55: Betony Vernon on Spirituality, Sex, Sensuality and the Erotic Body Realm

Betony Vernon – website
Betony Vernon – Email
Betony Vernon – Paradise Found Book
Betony Vernon – The Boudoir Bible

Domus Academy Milan
Aldo Cibic
Sado-Chic Collection
Luisa Via Roma – Florence
Barneys New York
The Boudoir Box
Marc Newson
Tom Ford – Porn Chic
Pauline Réage – Story of O
Taoism – Sex
Betty Dodson
Penny Slinger – Sacred Sexuality
The Boudoir Bible
Betony Vernon – Paradise Found Jewellery
ISTA
Vivienne Westwood – Post-Punk
Purple Magazine – Paris Cover
New York Times –  Cover
Theta Frequency
Quantum Nonlocality
Ram Dass – Be Here Now
Umbria – Italy’s spiritual heart
Malva
Holotropic Breathwork
Daniel Pinchbeck

Giancarlo: [00:00:00] Hello, hi, welcome to the new episode of the Mango TV podcast. Today I’m so excited to have Bethany Vernon. Bethany Vernon is invested in the field of erotic and sexual doing. The development of her work is multidisciplinary, spanning sessions of practical teaching and curative sharing. The writing of her book, The Boudoir Bible, currently translated in nine languages, and the design of sublime objects, jewels, sculpture, furniture, objects, objets d’art, as well as happenings.[00:01:00] 

Through this wide fan of mediums, none of which abstract the human body, Bethany Vernon signs an aesthetic of wellness, a sophisticated interaction to the other and above all to oneself. In 2024, Bethany will open the doors to a new experiential space in Italy. Situated in an ancient building, restoration and preservation have been priority for the past two years.

Most importantly, Betony has taken action in saving a piece of land around which is building a community to preserve the negative impact of ecocide. Betony believes that to restore the soil is to restore the soul. Thank you very much for being here. 

Betony: Thank you for inviting us. 

Giancarlo: You know, Mango TV deals with very progressive topic, but it keeps a very traditional structure.

We’re still doing present, past, future. So if you don’t mind, let’s start chronologically, you know, your childhood, your background, where did you grow up and how you got interested in Eros and [00:02:00] centrality, if you don’t mind. 

Betony: Well, I think that I’ve probably always been interested in heiress and sexuality as any human on the planet.

Maybe I had the advantage of not being told that I shouldn’t have that interest. Because I grew up with very little parental control and contact after my mother was denied the right to keep her children in the United States of America. Following her participation in an instigation of the first sit in on the east coast of America.

It was 1960. And she joined the Greensboro Four at the white only counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. She was English. And she paid for it for the rest of her life also losing the right to see four kids in 1972. 

Giancarlo: Wow. How did the, she loses custody for political reason? 

Betony: Because America was in the siege of [00:03:00] ongoing siege of racism and she was a white English woman who had basically started a civil rights revolution.

Giancarlo: Well, 

Betony: it wasn’t appreciated. 

Giancarlo: I see. 

Betony: And so she paid for this over the years. You know, she paid for it repeatedly and over the years in various ways. And you know, racism is bad for everyone. It ripped the family apart. And and this left, you know, four baby girls. I was four at the time. I had a baby sister that was two, another one that was six, and another one that was eleven.

It became like a mommy at eleven, you know. But the judge decided this. The white racist judge in Virginia. And my mother was an English woman. They gave her psychological instability. You start. You helped to start a revolution. So yeah, I think that my, I think that my interest in sexuality was very organic because nobody told me not to have interest in sexuality.

You know, most parenting involves some sort of prohibition 

Speaker 4: when it [00:04:00] comes 

Betony: to pleasure. 

Speaker 4: Yeah. 

Betony: And I didn’t have that. You see, there’s silver lining. They’re always silver linings. I was very free growing up. I didn’t have, I didn’t have limits, no. There was, again, very little parental control. 

Giancarlo: You grew up in Virginia?

Betony: Until I was 15, and then I left the nest at 15. And it was, it was post punk rock and roll. For a while. But I knew that I, I, it would be better for me, and probably safer for me to leave America. Because I, I knew that I would be involved in sociopolitical things, and it could be dangerous. I felt that I could be in danger.

So I left at the age of 19 and ended up finishing the university in the United States of America. And at 20, I came back to Florence. I came back to Italy and lived in Italy [00:05:00] for many, many years to follow. I did my master’s degree in industrial design at Delmos Academy, which was at the time, the most cutting edge school for futurists.

On the planet, they accepted 21 students. And I said well, let me try this. If it doesn’t work, I’ll go to Paris. I got a phone call one day from Aldo Cibic one of my mentors as well. And he said to me in, in Venetian, no, you’ve been accepted.

I left Florence and I went to Milano and it’s really interesting because I’m now 25 years into that future and everything that we projected including things like iPhones, miniature computers, has happened. And the last thing on my list of futurisms at the time was that cities would become almost unbearable, you know, to live in because of pollution, because of other issues.

And that we all [00:06:00] know about. We love cities. Cities are amazing. I am an urbanite, but I’ve checked the last futuristic action off of my Domus Academy teachings. I have left the city. I, I never thought that I would leave Paris. But I feel that It was important to have a piece of land, and also, even if the land is small, start to take part in what the future holds, you know?

