ENCORE PRESENTATION: ''Make Love Not Porn'' with Guest Cindy Gallop

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The following is a paid podcast.iHeartRadio's hosting of this podcast constitutes neither an
endorsement of the products offered or theideas expressed. Welcome to Becoming the Journey.
This show will be a series ofconversations that will inspire listeners along their
life's journey. This show's mission isto cultivate a community of mentorship by sharing

(00:21):
our experiences and our life's journey.Nobody's journey is a straight line, so
no matter where you are in yours, this show is for you. Meet
Grace Loverrae Hi, Hi, listeners. This is Becoming the Journey and where
about. Conversations with my guests,whose thoughts, experiences, and opinions on

(00:42):
topics they are most informed about hopefullywill resonate with my listeners. You can
contact us on Instagram at Becoming theJourney or by email at Becoming the Journey
at gmail dot com. I wouldlike to know what you're thinking, what
you're struggling with in order to openup a dialogue. I welcome all views

(01:03):
and all journeys. My guest todayis Cindy Gallup. Cindy spent the better
of thirty years in marketing and advertisingShe started up the US office of the
ad agency Bartle Bogel Hegarty in NewYork in nineteen ninety eight, and in
two thousand and three was named AdvertisingWoman of the Year. I think it's

(01:26):
accurate to say that she was adisruptor in the advertising world. She is
an outspoken advocate of diversity and inclusionand has partnered with aarp On, an
initiative to challenge and change agism.However, today we are going to be
talking sex tech, the social sexrevolution that Cindy calls make Love Not Porn,

(01:53):
where she imagines a world in whichno one feels guilt, shame,
and embarrassment around sex. Welcome,Cindy, thrilled to be here, thrilled
to have you. So, justfor the listeners, what does that mean?
Make Love not Porn? Sure?So, the important thing to stress

(02:20):
race is that make Love not Pornis not anti porn. Our tagline is
we are pro sex, pro pornpro knowing the difference and the reason Make
Love Not Porn came into being isbecause I date younger men. They tend
to be in their twenties. Atabout fourteen fifteen years ago, I realized

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through my own personal experience with thoseyounger men that when we don't talk openly
and honestly about sex in the realworld, porn becomes sex education by default
in not a good way. Andas a naturally action ordered person, I
decided I want to do something aboutthis, and so thirteen years ago I

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put up on no Money, atiny, clunky website at makelovenopporn dot com
that, in its original iteration wasjust words. The construct was porn world
versus real world. I had theopportunity to launch make Love Not Porn at
ted in two thousand and nine.My talk went viral as a result,
and it drove this extraordinary global responseto my tiny website that I had never

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anticipated. Thousands of people wrote tome from all around the world, and
I realized I'd uncovered a huge globalsocial issue. And so that was the
point in which I went, oh, my god, I now have a
personal responsibility. I have to takemake Love Not Porn forwards in a way
that will make it much more farreaching, helpful, and effective. But

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I also saw an opportunity to dowhat I believe in very strongly, which
is that the future of business isdoing good and making money simultaneously. I
saw the opportunity for a big businesssolution to this huge, untapped global need.
And I used the word big advisedlybecause even thirteen years ago, at
concept stage, I knew if Iwanted to counter the global impact of porn

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as default sex ed, I wouldhave to come up with something then at
least have the potential one day tobe just as mass just as mainstream,
and just as all pervasive in oursociety as porn currently is. And so
what I did was, you know, the issue isn't porn. The issue
is that we don't talk about sexin the real world. And so to

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make it easy for everyone to talkopenly and honestly about sex, I took
every dynamic in social media and appliedthem to this one area of universal human
experience that no other social networkor platformwill allow. And so I turned Make
Love Not Porn into the world's firstand only use a je narrated, human

(05:00):
curated social sex video sharing platform.The way to think about it is,
if porn is the Hollywood blockbuster movie, make Love not Porn is the real
world documentary. We're unique window ontothe funny, messy, loving, beautiful,
comical, awkward, hilarious, sexwe all have in the real world,

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and so that's why we call ourselvesthe Social Sex Revolution. The revolution
part is not the sex, it'sthe fact we're making it social. So
that's in the real world. Butpeople find it difficult to talk about sex
in a group setting, no lesscommunicating it to their partner, whoever that

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may be. Do you find thatthis video sharing, which is not porn,
but it's people having loving contact andcommunicating during that loving contact, do
you find that people become more openabout this idea? Absolutely? So.

