How To Have A Great Sex Life: The Secrets We Are Never Told! With Cindy Gallop.

38:31But I mean, I've dated men who are shorter than me, with whom I had extremely hot sex, you know. So, you know, there is this bizarre patriarchal thing in society that I mean, again, we're talking, you know, straight relationships here. But, you know, that says the man should be taller than the woman. Why? Why? Who the hell says? you know absolutely not and and so if anybody is kind of setting a height um in the head as criteria for their soulmate get rid of that i mean it's completely irrelevant and you will rule out so many wonderful people if you insist on making that a deal breaker so let's say people are um meeting what's your opinion on marriage like that piece of paper what do you think about that Well, I think it's absolutely not for me, obviously.

39:24I've never, ever wanted married. And can I ask you why? What is it that's about marriage that... Oh, my God. Where do I start? Yeah. I just... I mean, I am not a relationship person. I adore being single. I am that very rare person who has absolutely no desire whatsoever to be in love. And that may sound very alien, to you and our listeners. Yeah. But I think there are many more people like me or people who would realise they were like me if they really stopped thinking about it. And so I would encourage everybody, again, to look into yourselves and ask yourself, what would really make me happy?

40:09And when you do that, strip out of your head everything your parents want for you, everything your friends are currently doing simultaneously around you, like all getting engaged in marriage at the same time, or having kids or whatever, strip out what popular culture keeps telling you you should be aspiring to, going after, should be the be all and the end all. Take all of that out of consideration and ask yourself what would really make me happy. Because you may find it is absolutely not to get married. It is not to have children. It is not to necessarily find your soulmate. you know um and so and so i i mean the thing is there are obviously people who marriage works brilliantly including my parents who are married very happily for 60 years you know so i had that in front of me you know all through my childhood growing up but there are far more people who should not have married each other and honestly you know um absolutely fine obviously to get divorced and you know gone with life but but if they'd stopped to think about it in the first place they might have gone i'm not sure this is what i really want to do and and by the way even based just on a very unscientific test of people i've known in my lifetime a surprising amount of people walk down the aisle knowing they shouldn't have absolutely had reservations but the invitations have gone out their parents have spent the money you know the whole thing's set up it's all booked it's you know and so they've gone ahead regardless and then you know things have not worked out I mean it's a it's a it's a fascinating thing really when you start to examine it a bit closer that society is getting all of it wrong in terms of intimacy and relationships how how often do you find that people get into marriages and the sex changes you know just sort of people go a bit like oh is that it and before i answer that to me i just want to make one other point about marriage which is i think it's important to acknowledge that interestingly the marriages that do really work out and absolutely should happen are the ones that people were actually never able to have and i say that because i have many gay friends and obviously that is a privilege that was not afforded to them for so many years and so you know i have around me a lot of examples of fantastic gay marriages um and and i think that when when that was not something that was as easily accessible and available as it was for you know heterosexuals yes then um then actually more thought and more commitment you know um and and more you know authenticity goes into it so i I just want to make that point.

43:03On top of that, I'd just like to say that do you think that men, and this is a bit of a sweeping generalisation, and I don't really like making generalisations around sex, but maybe because of their testosterone levels or whatever, men are more likely to want to just carry on having sex all the way through a long-term marriage, whereas women, you know, you might have children, be very tired, you go off it a little bit then you try and come back to it but then it's hard because you haven't really had it for so long then you get perimenopausal and then you go off it a bit and then you get menopausal um is is is how important is sex because I happen I did say something once and I got into some quite hot water that I think sex is important in a marriage but that's just you said earlier you caveated something quite brilliantly and I think I just want to say there in my opinion it is but I'm sure lots of other people can have a very happy relationship if both of them aren't interested I guess um if both of them are interested potentially but but I have to say I think it's enormously important I think it's enormously important in any relationship um as well as marriage and I think it's important because um first of all um again talking in a heterosexual context sex is unfortunately how a lot of men communicate because they have not been able to communicate in any other way because our society you know makes men feel it is not masculine to talk about emotions to make yourself vulnerable and so I think quite often and I'm basing this on you know i've 16 years of people writing to make love not porn and many many you know married couples and couples in long-standing relationships and in the kind of scenario to talk about where um quite often sex is the only way that a man feels he can communicate love feelings emotion make a connection be intimate um and in that scenario equally you know women are going through all sorts of things that militate against that completely understandably and so i mean i mean this is something make love not porn plays a very helpful role in because as you know as social sex we are absolutely for couples to watch together you know and so we hear a lot that again because of the way we normalize things um you know what will happen is one half of the couple will say to the other oh i came across this thing called make love not porn let's check it out and you know we hear one couple wrote and said you know watching videos on your platform um it feels as natural and normal to talk about what we see in them as we discuss the movie we just watched on netflix or a series on the bbc brilliant and and from there it then normalizes you know it makes it really easy to take it one step further which is talking about our own sex life and then we have these communications breakthroughs that lead to much better sex and so honestly everything boils down to you know you know you know my background is 40 years working in advertising i spent 40 years working in the business of communication i know therefore that everything great in life and business is born out of great communication sex is no different great sex is one out of great communication talk about it and that solves so many things and I think that in you know to your point in in long marriages and relationships you don't do that because life subsumes it and when you have external prompts that enable you to communicate around that you'll be amazed at you know even years you know 20 years into a marriage you can have a total breakthrough.