And and that also means taking care of the land as a community, because it’s very sick. I discovered that my land is also very sick. And but I’m taking part, you know, and it feels right. Technology allows us to do this. I think that you’re also living part time in Ibiza, on an island. We can, we can do this, no?

We must do it, actually. So I’m one of those people that left the city for a better life. A better quality of life and to be part of the future. A futurist [00:07:00] cannot not have a piece of land, 

Giancarlo: in my opinion. Sorry, forgive me. Before we go into, into land and, and soul, let me just like backtrack one second.

You know, you grew up with this interest in sexuality, and then you went into this, you know, very exclusive industrial design school. When and how your interest in sexuality and your interest in design united in a way? When did they start to, how, how, how was that process? 

Betony: I started to design the erotic jewelry in 1997.

Oh, earlier actually. The, the, the Satoshiq collection, which is also a term that I coined, Satoshiq, started in 1992. So, I was selling at Luisa Villaroma, a very beautiful store in Florence. It was actually the first concept store. And I had a huge window. And I, [00:08:00] Began to break through internationally with concept stores around the world with this collection.

Giancarlo: Sorry, but then it was the shadow chic collection. 

Betony: That is chic collection. Yes. And it was very symbolic. A ball and ring mechanism that gradually over the years became. An integral part of the functionality of this collection, because I, my work is often functional. That function is often hidden and so yes, by 1996, I thought, wow, okay, the collection was about 45 pieces, I guess, and I decided to show it to Barneys New York, and the buyer almost fainted.

She said, you can’t do this. This is perverted. This is not. And I said just about loving each other and touching each other within a more empowering way, giving the body a sort of extra opportunity, a superpower. They didn’t like it. And I understood in 1996. [00:09:00] That I was too far ahead of the curve, but I kept on working on it secretly.

And I continued to provide my clients around the world, beautiful stores around the world with my handcrafted artisanal works. And then after September 11, 2001 I just decided that I couldn’t responsibly just design objects for ornamentation. And that I would go public with this. So it was just after the attack on the twin towers.

I was in Paris and. I took the erotic collection with me in what was, what, what we know it now today is the Bloor Box. It was an object that allowed me to move the collection around in a very elegant way because there were no stores. No one was interested. There were no erotic stores for women.

There was nothing. There was zero. Okay? Okay. In 2002 or three, I think it was, I met the daughter of Anita Roddick, [00:10:00] who was the founder of Body Shop. Her name is Sam Samantha Roddick, and she had opened up the first luxury store for women’s pleasure in Covent Garden. It wasn’t on the wrong side of town.

It was right in the center of London and someone said to me, you have to meet this woman. So she was my first first client that, that was really involved in sexual evolution and our evolution as a whole from a sexual point of view. And that was the beginning. It sort of sparked a lot of interest and I thought, Wow, this is going to be the beginning of a sexual revolution, you know?

Even designers like Mark Newsome got involved and started to design vibrating tools, etc. Something that I never did, by the way. I believe that the sexual vibration is enough. We don’t need batteries and all of that stuff, necessarily. At least in my work. I mean, somebody else do that. It’s another sector, no?

And yeah, I really [00:11:00] thought it was happening. There was a moment, also, I mean, people like Tom Ford were, were doing Porno Chic. I started to see things like crops and whips and kinky things, you know, so called kinky things in advertising that went from advertising martini cocktail mixer.

You know, I remember this publicity or an advertisement where a girl was tied to a chair, tied to a chair, next to a swimming pool. And I used to use it as an example in my workshops of what we don’t do. We don’t tie a person up in a chair, leave them by a swimming pool, and walk away because there was no shadow, of course.

of the person who tied her there. So what happens if the woman struggles, which she will, because that’s part of the fun, no? A little struggle goes a long way. And tips into the pool. So I would use this advertising, advertisement of, of Martini to, to illustrate what we don’t do with the cords and bondage.

And then [00:12:00] suddenly This wave, another wave, as it always happens, because our sexuality of course is our, is the center of our essence, of our soul, you know? We, we masturbate in our mother’s wombs. You know that, right? Well, we do. And to negate this is a very dangerous thing. In fact, I think that our society is broken because our sexuality is broken.

And I have over, you know, of course I started, I was very young when I started to design the collection, 1920. And I was naive. I thought, well, everybody wants to have An evolving trans and dental sex life, no? And I was wrong. I was wrong. I found myself first of all banned ostracized.

Pigeonholed as someone who was perverted, therefore sick kinky. I mean, I [00:13:00] used to have, you know, people in the fashion system, on the upper echelons of the fashion system. Say to me, oh who are you beating up and things like that. It was very strange because of course I work with love and I work with enhanced pleasure and I, and I work with consent and I help people evolve sexually, you know.

But it was seen, and it still is seen, as something bad, wrong again, pit and hold, you know, as the dominatrix, or something like that, which is, I never worked as a dominatrix, that’s not what I do that I train people to explore that safely? Yes, I do. Is that my job? No. Do I acquire pleasure from that?

Do I experience pleasure through that at times? Sure. That’s my sex life and that’s my business. No, but I’m not a dominatrix. 

Giancarlo: But so let me, let me ask, sorry, Bethany, sorry to interrupt because This is super interesting, you know, the, the combination of the, you know, the gatekeepers in certain industry and the Judah moral [00:14:00] Christianity, you know, morals, you know, I’m not surprised that there was some, some pushback.

