#18-Bloom is changing the sex-positive AUDIO world! From steamy well-produced erotica to revolutionary sexual education!

Transcript

Speaker1: Hey everybody, it is Toronto Unicorn here with another episode of Sex and Swinging with Toronto Unicorn Podcast. I am here to interview a very interesting guest. Her name is Jess and she is from Bloom. And if you've already heard the advertisement I have read, it is an audio-based platform. I'm not going to do it just as myself, especially because we have an expert in the room. But basically what I was thrilled about it before I throw it over to Jess to explain is it's a new way it's a new gap I close my eyes you can't see that on a podcast but I'm talking as if there's something to audio there's something that you can do with audio even if you don't have the visual and what I like about Bloom is it took it beyond just what you think you can do in audio and it basically added something like some multiple multiple dimensions and what I mean by that is when I was listening to a story they have these like sex stories you can listen Thank you. can do an audio and it basically added something like some multiple multiple dimensions and what I mean by that is when I was listening to a story they have these like sex stories you can listen to and it was like hooking up with an ex was like the theme and then there there was this person's inner voice was like talking in my ear like it was audio right and then they would speak and then there'd be like another person's voice like right like there would be like a girl in the room and then and then you'd hear them speak and so you were really captivated in this story of these sexy things it wasn't just so flat which some people would think that audio could be a little boring you know no offense right for some of us ADHD folk so that is what I was so captivated by um is is how enriching the experience be. But also, I think it's a, I think it's a little well organized on your site. I think you have all these beautiful categories of, you know, kinks and certain scenarios that maybe people commonly fantasize about. Well, you know what, you don't have to dig for gold here. You can go and click on the list of things that are meant for that, for that genre. genre so I like that I'll get into more about what I liked about Bloom later on but I do want to introduce Jess and let her introduce Bloom. Thank you so much thank you for having me this is so exciting it's always really nice to get out of kind of the office virtual as it is but to get out and talk to people and to actually kind of um you know talk about the impact that what we're doing is having on people's sex lives um because i i don't i i'm not in the in the position where i get to necessarily see or hear about what people enjoy about what we do so even just that little bit you just gave it it makes me very happy um isn't that interesting well just like yeah you know bloom needs feedback too just like we need to see exactly yeah um but yeah um no you you did you did us some uh good justice here and your description yeah basically um bloom is a subscription-based um erotic audio platform and yeah what we're all about is um giving everyone uh predominantly women and couples uh giving them actual authentic depictions of pleasure um giving them opportunities to explore and figure out what really turns them on um you know a big thing that i think a lot of women can relate to maybe not all but certainly you know quite a few is that um we've historically been really underserved when it comes to pornography. I think that a lot of women have a hard time knowing what they really like because, you know, we live in a world where mainstream porn is, it works. There's good and bad, but it's, you know, it is difficult. It doesn't work for everyone. I'll say that it's not a one size fits all kind of thing. And when it comes to, you know, getting off, it's all about the details. And it's all about those small little things that, you know, make you get all warm and fuzzy inside. It's it's, you know, what works for you is not going to work for everyone else. So yeah. So for us, it's about really giving people a safe place to explore what turns them on, whatever that might be. So yeah, that's kind of our, you know, that's kind of our mission statement, but yeah, that's what it comes down to. Can I delve in? You said something I wrote wrote down which i'm not going to write down a lot of notes so you should take that with some pride um actual depictions of pleasure there was a whole category that you do i think it's i'm not going to do the title correctly but you basically walk people through scenarios not like your instructional teaching but as if you're in the room with people doing it yes like you know 10 minutes in is when you'll be like okay you know you lube up your your index finger with this much lube and you slowly put it around the outside of the anus like I'm just I'm vamping here I'm not recreating but realistic it was not rushed you wouldn't go faster than the audio you would be with the audio, but it wasn't a teacher in the room. It was erotic story in the room. And I think that was a really helpful delivery of sexual education for some people who may not otherwise know or want to consume it. Yeah, right. So that section you're talking about, those are our, um, we have guided masturbations and guided sex for couples. Um, we call them play sessions, uh, because that's what they are. They're there. Yeah. You kind of hit it on the head there. They're educational, but no one wants to, you know, just sit there and listen to an educational lesson