us a listen!

Don't Know Why HYROX is (not) a Big Deal

At some point over the last year, fitness quietly stopped being about six-packs and started becoming a personality. Suddenly everyone's in a run club, waking up at unreasonable hours, posting Strava screenshots like stock market updates, and voluntarily paying money to suffer in public. Which brings us to this episode's main character: HYROX . We break down what HYROX actually is, where it came from, and why it has exploded globally in such a short span of time. In reality, it's basically a very organised way to discover new forms of exhaustion. But this episode isn't just about the race itself. It's about why people are suddenly obsessed with things like HYROX, run clubs, and endurance challenges in the first place. Because underneath all the fitness branding and motivational captions, there's something much more interesting happening socially. Gyms are no longer enough. People don't just want workouts anymore, they want experiences, goals, communities, identity, and maybe just a slightly more socially acceptable form of collective suffering. We also get into the rise of "Instagrammable fitness," the strange status attached to events like HYROX, and whether these experiences are genuinely fulfilling or just the latest evolution of social validation culture. This episode is classic comedy commentary mixed with offbeat learning, packed with quirky insights about fitness culture, social behaviour, and why humans apparently need organised hardship to feel alive. Because honestly, HYROX may look like a fitness event, but it might actually be a very expensive way for adults to rediscover recess. Don't Know, Do Care is the brainchild of Ashmita, Sandy, and Prakhar, three friends from different backgrounds and interests. Ashmita works in sustainability, Sandy's an entrepreneur (puke) who'd rather not be, and Prakhar works with Sandy and is just trying to make sense of it all. Three mildly confused friends, one weirdly specific topic each week. We don't know much, but we care just enough to talk about it for up to an hour each week. Don't Know, Do Care is produced by "Ghar Pe Productions", edited by Prakhar and Sandy, critiqued (thoroughly) by Ashmita, and enjoyed mostly by our friends. Thanks for giving us a listen!

Don't Know If the Shroud of Turin is Indian

This week, we dive headfirst into one of the strangest objects in human history: the Shroud of Turin, a 14-foot piece of linen that is either the burial cloth of Jesus Christ… or the world's most successful medieval scam. For centuries, this faintly creepy cloth has sat at the exact intersection of faith, science, history, and people confidently yelling at each other online. Because printed onto it is the image of a tortured man bearing injuries eerily similar to the Biblical description of the crucifixion. So we trace the bizarre history of the Shroud, from its sudden appearance in 14th-century France and accusations of forgery by medieval bishops, to fires, papal PR gymnastics, carbon dating tests, and increasingly complicated scientific studies that somehow keep making the mystery worse instead of better. And because apparently this story wasn't chaotic enough already, we also get into the recent DNA study that found genetic traces linked to India, sparking exactly the kind of internet discourse you would expect. This episode is classic offbeat learning territory: a weird historical rabbit hole full of contradictory evidence, scientific detective work, Vatican ambiguity, and the kind of mystery that refuses to sit still, all wrapped in comedy commentary and packed with quirky insights. Because at the end of the day, the Shroud of Turin is less a solved mystery and more a centuries-long argument that nobody has managed to conclusively win. Important links: 1. Shroud of Turin - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin] 2. Shroud of Turin - https://www.britannica.com/topic/Shroud-of-Turin [https://www.britannica.com/topic/Shroud-of-Turin] 3. The Shroud of Turin: An Overview of the Archaeological Scientific Studies - https://www.mdpi.com/2673-7248/5/1/8 [https://www.mdpi.com/2673-7248/5/1/8] 4. Shroud of Turin, linked by believers to Jesus Christ, has an Indian DNA trace: Study - https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/science/shroud-of-turin-linked-by-believers-to-jesus-christ-has-an-indian-dna-signal-study-10614146/ [https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/science/shroud-of-turin-linked-by-believers-to-jesus-christ-has-an-indian-dna-signal-study-10614146/] Don't Know, Do Care is the brainchild of Ashmita, Sandy, and Prakhar, three friends from different backgrounds and interests. Ashmita works in sustainability, Sandy's an entrepreneur (puke) who'd rather not be, and Prakhar works with Sandy and is just trying to make sense of it all. Three mildly confused friends, one weirdly specific topic each week. We don't know much, but we care just enough to talk about it for up to an hour each week. Don't Know, Do Care is produced by "Ghar Pe Productions", edited by Prakhar and Sandy, critiqued (thoroughly) by Ashmita, and enjoyed mostly by our friends. Thanks for giving us a listen!