46:58One woman wrote to us. She said, you know, my husband and I just discovered Make Love at Porn. Best$10 a month I ever spent on a subscription. She went, we've been married for 20 years. And sex had dwindled to once, maybe every three or four months. She said, we found your website. We had sex eight times in the first month. You know, all these lovely couples, all these videos. But what was interesting to me was she said, it's not just the sex. my husband and I now feel more connected and more in love than ever before and she literally ended thank you for saving my marriage and so it's my point about you know sex is important because it absolutely is how you is how you connect spiritually you know intimately and um and honestly you know I've I've had great sex that is a transcendental experience and I want everybody body to have that experience and not everybody does.

47:59I think I read somewhere about somebody that had contacted you and it was a man and they'd contacted you and said that they'd seen something on Make Love Not Porn where somebody said I love you. Yes. Can you tell me about that? Sure. So that was actually a wonderful exchange I picked up on Twitter a while back. So two men had tweeted each other because the first man had tweeted, as a joke obviously, hey guys I've got this really weird fetish. I've got this kink where I want to watch porn where people are honest, loving, loyal decent and really like each other. Hit me up the hottest links please.

48:37And another man replied to him and he said there's this website called Make Love Not Porn where you can watch real couples fucking and making love. He said I watched a video where the woman said to her man I love you while they're making love. He said sincerely, I cried when I heard that. And Davina, we hear that all the time from men. They write to us and say, I just watched my first Make Love Not Porn video and afterwards I cried. And that is because I've said for years, I wish society understood the opposite of what it thinks is true. Women enjoy sex just as much as men and men are just as romantic as women.

49:15Yet neither gender is allowed to openly celebrate either fact we would all be so much better off if they were and so what men see on make love not porn is something they will find nowhere else on the internet which is a safe space where men can be and watch other men being open emotional and vulnerable around sex we are the opposite of andrew tate yeah i mean i love the fact that it's two men having a bit of banter online because I must say one of the things that's frustrated me so much about porn is the acting that women do and you know it's acting because I have never ever seen well I mean I haven't seen in true life people make a love but I've never ever seen a girl go cross-eyed from having sex you know those ones where somebody's going and I was like nobody does that that's acting and if you're not in the moment then that's not sex that's that's a show it's like not real and um that's what I find so weird about pornography that it's a show it's acting and often it's not real you would never see this is the conversation that I tried to have with my children is that what you're watching isn't what real life is like.

50:43Do not expect that in real life. I'm just saying beware. Be careful of what you see. And you did describe it earlier, which was great, but you described it in terms of heterosexual sex because I was suddenly a bit aware that we haven't really spoken about what is Make Love Not Porn. Could you just tell me widely what else does it show? So it's real couples. No, it's not just couples. and so basically i created make love not porn to celebrate the full glorious spectrum of human sexuality in the real world you know if porn is as you've just said the performative you know hollywood blockbuster movie we are the badly needed documentary so we are right that's such a good description we're a unique window onto the way we all make love in the real world and so we are fully diverse and inclusive you know our members and our make love not porn stars as we call our contributors are all ages 18 to 80 all racist ethnicities we're a global platform we have traffic and members from like over 200 countries and territories you know male female trans non-binary straight lgbtq asexual you know um we we show you honestly you know just all of the wonderful ways that all of us out there are masturbating so we have a ton of solo you know um videos we are we We are not just for couples and we have, you know, many, again, male, female, trans, non-binary masturbation videos, which are wonderful.

