Sexual Sovereignty And Shame-Free Body Fluids

Céline Remy 0:11
Welcome to the love lab podcast a safe place to get real about sex. Whether you’re a man, woman, single or couple, this is the show for you. Because well, sex matters. We are your hosts Kevin Anthony and Céline Remy.

Kevin Anthony 0:28
Welcome back to the love lab podcast. This is Episode 64 and it’s titled “Sexual sovereignty and shame-free body fluids with Jules Cazedessus.

Kevin Anthony 0:44
Darn, I almost had that. I practiced it before we started.

Kevin Anthony 0:52
For those of you listening, it’s not spelled anything like it’s pronounced so I was looking right at it when I said it or what I attempted to say it, it just didn’t work out so well.

Céline Remy 1:02
I think we’re going to redo it anyway because he can butch somebody’s name.

Jules Cazedessus 1:06
Oh, believe me, it happens all the time. I don’t know how I learned how to spell it.

Céline Remy 1:11
Well, we’ll find that and we’re gonna stick with it I guess.

Céline Remy 1:18
Oh my goodness. Today we have a special guest Jules Cazedessus apparently I don’t know why it was easier for me to learn it. And she is a sensual entrepreneur and these devoted to women’s expanded pleasure and power in bed and beyond. In 2015, she launched her business Venus matters, creator of The Venus net, the most, the most beautiful and environmentally conscious bed mat on the market, huh? Yes. So I’m really excited to be talking about the Venus mad about sexuality, about sexual sovereignty and releasing shame or on body fluids, diving in with our guest and before we do that,

Céline Remy 2:00
We just want to do a shout out to our sponsor, because this episode is brought to you by power and mastery, the most complex sexual training for men to develop your stamina, boost your confidence and enhance your sexual abilities. You can find all about power and mastery at powerandmastery.com. So get ready to change your sex life and go check this out. So here we are welcome, Jules to our love lab podcast.

Jules Cazedessus 2:27
Thank you. I’m so excited to be here with you both.

Kevin Anthony 2:32
So before we dive into the questions, I do just want to let the listeners know that we don’t actually get anything from this. Like, you know, Jules isn’t a paid sponsor of ours or anything. This whole episode happened because we mentioned her product because we personally own one. And then Jules just reached out to us and we connected and we were like, wow, that that was really cool. So let’s have you on the show and I just like

Kevin Anthony 3:00
gonna be really transparent about that stuff with people that we were just genuinely interested in having a conversation with Jules.

Céline Remy 3:06
And I want to add to that because Jules loves us and she loves our audience. She’s got a special gift and coupon for all of you interested in getting one of those mats. So stick with us. We’ll tell you all about this.

Céline Remy 3:19
So many of our listeners may not know what the heck are those Venus mats. They are hearing she’s created these mats that can help you to have like shame-free sex around your body fluids. And it’s like, this can sound weird for some people. And my very first question here was like, hey, why did you create this company? Like how the heck did you come up with such a business plan? How can I create these like mats for people to have this great sex at any time during their cycle?

Jules Cazedessus 3:52
It is curious a curious one. I have two origin stories actually, the more personal one was a sultry afternoon in New York City. I’m on my period, I have a lover I want to have sex and I open my laundry closet door to find an old towel, which is, of course, what most people use when they want to have sex on their periods. And I stopped for a moment and thought….

Jules Cazedessus 4:21
Why don’t I have something special for this moment? And underneath that question, there was like a little bit of shame. which surprised me because I was raised by hippies, I was told that my period was this beautiful, empowering thing that I would become a woman. When I had my period. I prayed to get my period. I was really excited about it.

Jules Cazedessus 4:43
And I never had a boyfriend who had trouble or had any kind of squeamishness around having sex on when I was having my period, but I touched something that afternoon, that literally stopped me in my tracks. And I couldn’t figure out why there wasn’t something on the market for something.

Jules Cazedessus 5:00
Obviously, more than just I needed. And it’s been spent, I spent a couple of years in questioning my girlfriends wondering if looking on the market to see if there’s anything out there. I could, I found one other sex blanket, but it really wasn’t designed for blood. And I knew, of course, there are lots of other reasons I could create these products and finally years down the road, I got my first prototypes out and launched on Indiegogo and pre-sold my first production run. And that’s four years ago now.