But now if, you know, 20, 30 years after, you know, It’s social media, every other article or post is about transcend, transcend through sexuality and sexual empowerment. So, you know, you were right 20, 30 years ago, but what I would like to, to understand is what, what was the cultural and philosophical thinking behind your desire to empower woman, empower humans around sexuality?

What was, what was the drive? How did How did, what was the inspiration to the first Sadoshi collection, intellectually? Or it was just out of the body, it was just instinctive? Or there was any author or any school, anything that helped you? Is the Tantra movement or the sex positive movement? Who inspired you?

Betony: Well, [00:15:00] I, pleasure inspired me enhanced pleasure. But of course, you know, I was, I grew up in the United States in the 1980s and I was part of the new age movement. There was a lot of research going on and blending of thoughts and philosophies. I studied my, my minor at the university is religion and philosophy.

I was always interested in Asian philosophy. Of all sorts. I I was very much in my body, you know and again, not inhibited. I was probably the last generation of people who had participated in orgies without thinking, Oh my God, I’m going to get sick, you know you know, free loving with our friends.

The idea of having a monogamous relationship for me in the eighties was completely. Extraterrestrial, you know I was free. I, I, I had a freed sexuality. And so I was also very interested in, in erotic literature. Pauline Réage, the Histoire d’Eau, the story of [00:16:00] Eau was certainly an inspiration for the Satoshi collection.

And it was quite innocent what I did, you know, I was just tapping into things that made me feel good and I put it out into the world and and then, you know, got slapped around a little bit for this. But kept on pursuing it then in 19, in, I guess it was 1998, 1999, because I couldn’t find stores that were interested in the collection I continued to cater to the ones that were interested in the other collections.

And I went to Paris with an assistant in 1998, I think it was, and she’d never been to Paris. And I said, look, I’m going to take you for a tour of, of the city where everything it’s is permitted, no? And at a certain point we were walking and I had a full blown vision. I talk about this in my last book, Paradise Found, which is a 30 year anniversary celebration of the erotic collection, which then became called Paradise Found.

And I had [00:17:00] a, it was very clear to me. It came all, it was like a download. I saw it very clearly. And I said to my assistant, as it was happening, this download, I told her what was happening. And at a certain point she said to me, can we sit down? We’d walked and I, I was a bit in a trance, really. We’d walked and walked and walked.

We were near the Tuileries and I said, let’s go and sit in the Tuileries and have a glass of wine. So we go, and she said to me. What you’re telling me is insane. We can’t do that. You can’t, you can’t build a a space for workshops, initiation. You can’t do this. This is dangerous. It’s gonna kill the business.

Three, three months later, she was gone. She, she freaked out and left because I got back to Italy where my studio was at the time in Milano and I was obsessed. I couldn’t, I couldn’t drop it. I couldn’t sleep at night. I couldn’t do this. In fact, in the end, a year and a half later, the boudoir [00:18:00] box was born and it allowed me to travel to my clients.

It allowed me to cater to the people who wanted to have also a body safe, luxurious, durable response to what was happening on the so called sex. market, no? On the sexual accessory marketplace, no? It was, it was and still is dodgy and bizarre and I find it still rather unevolved, no?

In fact, I don’t use the term sex toys. Because, of course, my work led me to understand quite quickly that abuse is the norm, and anything that has to do with children and adult sexual play can trigger. So I use, and coin the term, les bijoux outils, the tools, no? Which I find more aligned with adult pleasure.

I don’t make toys. That’s not what I do. And yeah. So one thing led to [00:19:00] another, this, this young lady who was my assistant three years ago, she contacted me on Facebook and she said, you know what? It’s really incredible. I watched your vision come to life. She recontacted me. So yeah, it’s been it’s, it’s an ongoing, it’s not finished.

I mean, the jewelry for me was just a vehicle into what probably is. You know, going to the be the future of my work. I don’t I don’t feel I mean, in fact, it’s an incredible key. It opens up conversations that have been opened without them. It motored a movement as well. I mean, those tools motored possibility.

And and so now I’m onto other things. Of course, they, they still exist. They still motor, they still are keys. It’s a permanent collection that still provides pleasure and I make to measure and to order. But I’m only catering on first dibs because there’s no store. There’s still no store in the world that is really interested in [00:20:00] seriously taking it on.

So what you seem to think is some sort of evolution, it’s happening in our tiny little sexually conscious and, I mean, I guess we could say conscious tribe around the planet, we can have these conversations openly, but you cannot actually do it beyond our tribe. Consider that on Instagram I am still black flagged.

I am not allowed to promote. I am not approved, still today. 

Giancarlo: Yeah, that is changing. That is changing. But I was trying to understand you know, you mentioned Pauline Réage, you know, Pauline Réage d’Eau from beginning of the century. What do you think Because our listener, definitely me, but I imagine our listeners are a little bit new to the world of BDSM and, and and role playing and power play and what is the cultural origin or the cultural [00:21:00] framework?

Of Pauline Riage’s story. Where does that come from? 

Betony: It comes from the human desire to play and to keep on playing. And play keeps us young and active and curious. And I believe that the power of play is a real one. You know, it’s another superpower. 

Giancarlo: It’s like an archetypal force. You associate power dynamics with play.

Can you elaborate a little bit on that? 

Betony: Yeah, I think that when we are first of all, I think that pure and simple penetrative sex, which essentially serves to make babies. After a while, it’s not very interesting. If you’re going to evolve a relationship, a sexual relationship with someone, you have to move on, because it gets kind of boring.