52:10We're not just couples either. We have a ton of threesomes, you know, and we absolutely have, you know, BDSM kink videos. The difference being on Make Love Not Porn, you see the real world version, you know. So you see the negotiation beforehand, the boundary setting. You see the coming out of it, you know, the aftercare, the cuddling. And very importantly, you see things like, so we have a ton of role play videos. but only on Make Love Not Porn will you see a video where a couple of decide do a role play you know maybe it's you know boss secretary office whatever and halfway through one of them says to the other you know what this isn't really doing it for me and the other one goes yeah you're right it's all a bit mad they go this is fuck and it's really important that people see that because it shows this is all very low stakes it's absolutely fine to try something go oh didn't like that right power through you know you can absolutely go okay well fuck that shit you know and they go this is fuck you know And they do.

53:04They abandon the role play immediately. And so, yeah, but we show the accidents, the messiness, the pets wandering in, the snack breaks in the middle, you know, because that's how we all make love in the real world. I feel like every household, I feel like there should be an app on our televisions with Make Love Not Porn on there. There should. That is so good.

53:34because when you were starting this business, I mean, obviously you've worked in advertising for so long. Was it a hard business to promote? Did people get it immediately? Was it, you know, it wasn't off the ground yet. You're trying to raise money. It's an idea. Yep. No, they most certainly did not. No, let me correct myself, Daphina, because I can tell you that everybody gets it immediately. In fact, all I have to do is when I meet someone, they go what do you i go i'm the founder and ceo of make love not porn and without even knowing what make love not porn is they know exactly why it exists yeah so everyone gets it but um it's been a battle every single day basically because people are funny about sex and one of the biggest obstacles for me is the social dynamic i call fear of what other people will think which operates around sex unlike any other area so everything is challenging you know raising funding using business services etc still to this day um which by the way you know i'm working on solving building my own infrastructure you know payments um places to advertise etc but but it is are you yeah that's so smart every business obstacle i encounter is a huge disruptive opportunity in itself yes you know the first payments app that processes payments for legal ethical transparent measures like mine at mainstream rates cleans up i plan to build that app and i'm and actually investors are getting it and i'm in that conversation right now you are brilliant can i also just say very quickly because you initially came on to this podcast it's called begin again it's about it's about beginning again at any stage of your life and um how do you do it but not only did you start make love not porn and you are also trying to not trying to you are starting a sexual revolution where we should all be a lot more comfortable talking about sex but you're starting another business yep at whatever age i can't remember what is it 65 65 65 yep um And, you know, doing something that's really great that's going to help your platform help hundreds of thousands of people.

55:49I love that. Thank you. Thank you. But I love what you just said, Damina, about every household structure of access to Make Love Not Porn. Yes. Because I have to tell you, so for the past few years, parents have been buying their teenage children subscriptions to Make Love Not Porn. They tell us, and I quote, I want my kids to see what happy, healthy, loving sexual relations actually look like. But in the past year, those messages have gotten more and more desperate. So mother wrote to us a couple of months ago and said, I've just discovered my 13-year-old son is watching Pornhub. I would much rather he watch Make Love Not Porn.

56:25I know he's underage. Can we figure out a workaround? Oh, I see. Of course, because you've got an age. Now, very importantly, at Make Love Not Porn, we are more legal than legal. We are for 18 and over. And also, by the way, we are 100 % human curated. Our creators watch every video from beginning to end. We publish them. No self-publishing or anything. That's amazing. I designed Make Love Not Porn with a female lens to be the safest place on the internet. But our policy is parental judgment absolutely trumps that. As a parent, you know what is right for your child. And so this mother has now gifted her son, a 30-year-old son, a subscription, which we hope will help.

57:03I got a wonderful email from a social worker some time back. And she wrote and she said, I work with families with developmental disabilities. And I'm working with a family where their teenage son was distressing everybody because he was accessing violent extreme porn on computers all around the house, leaving it open. I mean, everyone's horrified. And she said, it turns out that he hated this as much as everyone else did. He did not have the language skills to search for and find porn that he would prefer. She said, I sat down with the family and we agreed that if he keeps the watching to his bedroom, he can have a subscription to Make Love Not Porn.

57:45She said, three months later, I'm sending you a screenshot of the email he's just sent me, thanking me for your website. And she said, thank you for making safe sexual exploration wonderful for everybody. So yes, yeah, that's what needs to happen. that's amazing because I'm always amazed by parents. I did a great documentary for Channel 4 when I was pregnant with Chester. So it would have been 19 years ago because he's 18 now. And it was called Let's Talk Sex and it was about our sex education in the UK. Oh, fantastic, right. And we went to Holland with some kids from schools over here and took them to a sex ed lesson of 12-year-olds.

