THE CLITORIS CHRONICLES

A Closer Look at OneTaste's Patented Clit-rub

                                                              by: Jared Alokozai

 

“I was lying there, my legs were butterflied open, and he did what you’d always expect in a sexual act.

He took a light, and shone it. Down there.

And then, he began to describe what he saw.

He said, ‘Your outer labia are coral. I’m noticing your inner labia have this red tone to them. They’re swelling as I look at them’.

 

And I couldn’t hear anything after that, because the tears just started flooding. Something began to thaw in me.”

 

 

Nicole Daedone, the founder of the company OneTaste, recalls her first experience with Orgasmic Meditation in coquettish candor during her talk at TEDxSF. The year was 1998. at a Buddhist party, she, a Buddhist disciple meets a guy who facilitates her first session. In a profile done by The New York Times, regarding that peculiar turning point Daedone says,“In a strange way, I think at that moment I decided to live.” This session would inspire her to found OneTaste, a company dedicated to promoting Orgasmic Meditation (OM, a clever pun of the sacred resonance central to Hindu meditation, among other religions), three years later; Nicole would dedicate her life to bringing the orgasm to the world.

 

 

Now, 14 years after its founding, OneTaste’s fledgling idea has evolved into a patented, neatly packaged product—a standardized procedural practice, a la yoga or Pilates.  “OM is not foreplay,” says Joanna Van Vleck, President of OneTaste United States. At first glance, the practice seems dubious: in its most basic understanding, it’s likened to mutual masturbation. But, OneTaste’s marketing strategies suspend OM in a stratus that is sexual, yet not sex. Not exactly pornographic, but not exactly teen-friendly. Not spiritual in the ethereal sense, but radically intimate between the participants. Van Vleck explains,“OM creates what we like to call a container.” Sometimes called a nest, it describes a platonic space—usually cushions, blankets, and towels arranged on a yoga mat—where one would OM. “The practice takes 15 minutes, it’s in the same position, and we’re doing the same thing everytime. The focus by the stroker and the strokee is on the point of sensation where the finger touches the clit. When you focus on that one point, endless possibilities build upon themselves the more you do the practice,” Van Vleck goes on. The distinction lies in OM’s delineated, undivided focus on the female orgasm recontextualized outside of the bedroom.

 

 

Commodified orgasms is the name of the game, but certain feminist activists call attention to OM as another manifestation of injustice that the female-body-devouring capitalist hydra has profited on. Van Vleck claims,“We’re starting what we want to call the Industry of Orgasm. In contrast, the sex industry is probably the oldest one around and very readily accessible. We’re looking at orgasm as a whole, the vitality of it, and the energy surrounding it. We want to create well-lit spaces where we can talk openly about sexuality.” Unashamedly, OM is about demystifying the decades-old myth of the female orgasm, and is the most recent iteration of a tradition of therapeutic orgasms for women dating back to Hippocrates, who purported that one orgasm a day would keep the hysteria away.

 

 

The clitoris is undoubtedly the only human organ whose use is solely to bring pleasure to its owner. Miniscule and mighty, it is a bundle of 8,000 nerve endings. “Essentially the goal of OM is that eventually, those nerve endings unravel, and your clit becomes more sensitive. Then your vulva gains sensitivity, until your entire body becomes more sensitive,” Van Vleck says.

 

 

There’s a staunch insistence to the practice that almost heightens it to a precise science. Every 15 minute session is an orgasmic laboratory, of sorts, with its own jargon, procedure, and sterility. Instead of painstakingly titrating microliters of acidic compounds, the same caliber of regimented concern is focused on the upper-left quadrant of the clitoris of the strokee. But before the stroker can live up to his name, proper protocol must be carried out. The following is a dramatized imagining of a typical OM session, showing most of the steps to the dance:

 

 

Orgasmic Meditation: Session, a play in one Act

 

Scene 1.

(Enter accredited stroker. A strokee stands center stage, lightly smiles at stroker.)

Stroker: Hi there. Would you like to OM?

Strokee: (Grin widens.) Yes, yes I would.

Stroker: Awesome. Let’s meet at the nest in 20.

(Exit strokee, stage L. Exit stroker stage R.)

 

 

 

Scene 2.

(The nest is arranged center stage. It has three pillows, large and plush arranged over a spread out yoga mat. Various blankets and towels are layered upon eachother, quite intentionally arranged.)

(Enter stroker and strokee.)

Stroker: Just a head’s up…I’m pretty generous with my lube.

Strokee: Fantastic! I hope it’s organic. (Removes pants completely and rests head on one of the pillows. Legs butterflied as soon as she gets comfortable. She is completely still.)