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The reason, Grace, that ourmission is this very simple thing, make
it easy to talk about sex,is because it's really important that we do
that in two areas. I mean, first of all, we exist to
make it easy to talk about sexin the public domain, and by that
I mean parents to children, teachersto schools, everyone to everyone. But

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even more important is that we makeit easy to talk about sex open and
honestly privately in your intimate relationships.And the reason that's so key is,
you know, because we don't talkabout sex, it is an area of
rampant insecurity for every single one ofus. We all get vulnerable when we

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get naked. Sexual egos are veryfragile. So people therefore find it bizarrely
difficult to talk about sex with thepeople they're actually having it with while they're
actually having it, because in thatsituation, you're terrified that if you say
anything at all about what is goingon, if you comment on the action

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anyway at all, you will potentiallyhurt the other person's feelings. You'll put
them off you, you will derailthe encounter, you'll potentially derail the entire
relationship. But at the same time, you want to please your partner,
You want to make them happy.Everybody wants to be good in bed.
Nobody knows exactly what that means,and so you will seize your cues on

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how to do that from any whereyou can. And if the only cues
you've ever seen are in porn becauseyour parents never talked about sex, because
your school didn't teach you, becauseyour friends aren't honest, those are the
cues you're going to take to notvery good effect. And so at Make
Love not Porn. Not only doour social sex videos role model people having

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wonderful communityation during sex. We havea hashtag for those of our videos we
call chatty, which are the oneswhere if you want to see how easy
it is to communicate during sex,you can watch those videos. But also
what we love is that, inthe ten years we've been operating, we've
heard from so many people telling usabout communications breakthroughs that we have instigated.

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So, for example, you know, many couples tell us that watching our
social sex videos together made it awhole lot easier for them to talk about
sex and their own sexual relationship.You know what one couple said to us,
you know, because what we're doingis socializing and normalizing all of this,
bringing sex out into the sunlight.They said, you know, it

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feels us natural to talk about whatwe watch in your videos, as we
talk about things we watch on Netflixor on television, And from there,
it's a very short step to beingable to talk much more and naturally about
our own sexual relationship. And then, you know, parents tell us that
just being members of our community andMake Love not Porn has made them feel

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to be more open with their childrenabout sex in order to educate them.
And so we absolutely both role modelthe ability to communicate, you know,
during sex and around sex, andwe stimulate and inspire you know, better
communication and conversations about sex in thereal world. Do you feel when it's

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partners, And we'll talk about partners, and partners could be two men to
women, female, male, doesn'tmatter. Do you find that when it
comes to sex, we are individuallynot confident with ourselves? Absolutely, you

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know, And that's for a varietyof reasons. And again this is very
much you know what I designed makelove, not porn to solve. So,
for example, a very important partof what we do that tackles precise
lack of confidence is our social sexvideos are enormously reassuring because we celebrate real

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world everything. We celebrate real worldbodies, real world hair, real world
penis size, real world breast size, real world volvers. And the reason
that's so key is because you cantalk body positivity all you like, You
can preach self love till you're bluein the face. At the end of

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the day, nothing makes us feelgreat about our own bodies like seeing people
who are no one's idea of aspirationalbody types getting turned on by each other,
desiring each other, having a wonderfultime in bed. In a world
where every day popular culture sends allof us messages that tell us you are

(11:01):
not hot, sexual attract and desirableunless you are this skinny six pack abs
you look like this. Our memberswrite to us and say you made me
feel so much better about my ownbody. One man wrote and said,
my girlfriend and I now feel ableto be more open and central with each
other because you made each of usfeel better about our own bodies. And

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then, what I think is alsovery important is you know, a woman
left a comment on one of ourvideos saying, you know this, watching
this video made me feel more powerfulin my own sexual agency. Thank you
for this gift. And so inan area of life, where as I
said, we are all insecure.You know, people gain confidence from,

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you know, seeing all of thewonderful real world people making love in our
videos. They gain confidence from seeingthat it's okay to ask for what you
want, to be open about yourneeds, and you know, all of
that gives people much more confidence inbed, combined with grace. What is
also really interesting is so our contributorswhom we call out Make Love Not Porn

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stars. You know, these areeveryday people who've chosen to share their real
world sex on Make Love Not Porn. They tell us that doing that is
transformative for them and their relationships.So we have many solo videos on Make
Love Not Porn where men, women, trans non binary people have basically shared

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this very intimate actor and by theway, often for the first time ever.
The vast majority of our Make LoveNot Porn stars have never filmed themselves
doing anything sexual before. Ever,they're doing it for us because they believe
in our social mission, and soour solo Make Love Not Porn stars tell
us that doing that made them lovethemselves more, It enhanced their sexual sense

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of self, their sexual self esteem. Couples tell us that sharing their word
sex on Make Love Not Porn transformtheir relationship because when you decide to film
yourselves having sex, you have totalk about it. And when you talk
about it, it doesn't matter howlong you've been together. The conversation goes
places it's never ever gone before.Couples write to us and say, we

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thought we were open, doing thisjust took our relationship to a whole new
level, which is wonderful to hear. What happens if one part of that
couple is much more open and theother half of that couple is not as
open, And at what point doessex therapy come in? As an added