Céline Remy 5:38
Oh, that’s so cool. So I have another question that’s coming up from you sharing this. So you came up with the design yourself? Or did you hire people to help you create those super absorbent and beautiful mats?

Jules Cazedessus 5:55
I wanted it to be circular because I wanted it to be sacred. I wanted it to be uplifting I called the business Venus matters because as the Roman goddess Venus is is not only here for sexual love, but also prosperity and desire and beauty. So I wanted something that really wasn’t just a practical product but also laid the sacred ground for women. And that made me start investigating fabrics and really has taken a long time to create something that I can stand behind both environmentally and socially. So when I say it’s the world’s most beautiful than that, I mean that also in a sustainable way.

Jules Cazedessus 6:43
So I make sure that all of our fabrics are safe. They are made either in the United States or Canada, and they are certified safe. They’re also soon right here in Colorado. So I know that the labor that goes into it is not

Jules Cazedessus 7:00
Anything that you know, I would not want to be supporting. So, the beauty goes in both directions, both the practical pragmatic, ecological impact and also the more subtle spiritual impact. And I think that, yeah, I designed it myself, but it’s taken a lot of years to really dial in the product and I’m still actually in the process of creating some beautiful new offerings. I’ve got my first run of organic cotton flannel coming out with a wild leopard spot just came to my sowers this morning, and Denver’s are hoping to get that in a few weeks out to customers.

Kevin Anthony 7:40
That’s cool. So I have a question also, because you said that when you were looking around in the market, trying to find something that was specific for blood, and you really couldn’t find it now, I know like I’ve had different lovers even before so they that have used different approaches for both period sex and female ejaculation. And I’m just curious, like how yours is specific to dealing with blood like what makes it different than say some of the other solutions people have tried some of which work, some of which really didn’t.

Jules Cazedessus 8:14
Well, the other part for me that personally inspired me to start the business was I had fibroids in my 20s and 30s that had had me having very heavy flows. So in the middle of the night, I would often have breakthrough bleeding, which meant I was up scrubbing sheets clean at four in the morning and I just got so tired of that I wanted to have something beautiful that also dark colors, colors that could help hide stains or help, you know, make it sort of not be as apparent that you had a little blood stain there. Sometimes they’re hard to get out. And this way you just don’t have to worry about that.

Jules Cazedessus 8:48
All the irony is I got my second round of samples about a month before my period actually ended. So I only was able to bleed on a Venus Mat during my period a couple of times, but the experience for me personally was just like, feeling uplifted that that sense of sovereignty feeling like there was nothing to worry about. I was taken care of. And it wasn’t just an ugly towel or hospital pad. It was something that made me feel special, it made me feel more like a queen. And that experience is also a really important part of my business.

Céline Remy 9:26
Hmm. I love that. It’s true that when I stumbled upon your mats, one of the things that attracted me, we got the rose one. So it’s this beautiful we got the deluxe one the biggest one possible with this gigantic rose in the middle. And that’s the first thing that I thought was, this is great, we’re not going to see the stains very much. And I wasn’t particularly looking for something for period sex. But I was looking more for female ejaculation because for me that’s I don’t bleed that much. But I do female ejaculate quite a bit.

Céline Remy 10:03
So I was looking for something where, you know, I use some other different types of mats or things that are not specifically created for female ejaculation. But over time, you literally see a stain, even if you watch it, you know, like within a day or two of like having used it and I was like, I like the fact that it has a pattern because then it’s like, you know, it looks better. And the other thing I loved was that it really looks good. Like we always have it on the top of our bed. Mm-hmm. And one of the things that I’ve realized as well it’s a great conversation starter, right?

Because I’m sure it’s the same for you when people walk in and they see those mats probably. What is that? What is that for? Yes, I’m on the couch. I’m on the bed, let me tell you.

Céline Remy 10:53
But it also I think created the mood like the fact that it’s really pretty because what I had done in the past. I had gotten ones that were white, that are more for like, you know, for babies for when he’d be in bed and then I had like-colored them died them to make it something a little more pretty. But it never got like to the level of looking up to my standards. But with the Venus mad, it’s so pretty. And it’s kind of like I think it makes me want to have more sex.

