EP. 202 — P*rn and Social Sex with Cindy Gallop (Re-Release)

Jameela Intro [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of I Weigh with Jameela Jamil, a podcast that has absolutely no fucking time for shame. Now I’m re-releasing an episode. Don’t Turn Off. It is an amazing episode. It’s also a very important episode. It’s one of the best interviews I feel like I’ve ever gotten to experience because my guest is just such a riot. Her name is Cindy Gallop, and she’s a legend and an extraordinary feminist, a very emboldening and empowering woman who is who has just such a creative and and galvanizing mind. And she’s so funny and frank and brilliant on this episode. It was just such a fucking breath of fresh air, and so many people enjoyed it when I first put it out, but it was a while ago, and I know a lot of you are new to this podcast, and I want you to hear it, not only because I think it’s a very important subject, but also because I’m making an announcement. I, Jameela Jamil, I’m entering into the world of porn. You heard me. But I’m not gonna be on camera because I have no skills sexually. Otherwise, I’d love to, but I no one wants to see that, unfortunately. But I would like to be a part of helping Cindy Gallop, my guest, who has her own company called Make Love Not Porn, which is pro porn, pro sex, but pro knowing the difference. I would like to help her create more of the safe and diverse and respectful and consensual pornography that she makes. And it’s not just women who write to her saying, “Thank you so much for this pornography,” it’s a lot of men who also find that the barbaric nature of so many mainstream porn sites are deeply offputting, and not what they’re actually looking for. People are looking to get turned on, not just shocked again and again. So much of it is like shock culture that can help make a pornography video go viral and and get attention rather than just turn people on. And that leads to quite a problematic culture around sex, especially when kids are looking at this stuff and teenagers. Pornography can be a big part of shaping someone’s sexuality. And I understand that there’s many people who just want to get rid of it altogether, but I don’t necessarily feel like that’s the way. There are things that pornography does that that can serve people, and and it can be a lovely part of someone’s life and a very healthy part of someone’s life. But is what we’re watching actually healthy? Are the people being treated properly? Are we putting out a safe message? And that’s what Make Love Not Porn does so excellently. And so in order to further Cindy’s mission to create this kind of safe and radically inclusive space and social media for real world sex, she’s raising money. I’m joining as an investor. And if you wanted to participate, then with even $100, you could also join the investment. She’s doing a sort of big crowdfunder, a community round, so that all the people that want to invest in the future of this are making it happen together and growing it together, and also therefore sending a big fuck off message to all these pornography companies who put out such endangering content that actually there is a movement of people who don’t want to see this shit anymore, that there is a way to show pornography that is safer and better and less divisive and more respectful and frankly, more civilized to watch in this world. And I think that’s an important message for them to receive. So on my social media, I will link to where you would be able to invest if you want to, if you can at this time. But either way, this episode is really good at destigmatizing certain parts of pornography, but also discussing the things that all of us, not all of us, but many of us feel uncomfortable about, but also feel shamed about feeling uncomfortable about. We address so much, we really get into the weeds of pornography, and I just wanted to let you know the thing about investing because I want you to know how much I care about this. And it was actually during this chat that I realized that I wanted to work with Cindy Gallop. I wanted to help her on her journey and in her vision. I am I am not someone who consumes a lot of pornography myself, so I was very out of touch with this world. And, I feel like I learned so much from her during this episode, and whether or not I end up being someone who watches pornography, I just want to know that the world my friends are bringing kids into has a safe space for people to go and get turned on on the internet without seeing really traumatic things or learning traumatic things, so anyway, love you lots. Have a listen to the episode, if anything just because of how incredibly amusing and fantastic and wonderful and extraordinary this guest is. Her name is Cindy Gallop. Follow her everywhere. She’s the fucking best and let me know what you think. Enjoy, Cindy.

Jameela [00:04:43] Cindy Gallop, welcome to I Weigh. What a legend. How on earth are you?

Cindy [00:04:49] I’m fantastic and thrilled to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Jameela [00:04:53] Oh my goodness. I have wanted to meet you for at least ten years.

Cindy [00:04:58] Oh my God.

Jameela [00:04:59] Yeah, it’s been a while, and I, I was thinking about your life and how beautifully self preservational and, like there’s a real sense of autonomy to you and life choices that don’t fit into the, I’m sure, the standards that were set for you when you were being brought up. And I can’t help but link that way of life to how well you feel. Do you think I’m right?

Cindy [00:05:28] Do you know, I think you absolutely are because I am somebody who’s never wanted to be married. I’ve never wanted children.

Jameela [00:05:36] Same. Same.