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to make Love Now Porn. No, that's a great question, Grace,
but because effectively, you know,we are self help for your sex life,
and so it was. It waswonderful when a couple of years after
we launched, people were writing tous and we began realizing that sex therapists
and couple's therapists were recommending make LoveNot Porn to their clients, and so,

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you know, we got this wonderfulemail from a woman who said she
and he husband had been married fora long time, had a very healthy
sex life. He then got Ibelieve it was prostate cancer, had surgery
and unfortunately erectile dysfunction resulted, andthis is very distressing to them, and
so they went to a sex therapistwho said to them there's this website called

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Make Love Not Porn, and sothey you know, became members, and
they just wrote this wonderful email tosay how transformative we had been. In
fact, interestingly, the wife said, our sex life is now even better
than it was before the surgery.And I suspect that that may be because

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we celebrate all the wonderful ways evenhave a good time without needing to have
penetratives. And so, you know, I mean, obviously with our Make
Love a Porn stars, any coupleyou know sharing their real world sex on
our platform, both of them wereequally happy to do so. But that

(15:16):
in itself, you know, watchingour videos can be therapy for so many
people. And we hear, youknow, a couple of other you know,
examples of use cases that I honestlydidn't contemplate when I designed this.
You know, I remember a womanwrote to us to say that she had
had breast cancer, you know,she'd had to have a mastectomy. She

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had been feeling really bad about herself, her body and sexuality. Then she
discovered us, and we just helpedher absolutely reconnect with her body and her
sexuality and feel so much better.And then we also hear and again this
is something I never envisaged when Icame up with this concept. We hear

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from survivors of rape, sexual assault, sexual abuse. And what we hear
from, you know, female survivors, male survivors, trans non viinrary survivors
who tell us that make Love notporn, help them reclaim their bodies.
We help them feel able to besexual again in a context where porn is
obviously way too triggering in that scenario, and in fact, several of our

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Make Love Not Porn stars tell usthat, you know, they have sexual
abuse in their histories, and sociallysharing their real world sex in a completely
safe space has helped them to processthat trauma and heal from it, which
is just wonderful to hear. Butit isn't sex not just about the body.

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I mean, there's an element therewhere it's got to encompass confidence in
your body and your mind. Youhave to be present and there in your
mind. I mean, I thinkthe days of slam bam, thank you,
ma'am are over when it comes tothis particular sexual revolution. But there
are a lot of incidents like that, and I just isn't it that your

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mind anybody has to kind of sinkwhen you're having a really true, good,
natural sexual encounter. Oh my god, grace absolve bloody lukely. And
so that again is a key partof what we do that is utly unique.

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So at Make Love Not Porn,we celebrate real world emotion, love,
intimacy, feelings. And the reasonthat's so important is, you know,
all around us in popular culture movies, TV, streaming, we see
many creative narratives and expressions of relationships, but we never see the actual sex.

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On Make Love Not Porn, yousee the actual sex, but you
also see the relationships because in ourvideos though, those two things are indivisible.
And by the way, I don'tjust mean that. In our many
coupled, partnered, threesome, etcetera videos, you see wonderful loving as
you say, mind body sinking,you know, healthy relationship dynamics within the

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sex. In our many solo videos, you see what it's like in those
videos to have a healthy relationship withyourself, with your own sexuality, your
own genitals, your own body.And what I find interesting is so I
designed to Make Love not Porn tobe fully genderly, call diverse and inclusive.
And we are. Our members ofour Make Love Not Porn stars represent

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every part of the you know,human sexuality spectrum. But what is interesting
is that we are especially a revelationto men, and that's because we are
something utterly unique that men will findnowhere else on the Internet, which is
a safe space where men can beand watch other men being open, emotional,

(19:00):
vulnerable around sex. You wouldn't believethe number of men who write to
us and say, I just watchedmy first video on make Love Not Porn,
and afterwards I cried. I pickedup this lovely Twitter exchange some months
back where between two men, whereone man had tweeted as a joke,
he went, Hey, guys,I've got this really weird fetish. I've

(19:25):
got this kink where I want towatch porn where people are honest, loving,
loyal, decent and really like eachother. Hit me up with your
hottest links, please, And aman replied to him and said, there's
this website called make Love Not Pornwhere you can watch real couples making love.
He said, I saw a videowhere the woman said to her man,

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I love you while they're making love. He said, sincerely, I
cried when I heard that. Andyou know, Grace, I mean,
I wish society understood the opposite ofwhat it thinks is true. Women enjoy
sex just as much as men,and men are just as romantic as women,
yet neither gender is allowed to openlycelebrate that fact. And we'd all

(20:08):
be a whole lot better off ifthey were. You often talk about bad
behavior in bed. Good behavior inbed is that learned behavior? I mean,
I know your generation, you know, was raised differently, and maybe
not, I don't know, butyou know, my parents didn't talk about
it, and I'm sure their parentsdidn't talk about it, and so we

