cindy: I refuse to bow to existing societal bias
We created sitre because we were missing sex wellness products and stories that spoke about intimacy in a respectful, caring, inclusive way that we could relate to. We launched in 2021 but at that point Cindy Gallop had already been working to change the world of sex for over a decade. She launched her company, the social sex video sharing platform MakeLoveNotPorn, in 2009 after experiencing her partners learning about sex from…. porn. It’s important to say she isn’t against porn but she’s against people getting their sex education from porn - for good reason. Her platform is full of real sex videos but she’s far from done making the world more open towards honest and authentic sex as we still have a long way to go. Cindy doesn’t just talk about society’s barriers; she spends her energy on change. And thank you for that Cindy. If you don’t follow her already, then please make sure to follow her on both LinkedIn and right here on Instagram. And sign up to MakeLoveNotPorn here.
Cindy, you’ve done a Ted Talk and there’s a lot of press articles out there about your company MakeLoveNotPorn. But could you give us some insight into how it all started?
Sure. It was basically an accident. I did not consciously, intentionally set out to do anything like what I very bizarrely find myself doing now. But I date younger men, they tend to be men in their 20s. And 15, 16 years ago, I began realising through my direct personal experience dating younger men that when we don't talk openly and honestly about sex, porn becomes sex education by default - in not a good way. And as a naturally action oriented person, I decided I wanted to do something about this.
So 14 years ago, I made a tiny clunky website at MakeLoveNotPorn.com, that in its original iteration was just copy. The construct was porn world versus real world. Here's what happens in the porn world. Here's what really happens in the real world. I launched MakeLoveNotPorn at Ted.
In 2009, I became the only Ted speaker to say the words ‘Come on my face’ on the Ted stage. Six times the talk went viral as a result. And it drove this extraordinary global response to my website that I had never anticipated. Thousands of people wrote to me from every single country in the world, including Denmark. Young and old, male and female, straight and gay, pouring their hearts out, telling me things about their sex lives and their porn watching habits they had never told anyone before. I realised I'd uncovered a huge global social issue so I then felt I had a personal responsibility: I had to take MakeLoveNotPorn forward in a way that would make it much more far-reaching, helpful and effective. And so I turned it into a business designed to do good and make money simultaneously, which by the way, is what I believe the future of all business should be.
And so today, MakeLoveNotPorn is pro sex, pro porn, pro knowing the difference. We are the world's first and only user generated 100% human curated social sex video sharing platform. So we're kind of what Facebook would be if it allowed you to socially sexually self-express, which it clearly doesn't. The way to think about us is if porn is the Hollywood blockbuster movie, MakeLoveNotPorn is the badly needed documentary. We are a unique window into the funny, messy, loving, wonderful, comical, awkward sex we all have in the real world. We are socialising, normalising, and destigmatising sex, bringing it out of the shadows, into the sunlight to promote consent, communication, good sexual values and behaviour.
We are literally sex education through real world demonstration. I designed a revenue sharing business model to democratise access to income. Our members pay to subscribe, rent and stream social sex videos. Half the income goes to our contributors. So we are spearheading what we call the social sex revolution. The revolutionary part is not the sex, it's the fact we're finally making it social. MakeLoveNotPorn has the power to change people's sexual attitudes and behaviour for the better in the way that nothing else can.
It's such an important project and I know it hasn't been easy, so thank you for still being here. It's over a decade since you started it and I would love to know what changes, if any, have you seen since you launched it within the world of sex?
You've just asked me that question in the passive tense and there is nothing passive about change in this area. All of this changes when you and I and everyone else make a change. I've spent 14 years doing two things: working to build MakeLoveNotPorn and working to change the business and cultural context around it. Because when you have a truly world-changing startup, you have to change the world to fit it not the other way around. And yes, I'm absolutely seeing the results of making that change happen.