58:24And the kids that we were taking were 15. were so good. We went to a five-year-old's sex education lesson. It wasn't about sex. It was more about kind of giving somebody permission to be in your space. Who do you love? Your parents, your friends, your dog. What does love feel like? It was talking about emotion. And then they go up six, seven, eight, nine, ten. They just learn a little bit more incrementally each year. They layer it upon layer it. Here you have one hour and that's it. it's never kind of instilled and it's always done in a bit of embarrassing way and it's always taught by a sports teacher who you just you know you've played hockey with yesterday and suddenly they're talking to you about putting a condom on it's like I can't handle that at all but the interesting thing is is any of those parents that are going I don't want my child to have a sex education lesson I can tell you they are watching porn oh no no exactly and so Davina that is why I'm building the solution to this as well because we are currently raising funding for and and we've raised some with an equity crowdfunding campaign so we are designing and building a product i had in the pipeline for 10 years because parents began begging me for it from day one which is makelovenotporn.academy this is the zero to 18 and beyond sex education expansion of what we do and and importantly davina i'm not reinventing the wheel this is this is an aggregator hub for the best of the world's sex education content that's already out there.

59:51Because in all the time I've worked at MakeLoveNotPorn, I've built up a network of brilliant sex educators all around the world who face all the same problems I do. Their content gets blocked on Facebook, Instagram. Their accounts get suspended. You know, they're banned from advertising. And so what we're doing is we are building at MakeLoveNotPorn.academy effectively Google for sex education. Because Google's original mission statement was organise the world's information to make it universally accessible and useful. We are organizing the world's sex education information to make it universally accessible and useful.

1:00:23So we're bringing all of this together and we're going to aggregate and then make it searchable by age appropriateness. So if you're a parent freaking out going, oh my God, my six-year-old asked this, what do I say? We will give you the tools and content to have that conversation. If you are a teacher or a school, there are a ton of brilliant companies out there who've put together amazing curricula. There's one, by the way, right here in the UK called Life Lessons that's only four years old, but they've built a curriculum around peer-to-peer education. So it starts with they have a ton of videos of young people talking to their peers about dating, sex, relationships, etc.

1:01:01And the teacher plays that in the classroom. Then there's a whole discussion guide and a lesson plan coming off that. Great. And every school around the world should see this. Yes. There are a ton of amazing initiatives that are specifically for, or avoiding the gym teacher scenario, equally you'll be able to search by cultural sensibility. So we're going to have Christian sex ed, Muslim sex ed, Jewish sex ed. But the really important thing about this, Davina, is right now the people keeping sex ed out of schools and not talking to their children about it, they kind of don't know what would happen if they brought it in.

1:01:37They're just going to be really bad. In their heads they have this abstract call, Sodom and Gomorrah will ensue. So when I can build and launch the academy and I can show you the best of the world's sex education content all in one place, you can see for yourself at a glance how brilliant, informative, educational, healthy and non-threatening it is. And important, as I said, you pick and choose. You search by age, culture and by personal comfort level. You can decide what's right for your family. You can take that. What's right for your school, your classroom. and when I can do that I think that that is how I can help get sex ed into schools I'm building this outside the system to help get it into the system what's fascinating is that it's like one woman is you know potentially going to make a difference to hundreds millions well fingers crossed fingers crossed if I get the sport I know it's absolutely amazing I mean I think um And one of the things I was thinking about was around the sex ed thing and how interesting it was that the reason why I did this documentary, Let's Talk Sex, was because at the time our teenage pregnancy rate was incredibly high.

1:02:50But we had no sex education on the curriculum at all. and we went to Holland where it is literally ad infinitum from five weekly layering upon layering reminding reminding and they still had youth clubs so in the youth clubs once a month somebody would come down they'd get the old cucumbers out with the condoms you know I was I was 38 I'd forgotten that you have to pinch oh yes like I was like they won't put this on they went no you have to I was so embarrassed. I was like, I'm literally pregnant. Like I look like, yeah, you obviously messed that bit up. And I thought, I was like, so what's the average age of, you know, losing your virginity in Holland?

1:03:36And they were like 17. And it's the vast majority of the time they are in a committed relationship when it happens. And the parents know and it's, you know, it's a very healthy. I was like, what? How does that happen? But it's because it's not weird or funny. It's just spoken about in a completely normal way. Everywhere you go, social club, school. And do you know, Davina, the one good thing, and this is how things have changed since you shot that documentary 19 years ago. So 16 years ago, I was the first person to stand up on stage at TED and publicly identify that when we don't talk about sex, porn becomes sex education by default, not a good way.