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all learned this kind of behavior thatit should be done behind closed doors.
You don't talk about it. Sowhat is what is good behavior? In
bed? Absolutely? So, soyou know, I designed Make Love Not
Porn around all of my own beliefsand philosophers, one of which is that

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everything in life starts with you andyour value. And so I reagularly ask
people this question, what are yoursexual values? And nobody can ever answer
me because we're not taught to thinklike that. Our parents bring us up
to have good manners, a workethic sense of responsibility, accountability. Nobody

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ever brings us up to behave wellin bed, but they should because in
bed values like empathy, sensitivity,generosity, kindness, honesty, trust,
respect are as important as those valuesare in every other era of our lives

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where we're actively taught to exercise them. And so you know, this is
my vision of a world where Iget Make Love not Porn funded to achieve
this mission at scale. When thathappens, here's here's the world we'll live
in parents will bring their order andup openly to have good sexual values and

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good sexual behavior in exactly the sameway that parents currently bring kids up to
have good values and behavior in everyother era of life. We will therefore
cease to bring up rapists, becausethe only way that you end rape culture,
and by the way, this reallyis the only way, is by

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embedding in society and openly talked about, promoted, operated, and very importantly
aspired to gold standard of what constitutesgood sexual values and good sexual behavior.
When we do that, we willalso end me too. We end sexual
harassment, abuse, violence, allareas where the perpetrators currently rely on the

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fact that we do not talk aboutsex to ensure victims never speak up,
never go to authorities, never tellanybody. When we end that, we
massively power women and girls worldwide.When we do that, we create a
far happier world for everybody, includingmen. And when we do that,
we are one step closer to worldpeace. I talk about make love,

(23:11):
not porn as my attempt to bringabout world peace, and I'm not joking.
Let's talk a little bit about pornaddicts. Though there are still and
may always be, men or womendon't know that are porn addicts and they
will never see that light. Theywill never and there will always be people

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that will not talk about sex.Do you think that the younger generation will
break that cycle? Do you thinkporn addicts will go away? Do you
think they will still exist? Yeah, I've got a few. I've got
a few different responses to that question. Graceis so, first of all,

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I will just say that, youknow, I'm one of those people who
does not subscribe to the concept ofporn addiction as an addiction. And by
the way, you know, itis not a you know, scientifically validated
addiction in terms of the you know, health guidelines that state these things.

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And the reason I say that isbecause in thirteen years of working on Make
Love Not Porn, you know,I have received thousands of emails, thousands
of comments, had thousands of conversations. I have seen every day for thirteen
years the enormous human unhappiness and miserycaused by the guilt, shame, and

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embarrassment that we've imbued sex with.Half the problem is the guilt, the
shame, and embarrassment, and youknow, an indicator of how you know,
messed up we are around this areais. I remember many years ago
a journalist wanted to interview me aboutporn, and he began the interview by
saying to me, very earnestly,so, Cindy, why why is it

(25:03):
do you think that we like towatch people having sex? And honestly,
I just burst into laughter. Irolled around the floor in hysterics. I
said, of course we enjoy watchingpeople having sex. We're all sexual beings,
that's why, and so and soyou know, half the problems,
I say, is making people feelguilty about that. Now to your question,

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gen Z undoubtedly is a whole differentgeneration and and far more open about
sex, which is wonderful. Soso yes, and and by the way,
gen Z loves me love not pornand when they encounter it, because
it absolutely plays into that. Andthen and I fact, it's interesting because
you know, I'm talking to investorsat the moment, and I am talking

(25:47):
to some next gen you know,family officers where where gen Z within within
the family absolutely gets it. Buthere's here's the thing about porn so well,
I get frustrated when people use theword porn like it's all one big,
homogeneous mass. That's like using theword literature. To say, it's

(26:08):
all the same thing. The landscapeof porn is as rich and infantly varied
as the landscape of literature, justas many genres subgenres. But the really
unfortunate thing, and most people don'trealize this, is that the porn industry
is currently dominated by a massive monopolythat would not be allowed to exist in

(26:29):
any other industry. But nobody wantsto bring antitrust legislation to the porn world.
So the porn industry is dominated bya company called mind Geek who own
everything. Mine Geek owns pornhub,U, Porn, red Tube, you
know, all of the big tubesites. And the problem is the same
as the problem with a monopoly inany other industry. Mind geeks stranglehold on

(26:52):
the porn industry stifles individual creative vision, disruption, and innovation. Because I
have a number of female queer pornographerfriends who are making really wonderful, very
different, innovative, creative porn.They cannot get the revenue, the traffic,
the numbers they deserve because nobody canfind them and nobody knows about them.

