The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett XX
[0] Did you know that the DariVosio now has its own channel exclusively on Samsung TV Plus?
[1] And I'm excited to say that we've partnered with Samsung TV to bring this to life, and the channel is available in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria.
[2] Samsung TV Plus is a free streaming service available to all owners of Samsung Smart TVs and Galaxy mobiles and tablets.
[3] And along with the Dyeravisio channel, you'll find hundreds of more channels with entertainment for everyone all for free on Samsung TV Plus.
[4] So if you own a Samsung TV, tune in now and watch the Dyer of a Cio channel.
[5] one of the things I've heard you talk about a lot is your your journey and your evolving relationship with sex and sexuality and how that changed from when you were very young through the period when you were drinking a lot until today can you talk to me about that evolution and what you've learned about those topics that might benefit me yes absolutely so I'm going to sort of keep referring to my sobriety in that period of my life because it was so transformative and it revealed so much to me so much that I could have never imagined at the time so something that also happened when I got sober I think this was about a year into my sobriety I realized just how much sexual shame I was holding so much of it and I initially sort of wanted to fix it, wanted to do something about it.
[6] What are some surface level things that I can do?
[7] What can I read?
[8] What can I sort of dive into?
[9] How can I deal with it from where I am now as a 25 year old?
[10] But I quickly realized that I actually had to trace it back to see where it even comes from.
[11] And I realized just like so many things, it did come from my childhood.
[12] being raised in a Christian home, I learn, again, not directly, more so indirectly, that being a sexual being was not something that was off God.
[13] It was not something that was supposed to be a part of who I am.
[14] Pleasure was never discussed.
[15] Sex was never discussed.
[16] Even intimacy in general, I never saw my parents hold hands.
[17] I never saw my parents hold hands.
[18] I never saw them kiss.
[19] I never saw them hug.
[20] never saw any sort of affection.
[21] But I knew that they loved each other.
[22] I knew that they cared about each other.
[23] But affection and intimacy, I just never saw that, not for a moment.
[24] Did you see that growing up?
[25] It's a really interesting one because I'd say, I'd say yes and no. So I say yes, because below the age of maybe eight, maybe I've got memories of that.
[26] And then above the age of 10, um, no. And I call my parents by their first names.
[27] And I really struggled with, with intimacy because of the exact same reasons.
[28] Like, even the word best friend made me cringe until the age still kind of makes me cringe now.
[29] Yeah.
[30] Like when people would say it or call me their best friend, this is part of me like, oh.
[31] Stephen, me too.
[32] Like it's just a bit, even boyfriend would make me like, prison.
[33] Like, you know what I mean?
[34] Me too.
[35] That's why when I found the word partner, I was like, okay, that feels much better.
[36] We stand next to each other.
[37] We don't.
[38] Oh, my goodness.
[39] So when I sort of wanted to really understand where a lot of the sexual shame was stemming from or just more so even outside of sex, intimacy, feeling very disconnected to other people when it came to intimacy, but also from myself, I realized that I could only be expressive as a sexual being if I was drunk or if I was high, if I was in that place where, of course, my inhibitions are low, but I had no insecurities.
[40] I didn't have to feel like I'm doing something wrong.
[41] I didn't have to feel like my pleasure was wrong.
[42] But then when I got sober, all of those things came to the surface, and then I had to look that in the eye.
[43] So that also became something that I started sharing over time, as well as sort of sharing my journey with sobriety.
[44] I then started sharing the things that were revealed as a byproduct of me getting sober and sexual shame was a huge one, was a big part of that.
[45] My relationship with sex has evolved a lot over time.
[46] I think it was early, in my early years, influenced by porn, as it is for many people, so that's the way I went into the game.
[47] I just went in trying to be those male porn stars, you know.
[48] And I think over time, and I think there's this wider issue in our society.
[49] Specifically, I've got to be honest with men.
[50] Yes.
[51] what they think that, what they think sex is in terms of this kind of very aggressive, often dominating, transactional, um, encounter.
[52] Yeah.
[53] And then there's, again, I'm just, I'm just talking freely.
[54] I don't give a fuck what I don't.
[55] Please do.
[56] Please.
[57] But I'm seeing a lot in my, in my, in my close friends, they're all in relate, they're often in relationships, not all of them, where they're having problems with their sexual relationship with their partner.
[58] They're basically saying things to me. And I'd say, this is crazy.
[59] I'd say 75 to 80 % of my male friends are saying, my partner doesn't want to have sex.
[60] She doesn't like having sex.
[61] Yeah.
[62] And I was there at 1 .2.
[63] My partner said that to me at 1 .2.
[64] Yeah.
[65] And I took it on face value.
[66] I thought, they don't like sex.
[67] What I came to learn is that wasn't true.
[68] But what I'd learned to be sex and what I was bringing as sex, this kind of aggressive, you know, whatever, was not the language that they spoke.