We're going on a (very) short break!

Hey there carers, Thank you for sticking with us thus far and we hope you continue to do so in the foreseeable future as well. We will be taking a very short break till the first week of May and will go back to our regular schedule of a new episode every Monday thereon. In the meantime, we hope you get a chance to listen to some of our older episodes. Just like in life, we have grown and improved from Episode 1 last year. We hope you get to see that too. See you back in May!

Don't Know Who's Buying This Bulls**t (Psychological Theories Edition)

This episode starts at a party, takes a hard left into pseudoscience, and ends with us aggressively side-eyeing half of modern psychology. We're talking about bullshit psychological theories, the ones that sound legit, get repeated everywhere, and somehow survive despite having little to no actual scientific backing. From Stockholm Syndrome to the five stages of grief, we break down how these ideas became mainstream, and why they probably shouldn't have. Along the way, we take detours into things like left-brain vs right-brain nonsense, the Mozart effect, primal therapy, and the particularly chaotic world of marketing psychology, where "science" is often just a very expensive rebrand of common sense. This episode is peak comedy commentary meets scientific frustration, packed with quirky insights, offbeat learning, and just enough research to make you question every "fun fact" you've ever confidently repeated. Like most of our episodes, this starts as one of those seemingly random topics and slowly turns into something more uncomfortable: a reminder that just because something sounds scientific… doesn't mean it is. Important links: 1. Stockholm syndrome - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome] 2. Five stages of grief - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_stages_of_grief [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_stages_of_grief] 3. An Empirical Examination of the Stage Theory of Grief - https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/205661#google_vignette [https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/205661#google_vignette] 4. Cautioning Health-Care Professionals: Bereaved Persons Are Misguided Through the Stages of Grief - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5375020/ [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5375020/] 5. Inkblot Test - https://www.kansashistory.gov/kansapedia/inkblot-test/17670 [https://www.kansashistory.gov/kansapedia/inkblot-test/17670] 6. Rorschach test - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_test [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_test] 7. Controversial psychology tests are often still used in US courts - https://www.newscientist.com/article/2233956-controversial-psychology-tests-are-often-still-used-in-us-courts/ [https://www.newscientist.com/article/2233956-controversial-psychology-tests-are-often-still-used-in-us-courts/] 8. Insights from an inkblot - https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/insights-from-an-inkblot/article5335329.ece [https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/insights-from-an-inkblot/article5335329.ece] 9. Rorschach Inkblot Test: an overview on current status - https://ijip.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/18.01.075.20200804.pdf [https://ijip.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/18.01.075.20200804.pdf] 10. Learning styles - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles] 11. Roundup on Research: The Myth of 'Learning Styles' - https://onlineteaching.umich.edu/articles/the-myth-of-learning-styles/ [https://onlineteaching.umich.edu/articles/the-myth-of-learning-styles/] 12. Belief in Learning Styles Myth May Be Detrimental - https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2019/05/learning-styles-myth [https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2019/05/learning-styles-myth] 13. Did an honesty researcher fabricate data? - https://www.npr.org/2023/07/28/1190663435/did-an-honesty-researcher-fabricate-data [https://www.npr.org/2023/07/28/1190663435/did-an-honesty-researcher-fabricate-data] Don't Know, Do Care is the brainchild of Ashmita, Sandy, and Prakhar, three friends from different backgrounds and interests. Ashmita works in sustainability, Sandy's an entrepreneur (puke) who'd rather not be, and Prakhar works with Sandy and is just trying to make sense of it all. Three mildly confused friends, one weirdly specific topic each week. We don't know much, but we care just enough to talk about it for up to an hour each week. Don't Know, Do Care is produced by "Ghar Pe Productions", edited by Prakhar and Sandy, critiqued (thoroughly) by Ashmita, and enjoyed mostly by our friends. Thanks for giving us a listen!