It [00:22:00] should be part of a bigger picture, no? And the entire body is riddled with, with nerve endings, and we can actually turn ourselves on and transcend, you know? The Taoist they believe that sex that was intelligently experienced was the next best way to illumination, to meet God and to become one with oneself, one’s partner, but also with the divine, you know?

This is so far away from Judeo Christian monotheistic No play and power, well, sex is power. This is the other thing, you know, when we, when I was, when I was in my teens and this started to brew, I wasn’t experienced enough to understand what it means. What is the, the, the, the relationship between sex and power?

And of course that’s no longer ambiguous to me. Sex is power and this is also why our [00:23:00] sexuality is stolen from us. It’s systematically stolen from us. I mean, the church, I believe, systematically steals it from us. Most, most monotheistic religions steal it from us because it is our access to the divine.

It is our access to the, to the greater field. You know, it is a way to access the field without doing drugs, actually. Or meditating. It’s a form of meditation. And this has been, and that’s why it’s been taken away from us. Because it centers us in ourselves. And a society like ours, to be centered in the self, is considered dangerous for the system.

Because it means that you don’t need all the bullshit. You can really do without it. And the sexually centered, the sexually realized and understanding person is a bad consumer at the end of the day. 

Giancarlo: Yes. Thank you. I feel what I’m getting through [00:24:00] the lens of my more psychotherapeutic approach is that this idea of power and play is to a certain extent, a form of devotion.

This idea of giving away power and surrendering, in the case of Istuardo, it’s a very gender based, the woman surrendering to the man, but this idea of radical trust. is a form of transcendence. When you, when you give away your power completely. Yeah, I get it. I found, I found a frame to understand it. Thank you.

Betony: And there is a frame. I like the word frame because of course you know, when we give our power over within a secure space, a place where we can trust with a person that is trusted with any boundaries that need to be expressed before the playtime begins. It’s very liberating, you know, and it requires that we have some [00:25:00] level of sexual understanding, you know, and this is what we have been denied.

My work picks up with the works of, I call them my foremothers and forefathers, you know that go from Kinsey to Willem Rijk much before. Then you have people like the Johnsons, you have, Women like Betty Dodson, who came forward and really was working around self pleasuring, you know? Penny Slinger, who later became a friend of mine, and someone who did work that was really important.

She wrote Sacred Sexuality, I think it was 1978, 79. And these books were always in my library, you know? I, I was, I was collecting erotica and books around sexual evolution. For most of my, from the 15, 16 years of age on, and those people paved paths that allowed the work to evolve. Of course, HIV in the 1980s put a stop to things, and I feel that that stop really a halt in the [00:26:00] research of pleasure, you know has happened again.

COVID has done it again. COVID made us afraid to touch each other. I’ve never seen more sexual repression, sexual frustration, sexual, God, I mean, how can we put it? There was another shutdown, no? Very similar to what happened with HIV because they told us it’s dangerous to hug each other. I mean, it’s even dangerous to hug, no?

How horrible is that? And people are still shut down. 

Speaker 4: There’s 

Betony: never been a bigger sexual crisis, no? Inside we have this, this device in our hands, which is all about sex. So I think what’s happening is there’s a sort of disassociation that’s being accentuated through the device, no? Yeah. Kids aren’t having sex.

They’re not rolling around and playing with each other. It’s, it’s next level. You know, the Boudoir Bible talks about the sexual ritual and it gives information that allows us to do that, to close ourselves into a safe space safely. [00:27:00] 

Giancarlo: Yes. 

Betony: Without grey areas, you know? 

Giancarlo: Yes. Yes. I think it’s crucial because, you know, we still live at large in a, you know, very, in a way, hypocrite and bourgeois mainstream society that, you know, don’t realize that what they might call perversion might just be a spiritual practice.

And, and, and, you know, this idea of creating, you know, like a temple, like a sacred space when there is You know, trust and integrity and where that’s why now there is, you know, like a huge growing around you know, temple night. I don’t know if you heard about temple night. It’s, it’s an organization called ISTA, which stands for international school of temple art.

They created this format of, you know, sacred play party and it happens all around the world. There are temple night all around the world, everywhere. And, [00:28:00] and This is, I think it’s a very welcome trend that allow people to, you know, feel embodied, embrace their pleasure and learn to go behind their mind and, and develop a sense of the sacred, which I think can be one of the ingredient we need for, for peace in this planet.

The last thing I want to discuss a little bit about power and play is this practice of Shibari that again, you were 20, 30 years early and now there are Shibari courses everywhere. 

Betony: I was initiated very early to all of that. You know, I was on the post punk scene. I was probably the youngest tribe member, you know, around 15 years old.

With a bunch of old punks and, and at the time, you know, the, the, the punk scene and the music scene and the fashion scene with people like Vivian Westwood and company was [00:29:00] very connected to the world of adult play. You know, we were, we thought it was cool to wear lots of buckles and fuck me boots and leather and laces and corseting and transformation through makeup.

You know, the street was a theater. And we played in that space of of transformation, you know? And it was very connected to our sexuality because we were sexually free, you know? And for us to wear, I don’t know a straight jacket that had been transformed into a cool suit for the club at night was totally normal, you know?