[69] Right.
[70] And I feel like I'm surrounded by men that need to start seeing sex as a language.
[71] Because then you can ask yourself, well, actually, she's speaking Spanish and I'm speaking English.
[72] That's why it's not she doesn't like English.
[73] She just doesn't, she speaks a different language.
[74] Yes, yes.
[75] That's a lot.
[76] I'm just dumping that on you to see how it resonates.
[77] No, no, no. No, that resonates so.
[78] And I'm really glad that you said this because I think you're speaking something.
[79] something that is on so many people's minds or something that they've just never really put language to you.
[80] And a big part of my awakening, if you will, and really addressing that sexual shame is because I also learned sex from porn at 10 years old, 10 years old.
[81] So by the time that I had sex for the first time when I was 14, it was very much like a porn performance, to put it very simply.
[82] And I speak to so many people, men and women, about this very specific thing.
[83] a lot of us learn that we should perform, that sex should be driven by orgasm and ejaculation and this sort of production, if you will, which is not actually accurate for most people when it comes to what really actually feels pleasurable, especially for women.
[84] So I started to realize when I got sober that every time that I was having sex, for example, I faked every single orgasm.
[85] It was all a perform.
[86] I didn't know much about my body because I'd learned from porn.
[87] and because the men that I was with had also learned from porn we were just in a performance and no one's actually talking about it right so in times when I was in relationships and I made myself think I don't want to have sex I don't want to have sex anymore it actually was not that I didn't want to have this type of pornified sex that's what I actually meant so what you just said is really important and I realized that's when I found tantric sex actually yeah that's when I found tantric sex around 2018 because I realized that I had always felt like sex was being done to me that I was not a part of it and that is how most women feel I felt like I needed to apologize.
[88] Really?
[89] Yeah because that's what that's what I came to learn yeah was that the the reason why the person I was with had turned around to me and said I don't like having sex And when we got talking about it after I acted like, I mean, let me be clear, the first time she said that, I did not understand.
[90] My little chent Neanderthal monkey brain went, uh, uh, uh, like I was emasculated by it.
[91] It made me feel, is there something that I was, I didn't do, right?
[92] Ego steps in, right?
[93] Ended up breaking up with this person, got back with this person a year later.
[94] When I was maybe a bit more mature, I apologized.
[95] And I said, I want to have a conversation.
[96] And I also said to her that I'm going to be here regardless of whether we have sex or not.
[97] Yes.
[98] And then she had a safe enough space to start talking to me about it.
[99] And what I discovered is she'd been with, she'd had three previous boyfriends over the course of seven years.
[100] Her view of sex was this person comes and takes from you, treats you like this object.
[101] And she was with him for five years.
[102] Treats you like an object, takes what they want from you.
[103] And then he was actually going and cheating on her as well.
[104] Right.
[105] So not only was he taking.
[106] He was then like hurting her.
[107] And that cycle just repeated.
[108] Her relationship with what sex is was really, toxic.
[109] She didn't like that.
[110] Yes.
[111] She didn't want that anymore.
[112] Yes.
[113] And that's what she and me probably referred to as this word sex.
[114] So it was kind of like learning a new language of sex and what it actually is that then she went from the place of like, I don't want to have sex anymore to absolutely loving to have sex.
[115] I didn't think it was possible.
[116] I thought if they don't like sex, dump them.
[117] Yes.
[118] You know what I'm going to go find someone that will let me take.
[119] Yes.
[120] And you know You know what?
[121] You've articulated that so beautifully in terms of sex being a language.
[122] And it's going to look different for every single person because something that I realized is that I could tell when I was with a man sexually, I could tell if they were sort of, if it was like a script almost, like a play by play.
[123] Like this is exactly the method.
[124] We'd do this, we'd do that, switch into this, switch into that.
[125] It wasn't sort of flowing and very intuitive as to what's actually needed in that moment.
[126] moment, which reminded me of porn.
[127] And I would also realize actually, and this is something that I've spoken about so much because I ended up starting a sexual wellness company called Cherry Revolution over time.
[128] And I realized that even some of the positions I would get in were very much like porn because certain positions in porn are like that because the camera is there, not because it's comfortable, because that's the shot for the viewer to be able to see it.
[129] So when I started to see that I'm starting to replicate this in my most intimate private moments, but we're both doing it.
[130] I made myself believe that I didn't enjoy sex.
[131] So then drinking and drugs and everything that came with it, I felt like those were the moments that I could be fully expressive without needing to perform, which is very interesting because you would think it would be the opposite, that I would then perform more.
[132] But I felt as if I could actually speak my mind if I didn't enjoy something, we try this, can I do this instead?
[133] Or I just want to give or I just want to receive.
[134] Can we be slower?
[135] And then when I was sober, I felt like I couldn't say those things.