I'll give you an example. Many years ago, a young woman came to me with a sex tech startup. There are many of these now, but back in the day, she wanted to redesign sex toys, make them cool, sell them online. And she was talking me through her startup and she said, and the thing is, Cindy, people are really embarrassed to be seen buying sex toys, so we are gonna package them sweet. Like send them out like this. And I said to her, okay, hold it right there. You need to go right back to the beginning and redesign your startup from the ground up. Because you need not to say to me: people are embarrassed to be seen with sex toys. You need to say to me: we're going to make people not embarrassed to be seen buying sex toys. When you concept and design a venture around existing societal bias and prejudice, all you do is reinforce it. I refuse to bow to existing societal bias and prejudice. I'm out to change it. And so everything we do at MakeLoveNotPorn is deliberately social.
We want to give sex the respect it deserves. But that being said, I probably still end up being frustrated when there’s situations on Instagram where photos get taken down even though it's living up to the guidelines. LinkedIn is actually the worst. What changes are you still fighting for?
I am raising funding to build a number of solutions to my problems. One of which is my background is, as you know, 38 years working in advertising. And I have for years exhorted the women of our industry to start Adtech Ventures. Because ATech is as white bro dominated as advertising adtech. We as women are the primary targets of all advertising because we are the primary purchases and the primary influence of the purchase of everything. And yet we are targeted and sold to through the white male lens.
And so I decided to live my own philosophy because, like you, I'm enormously frustrated by the fact that MakeLoveNotPorn is banned from advertising anywhere. So one of the things I'm raising funding for is to build my own ad tech. And my ad tech product will operate on the complete opposite model to the existing white bro ad tech model, which as you know, is all about reach, eyeballs, clicks. I want to build ad tech that serves ads that people actively want to watch. So much so it'll be destination viewing in itself, which is why I'm calling it Here For The Ads.
People will want to watch the ads that this ad tech serves. Reason number one is that people will want to watch these ads is because these are ads for products and services designed to help us all in these most intimate areas and lives that we are most desperate to help with. And people can't see these ads anywhere else because they're banned.
The second reason people will want to watch these is because on my adtech, you can advertise any bloody way you like. No censorship. Yes. Forget the blue ink on the pad. Funny, engaging, entertaining in all of these areas with no censorship, which is why my app tech will have a share button because people are gonna want to forward these ads to everybody.
When can we start using this?
As soon as I get funding to build it.
Can investors not see the potential in this?
I know that my investors are out there. There are a ton of them. But they are impossible to find by the usual means because they all have one thing in common. Your willingness to fund MakeLoveNotPorn is entirely a function of your personal sexual journey. And I have no way of knowing how to research and target for that. Especially because sex is the one area where you cannot tell from the outside what anybody thinks on the inside. The people who look like they would totally get it. Don't the people who look like complete prudes do.
Hopefully we can find you some Danish investors - but the thing about Denmark is that we like to say that we are very open towards these things, but in reality we are still quite behind.
Well, it's funny, because MakeLoveNotPorn is a global platform. We have traffic and members from over 200 countries and territories and over the years people said to me, Cindy, are there other parts of the world where people are more open? I mean, surely Scandinavian. And I go: nope, I've spoken in Denmark, I've spoken in Sweden, and I have to explain to people that Scandinavia is just as fucked up about sex as ever else in the world.
We need more honesty about intimacy. One thing I find sad is that a survey found 49% of womxn who experience pain during sex won’t tell their partner about it (Journal of Sexual Medicine 2019). What do you think this stat says about our norms when it comes to pleasure?
It says very simply exactly what I've been tackling for the past 14 years. The issue is that we don't talk about sex in the real world. It is no accident that my background is 38 years working in advertising. I've spent 38 years working in the business of communication. I know therefore that everything great in life and business has born out of great communication. Sex is no different. Great sex is born out of great communication. And that is why MakeLoveNotPorn’s entire mission is to make it easy for every single person in the world to talk openly and honestly about sex, especially to the people they're actually having it with while they're actually having it.
The last question: What advice would you give someone if they found themselves in a situation where they just felt like they couldn't explore their sexuality because of shame?
Well, it's very simple. Watch real world sex videos on make love not porn. We are fully diverse and inclusive - our members and our MakeLoveNotPorn stars are male, female, trans, non-binary, straight, LGBTQ+. So absolutely explore videos on MakeLoveNotPorn to see how the world really has amazing connected, intimate, loving sex and watch our many solo masturbation videos to see what it's like to have a healthy relationship with yourself, with your own body, your own genitals, your own sexuality. We are sex education through real world demonstration.
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