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And so, you know, tothe key to the future of you
know, to a much healthier worldaround. All of this is to break
that monopoly and also to bring genderequality to it, because you know,

(27:38):
so again, I readily get caughtup by journalists going who wanting to view
about porn, going, so,Cindy, do you feel that porn objectifies
women? And I will respond,I think that any industry that is dominated
by men and led by men atthe top inevitably produces output that is objectifying,
offensive, and women. And Iwill then point them to the commercial

(28:03):
breaks in the Super Bowl. Becausemy industry advertising is as male dominated and
male led. We as women arethe primary target of all advertising, because
we are the primary purchasers and influencerspurchase of everything, but we are constantly
advertised to through the male lens.And so you know, the same thing

(28:25):
applies in the porn industry. Theday we have a porn industry that is
fifty to fifty equally led, managed, and influenced by women as much as
by men, that therefore targets fifthcent of its output equally at women as
opposed to thinking misguidedly than men arethe only audience, and that therefore importantly

(28:45):
then makes fIF percent of its moneyout of women, just as much as
out of men. When we havethat, that is the day we see
a very different porn industry and verydifferent porn way more creative, innovative,
disruptive, healthier industry overall. Andby the way, Grace, the same
is true of every other industry,Hollywood movies, TV, publishing, minustry,

(29:07):
advertising, Every industry's output becomes completelydifferent when we finally have gender equality.
You are listening to Becoming the Journeyon WOR seven ten and on iHeartRadio.
Let's continue my conversation with my guest, Cindy Gallop, and we are
talking about make love not porn.In that porn world, the word objectify.

(29:32):
Do you think why do women allowthemselves to be objectified? I mean,
you can't have porn as most peopleknow that word okay, which you
sometimes call revenge porn. When aguy watches something, it's usually just him
watching a woman or to get turnedon. Do you think they'll come a

(29:55):
time where women will realize that theydon't need to be objectified. Well,
the really depressing thing, Grace,is that we have no desire to be
objectified. We cannot avoid it.And what I mean by that is,
you know, I go back tomy example of my own industry advertising,

(30:17):
the vast majority of creative directors andcreators and advertising are men. And that
is why every day all around uswe see ads the objectify women, and
there is nothing the women in theindustry can do about that. And by
the way, you know, I'vebeen arguing against this for many years.
The industry do what they can.But when you are working in an industry

(30:38):
where men have all the money,all the power, and all the control,
there is very little you can doto avoid being objectified. And you
know, again within the porn industry, the male run, male dominated company
mind gig owns everything, so it'snot even you know, and again of
many women friends are who are pornactresses, who are pornographers, who are

(31:03):
trying to create their own businesses andwho are making very different sorts of porn.
That does not objectify anybody. Butwhen you have one massive monopoly dominating
the industry, it's incredibly hard tobreak through that. And so you know,
to basically we are looking at thesame issues that run across every industry,

(31:23):
but that there is a solution,which again I've been campaigning for for
many years, that would help this. So the one thing I didn't realize
when I embarked on building Making ofNot Porn was that I my tiny team
would find an enormous battle every singleday to build it. Basically because every
piece of business infrastructure any other techstartup gets to take for granted, we

(31:48):
can't. The small print always saysno adult content. And this is all
pervasive across every area of the businessin ways that people outside the sphere don't
realize. You know, I can'tget funded, I can't get banked,
I can't put payments in case.PayPal won't work with adult content, Stripe
can't, mainstream credit card processes won't. I have to work with adult friendly

(32:09):
payment processors who because anyone adult hasnowhere else to go, charge extortionate fees.
I pay out twelve percent of myrevenue every month in payment processing fees.
That's a massive business growth inhibitor.Every text service I want to use,
the terms of service say no adultcontent. I could go on and
on. One of the biggest problemsis that, you know, we are

(32:30):
banned from advertising. I can't promotemake Love nott porn on Facebook, Instagram,
TikTok, snapchat, you know,Reddit, YouTube, Google search ads
in traditional media. The answer tohelping there be a very different, female
driven, diversity driven future for theadult industry and for sex tech as a

(32:52):
whole. The answer is not toclamp down, sensor block, repress.
The answer is instead to open up, open up the dialogue around all of
this. And this is why I'mthrilled I'm having this conversation with you on
your podcast. Open up to supportingfunding, championing entrepreneurs like me who want

(33:15):
to disrupt all of this the better, and importantly, open up to allowing
us to do business the same wayeverybody else does, because when you do
that, you completely transform the landscapewhat is deemed adult. I like to
quote and paraphrase in this context WayneLaPier of the NRA's infamous gun control quote,

(33:37):
the only thing that stops a badguy with a business is a good
guy with a better business. That'swhat I'm doing. I know you've mentioned
the advertising business, But what happenswhen the film industry portrays sex as violent
or they show rape, they showyou know, how does that? How

(34:00):
do we how do we change thatdynamic? Is there a possibility that in
making a film we can actually showwhat you're trying to do? And just
show that. And I know you'vegot actors here involved, but shouldn't we
have more of that? U?Yep, yeah, absolutely, Grace.