on anal, you know, like you know, exactly. So yeah, it's about hitting a sweet spot of, okay, this is meant to, you know, instruct people on something new that they've probably never tried before that they're beginners at, or they don't even know if they like it they just want want to maybe check it out. But yeah, it's also, um, it's, it, it's meant to kind of give you, uh, the sense that someone is in the room with you kind of gently guiding you through this, uh, sort of erotic moment. Um, so yeah, that I, yeah, it is definitely a, uh, a kind of sweet spot and it's hard to hit sometimes, we've kind of had hits or misses in terms of, you know, it took us a little bit of time to really nail that genre and we're still kind of, you know, it's still evolving. We're still trying to figure out the best way to, to give that educational, but also, you know, exciting kind of moment for people. It's true. And I love that you're constantly evolving because sex is constantly evolving too. You know, we think you wouldn't know it all, but you know, I still couldn't find new pleasure in different things at this age and that shocked me. Um, but I wanted to drill in, you said, um, I think for me, porn, what's out there is pretty, uh, what should I, how should I call this diplom diplomatically i i consume porn i love porn but i'm also into some hardcore porn and part of me realizes it's because i got desensitized to earlier porn right i'm the first to admit you know what you see can be seeded in your plant you know plant ideas and then that's how you think sex is supposed to happen now i'm not saying that's always wrong but if that's where you get your very limited sex education in life is porn and that's what's available is degrading porn you know you know girls you know trying to make 50 bucks to suck a dick you know that's that's what they're learning right and so i think for for even if it may have been an unintentional direct hit for what you wanted to do in terms of audio erotica, the education, like literally in all of the stories and all of it is teaching people how to flirt, how do you know how other people might navigate a situation where maybe you don't know how fucking your ex is experienced by other people. but you can go and look at how someone else fucks their ex and wonder if they have the same inner dialogue you know um yeah the education part is huge yeah and I think like what you're saying too about how um it's different for each person like that's when I am that's like such an important sort of you know idea that I'm constantly kind of holding while I'm coming up with content, because that's one thing is like we don't want to come at this from just one point of view. Right. Like, for instance, like we hire a bunch of different writers, different people from different backgrounds, different ages, different genders. And like, we're always trying to diversify the kind of like voice or perspective that our stories are presenting. Because yeah, it's like, I can write something that works for me, or that like, I can empathize with in terms of like, oh, I love when my partner does this, or I would love if a stranger came up to me and did this, but yeah, exactly. It's like, it's not going to work for everyone. And, um, yeah, it's, it's like, we really try to, to give listeners an immersive experience that puts them right there in that moment. And yeah, exactly. Let's them learn as well as let them hopefully experience pleasure. Yes. And I also, so you know how, when we get new navigation systems in our cars or whatever, and you can pick like what kind of voice you want to be throwing, you know, information all the time and you can be like cringing at some of them and then some of them laughing and some of them, you know, soothing. Well, you have the option I've noticed to actually click on different voices and hear the, if you get, if you, for example, like certain tone or a certain vibration in someone's voice, well, you can listen to all their stuff together. You don't have to like drill for gold again. As I said, to like, look for them. I think you guys have really thought of a lot of perspectives when it comes to how people might be searching for content. And I think that's just really interesting that you, you, for me, I wouldn't necessarily want to hear a certain tone of voice have an orgasm. Maybe I'm really, you know? So it's nice that you guys have thought of that, you know? Yeah. It's interesting. It's like, you know, before I started working in this industry and working specifically with this company, I, you know, I had no idea there was such a thing as a voice kink, but, you know, people have very specific voice kinks and yeah, exactly like you're saying, some people like just really want, just really need that like super gravelly, like kind know, older man or woman uh you know people want really specific things and so yeah we um we have definite like like some of our vo's our our voice actors are way way more popular than others and they're building like miniature fandoms around these voices like we have one um who plays a very very popular uh professor in this one series that we have called hot for teacher and it just it's insane like the comments we get about him about his voice like people leave some dirty nasty comments because they love his voice so much it's crazy yeah it's like it's it it really yeah it really depends it's like like you said like you you wouldn't want to hear I don't know yeah you might have whatever biases against high pitched or low pitched or whatever but yeah we have it all so yeah like what if it sounds like someone you know