Stroker: Naturally. (Places left leg over strokee’s torso, and sits to her right on an elevated meditation cushion. Right leg under her butterflied legs. He sets a 15 minute timer.) I’m going to touch your thighs now.

Strokee: Of course.

Stroker: I’ll ground you first. (Firmly massages thighs and pelvis.) And now we can begin. (Stares intently into strokee’s exposed crotch, for several minutes.) I notice your outer labia is brown with hints of cream and pink, your clitoral hood is the same color, and your inner thighs are a little lighter. Your hood is quite pronounced and the outer labia on your left side is a bit longer than the right.

Strokee: (Deep breaths.)

Stroker: I’ll start stroking you now. (Deftly puts on a pair of latex gloves. Lubes up. Places thumb on the vaginal opening. Index finger touches the upper-left quadrant of the strokee’s clitoris. Begins moving index finger in a tender rhythm.) Would you like me to stroke harder?

Strokee: No. Could you go a little to the right?

Stroker: Of course. Thank you.

 

(Lights dim. 13 minutes pass.)

 

Stroker: 2 minutes. Time to cool down. (Begins grounding. Then begins towel strokes, wiping excess fluid from strokee.)

Strokee: Wow. Thank you. I can’t wait to share frames with everyone else!

 

(Lights fade out.)

 

 

 

Scene 3.

(A conference room of a dozen or so strokees. They’d been OMing in the neighboring rooms. They have varying levels affect: faces of dazed content, blank faces, furrowed brows.)

Strokee 1: Ladies, how was that session? Any one want to share a frame, a sensation they felt in those 15 minutes?

Strokee 2: I tasted citrus and syrup.

Strokee 6: It felt like I was on a motorboat in the middle of a deep lake on a bright day and my pussy was the vibrating hum of the engine.

Strokee 9: I felt my clitoris expand into my torso, to my head, and out of my fingertips.

Strokee 10: I was surging with creative force. My clit channeled static from the air directly into my body!

Strokee 1: Thank you all for sharing and participating! Feel free to grab a bagel in the room across from us.

 

(Lights fade. End.)

 

 

Van Vleck may be the executive of this fueled-by-orgasm company, but when she started out, it took her 6 months on the job before a colleague convinced her to give OM a try. “One of the biggest misconceptions I had about the practice is thinking that OMing is only done to solve a problem, like if you’re anorgasmic or if your sex life isn’t satisfying,” says Van Vleck. It’s not a faulty assumption, as Nicole Daedone recalls notable OM clients in her TED talk as one half of a dead-bedroom marriage, or just generally avoidant of sex, distressed with the prospect faking it. “Ultimately, what happens with OM is that you’re experiencing similar states you’d experience in standard meditation or yoga. You’re feeling those states of the involuntary.” It could be the massive oxytocin influx—the neurohormone released en masse during orgasm—or the purported silencing of the pre-frontal cortex—the brain region concerned with eliciting embarrassment or higher-level self-effacement—with sustained practice, but whatever the cause Van Vleck like many others experienced a tangible shift.

 

 

 With three years of OM, Van Vleck recalls,“There was this feeling of my body incrementally thawing with every session. The more that my body thawed, the more I realized how much I’d been missing in subtle and nuanced sensations during sex.”

 

 

Roughly every post-pubescent human on the planet, without fail, would concede that an orgasm is one of the most satisfying physical sensations a person might experience. OneTaste’s understanding of the orgasm takes it one to several steps farther. “The reality is that orgasms are vital nutrients that our bodies and our lives need,” says Van Vleck.

 

 

And if orgasms are the lifeblood of the body, then OM is the lifeblood of the company. “We see OM as our native product. Everything stems from OM-ing because OM-ing is the baseline of what we do. From there, we teach everything that accompanies it. We teach courses of all different types and sizes, public and private, we create educational media, and we build online communities like the OMhub, a private social network for OMers around the world.” With centers erected in the most vibrant cultural hubs: London, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles; OneTaste could very well become a widespread phenomenon. Accusations of resembling a cult naturally come out of the woodwork, and with good reason. What’s not suspicious about a charismatic leader, a systematic “life hack” to achieving the very qualities people crave—upped libido, vitality, energy, and deep intimate connection, sexy recruiters, exclusive social networks, and pricey training courses (a coaching course running up to $7500)? On the other hand, it’s honest, it’s clean, it’s uncomplicated: just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to rub her clit. And really, who needs Kool Aid after all that?

 

 

“In the next five years, we’d like to spread OM to 1 billion people. We want OM to be the next big practice,” Van Vleck hopes. And who knows? The company is growing more rapidly every week, with talks in Hollywood about a documentary that might have OM blipping on mainstream radar. Yoga in the morning, meditation after lunch, and OM after dinner—a perfect day of self-care in the name of the mighty O.