Céline Remy 11:25
And I’m like, yeah, we had a good time on that matt. Let’s do that again.

Kevin Anthony 11:30
Well, I will say this, although it doesn’t make me want to have more sex because I’m not sure that’s possible. But what I noticed that it does do is that when it’s there, you’re not thinking about, oh, I’m going to get the sheets messy or whatever. So you can just let go more and just be more okay with whatever happens. And there are times sometimes where like, we’re having sex either in another room or something and it was spontaneous and we don’t have the mat and you’re like, oh, but we don’t have the mat, you know?

Kevin Anthony 12:04
Damn

Céline Remy 12:06
Yeah, apparently you need one in every room.

Jules Cazedessus 12:11
So some of my favorite emails I get from customers women you say I ejaculate for the first time on your Venus man, I’m so excited. I mean, it’s such an honor to be let into people’s personal private experiences in their bodies and sexuality. I just, I love thinking sometimes how many people around the world are making love on a Venus matt right now?

Jules Cazedessus 12:34
How much lovemaking is going on?

Kevin Anthony 12:36
You know, I’m curious to now that you mentioned that you actually get letters from customers. Has anybody ever shared a story with you where you know somehow this mat affected them in a certain way?

Jules Cazedessus 12:50
Very much so. One of my favorite stories was early on. My first production run had been finished and I had a little party in my Boulder apartment to invite the local customers and friends who bought their Venus mess to come to pick them up. So one lady had bought just smaller cotton that and she just had given birth, her baby was a few months old. And I had the rose magic match the one you have on an on a bed in another room. So she came into that room and she saw the deluxe rose magic Venus bet and she started to cry. And she just said, This is too much information.

Jules Cazedessus 13:26
But I have to tell you, since I gave birth, my whole relationship to my body has changed. I looked at my vagina in a mirror the other day, I had new conversations with my mother around the abuse I had as a child. And she just these beautiful tears routed from her eyes. And she said, I have to have this mat to for me, she said, when I lay down this mat, sex will be on my terms.

Céline Remy 13:54
Oh, I got chills.

Jules Cazedessus 13:57
I did too. And at that moment, I made the intention that sexual abuse would never occur on a Venus map, that there would always be sacred, holy, protected space for women and men to have sovereign sexual experiences. And our humming dragon, Venus Matt, which was beautiful detail of an image from Andrew, Android Jones, was given to us and I’m able to actually give 10% of all those sales and sex trafficking, it’s a big fierce dragon with hummingbirds coming out of it. So it seemed like the perfect image to like, stop that the abuse of girls and boys and really humans of all ages, across the globe, you know, using sex and dark ways.

Jules Cazedessus 14:42
So that’s a big part of my mission. It’s funny because we’re here talking about a product and in some ways, it might seem Oh, you know, it’s just another product. But for me, it’s just, it’s a placeholder for my purpose and mission in life, which is to heal the false split between spirit-matter. Now, the body is where we get to experience ecstasy, and, and even potentially, the divine.

So if we can, if we can heal that false split on this planet right now, which we desperately need to do, I feel like the rest of the problems facing us will also be healed, we will stop abusing children and women and the planet itself will start to be in right relationship with everyone when we’re in relationship with our own body temples. So that’s, that’s really underlying, for us, it’s kind of an excuse for me to write about my favorite topic.

Kevin Anthony 15:42
Well, we love that. I mean, any anytime you can tie a business to a broader goal, that’s a good thing. Like even in what we do. You know, our goal isn’t just like to teach people how to have better sex on their period, like there’s a larger goal of sexual empowerment that because if people take control of their own sexuality, they can take control of their lives. And I love that you two have a bigger mission as well. In fact, we have your mission statement here, which says

Kevin Anthony 16:10
“Venus matters as part of a growing movement normalizing menstruation and supporting sexual sovereignty. We like to call it the pleasure revolution.” And I love that like this idea of sexual sovereignty, and how that ties in with the split. So like, that’s a great segway. Let’s dive a little bit more into that topic. And the idea that there’s a split, like, what do you mean exactly when you’re saying there’s a split between?