and you're like no I didn't get off to that I would feel guilty you know so yeah you know filter out which I just love um how long have you guys been doing this? How many, how many years have you guys been live? So we started off as a company called Audio Desires in 2020. Audio Desires is still around, but it's our slightly more not safe for work kind of explicit brand. um boom our kind of grown up mature brand that honestly, it comes down to marketing. It's really difficult to, you know, get ads to people when you only make explicit content. So, you know, we kind of had to shift at one point to sort of, you know, it's's all we still have all the same content nothing really changed on the inside we just kind of wrapped the whole company in like a slightly more you know mature acceptable um outside um but yeah so since 2020 um yeah and we started off you know at one point we had like five stories and two voice actors and now we have reached um almost 400 stories Thank you. you know, at one point we had like five stories and two voice actors. And now we have reached almost 400 stories and we have voice actors from all over the world, writers from all over the world. It's been kind of crazy, actually, the growth that we've made as a team. Like our team has grown so much in the last three years it went from you know like five people to like 20 people so that's huge yeah yeah I run a small business and like you that's huge that's a big jump that's a big it's really big yeah you can feel it yeah wow well that's wonderful since there's a new voice kink and I know that some people specifically on my fan page have said that they like my voice and so I started doing my own ASMR content which is my fancy way of just you know doing a voiceover over sexy videos and you're like you know really naughty raunchy ways and like bringing them to a place you know so I've just started to experiment with my own stuff and uh and I just wanted to to that there is something to this voice thing. You can get really turned on by a certain voice, and then you don't care where that voice takes you. You just need to hear the voice, so I have to say, can we hear a sample of the voice that you had mentioned? Absolutely. I'm more than happy to share our star voice actor with you. Yes. Awesome. It's an an innocent comment you're just trying to be helpful you're definitely not flirting with me are you you adjust yourself in your chair crossing one leg over the other i want to rub my fingers along your soft thighs well i guess i could use a little relaxation slowly you lower yourself to the ground and get on your knees you crawl over towards me looking up at me with submissive soft eyes and here's a sample of the more intense scene i grab onto your left hip with one hand and guide the tip of my cock to your entrance with the other i can't get myself inside you fast i know it's you who's supposed to be desperate I'm fine but i'm dying i need you so badly and just as a reminder you can always catch the the link to bloom in the description of this podcast or youtube video as well as my special link which does get you 50 off an annual membership or 20 off a monthly membership with the code Toronto Unicorn, no space. That information is also in the description. I would love to know, almost as if we're like gossiping a bit, what do people listen to? What do people really like? Okay. So we take a lot of data from our users' listening habits. That's part of my job is to just like look at what people are listening to um look at what they're commenting on looking at how long they're listening to episodes and um you know trends come and go but there's like some definite like evergreen stuff okay and that is sex in public people love sex in public okay that kind of surprised me that that's our top like our kind of top thing i i wouldn't have guessed um but yeah i don't know people really really like having sex in places that they shouldn't okay yeah um the second one that's always a classic is threesomes uh that's just never gonna go away basically if we put out a threesome episode we know it'll be it'll be a killer it'll it'll be a hit so um and that makes sense to me like I think that's something that both men and women really like I mean obviously there's a lot of configurations of a threesome that you can do but yeah i just think you know that's kind of that's kind of funny it makes sense but yeah and then the other one the top i guess this is a top content or like a top fantasy from just the last year or so is um um, boyfriends getting rough, like boyfriends getting dominant. Oh, okay. And that has like a really specific kind of setup where it's like your boyfriend is very you know kind caring takes care of you and either you ask him to get dominant or get a little rough in bed or he surprises you one day and says like I want to do this so it's funny because yeah it's different from like the kind of really traditional like just domination or submission it's like bookended by like aftercare at the end and it's kind of almost like pre-care that's like oh I want to know that my boyfriend is you know gonna take care of me and then I want to like you know really hard. I'm getting excited thinking. I even have a shirt. So I make my own merchandise line for anyone. You're out of luck for the visual, but I have one I'm wearing called consent is sexy, but I also have one that says disrespect me respectfully because I I really like it when my very nice caring dom dominant man sex partner turns into the dom the rough guy pin me against the wall so for me like this is a really i i absolutely like would crave it right so