Cindy [00:05:36] I adore being single. I cannot wait to die alone. I date younger men casually, recreationally for sex. I’m deliberately public about all of that because we don’t have enough role models who are living lives that are not the conventional ones that prove you can do that and still be happy. And honestly, I am one of the happiest people I know. And, you know, it’s it’s not even just that I don’t miss, you know, not having a husband or children, I am ecstatic because I don’t have a husband and children. And and yes, you’re absolutely right. I think that contributes a lot to my ability to feel happier and more at ease in my living situation than many other people.

Jameela [00:06:15] God, it felt like dopamine shooting, not only into my brain but into my lungs, hearing you talk like that genuinely because I just keep being patronized by people around me. And God knows everyone’s had me harp on about this shit on this podcast before, but I do not want to get married. I do not want to have children. I feel very satisfied with my own company. I’m currently in a wonderful relationship, but so many people keep telling me I’ll change my mind or keep pressuring me to alter my belief system. And my belief system comes from such a fundamental place within me, and it’s so hard to meet, as you said, role models who honor that same belief in yourself and belief in your ability to trust your own gut. You are in your 60s, and you are not in a long term relationship. You don’t have children. A man would still be called a bachelor.

Cindy [00:07:08] Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Jameela [00:07:09] In your same exact position, you know, which is not to state the obvious, but it is important and I think it is worthwhile. And I think the last two years has been really interesting in the way that it has kind of turned everyone’s ideals and ideas like upside down. You know, people who thought they wanted to be alone suddenly really felt the the panging loneliness of the pandemic and now would like to either live with roommates or pair up with someone. I’ve definitely seen that amongst some of my friends and other people are like, “Fuck this, fuck this. I don’t want to be trapped with anyone and I don’t want to have kids.” And I really, like I lost my freedom for two years, and I really felt all the things that I haven’t done in my life. And if I go in quickly because, you know, we’re all in our mid-thirties now, if I go and quickly have a baby because I’m supposed to because of the quote unquote clock. Well, and that’s real, because of the fucking clock, then I’m never going to get to do those things, so it’s kind of split the, the spectrum of people that I know and what they want. And you don’t feel like you’re allowed to say, “I would like to be alone.” Was it Marlene Dietrich? Someone like that just said, “I want to be, I want to be alone.” And and I felt that in my bones when I was a kid. And obviously, it, you know, I imagine you have a wonderful social life, and, I mean, do you? Do you, do you, are you particularly sociable?

Cindy [00:08:29] Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, I have tons of friends. I mean, I’m lucky enough to have, you know, a number of very good, very close friends I can confide in. And, you know, and, and I’m very close to it. And then I have loads of friends, everywhere, all around the world, so I am, you know, I don’t feel any lack of social life whatsoever. And that makes me all the happier when I retreat into solitude. And in fact, I have to say that when the pandemic struck, you know, I was in lockdown in New York, in this apartment for one and a half years.

Jameela [00:09:01] Christ. Yeah.

Cindy [00:09:02] And to be frank, separate to, obviously, the appalling tragedy that was happening, especially in the city, it wasn’t tough because my, I’m a natural solitary. My idea of bliss has always been to be in my apartment on my own, with nowhere to go and no one to see, and I got to do it for one and a half years. It’s fantastic.

Jameela [00:09:22] Where have you been all my life?

Cindy [00:09:26] Haha!

Jameela [00:09:26] Because I’ve been made to feel like a sociopath for feeling all of those similar things. I can’t tell you what it means to me, but it’s honestly very, very, very rare to feel really understood. Again, like, that’s no disrespect to anyone who’s having kids, whose had kids, it’s just about the right to make an individual choice, regardless of your gender, regardless of your ethnic background. You and I, both being Asian growing up, you know, amongst influences that are so built around the woman being a homemaker. And you are really a, I mean, beyond a career woman. Your your CV is just bonkers. And I think one of my favorite things about your CV, to go back to referencing someone who just follows their heart, is that you were in your 40s. I think 45, was it? When you were just like, “Fuck this, I don’t want to work for other people. I would like to pursue my own vision.” What happened when you were in your 40s that made you just think, because again, that is not a time when anyone, especially women, are encouraged to change lanes.

Cindy [00:10:31] So I basically, as you say, I turned 45 back in 2005.

Jameela [00:10:35] Yeah.