Jules Cazedessus 16:38
Well, it’s funny. So much of what we consider spiritual or religious has to do with renunciation the body, we have to renounce our desires. Even in the Buddhist, or the Christian traditions, there’s this sense that the body and sexuality is something that has to be suppressed, denied, controlled, and that’s spirit and the and the godly realms are these pure, non-physical, non-desire-based realms. And I think that it’s not true, it’s just that it’s, it’s used incorrectly. It’s not, it’s not the whole story. And I think this, the healing of the split has to do with finding a way to return to our own innate sense of what is pleasurable.

Jules Cazedessus 17:30
And when you get that sense of what’s truly pleasurable, not what’s addicted or hungry or, or insecure, not desire, that is the, you know, our consumer’s world is filled with, using beautiful bodies or, or sexy women to sell things. Not that kind of desire, the kind of desire that comes from your deepest core, the way life itself moves through, like, what do I, what am I drawn to what do I love what feels good? I think we can trust that.

Jules Cazedessus 18:07
We’re not taught to trust that as children and our society contorts that we can either become super religious or disconnected from our bodies or addicted to, you know, to a kind of unsatisfying pleasure connecting to that sovereign sense of desire as holy, and my body as a holy temple. That, to me is just really exciting. And sexual sovereignty to me, is all of that experiencing that original sense of ourselves as innocent erotic expressions of the Divine.

Kevin Anthony 18:47
Yeah, I have so much to share in that, but I want to talk. Yeah, so this, this idea of being decent connected from our bodies and our sexualities? I have two main thoughts on that. And the first one is, is that on a, on a, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt kind of a track that that’s a misinterpretation of the spiritual teaching. Because I think ultimately, what they were going for was just trying not to be distracted so that they could focus on spiritual practice.

And I think that that may have evolved into somehow that that was bad, right, but that if we somehow stayed in our lower physical bodies that would never be able to connect with God. And that’s just nonsense.

Kevin Anthony 19:40
But on another level, I think there’s a little bit more nefarious aspect to it, which is the one of control and we’ve talked about this on the show before, but whether you call it Chi, Ching, Prana, lifeforce energy, you know, whatever it is, your sexual energy is really a massive part of who you are. It’s that life force within you from which everything else is created. So if you take somebody’s sexuality out of who they are, you are disempowering them. And I think that that was very intentionally done by certain groups, huh?

Jules Cazedessus 20:21
Yes. Right. Because if you can disconnect a person from their own sense of power, then they have to find an authority outside of themselves to bow down to and to make sure that they’re in the right place at the right time.

Kevin Anthony 20:35
Exactly.

Céline Remy 20:37
So what I love is that the mat for the symbolism and the way it’s shaped, designed, brings that for that it’s it reminds you that you are the one that it’s like you have your you have all the keys, you have everything that you need. And I was thinking that when we chose to have the mad, we actually got it as our wedding presents. Because we had some people who were guests who offered us some money specifically to order some sex-related

Kevin Anthony 21:10
toys. Yeah, that’s true. They wrote in the card, you know, this is to be used only for sex toys.

Céline Remy 21:17
And we were like, you know, to be honest, we don’t really do sex toys. It’s not our thing. Because we have so much fun with our bodies. And we were like, what can we find? That would be fitting the description because we wanted to honor their wishes, right. And so this is how we found the mat. So for us, we got the mat, literally just a few days after we got married. And then it’s been like this beautiful rose, red rose, and they’re sitting on a bed and surfing. It’s also beautiful because it reminds us of like, the moment when we got it, that’s that celebration of like our honeymoon, our being together, this time, we consciously chose to be partners for life together.

Céline Remy 22:02
And so I love that, that that is what the mat is about for us. But it can also be just that for the women that you talked about, where for her, it was just about, like, that new connection with her body where sex was only going to be on her term. And I’m curious too because I see that this can speak a lot to the women. And since we do have a man here, like, I was curious, like how it has affected you or change, like how we have sex or how you see sex, because we have the math.