to hear that there's like so i haven't even known this genre so i'm gonna go look for that but that's really interesting it's exciting yeah it's it's really funny it's you know like I said like certain trends kind of come and go like um you know for a while we were doing like really historical episodes almost like Bridgerton kind of style stuff and and then that was you know kind of of the moment when bridgerton was a pretty big thing and um now I don't think I've seen a user click on one of those episodes in you know months yeah the the pendulum swings it also depends on you know popular culture like what's popular in film and tv right now that's a big thing that i'm always looking at to kind of just you know put put my finger on the pulse and kind of see what women particularly are getting excited about so interesting yeah i mean swingers recently in the news a bit there was some some swinger that got you know it's a news cycle and so i And so I was seeing a suddenly a search on my YouTube site for their name. And I was like, I'm not, but I'm a swinger too. And so they're seeing swinger, swinger. And I was like, okay, I'm, I'm understanding the importance of watching what happens in the general media. So it definitely drove some, some interest, right? Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's, it's funny. Like, like um there's a lot of semantics that we deal with on our site um in terms of yeah like swinging versus polyamory versus open relationship versus just a threesome and it's always really interesting seeing, which, which one of those like kind of takes the top spot each month or, or each quarter, because it shifts a lot, even though it is kind of generally all under the same umbrella. I don't know. I've always been really interested by that. Like, yeah. Well, I'm not going to lie. Even I swing from swinger to poly in my head. I'm like, am I poly? Am I swinger? Am I poly? yeah no sometimes I need to be handheld sex sometimes I don't yeah yeah exactly well and I think too like swinging is like I I for some reason think of like I don't know I'm I'm you know I'm in my 30s so swinging to me I always think of like I don't, the 1970s for some reason, some like kind of old school group orgy kind of thing. But obviously that's not, you know, that's not what it is. And I always push back a little bit against my boss. Sometimes we'll be like, hey, we need more swinging episodes. And I tell him, hey, like, I don't think people say swingers anymore, but I think I've realized recently I'm wrong. Thank you. will be like, Hey, we need more swinging episodes. And I tell him, Hey, like, I don't think people say swingers anymore, but I think I've realized recently I'm wrong. So, uh, that conversation and those semantics are always just really interesting to me. Well, if you ever need an introductory swinger to come on and say something, let me know. Um, yes, I am actually a swinger. So I hang out in sex clubs and last, I went to DTF, which is down to fuck night, and me and my friends basically spent the night watching each other, giving, receive pleasure from other people, and we had, like, candy and intermission, and we all kind of, you know, cheered for each other, and, like, we're supportive of each other's sexual choices, and then we all went home, and so this is what we do every few weeks few weeks right we go on this big DTF night but so this I'm a swinger and so my my culture is like a real thing a real lived and breathed thing where sex is okay sex is allowed in the pool right sex is allowed to be joked about sex is allowed to be talked about and I just love that uh I found this because when I was 30 30 something I didn't know what swingers were either. Yeah. Like, you know, yeah. Confused too. I thought they were this underground thing and in a way they are. That's why I can't get anyone to pull my channel on blurb, right? Because it's still this underground thing, terrified of sexual shame from society. And I just don't give a single shit about it because I'm here to that shame and say take that back where it came from we're coming through um and i want to actually help you know lead the march uh so to speak of especially like women empowerment but also male empowerment um especially struggle with body images and issues with rejection and especially in the sex club culture i see it all the time so i'm really becoming a bit more of an advocate for even just single single swingers because a lot of people think swingers are just couples who swap right right so many single people who still want to have threesomes and and sex and you know i'm here to kind of help educate that's the role of this podcast also is to help educate the world basically of what swingers actually are in, in this century. Um, and at least in Toronto, Canada, which is where I'm, I'm based. So, yeah, yeah, no, that's awesome. I obviously, yeah, I'm not super educated in, in that. I apologize. I hope I didn't offend, um, but yeah, it's, but it's, it's those semantics right it's those um those kind of like um those like internal perceptions that you have of something sexual for instance that um you know until you try it you don't you don't really get it you don't really know if it's for you and yeah I don't know it's just what I love about about my job, about like, you know, what I do from Bloom is like, like letting people try different things in a way that's like, you know, really low stakes. it's like you're just listening to audio so it's okay you know if you don't end up liking this or it's okay if it's something that you actually would never do in real life you know what I mean