1:04:17Today, you cannot move without falling into another headline going, oh my god kids learning about sex and porn now the one good thing about the widespread awareness of that is so i i had this amazing evening last month where a couple of mothers reached out to me in the u.s where i'm based from an organization called the national league of young men now i had no idea this organization existed until they reached out to me it's a nationwide non-profit in the u.s with chapters all around um america and it's an organization for mothers and high school teenage boys, i.e. 14 to 18 is what that means in America, with the aim of bringing these young men up to be upstanding, fine leaders of the community as adults.

1:04:58Okay, love this idea, mothers and sons together. And so these mothers reached out from the Greenwich, Connecticut chapter of National League of Young Men to ask me to come and talk to 50 high school teenage boys about Make Love Not Porn. So first of all, kudos to those mothers for going as part of the National League of Young Men's Programming. We want to have this. So they, you know, Santa Cafe brought me out to Greenwich, which is, you know, some way outside New York, to the home of one of these mothers who had a large living area screen I could, you know, put my presentation on. And 50, you know, 48-year-old boys, whom, and plus Zoom set up for a number who couldn't actually make it IRL, you know, but remotely.

1:05:41And first of all, they fed them, very good move, pizza, sushi, stuff them you know always a good idea before a couple hours you know um and then um the mother said to the boys right we're all going to another room in the house we know nothing we hear nothing we will know nothing about where you are cindy this is your opportunity make the most of it so um they closed the doors they left they left us to it and so i i um had a short presentation about why make love not porn why i started it everything we've learned since and i did something I don't normally do, which is I began it by going through every screen of the original makelovenotporn.com website that I presented at TED, which was Porn World versus Real World.

1:06:24It was kind of a public service announcement back in the day. Porn World, women have no hair down there. You know, Real World, some women like shaving or waxing, others don't. Some men like au naturel. It's entirely matter of personal taste. It's not obligatory. But I did that because when I wrote those slides, I wanted to get to young people. I used the language of porn. I was extremely graphic. And I thought, this is going to, you know, I want to show these young men that I'm going to go there. And they can go there too. Now, as you can imagine, you know, as the presentation kicked off, gales of laughter every time I said the word fuck.

1:06:56You know, lots of giggling and snorting. But the message landed. And then I opened it up to Q &A. And, of course, to begin with, deathly silence. Then one boy asked a question. That's great, isn't it? And then the floodgates opened. Wow. And honestly, Davina, it was adorable, OK, because the questions were all about insecurity to do with sex. You know, how do you do it right? You know, do girls really like really big cocks? You know, which is my chance to land the it's not what you've got, it's what you do with it message. Yes. But the reason I'm sharing this is because, to your point, so at one point one boy asked a question about condoms.

1:07:38and you know I was talking about the fact that at Make Love Not Porn we make carrying and using condoms a badge of good sexual values we have a we have a tag for videos that use condoms which is condom hot you know and they're condom hot because condoms don't get away of great sex they can be an integral part of great sex and another boy said something like but but you know what about like plan b and the pill and you know bear in mind I'm based in America and right now we have a complete shit show playing out America and so I just burst out with have you seen the political climate in this country that I thought no you're teenage boys of course you haven't you know but but but that made me that made me to go this is your responsibility you know we are in a situation where it's very likely there'll be a federal ban on abortion it's like there'll be a federal ban on contraception girls and women are having their power taken away from them as we speak You carry condoms.

1:08:31You use condoms. Always, always, always. So I was able to really land that message in this audience. How were they about that? They really took it on board. I mean, what was wonderful about this was that there were so many things they wanted to know. And I just talk about them completely frankly. Yes. And so the mothers reached out again and said, we now have a group of mothers who'd love to talk to you. And so a couple of weeks later, I did a Zoom call with their mothers. This is great. Which was great because then I could talk about how to talk to their sons about porn and sex. And I think, you know, the message I really like our listeners to take away from this as well, Davina, is, you know, the issue with, you know, a lot of current sex ed in schools, whatever, is it's all about the bad things that can happen.

1:09:16You know, it's about cons, whatever. It's so important to talk about pleasure. You know, we all enjoy this. Oh, my God. You know, when you talk to children, talk about the fact this is a wonderful thing. You know, that's why it's great to wait, make sure that your first experience is with somebody that you're going to really enjoy it as much as you can with, etc. Talk about pleasure. I always think that masturbating is so important to wang on about, wang, wank on about. But because it is something that you can do alone. Nobody needs to kind of know. So nobody's going to tell anybody about it because you're the only person there.