Kevin Anthony 22:40
You know, maybe a little bit less for me as a guy. Uh-huh. But you know, I do love the idea that like, when we show up to the bed to make love, it’s not just like, a messy bed. Or it’s not just like, you know, some of the things that pass partners us like I had one partner years ago, who was a huge female, Jackie later. And at the time, all she had were these little disposable things. They were like, you know, just very small, maybe, you know, two feet by two feet, if that I think they were even smaller than that. And yeah, it’s like, like, precisely place her ass on the bad in the right spot, you know, and then they would trickle and make noise.

Kevin Anthony 23:23
And like, all of that stuff just kind of took away from the experience a little bit, you know, where it was like, we got to think about things, it’s kind of sort of taking us out of the moment putting us in our heads. And what I love about the mat is when you do show up, and it’s there, it’s beautiful. It’s, it’s big. So there’s plenty of space, you don’t have to worry about it. You have to get into your head about are we on the pad, are we not on the path. It’s just you just show up, and it’s there. And it’s beautiful. So

Céline Remy 23:57
I know sometimes when I’m like, Ah, yeah, I don’t want to do laundry and you like just take the bad you know, and like, I think sometimes it’s just like, helps us. So in a way, it helps you to have better sex, because as soon as I’m able to let go, where do you like you just even grabbed the pad and put it underneath and you’re like, it’s there. Don’t think about it let go. Right? So it makes for better sex for us both. So that’s, that’s really cool for that.

Kevin Anthony 24:22
I, you know, well. I grew up in a mostly Italian family, and our solutions to problems were usually just like, well just give more to it. Right. So like, you know, we joke all the time about, you know, the amount of food that we have, you know, and she’s like, but but it’s like, then we’ll just order more, we’ll just make more you know, and this is sort of the same philosophy goes into the pad, which is like sometimes she’ll say, Well, I don’t really want to do laundry, or I’d really love to female ejaculate, but we don’t have and I’ll just like that just get the bad just use the bad. And when we had a small pad, the solution was to get a bigger pad.

Jules Cazedessus 25:06
The practicality combined with the ritual-ality.

Jules Cazedessus 25:11
A lot of people are missing a sense of the ritual in their lives because so much has become secularized in our lives. So having just a little reminder that any of us can create sacred space at any time to create our own experiences and lovers, good lovers create great experiences for each other. So that’s it’s all in support of that honor that this has served you in such a beautiful, delightful way.

Céline Remy 25:39
So since you’re talking about that, lovers, I’d love to see like how would you introduce your new matter in your lover like?

Jules Cazedessus 25:50
I was curious because a couple of my customers mentioned that you know, they had the mad and then they change lovers and they like to the new lover want to experience the lovers within that with the lover’s juju on there?

Jules Cazedessus 26:02
They needed a new mad and of course, other lovers are like, using them for an orgy. Sowe runs the gamut. And I am I am in a long term relationship, I’ve only had one lover on my mat.

Jules Cazedessus 26:19
Yeah, but the other favorite comments I get from people are women whose water breaks on the mat. So some women will bring their Venus mess to the hospital. Or if they’re home birthing, they can sleep on the mat, and they don’t have to worry about that flood of fluid that comes when the water breaks. And that’s another big part of the female ejaculation to it’s just, it’s just incredible to me that even until I believe it was spring of last year, the UK forbade porn to be created around female ejaculation. They considered it to be illegal, you know, somehow immoral.

Jules Cazedessus 26:59
And yet 10 even 50% I think far more women would be female ejaculation. They didn’t worry about the mess if it was normalized. And of course, sure, you know, but I and your, maybe your audiences as well. But the tantric traditions consider that fluid to be very, very powerful, Amrita and that is something that I just love, supporting more women to feel the freedom of course along without the pressure to squirt it if they don’t squirt, but that’s just part of this.

So needed a revolution, in body fluids, like why in the world in the 21st century, are women embarrassed about their periods, and yet they are and in parts of the world is still very dangerous to have your period. I mean, you can be you.