(34:22):
So so one of the things thatyou know I talk about publicly is that
you know, I am very wearyof again, I get reporters calling me
up about this all the time,being interviewed about that whary old phrase sex
cells. Because whenever anybody says sexcells, they are only ever talking about

(34:46):
sex through the male lens. Wehave not even begun to see how effectively
sex can sell through the female lens. And an example I use is I
recommend to everybody that they watch themovie that is the sequel to the original
Magic Mike movie, Magic Mike XXL. And the reason I recommend to everybody

(35:10):
they watch this movie is because MagicMike XXL, which is a movie about
male strippers, it's a movie aboutsex through the female lens. And interestingly,
the director was a man. Butthis is this movie is about sex
from the female perspective, and sexin Magic Mike EXXEL is joyous, celebritory,

(35:31):
life, affirming, intimate, moving, fundamental, profound. And so
the answer is all of this changeswhen we have just as many women as
men heading up studios, green lightingmovies, writing the scripts, directing the
movies, casting the movies, crewingthe movies. You know, I am.

(35:54):
I give an interview some years backwhere I talked about the fact that
I was one of the women whostopped watching Game of Thrones because of the
rape scenes, and I said,you know, in that interview, if
you are a male showrunner, producer, director, script writer, you have
no idea what it's like to bea woman watching a rape scene. And

(36:16):
so when we have women just asmany women as men at the top of
every industry, we will see adramatic difference in female lens creativity in what
that produces, and the enormous ironygrace is that men will be so much
happier as a result. You know, I said earlier, you know,

(36:36):
make porn is the answer to toxicmasculinity. The female lens in popular culture
is also the answer to toxic masculinity, because when we have women running creative
industries, not only do we seebetter depictions of women, we see better
depictions of men. And so,yeah, you know, you're absolutely right.

(36:57):
I notice the movie is and theTV series I watch where you know
they have brought often a female lensto depicting sets in a really open,
healthy, nuanced, and real worldway. And I'd love to see much
more of that. Absolutely Now.I know we've talked about partners, okay,

(37:19):
and watching Make Love Not Porn andthe private communication in the bedroom,
and what about and that's a monogamousrelationship. What about a polyamorous relationship.
I mean, some women, asyou've admitted in the beginning of the show,

(37:39):
prefer not having a partner, butto just have sex or make love
when and whoever they want to.How do you connect that way? How
do you have that communication? Howdo you you know when that's kind of

(38:00):
what you're doing? Short, Soyou know, Make Love Not Porn exists
to celebrate the full glorious spectrum ofhuman sexuality, and so you know,
people share all sorts of different realworld sex experiences on our platform our You
know that the whole philosophy of goodsexual as and good sexual behavior is,

(38:21):
you know, in even the mostcasual encounter, everyone should be having a
really wonderful time. And by theway, you know, research has indicated
that is not the case all toooften in the real world because in casual
sexual encounters. Men have straight ones. That is, men have votal interest
in ensuring the woman experiences pleasure,and women don't feel they can demand it.

(38:45):
So you know, we we wecelebrate and respect every form of you
know, how someone chooses to live, live their life and live their sex
life. However, you know whatMake Love Not Porn is really great at
because we are a window onto whathappens in the real world. Is we
are a great place to see howdifferent people negotiate and agree different relationship models.

(39:09):
So you know, we have anumber of Make Love Lot porn stars
on our platform who you know,some are in open marriages and others have
you know, very specific polyamorous relationshipswhere you know, we have several thropples,

(39:30):
you know, so that these arethreesomes. But but but where the
threesome is a committed three way relationship. And you know, the great thing
about what we show is that weshow you the real world negotiation and agreements
that go into those sorts of models. Then then you know, we also

(39:52):
you know, provide ideas that youknow, people seeing our videos might well
want to apply in their own life. So so for example, we have
a make Love lod porn starle womanwho is married and you know, as
she says in the personal narrative thatshe's written to go with her of her
videos, she and her husband havean agreement, you know, once a

(40:14):
year she can meet up with herhigh school sweetheart in a motel and have
a wonderful time with him. Andactually those are the videos that she shares
on Make Love not Porn. Sheand her husband don't share their own videos.
But you know, that's a reallyinteresting idea. And by the way,
one presumes the husband has the sameyou know, leeway himself. But

(40:35):
you know that's something that you know, a couple who might not want to
have a fully open marriage but mightwant to, you know, have some
freedom to do something different. Youknow, that's a really interesting idea.
And so, you know, weshow you the many wonderful ways in which
people are designing their own relationship modelsthat make everyone involved happy in the real

(40:59):
world, and those go far beyondthe very limited number of relationship models society
tells us. Is it's okay tooperate if you had a venture, A
guess and we did a pull howmany women And I'm going to save women
because I'm I think men probably alreadydo this. But how many women do
you think would love if if they'rein a relationship, committed relationship, would