1:09:57It is safe. You can explore yourself. It's free entertainment. You're not going to get pregnant. And you can... So talking about masturbating from a relatively early... I mean, we're always kind of going, don't do that, don't touch that. Or if kids are... There's a lot of shame around... obviously you've got to be careful because they can't be masturbating in a public place or there are boundaries right but at the same time you can set a boundary without shaming someone around it exactly Davina because and again this is why with the academy I'm trying to get sex education as far upstream as possible because I have a friend who has a five-year-old daughter and her daughter began masturbating when she was three and having a high old time and obviously loving it my friend has been terrific because what she has basically educated her daughter on is yep it's wonderful you know this is great fun and what we do is this is private me time and so we do it in our own space in our own bedroom you know we don't do it other people around but it's absolutely wonderful and you can do it all you want in the privacy of your own room and that's a really healthy way to address this that and you're absolutely right that happens very early on and parents who are lost for words don't know what to do can do the wrong thing that starts as you say embedding shame around that straight away.

1:11:18I'm happy to report also that I have over the years advised many of my girlfriends on the best first vibrator to give to their daughter. Can I ask you, which one have you been recommending? Right. So actually, and again, like I said, got to find the one that's right for you. But I am a very big fan, this is my personal favourite, of the Lilo GG2 vibrator. I have it in pink. and why is that good well i like it because and again you know masturbation it's so interesting because it's all about how you like to do it and incidentally this is why our solo videos on make love not porn are great because you know most people never get to see somebody else masturbate we show you that in the real world and you pick up tips and tricks from where other people are you know what one man said to us i suddenly realized i could be having so much more fun masturbating when i watch other men on make love not porn um but so in my case um i like clitoral stimulation you know um i am i don't need anything inside me just pressure on my clit right and the gg2 gets me from naught to 60 in like seconds i'm obviously accompanied by whatever i'm fantasizing about at the same time but um it's it's a very powerful vibrator i i and again you know this is mine experience not other women's but i am not a fan of there are a number of vibrators that are about suction on the clit those do not work for me you know i just can't get them to well i i've i've heard and um i've i've used that oh yeah um and i feel like sometimes if you were to use it too often you'd go a bit numb right and right actually you don't ever want that you want that it to stay very sensitive no no absolutely i'm sure the numbness is temporary but by the way not But I just can't get that to work for me.

1:13:06So I like strong vibratory pressure on my clitoris and the Lilo GG2 totally delivers. Is that the general consensus that most women need to have their clitoris stimulated in order to reach orgasm? Because I don't know many women that have the inside. Right. So actually, and again, I say this from 16 years of email stimming, not porn. No, not necessarily. No. So there are women, and I'm deeply in this of them, who can come from nipple stimulation alone. I mean, that is the thing, by the way, women and men. We actually have a video on Make Love Not Porn of a man who can get erect and ejaculate just by playing with his nipples.

1:13:48Amazing. Fascinating. And women have written to me saying that that's... So there are people who can come from stimulation on other erogenous zones alone. There are absolutely people who can come from G-spot stimulation. I have not managed to make that work myself again but there are plenty of women who can again we're all different when we email our members at Make Love Porn with themed collections of videos we have a ton of squirting videos which is real is a thing but equally we are always very careful to say some people can do this others can't and it doesn't mean anything either way It's just we're all built differently and we all enjoy different things.

1:14:34We do not have a socially acceptable vocabulary for real world sex. The language of porn has rushed in to fill that gap. And that is not a good thing for a number of reasons, not least of which is that as you would expect in a male dominated industry, the language of porn is predominantly male generated. So the person who coined the term finger blasting didn't have a vagina. Because if you hear the term finger blasting, you want to cross your legs. At least I do. Can I just ask you? I'm really sorry. I've never even heard of finger blasting. Oh, OK. Yeah. OK. And trust me, you know. Savage. Yeah, savage.

1:15:08Yeah. The person who coined the term getting her ass railed, never got his ass railed. Yeah. Pounding, banging, slamming, wrecking, destroying. Wrecking and destroying are horrible. Yep. Yep. No. And that's why when, you know, I mean, I find it ironic that, you know, my lovely young gentleman will message me going, can't wait to wreck you. and I'm going, that doesn't sound like the way you want it to land. But literally, that is what the kids are saying these days. Those are terms created by people who do not possess the soft internal tissue to which those things are being done. So at Make Love Not Porn, we are building a new language for real-world sex.

1:15:43We tag our videos with tags like juicy, succulent. Our tag for oral is downtown. Our tag for anal is deliberately derived from the recipient's experience of anal. We tag our anal sex videos, ow, ow, ow, hey now. And we're doing that because we want our members to take this language and use it beyond our platform in the real world. Because this is language you can use to talk about sex without worrying about being overheard in the bar or the coffee shop. And it's language you can use to talk about what you want to do in bed in a celebratory, positive and gender equal way. And we are using our tags to reframe how people think about things.