It was normal. I was running around in 1950s. That was my, that was my clothing. I would throw on a coat and go to the club, you know, I was basically naked. It was fun. Yeah. It was very connected to, you know, also my interest in fashion or, or the response to fashion, of course, fashion as we know it today is.[00:30:00] 

But in the 80s, we were, we were very creative about how we were going to get up and go, you know, and it was anti fashion. You know, we weren’t trying to be fashionable. We were living a lifestyle. So people who also play are people who have, I find, for example, that my clients are also very skewishly oriented people, they have also done a lot of work, whether it’s with other healers, whether it’s with a psychotherapist, they have done the breakthrough work necessary to get to me even because I’m sort of like the last leg, especially when we’re dealing with.

with people who are dealing with trauma and abuse because, of course, my work is very connected to that. Again, I go back to the fact that I was very naive, you know, I thought everybody wanted to have a sexual ritual. I thought everybody wanted to create a play space. I thought that everybody was ready to create their own temples.

I was so wrong. And again, I repeat, in our small community of People who are in a place [00:31:00] of consciousness rising it’s not even a question anymore. No, we understand that sex is power. We understand that there is a play element. We understand that we can also transcend through that connection. And that there’s nothing more powerful than two people who connect on that level and go way beyond, you know way beyond.

And I speak about this in my book. My book is all about sexual transcendence. And you can’t do that if you’re just, if you’re, if, if you’re sexually ignorant, you know, you have to understand the body. So my book gave that key and an initiation to this conversation sexual play, spiritual sex, using sex as a tool of power and empowerment, no?

Taking it back. I give back the key, which for 2000 years has been hidden, stolen, and taken away from us. as a society and I do firmly believe that until this is the case and until we’re not teaching the importance of pleasure and sexual intelligence in school systems, by the time kids, well [00:32:00] not by the time they’re watching porn because that would be too early, they’re five years old, you know, but by the time they are moving into their sexual selves, which is with puberty, they need to be guided, they need to be educated because right now it’s falling apart.

And I repeat, people are having less sex than they’ve ever had, I think, beyond our tribe of sexually active and evolving individuals. We are the freaks. We are not the norm. Don’t forget. 

Giancarlo: Yeah. I feel, I feel that, you know, we are the freak. We are not the norm, but you know, people that have this in, you know, interpretation of, of sexuality as, you know, a practice of freedom, of freeing of, of transcendence is, is, is growing.

Let me ask you about Shibari. You were the first one who Wrote about it. What, what do you think about this practice of bondage? 

Betony: Bondage is freedom. You know, if you’re with someone who knows how to use the cords it’s a [00:33:00] really one of the most exhilarating forms of play and it requires that you let go.

My work around the ropes of course, evolved and and fashion was a vehicle for me to put it out there, really, you know, I mean, all of a sudden. Well, the first time it happened was in 2006, I think it was, I allowed myself to be tied and suspended from the ceiling of Purple Magazine in Paris, and it created a stir.

And after the Purple Magazine came out, there I was, glamorous. Hanging from the ceiling in all of my pleasure and freedom. I started to get phone calls. I mean, my work is on the cover of the New York Times with the, Sam Taylor Wood and the debutantes from the Crayon Ball. I mean, sometimes I would find myself tying up.

And so I had a doll whose name was Cassandra, who I would take in, all tied up, and say, This is what we’re going to do. It’s connecting. You have to trust me. It’s a very [00:34:00] liberating habit. In fact, during that New York Times cover shoot, which lasted for two days I found myself with these girls who were friends and so I was often tying the two friends together.

And it was so revealing to me because there was no sexual, there was nothing sexual happening, no? It was more about connection. And I had two best friends look at me at a certain point. They were 17 years old. And they, I tied them up and I was getting ready to release them and they said, Please don’t let us free.

Please let us just stay like this a little bit longer. We’re best friends. They were teary. It was beautiful and there I, you know, I had some, it was, it was like, yes, this is so much more than just erotic, no? In fact, in my work with victims of sexual trauma, I use the cords. Also for rebirthing sessions.

The cords are a way to hug. Sometimes, you know, people that have victims of abuse are also not interested in, in, in close contact. [00:35:00] So, it can be a full body hug. I use them to touch them without touching them with my hands, if that’s That’s still an issue. You know, the contact in my body work is often done with chords and they’re magical for both of us because there is a creative fluidity in it.

Once you’ve got the, the, the base of the chord work down, it is so creative and so connecting. And I see, you know, for me also in my work, the chord is also the umbilical cord. It’s what it connects us. to the bigger picture. And so sometimes there’s a lot of symbolic work happening in my method with the cords when we move out of the erotic context into a healing context.

But for me, they’re very important. I think that there’s the fact that it’s now people are talking about it. People are using it. It really hit the fashion system on the head and it’s great. My work continues to penetrate those, those sessions and moments. I’m the go to girl when it comes to. to chords and play [00:36:00] and beautiful objects to accentuate those moments, you know, because of course, people who have never been tied up often come and say, well, what do you do with somebody that’s tied up?

Why would you do that? You know, and we do it because it creates release. My work with the chords evolved into the TIDA frequency sessioning, which you may be aware of, and it’s very much a part of my method. And in my experiential spaces, there’s a dedicated space to that. I started to use biofeedback to play.

Devices to tap the brainwave frequency during these sessions. And my work in this moment, especially the healing part of it, is very connected to very quick induction. So I use this evolution of the work with the cords, which then moved into straps and leather elements. For pension without restriction, and I do a lot of my clinical hypnotherapy work in that quick induction state.

