Secrets of a Sex Cult: When Pleasure Gets Weaponized with Ellen Huet

This week, we're talking about how sexuality can be used to coerce people in cultlike settings, through the lens of Ellen Huet's new book EMPIRE OF ORGASM: Sex, Power, and the Downfall of a Wellness Cult. Ellen joins DB to talk about OneTaste, a for-profit wellness company that was hit with allegations of coercion, forced labor, and other abusive practices. Listen in for the story of how Ellen dove into this story as an investigative journalist -- including the time she came face-to-face with the alleged perpetrators she was covering.

CONTENT WARNINGS

In this episode, we discuss allegations of sexual assault, coersion, grooming tactics, cults. These topics will be present throughout the entire conversation, so if this is something that hits a little too close to home or is too heavy to dive into right now, please take care of yourself.

ABOUT OUR GUESTEllen Huet is an investigative journalist for Bloomberg News and the author of EMPIRE OF ORGASM: Sex, Power, and the Downfall of a Wellness Cult, a book about the rise and fall of a wellness cult. She writes award-winning features for Bloomberg Businessweek magazine, has hosted two seasons of the podcast Foundering, and holds a particular interest in writing about strange and complex subcultures. Previously, she was a staff writer at Forbes and a crime reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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