(41:22):
would love to experiment outside of thatrelationship. So my response to that,
grace and this is based on youknow, my own life experience and the
women I know in coming to contactwith, And the answer is far more
than you would ever have thought.And you know, again, one of

(41:47):
the things that I want to makelove, not want to explode, is
this idea that women are not equallysexually driven as men are, that women
do not want novelty and new experiencessex as much as men do. You
know, we are absolutely equal inour desires, but obviously women suffer a

(42:13):
great deal more when those are uncovered. You know, slut shaming doesn't happen
to men. And so you know, I couldn't give you a percentage,
but I will say way more thananybody thinks. I think I tend to
agree with you. I know whensometimes when I do a finantial program,

(42:35):
I talk about you know, whenin a relationship do you start talking about
finances, And a lot of peoplewill say, well, you know,
a couple of days, three days, four days, five, or when
they start to get serious, whendoes a couple start to talk about good
real good behavior sex. Do youknow, Grace, that is a great

(43:00):
analogy, because you know, Ithink that couples should find out where they're
at in terms of their financial valueson date number one. And in the
same way, you know, myvision with Make Love Not Porn when I
concepted it thirteen years ago, wasyou know, I designed it, you

(43:22):
know, basically so that one dayyou might be on a first date with
somebody and you'll be able to callup your profile at Make Love Not Porn
on your phone and hold it outto the other person and go, this
is who I am sexually. Theseare the good sexual values that I stand
for. And so I honestly believethat exploring and talking about attitudes towards sexual

(43:47):
values and behavior should happen on datenumber one as much as you know,
expiration of good values should happen ondate number one in every single area,
because they are equally important, youknow, the equally important in terms of
a couple's attitudes towards money as theyare about sex and compatibility in that context,

(44:09):
But do you think if let's say, from a woman's perspective. If
she brings their topic up on afirst day, do you think that the
expectation on the male would be,Oh, well, I guess she wants
to have sex. I think it'sall about how you broach the conversation because,
honestly, you know, we againas a social sex revolution, we

(44:31):
want to see a world where,you know, on that first date,
the woman says, I'm a memberof Make Love Not Porn, And what
that means is, I'm all aboutbeing good in bed, the real world
sex way. You know, I'mall about good sexual values and good sexual
behavior. And that is basically sayingI have expectations in any sexual engagement,

(44:53):
in any sexual relationship, and itdemonstrates a sense of self agency in ensuring
that you are going to get thekind of sex you want. And if
that filled us out, men whoyou know aren't up for that, or
take it the wrong way so muchthe better, or feel all of a
sudden they're being intimidated because maybe theycan't perform because they don't quite understand what

(45:15):
you're talking about because they haven't donethat. Do you know, having communicated,
do you know I am so Everyweek we send several emails to our
make Love Not Porn community, Andthis week I wrote personally to our community,

(45:37):
and I wrote an email about sexualvalues and why I'd created make Love
Lot Porn in order to showcase goodsexual values. And I just got this
morning this wonderful email from one ofour members. He replied to my email,
he said, to be honest,this email was amazing. Thank you
very much. I'm a person that'smental issues and that has always a thing

(46:00):
my sexual life badly, especially growingas a man, which tries to put
you in a box full of toxicbehavior and makes you a bit distant about
your own feelings and insecurities. I'mkind of starting to feel more confident,
more positive about myself and being moreopen, which is super important during sexual
life. Part of this becoming educatedhas been paying more attention to most of
the sexual values you talked about.So I loved all the sexual values you

(46:22):
talked about, and of course we'llkeep working on them again. Thank you
and wish you an amazing day.And for the right kind of man,
right thinking men. That is exactlythe response that any woman should be encountering
when she talks about good sexual valuesand good sexual behavior. Most men just
think performance. No, because,as I said earlier, we are all

(46:44):
rampantly insecure about sex, and sowhen the only source of information is porn,
then that's what men think it's about. And that's why again, men
find make Love not porn, sucha revelation because we demonstrate and our amazing
videos. It's about trust, it'sabout communication. It's about you know,

(47:06):
letting your partner take control, youknow, having them indicate what they like
to do. You know, it'snot about performance. That there is no
there is no formula to have greatsex. There is only you and your
partner, the chemistry between you,and importantly great communication to make sure that
at the end of the day it'san experience that both of you or all

(47:27):
of you are enjoying. Part ofwhat you're saying, the communication, the
trust, the behavior. I justwant to mention though, that you know
women do experience sexual dysfunction men aswell, and that what you're what you're
giving us doesn't take away from gettinghelp in that area because and that's a

(47:51):
whole different show. But I'm rightin that, correct, Oh, I
mean no, absolutely, although Iwill just say grace that you know,
often you know a woman who feelsshe's sexually dysfunctional. Is with you know,
a partner who is not doing theright things, often because they may
only be doing what they see inporn. You know, I actually said

(48:14):
this. I was interviewed earlier thisyear for a documentary that's being made about
viagra, and the director interviewed meabout viagrant and said, you know,
so what you think about viagra?And I went, quite frankly, I
don't think it's necessary because there aremany ways you can enjoy yourself and your
partner can enjoy themselves that do notinvolve penetrative sex. And the emphasis on

(48:38):
viagra just demonstrates the patriarchal male lens, you know, single minded focus on
it's all about penetration, and actually, you know, with makeup at porn,
we are celebrating every possible form ofnon penetrative pleasure that would would negate
the need for viagra, if onlymore of the world thought that way.