It allows me to get you in and out in 40 minutes. And if you come, [00:37:00] and I hope that you’ll come because I know you’re in Rome, you should come to me. I will have this space set up, I guess I’m about three weeks away from actually being able to get back in the strats. It’s two and a half hours of the effects of meditation that occur in about 25 minutes.

So, the work has evolved, you know, there’s also these two aspects of my work, one that is sexual initiation, initiation to play, et cetera, and then the healing work, which is 80 percent of the work. 

Giancarlo: Yeah. No, it’s, no, it’s amazing. I want, I want to reiterate to what extent you were such a visionary and a precursor because in, in, in the Boudoir Bible, when you were talking about, you know, anal sex and shibari and bondage and, you know, some unaware people could have seen that as perversion, but now we know when you call them with, of course, Now we know that, you know, you’re using words like [00:38:00] letting go and connection.

And this is what all this, this new movement, you know, the metamodernism in philosophy or the post age movement, integrating the new finding on quantum physics on non locality with the psychedelic renaissance with a transpersonal psychology. We now know that, you know, We there is a connection with the, with the, with the cosmo and consciousness might be a primary element of reality.

We are looking at the, at the conscious cos cosmos. We, we now more and more is coming from, from science, from neuroscience and quantum physics, that consciousness is not produced by the brain, but is primordial. And so. All your practice that came out very spontaneously, you know, from your, from, from an intuition you had now fit very well with the new Cosmo [00:39:00] vision.

You know, I don’t want to, I don’t want to you know, make it, make it in something so big, but I see all the resonance with your work with what all these Neo Tantra teacher talking about today. 

Betony: Yes, but I’ve been doing this for, since I was a kid, you know, I’m part of the new age generation, and so I had this incredible privilege, you know, to be guided, initiated supported.

My best friend at the uni was the daughter of Asha Durki, and Asha Durki had done the illustrations for Baba Ramdas be here now. And she was a person that was very influential in my development. I’ve worked with with healers and shamans around the world for, for for the past 25 years. But I was initiated in my teens, no?

So what I see now is this coming to fruition of something that was already there. No? We come out of the seventies into the eighties, the new age starts to bring all this to the forefront. There’s a space. [00:40:00] And then it gets shut down, no? So here we are again, in this wave of, and I do believe that the fact that we are here today is enormous.

It was the kind of thing that was happening in the 70s and 80s, that was shut down in the 90s, you know? We went to this increased materiality, this increased capitalistic force in the 90s. Overproduction, over extraction, over, over, over, over. It’s over. It has to be over. We have to, to, to be more responsible.

And and that responsibility requires the teachers that are there draw us towards the, the essence of the soul, no? Rather than away from it. You know, we have to stop with the disassociation. Otherwise, we won’t be here very long, 

Giancarlo: in my opinion. 

Betony: I think we’re in a crisis. 

Giancarlo: We’re going through a meta crisis, you know, politically, socially, ecologically, culturally.

And, you know, I think that we can call it the crisis of [00:41:00] consciousness, you know, where the individualism has maybe gone too far with the neoliberal capitalism. And, and, and so we have disconnected from nature for our, ourself. And so this is translating to, to a corruption of the social fabric. 

Betony: No, I like the word corruption.

It’s, I think it’s right on and it’s 360 degrees now. It’s affected everything. 

Giancarlo: Yes. Okay. Let’s spend the last 10 minutes or so in your new project in Puglia. So what’s happening now and what’s happening, what’s going to happen in the future? 

Betony: The new project is actually in Umbria, which is the umbilical, no, the belly button of the world.

I’m in a vortex for sure. I’ve lived in and out of Italy for the past 35 years. I call it home, but I was working in Paris for 14 years, living and working in Paris, always with my artisans and the work [00:42:00] that I do in Italy. During COVID, I decided to come home. And had been, actually been working on a project that involved going off the grid.

And I found a house that was taken off the grid by someone who works for the European Union. And he’s a specialist in biodiversity. And I said to him at a certain point, I said, why are you selling this house? And he says, well, I’m going, I need, he’s, I guess he’s about 75. I feel obliged to humanity.

to go back to Africa because I need to prevent Bill Gates from putting Monsanto seeds on the continent because it will, it will be the end of, it will be the end of humanity. And I was like, Oh, okay. With COVID. The project around the purchase of this sustainable property off the grid, which also involved a partner, became less interesting to [00:43:00] me and I felt that it was maybe better to look within village walls and not have an independent house.

So I started to walk, and I was walking in the areas where I feel most connected. And I found a place that’s very ancient, it has megalithic parts and Etruscan parts, and Roman parts, and parts that go up to about 800 A. D. So I also feel that in Italy, when we restore something, we are also salvaging our cultural heritage.

It’s a big responsibility, but I felt like it was the best way to go. And of course I was looking for land, so I found, fortunately, a piece of, which is a house with a piece of land that’s 4, 000 square meters. It’s very steep, which means that 4, 000 meters becomes about 10 hectares or acres. I am on a journey.

I don’t know exactly where it’s heading. I bought an earth ship. It is a place that will definitely, I mean, it’s designed to leave [00:44:00] people. It’s going to take place of my structure in Paris, where I did initiation and healing work for 14 years. And there’s an added dimension because You get removed.