1:16:20So, you know, as I said earlier, porn unfortunately makes men believe that sex is entirely dick-centric. You know, how hard, how long. in the real world men are frequently not erect or semi-erect you know these days if that happens men think there's something wrong with them which it absolutely isn't so on make love not porn we have a tag for those of our videos where the man is you know not erect or semi-erect that tag is derived from the world of ice cream we call those videos soft serve because soft serves are yummy and delicious. I mean, it's messed up for kids nowadays. I feel quite sorry for them and trying to navigate their way through it.

1:17:01And add to all of that is the shame. What country do you think is doing it right? Nowhere. Nowhere. And I say that conflict, Damina, because so we're a global platform. I speak all around the world. I can tell you, even in Scandinavia, you know, where, yes, they absolutely haven't in school, you know, but nevertheless, everyone's watching porn there too. And, and honestly, I mean, this is why I created Make Love Not Porn, real world sex videos, because, you know, it doesn't matter what the theory is through books and comic strips and videos and courses. Porn is where everyone goes to see it actually happening.

1:17:41And, you know, until we came along with the real world version, you know, porn is the only place we can see people actually having sex. If you are a parent and you have a 13-year-old son like that lady was, should a parent, if it is going to be for her son, should she be transparent and say to you, I'd like to get this for my son, you know, I am permitting him to... Is that OK? They absolutely can. They don't have to, by the way, because what they can do is you can gift subscriptions from your account. They can do that if they don't want to engage with us. But we would love them to because we like to keep tabs on how much this is happening because it's a really good data point for all the things that need to happen around this.

1:18:26Especially for the academy. Yeah, exactly. And by the way, we welcome all feedback as well. We'd love people to tell us what they think, any improvements we can make, all of that too. How do you get your porn? um well i like any entrepreneur um built a platform for the product that i wanted to use was missing in the marketplace so i built make love not porn because i want to watch how the world makes love you know i want to see you know the real world sex we're all having and by the way you know to this day at a weekly team meeting where our curators debrief us on the newest videos we will go wow did not know that was a thing um you know as the other thing So do people send it to you then?

1:19:07People submit videos of themselves having sex in the real world. And they go through, as I said, a 100 % human curated process because there's no self-publishing. You know, we watch every video from beginning to end. We approve or reject and we publish it. So if a couple are listening to this and they think, I want to be on Make Love Not Porn, is there a place on the website? Yeah, but if you just go and click on share and then that's where you can submit your video. And a couple of things about that. I foresaw the creator economy 16 years ago, long before OnlyFans. I designed our revenue share model to democratise access to income.

1:19:45So basically, our members pay to subscribe, rent and stream social sex videos. Half that revenue goes to the contributors, the MakeLoveNotPorn stars. but importantly our make love not porn stars tell us that sharing their real world sex on make love not porn is as transformative for them as sharing everything else on social media has been for the world at large so the people who share their masturbation videos and by the way the vast majority had never filmed themselves doing anything sexual before ever they're doing for us because they believe in our social mission so our solo make love not porn stars say that sharing this very intimate act made them love themselves more it enhanced their sexual sense of self sexual self-esteem couples tell us it transformed their relationship because when you decide to film yourselves having sex you have to talk about it and when you talk about it doesn't matter how long you've been together the conversation goes places it's never ever gone before people write and say we thought we were open doing this just took our relationship to a whole new level so it's as transformative our contributors as for the people who benefit from this privileged glimpse into other people's real world sex lives.

1:20:50I can't help but feel it's kind of a really nice, kind of more loving version of OnlyFans. You know what I mean? Where it's a something... No, it is because the difference between us and OnlyFans is OnlyFans is performative. People are performing for fans. And on Make Love Not Porn, you are simply sharing the sex you have anyway. Our members feel privileged to get that glimpse into actual, real world sex lives. I think one of the really appealing things about you and the way that you talk about it is that it's very matter of fact. It's not like, oh, and you know what I mean? It is just sex and sex is enjoyable and we should all be enjoying it.

1:21:34And if we talk more and we're just honest and open about it, we all probably would. Exactly. And I have seen this a little bit in my own, you know, I talk quite a lot about the menopause. Yeah. And there is this great woman who has a shop that sells sex toys and lubes and things like that and she is called joe divine and uh she's called sam talk sex on instagram and i met her through the menopause chat because when we did the documentary we went to go and meet her to talk about um vaginal atrophy when you get dry in your vagina and taking um vaginal estrogen which by the way for anybody that's watching or listening, is now known to be 100 % safe.