[136] Because if I say to you as my partner, I might be emasculating you.
[137] I might be embarrassing you.
[138] You might think something is wrong.
[139] So I would just perform and you're performing as well.
[140] And then it just causes a huge disconnect.
[141] So tantric sex was the first thing that I came across that made me realize and really articulated that sex is actually not a specific destination.
[142] Did you know that you can actually enjoy sex without ejaculation, that you can have a full body orgasm, that you can be very slow, that foreplay can be the main thing that you do, that you can experience orgasm without penetration, just so many different ways of articulating that experience of sex.
[143] And it's just that an experience.
[144] And that changed so much for me. It's such a sort of a, narrative violation for so many people who've spent the whole life watching porn and then recreating it, this idea that you can have an orgasm from touch, that you can use energy to cause someone orgasmic pleasure.
[145] Yeah.
[146] Yeah, that's, it's a really important topic that I think people need to talk about a lot more.
[147] And I think just, just saying to someone that's listening to this, that might be in a relationship where they're not, they're in a sexless relationship.
[148] Yes.
[149] Just proposing the idea that what if you both just speak, just say there was 10 languages.
[150] What if you're just speaking the wrong language?
[151] You know what I mean?
[152] And what approach would you then take?
[153] You'd probably try and learn the language.
[154] Yes.
[155] And also communicate to them what language you speak and see how you can be bilingual, I guess.
[156] Yes.
[157] You know what?
[158] It reminds me of, are you familiar with love languages and that whole thing?
[159] Yes.
[160] I realize that a lot of people expect someone to give in the way that they like to receive, you know?
[161] So no one really says, okay, how do you like to receive love?
[162] How do you like to give love?
[163] And the moment that I started asking those questions, even though I, believe me, I fucking cringed in the beginning.
[164] I'm like, really, am I going to ask?
[165] But you get used to it.
[166] Yeah, and if they run off, good.
[167] Yeah.
[168] It's, Stephen, it's been a game changer to just ask the person that I'm dating or my current partner to be like, how do you like to be loved?
[169] How do you like to receive love and how do you like to give it?
[170] because just those simple questions can change so much and then you can use the same with sex.
[171] What do you like and what do you not like?
[172] What have you changed your mind about?
[173] What do you like to do now and again or maybe not so much sometimes?
[174] How much time do you need?
[175] How does your arousal actually work?
[176] And I know that some people might not know how to answer these questions for themselves.
[177] So it's actually very good to start asking yourself those questions before speaking about it with someone else.
[178] These are questions that you can just start to ask yourself before introducing them to someone else, but they can, they can change so much because I think we get into relationships and make so many assumptions based on our individual experiences and our worldview.
[179] And we expect the person wherewith to reflect the exact same thing back to us, but we don't, we don't ask questions.
[180] It comes back in many respects to what we were talking about earlier, this kind of binary approach to life.
[181] They either fit or they don't.
[182] There's no space for conversation and nuance and I guess mutual development together like towards the same.
[183] This idea that you have to actually build and develop a relationship towards a place of satisfaction as opposed to finding your perfect soulmate or perfect fit.
[184] Right.
[185] I'm going to find someone that likes to have sex like I do, that likes to talk like I do, that likes the things I do as opposed to this kind of molding towards being more cohesive together.
[186] I love that term mutual development.
[187] And it makes me think actually that this is a term that can apply even outside, maybe even especially outside of romantic relationships, this idea that people don't have to be perfect, that they don't have to exist in the way that I want the world to be or in how I expect them to be.
[188] Maybe we can actually mutually develop a different perspective together because we're two different beings coming together.
[189] That's a very powerful term.
[190] my current relationship, we are completely different.
[191] Really?
[192] We don't believe the same things.
[193] We don't believe the same, we don't have the same fundamental beliefs.
[194] The reason why it works is because of one very simple thing, communication and a very healthy, high respect communication, where everything isn't an attempt to win.
[195] It's an attempt to like genuinely understand to move forward.
[196] Yeah.
[197] And I think you can have two people that are, that went very, very different things, whether it's in sex or in business or their beliefs about religion and spirituality.
[198] be bound together as long as they have respectful communication.
[199] I agree.
[200] You know what I mean?
[201] And I guess empathy is part of respectful communication.
[202] Did you know that the Dario Vecio now has its own channel exclusively on Samsung TV Plus?
[203] And I'm excited to say that we've partnered with Samsung TV to bring this to life.
[204] And the channel is available in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria.
[205] Samsung TV Plus is a free streaming service available to all owners of Samsung Smart TVs and Galaxy mobiles and tablets.
[206] And along with the DariVosio channel, you'll find hundreds of more.
[207] more channels with entertainment for everyone all for free on Samsung TV Plus.
[208] So if you own a Samsung TV, tune in now and watch the Dyer of a CEO channel right now.