It’s another, another degree of removal because you, you know, I’m about an hour’s drive from Rome, 40 minutes from the train, and it is astoundingly gorgeous, and I will start by just receiving And doing the workshops on the weekends, individuals and couples. But the goal in the next months is to also formulate a way, for example, for Giancarlo to create a group of people who want to do a full submersion and take an idea and roll it around in an environment that is completely conducive.

To these kinds of things. No, it’s removed. It’s secret. It is a camera free zone and [00:45:00] Astoundingly gorgeous and receptive it’s we’ll see where it’s going, you know, of course, I’ve there’s a space that’s also dedicated to the TIDA frequency sessions I’m working with local healers We will be developing together wellness treatments and also, of course, food that is foraged.

So the idea of treatments that are made with foraged materials foraged plants. My land is quite wild. I’m going to leave it that way. It is victim of ecocide. I started to dig and it broke my heart in two. It’s so full of trash, the earth, so what I thought was going to be an easy project of restoring a little bit the land and taking care of 80 secular olive trees.

Has become the necessity to do a, a crowdfunding. I discovered that there’s a Roman cistern that’s full of debris. We need to collect the water. So I’ve taken the first steps to getting the roof water back into the cistern. It’s a, it’s an ancient cistern, but it needs to be repaired. And yeah, it’s a big [00:46:00] adventure.

And I won’t do it alone the, the earth is, the soil is a big responsibility. I learned very quickly that it requires community. So part of my land, I will dedicate it to my village, and whoever wants to take care of part of a garden next year, hopefully this will happen next year they will have access to the land.

My land used to feed the entire village, and it’s been abandoned. So I’m activating community, which is very difficult to do in cities. But the land seems to have that purpose also. I mean, because you can’t do it alone. You can’t do it without community and you can’t do it without knowledge. You know, I’ve been speaking to people who do the pruning of the olive trees and who know how to take care of the olive trees and no one is young.

They’re all over, over 70. And I’m like, okay, how do we take the elders and get them involved? You know, so it’s a bigger picture project. And of course, I’ll do all the things I did in Paris and way more, and I’m very excited. I’ve been 18 months [00:47:00] in reconstruction and restoration, and it’s very exciting to live in a house.

It’s also ecologically sound, you know, with all of the now the trappings of a low impact. Sort of living now. I’m in giant castle walls and I put in, you know, I also had support from the Italian government because there were echo bonuses, they’re called for people who restored with ecological criteria.

So I’ve done that and I’ve had the support and which I think is amazing and now it’s just going to unfold. It’s like a, it’s like a bud and I think it’s way bigger than me. I don’t think I’ll live here very long actually as I said before my clients are extremely grounded and spiritually able people, all of them, and they’ve done the work and now it’s For me, this is the next level, and I will discover what that means.

My life is a journey. My work is a journey. And I let go and surrender myself to [00:48:00] the calling. Again, it was sort of like when I had the calling to do the erotic jewelry and the boudoir box. I have no doubt about the fact that this is what I need to do and that I can be because the best way to make a difference in the world is through example.

So my goal is in the next three years to re green this land. And when you drive up to my village, people will say, Wow, what’s going on there? You know, in my greatest fantasies, the water. Because I know there was water here. Romans didn’t build on land that didn’t have water. So these are the added levels to my work as a sexual healer and as a designer who is focused on pleasure.

Giancarlo: Nice, nice. So, so if I understand correctly, this new space in Umbria, what’s the name of the village nearby? 

Betony: I haven’t unveiled that yet. I don’t want influencers. 

Giancarlo: Okay. So don’t, don’t, don’t. 

Betony: It’s a no camera reveal to people [00:49:00] when they contact me. As you know, I’m through recommendation or invitation. And of course all of your listeners are welcome to reach out.

And if they want to increase the depth of their pleasure or deal with trauma, I’m here, you know, and the address will be revealed when the contact. 

Giancarlo: Nice. Nice. Nice. We like, we like, we like the mystery, but so let me see if I understand correctly. So the new earth ship in Umbria will be both for your.

work as a sexual healer and doing workshop for single and couple and maybe you can tell us a little bit more about the content of that if you can and then there is going to be this next phase of if you want healed people exploring what’s next. Is that correct? 

Betony: Yes, I’ll be doing the workshops frequency sessions et cetera for individuals, couples and small groups.

I have found a couple of very [00:50:00] beautiful hotels to put people in when they want to come in larger groups. And also as, as individuals because I’m not a hotel, that’s not what I do. And I will continue my research, Giancarlo, in healing and wellness. And I’ll continue also to grow myself, you know.

I work in a cutting edge area of study and practice. I have to continue cutting the edge, you know. And that happens by blending things, by blurring, cross pollination. And I would like this to be a cross pollination. A hub invite you also to think about what you might want to do here. There’s a beautiful Baroque theater.

We can occupy The village and surrounding area. It is definitely one of the belly buttons of the planet and There’s a lot of healing also Spaces around me. There’s quite a few buddhist buddhist centers and of course monasteries I don’t want to put too many frames in place. I want this to [00:51:00] flow. I want to actually fall into it and see where it goes.

And I can do that because I know that I have a cushion, which is my experience of 14 years in Paris with a space that was doing this. And it requires just a little bit more effort. You get to Rome and then you get to me. And that’s all planned out as well. Made easy. And yeah, let’s see what happens.

I’m very interested in the, the collaboration with healers here, using natural natural forage sources, you know, to create healing formulas in the space. You know, we are already experimenting in this time. The malva is just. incredibly flurried. It’s everywhere. My ground is covered with malva.