1:22:22You can take it for your entire life. Excellent. It is only topical. If you don't want to take any kind of other HRT, if your dry vagina is bothering you, take vaginal oestrogen. It's got no side effects apart from reopening your shop. And she's great to talk to. She's, like you, an educator. Excellent. She's very keen. She talks a lot about lubes. Oh, my God. Yeah. Lube, lube. I adore lube. Yeah. Everything goes better with lube. Right. There is no such thing as too much lube. Never. Lube, lube, lube, lube. All the way. I have it on my nightstand within, you know, a moment's reach. Yeah, absolutely.

1:22:59But it's interesting how many women go, never use lube. You think, who's not using lube? Yeah, no. I mean, I got an email from a teenage girl, again, years ago, saying, you know, I'm a bit dry and, you know, I want to use lube, but my boyfriend thinks I should get really wet like all those girls in porn. And unfortunately, I think that's factored into, oh, I should be able to naturally gush with, you know. And actually, no, you shouldn't. And by the way, especially, you know, with that teenage girl, if a boyfriend's not approaching this in the right kind of way, zero foreplay, et cetera. No, no, bring on the lube.

1:23:34And what I always say to women is, you know, even if, you know, again, if you're straight and the guy's thinking that way, the moment he feels the difference lube makes is going to be all about it worry not she's very particular about talking about the type of lube that you get um because there are certain um ingredients in lube that can aggravate a vagina and there are ones that are good for it so do be really careful if anybody's listening to make sure that you get the right one yep um for you but um what was interesting was of all my menopause chats that i do with all these different doctors around you know hot flashes and perimenopause and the menopause and all of that my sex talks the talk the ones where we talk about sex and how to reignite were always the most popular and I think if we can just start talking about it in a non-sensationalist way it's just normal it's just a part of life no no exactly we have to break down this prudishness and embarrassment and shame in society generally.

1:24:37And it is interesting, I think, that there is a wave of keenness from everybody to try and start a revolution, a sexual revolution, for us to be able to come together. Literally. Literally, yeah.

1:24:55Yeah, it's really interesting. I just want to ask you, what are your hopes for for the future? what do you want I mean obviously the academy yeah so so bear in mind um you know I'm going to answer that question in terms of the future that I see coming on the one hand because I live in New York um you know I'm based in the US where our freedoms are being rolled back as we speak especially you know um reproductive rights.org the government website was taken down like the moment Donald Trump got into the White House. Things are very bad for women and girls in all of this area. But, you know, I'm going to say what I've been saying to everybody else, which is it is only when things get as bad as they are currently, break down completely, that is what allows new forms and new models of resistance to emerge that never would have otherwise.

1:25:50So in my case, I want to scale Make Love Not Porn to be ultimately the Facebook of social sex. I mean, not necessarily because Facebook's not great either, but scale-wise, you know, because our mission ultimately is to help end rape culture globally. Now, that may sound like a very big mission, but we have 12 years of proof of concept at a micro level. We help end rape culture by doing something very simple that nevertheless nobody else is doing. We end rape culture by showing you how wonderful great consensual communicative sex is in the real world we eroticize consent yes our real world sex videos role model good sexual values and good sexual behavior and here's the key point we make all of that aspirational versus what you see in porn and popular culture one man left a comment saying this video makes me want to be a better man in the bedroom and in life we can do that so so i want to help end rape culture globally well I'm on board excellent yeah there are so many things about you Cindy that I have learnt today that I have made me love you even more oh my god if that's even possible but I admire you so much because it's not easy talking it's almost easier to talk as an extreme sexual minx you know the girl that's having sex with a thousand guys you know she's being applauded you know it's harder I think doing what you're doing um but what you're doing is so important and I just want to thank you for that and thank you for being a voice and a shining light and let's get the message out there and magnify and amplify you as much as possible but I really I've loved talking to you today thank Thank you for coming here.

1:27:45Well, I'm very touched and moved to hear you say that and thank you for giving this opportunity to share what I'm doing with you and your audience. I'm very, very grateful for that. Round of applause, everybody. Fuck me, you're amazing. Well, Cindy Gallop did not disappoint. I mean, I knew she was going to be good, but she was knockout. And I don't know about you, but I just feel like I want to amplify her message everywhere I go. She deserves, well, I'm not going to tell you what you have to do, but she deserves my support. I want to help her. She is brilliant, isn't she? And that academy and the idea that there could be a healthy way for our children to learn about intimacy and making the correct decisions and with that knowledge and that power, they might wait and lead healthier sexual lives.

1:28:42Oh, wouldn't that be great? Wow, so much to think about.