Jules Cazedessus 27:47
You can’t touch certain Hasidic Jewish men, if you’re on your period, you can’t go into temples you can’t cook, you have to go sleep with the cows, this is still happening on our planet. Even though in the West, they’re poor, poor women who are struggling to get sanitary pads. It’s just it just doesn’t need to be this way. If we learn how to take care of our bodies and each other, we’re going to solve all the big problems on the planet right now. So

Kevin Anthony 28:16
you know, it reminds me as you were just saying that, right? And we say this all the time. But everything starts from within. So there are all these world problems out there that you just mentioned. And how do we even begin to address them? Are we gotta do the inner work ourselves, right? Because if we’re not already comfortable with our bodies, and our body fluids and how to take care of our bodies, how in the world are we going to solve that for anybody else? Yeah,

Céline Remy 28:42
I love that you brought different use for the mat and because we’re talking to about body fluids, right. So we talked about menstruation, we talked about female ejaculation but with giving birth and when the water breaks. I know we saw on your site to that your sister who passed away from breast cancer, but also had this urostomy and use the butterfly mat so that she would feel comfortable if there were any leaks while she slept. And I’m like, this is amazing because we are looking at it through all the cycles of life, birth to death, and that at all time, the fluids and what happens with our body is welcome and is sacred and is beautiful.

Céline Remy 29:32
And because I was imagining to like your sister at this time in her life of the transition and having the butterflies underneath and just kind of like having this as a symbol. I was like how powerful you know that is so I love how we can really use this for so many times in our lives. And of course we are sex love relationship podcast, but hey, we will we’ll talk about, you know, passing we’ll talk about giving birth, this is all parts of life.

Jules Cazedessus 30:04
They do look pretty more the little death of the orgasms and the big death that will all one day face I have actually imagined Venus mass to be used on in hospice and at death. Because of course even at that time, the human body deserves to feel elevated and to remember that it’s a temple and so I’m going to be making square ones because it’s necessary to have corners to help change pads for people who are dying so that they can be lifted easily. But yes, my sister’s love of her Venus mat is a very tender precious memory of mine. And she was such an open, loving, gregarious woman that I feel safe and sharing her story because she would like to tell them, Jules, tell them how much I liked it.

Céline Remy 30:57
I love that you have all these different have visions of the of your business of where your company can go. And what I would love is just kind of like tell our listeners where they can find more about your products, the Venus mats, and then tell them all about this special coupon you created for all our listeners. Sure, sure.

Jules Cazedessus 31:22
So the website is called Venus matters.com. And right now I am actually looking for wholesale clients, I can only buy it online right now. Go to Venus matters.com and I believe the little coupon I created for you is THELOVELAB, no space, all caps, and that’s $15 off any mat. I do have a couple of specials going on right now though because I have my printer here in Denver made some mistakes on some of the deluxe Venus mats.

So I’m selling a couple of seconds I have a dozen or so left them both rose magic and the humming dragon Venus, Matt. So those are just $99 so I won’t be able to apply the $15 off on that because that’s already super rock bottom price, but $15 off on any of the other mats and I should have that wild Venus map up soon as well.

Céline Remy 32:15
Um, how exciting. Do you have any last words like of wisdom that you want to leave our audience with?

Jules Cazedessus 32:29
Because for me, I am just so honored to be a part of supporting women and men in their embodiment and to free ourselves up from all the sheds and woods and have to choose and to arise in our own bodies and the throne of our own bodies inside and, and be sovereign and our lives at this amazing tumultuous time. We’re pleasures, sometimes our only refuge and what a precious sacred thing it is to be able to have pleasure in such wild times on the planet. So spreading that love to me is just everything. And I’m so grateful to be doing that here with you.

Kevin Anthony 33:16
Yes, more. Love more love.

Céline Remy 33:20
Thank you so much, Jules, for being here. All of you listening, go to Venus matters.com. Use your coupon, THELOVELAB, and we hope this was inspiring and you can’t wait to have juicier sexy time. Alright,

Jules Cazedessus 33:40
thank you.

Kevin Anthony 33:42
All right, everybody. That’s all the time we have on this episode. And we will see you next week. We hope you liked this episode of the love lab podcast. If you enjoyed this show, leave a comment and share it with your friends.

Céline Remy 33:59
And if you want more, we have an entire digital library with the best sex tips and Relationship Advice at Celine Remy.com. That’s kevinanthonycoaching.com So join us in the sex vault to continue this adventure.

Kevin Anthony 34:15
Thanks for listening.

Céline Remy 34:17
And remember, you’re amazing.