(49:00):
We have about five minutes left,so I'm going to put this out there.
We talked before a little bit aboutlearned behavior and our parents not talking
to us about sex and how we'reopening that up. At what age do
we actually start to bring our youngchildren or young adults or whatever into that

(49:22):
kind of sex talk and not asexplicit as Make Love Not Porn. But
when do we really start to talkto our children about it in a good
way. So you know, parentsand teachers have been writing to me since
day one of Make Love Not Porn, and that's why I'm raising funding to
build what I call the zero toeighteen version Make Love Not Porn Academy for

(49:43):
sex education. But the advice Igive parents is twofold race. So first
of all, today you cannot begintalking to your child about sex too early.
And when I say that, youknow I don't mean literally talk about
sex. What I mean is thevery first time they ask for babies I'm
from, you know, play withtheir genitals. The most important thing isn't

(50:04):
even what you say, as muchas how you say it. Never ever
get visibly flustered or embarrassed. Never, you know, shut them up.
Instead answer them calmly, straightforwardly,honestly, and you will open up a
channel communication that will always be therefor them as they get older. And
then today, secondly, when youtalk to your child about sex, you
must at the same time talk tothem about porn. And this is much

(50:25):
easier to do than most parents think, because all you have to do is
just say a version of what I'mabout to give you, and you dull
it up and down depending on theage of the child. So you know,
you say something like, darling,we've just talked about sex, and
you know how together we watch moversand videos and cartoons where things happen that
aren't real. Well, there arealso movers and videos about sex, and

(50:50):
they're not real either, and becauseof that they can be quite confusing.
So we'd rather didn't watch until you'reolder. But if anybody ever shows you
something like that, or you stumbleacross it, come and talk to us.
We can explain it. That's allyou have to say. But just
by doing that, you've done twovery important things. A you've set up
in their heads when they stumble acrosspawn as they will that it's not real.

(51:15):
And B you've said, come andtalk about it, and you will
want them to because what they stumbleacross can be utterly traumatizing. Do you
draw a distinction between the word makelove and sex? Honestly, as far
as I'm concerned, I think they'reinterchangeable. You want young people to know
that it's not just sex, butit's that intimate chemistry kind of present mind

(51:42):
and body. I think if youjust say sex, I think some people
I don't know will tend to thinkof it differently. Absolutely, you know,
I prefer to use the term makelove personally. We just have I
think a minute or two. Justquickly tell us why you raising funds.
Sure, so I've managed to keepMake Love Not Porn going for ten years

(52:05):
on just three million dollars of funding, and that's an extraordinary feat. But
I now want to scale to bereally effective at ending rape cultured lbally,
So I'm raising twenty million dollars tooptimize Make Loove Notoporn dot TV, to
build out Make Lovenoporn dot Academy,which will be an aggregator for sex education,

(52:25):
the global go to hub for everysex educator around the world. To
build out a messaging app called Cosentraalwhich is designed for completely safe, secure
sexting to end revenge porn, andan ad tech product which will enable brands

(52:45):
like US, who are currently bannedfrom advertising everywhere, to be able to
advertise in the first instance across ourplatforms that Make Love Not Porn but you
know, because the ban on advertisingis for any female lens sexual health and
wellness venture, you know, menopause, menstruation, fertility. I want to
be able to bring female founders andthey're amazing products to everybody in a way

(53:06):
that will improve everyone's lives. Sothat's what I'm raising twenty million dollars for.
And if anybody listening knows an openminded investor, send them Cindy at
makeloveloporn dot com. Cindy, thankyou so so much. I really appreciate
it, and you know how muchI love you, And you're going to
come back on We're going to talkabout a whole bunch of different things going

(53:27):
forward. Thank you for tuning into Becoming the Journey. We are on
WOR seven ten and iHeartRadio or whereveryou listen to your podcasts. If you
enjoy listening to the topics on Becomingthe Journey, please follow us on Instagram
at Becoming the Journey and subscribe forfree so you never miss an episode and

(53:47):
don't miss this one. Thank you, Cindy, Thank you Grace. It's
been an absolute pleasure you have beenlistening to Becoming the Journey, hosted by
Grace Lovery tune in weekly to hearmore conversation that will inspire listeners along their
life's journey. The proceeding was apaid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this podcast

(54:10):
constitutes neither an endorsement of the productsoffered or the ideas expressed