So we’ve been working with working with malva teas which are interesting. They get very collagenous and, and sort of, I don’t know if you’ve ever had a fresh malva tea. Then yesterday we did malva rice wraps. And you’re basically, I mean, you’re, you’re eating these things straight from the garden, but not even from the garden because I don’t [00:52:00] have a garden yet.

It’s straight from the It’s just wild. I put in a Turkish bath ice treatments. And yeah, I’m very excited to work with other healers in the space. So again, you know, I’m totally open to, to also giving the space over, you know, you have a healer, they want to do research, they want to cross pollinate.

Let’s create a space of evolution, you know, of futuristic doings and thinkings. And see how through that we can spread this into the world. Just like, like you said, I, I brought the, the, the power of the cords to the forefront. And now everybody’s using cords, which I think is great. Let’s do the same with a regenerative lifestyle living.

I really put a call out also to people who are living in cities and who are really burned out by it. You know, I find out that we’re living in a, in a rather burned out. And I think that if I can empower someone to actually say, I can actually thanks to technology live a really [00:53:00] great life and move out of here, get out of the, get out of the permanent sort of toxicity of the cities and use the city as a, as a place to go, not a place to live.

And I think that you’ve done that as well. You know the quality of life is. This is really important. My quality of life, for me to be in a balanced place and to help others, I need to be living that. No? And so I fearlessly did it. I turned, I sold my property in Paris. I gave the key to the person who purchased it, who I knew was the right person to purchase it because my space in Paris was also very powerful and very interesting, is it from an energy point of view.

And I walked away and I didn’t look back. So it’s very exciting. 

Giancarlo: Yes. Yes. Very exciting. This idea of an evolutionary laboratory, I think is a, I think is a great idea. Definitely we should discuss more, you know, [00:54:00] I’m, I’m very interested on, on this exploration at the intersection of healing. Non ordinary state and pleasure.

And we spoke about you with Marianne Costa in Ibiza. And we said you should come over and brainstorm some work with her. And I don’t know if it’s a good fit, but April 8th, I’m hosting advanced holotropic breathwork. And I don’t know if you. could be persuaded to come over and, you know, meet the Ibiza community and start this collaboration.

Betony: I would love to, and I thank you. And I think that this, this is exactly the spirit, you know and I opened my doors to you. I think that our crossover work is what’s gonna, what’s going to, as we work together. in all these different areas and fields that are all connected to one, you know, that it gives me hope for the future.

And I would love to be with you and let’s make that [00:55:00] happen. And then I don’t know when you will come to me, but you’re close to me. And I think that you should come quick. 

Giancarlo: I will be coming every, every couple of months. So, you know, we promise that I come to you. You come to me this definitely before the summer.

Betony: Yes, and April 8th, I’ll look on the Ibiza side and let’s, let’s, let’s definitely collaborate and the idea of the hubs, I think is important. I think that I think it’s Daniel Pinchback who says that the people have to, we have to get the California attitude out of California. Get people to move.

Ibiza has the same. Thing happening. A lot of people who are on the same page have moved there. And I think that’s great, too. But we have to keep the spread happening. So I’ve done it over here in the Vortex. Of the Umbrian countryside. And again, I’m not alone. This is a place where there are a lot of different Zen retreats and Buddhist retreats and things to discover.

And you will feel it. It’s very beautiful. [00:56:00] And I love waking up in the morning and open windows and seeing the valley. 

Giancarlo: Amazing. 

Betony: People have said to me, you’re crazy. You left Paris. How could you dare? Well, I’m connected to Paris. Paris will always be home, you know, I go, I’ll go every couple of months.

And yeah, the travel, but, 

Giancarlo: When it’s the right time to travel. Thank you. Thank you very much, Bettany. So because of respecting your sense of secrecy for now, we’re not going to put any website on the show notes. You might not even have a website. So people, how do people get in touch with you? 

Betony: You can put BettanyVernon.

com. And you can put also if you wish, a, a direct contact to contact a Benny Vernon as a email if someone wants to reach out. Yes. And about our community. So even though it’s public, it’s private, you know and yeah, you can put the be vernon.com. [00:57:00] It doesn’t talk about the experience yet. It may have a place where there is a code to be put in at some point, but I’m going to operate under the radar at the moment.

I think its power is in that your safety is in that my client’s safety is in that. And I don’t, I’m not, you know, I’m doing, doing the work personally. So I can only do so much. And again, you know, I think that it’s going to take shape. and maybe my attitude about this will be different in a year’s time, but I have, I’m still moving in.

I don’t have doors, you know, but the idea of the hub is for me central, you know, the flowers are blooming. 

Giancarlo: Thank you very much, Bethany. Thank you for your time. Thank you for doing what you’re doing at the forefront of alternative culture. And you know, maybe we’ll, we’ll do another conversation. in a year time and you know, and when, when, when Umbria is more up and going and I want to, I want to know the, the finding of the, the [00:58:00] evolutionary laboratory, which direction you’re going to go, what discipline you’re going to merge, what else you’re going to invent.

Thank you for your time. 

Betony: Thank you so much and blessings.

Speaker: Coca Zunaray Zunarayenty, Coca Zunaray Zunarayenty, Coca Zunaray Zunarayenty, Coca Zunaray Zunarayenty, Coca Zunaray 

Zunarayenty.