Cindy [00:10:36] And I kind of had my very own personal midlife crisis in the sense that I’d always thought of 45 as kind of a midlife point. Obviously, by the way, on the happy assumption one does, in fact, live to be 90. Fingers crossed. But in the couple of years running up to it, I’d always thought on one’s 45th birthday is the moment when you should pause, take stalk, reflect and review. What have I been? Where am I going? So on February 1st, 2005, I dully did that. You know, I went, “Oh my God, I’ve just worked 16 years for the same advertising agency.” By the way, wonderful agency loved them to death, Bartle Bogel Hegarty, BBH, you know, can’t say enough nice things about them. But I went, “Wow, I think it might be time to do something different.” And then the problem was, I haven’t the faintest idea what. So vast amounts of thought and angsting ensued, and eventually I went, if I want to review every single option open to me for what is effectively the second half of my life, maybe the best thing to do is to put myself on the market very publicly and go, “Okay guys, here I am, what have you got?” And see what comes. So I took a massive leap into the unknown. I resigned as chairman of BBH New York in the summer of 2005 without a job to go to. And it was honestly the best bloody thing I ever did in my life because I am now evangelical about working for yourself. Too many people make the mistake of thinking that a job is the safe option. It’s not because in a job, you’re at the complete mercy of management changes, industry downturns, marketplace dynamics. I say to people, whose hands would you rather place your future in? Those in the large corporate entity who at the end of the day doesn’t give a shit about you or somebody who will always have your best interests at heart, i.e. you?

Jameela [00:12:30] I love that I agree. I fully agree. I’ve been self-employed since I was about 20, maybe 19.

Cindy [00:12:38] Fantastic.

Jameela [00:12:39] I’ve always wanted to just follow my own whims. I’m very whimy. Whimy woman. And I’m very, very, very bad with authority. And I’m very bad with feeling as though my freedom is constrained. I think partially that comes for me from growing up in a family full of, you know, I’m fully South Asian, and so watching women just be constantly oppressed.

Cindy [00:13:04] Yeah.

Jameela [00:13:04] Within that family, I think I kind of, I was what I think some people refer to as like the lightning bolt child where I was like, “No, no, I actually don’t have what it takes to survive that. I’ll die.” And so okay, so so you took that huge risk, and what was the next step? How did we get you from there to here?

Cindy [00:13:25] Basically everything in my life and career has happened by accident. I’ve never consciously, intentionally planned anything.

Jameela [00:13:30] Yeah.

Cindy [00:13:30] I’m a big believer in serendipity. And so, you know, in this instance, when I took that big leap, I mean, I was lucky. I had quite a high profile in the advertising industry. And so a ton of jobs and opportunities came to me. Many of which I’ve never thought of myself. And I thought, “Okay, I still don’t know what I want to do. I’m going to be employment slut. I’m going to talk to everybody. I’m going to take every phone call. I’m going to do every meeting, no preconceived notions.” And so I embark on this fascinating exploratory that was as good for telling me what I didn’t want to do as what I did want to do. So I would go and do an interview or a meeting, and I come out and I go, “Okay, so now I know in 50 million years, never want to do that.” And so I ended up organically, you know, while I was having all these meetings, I was consulting and speaking, and I enjoyed doing that. And so I began kind of working for myself organically. And then basically a series of accidents led me to, you know what I’ve now been working on for the past 13 years, which is my venture, Make Love Not porn. And and that was a total accident because I never set out to do that.

Jameela [00:14:40] How?

Cindy [00:14:42] So, I date younger men, and by the way, that was also a total accident. I didn’t set out to date younger men. Back when I was running the ad agency, and this would have been something like 20 years ago, we were asked to pitch from online dating brand. And in advertising, when you pitch for a client’s account, you have to experience the client’s product and an entire competitive landscape. So we all had to online date and this was 20 years ago. And none of us at the ad agency on the pitch team ever had because it wasn’t a thing back then. And my team were all, you know, they were already dating, married, living with, they went online as fake personas, created false identities. I was single. I thought, “Okay, I have to do this for business reasons. Why not do this for real? Why not find out what this whole online dating thing is all about?” So I posted my profile across a bunch of sites, was very honest about everything, including my age. I, much like surprise, I got an avalanche of responses, which was very good for the ego, but even more to my surprise, the vast majority of those responses were from younger men. And I suddenly realized I was every young guy’s fantasy: attractive, older woman high flying career, didn’t want to settle down, didn’t didn’t want margin kids. And I thought, “Gosh, hadn’t thought about this dating strategy, but works for me.” So I began dating younger men and have been doing so very happily ever since. And and so there I was dating younger men when I began realizing that I was encountering an issue that would never have crossed my mind if I had not encountered it very intimately and personally. I realized I was experiencing what happens when two things converge and I stress the dual convergence, Jameela, because most people think it’s only one thing. I realized I was experiencing what happens when today’s total freedom of access to hardcore porn online meets our society’s equally total reluctance to talk openly and honestly about sex. It’s when those two things collide. Porn becomes sex education by default in not a good way. So I found myself encountering a number of sexual behavioral means in bed going, “Whoa, I know where that behavior’s coming from.” I thought, “Gosh, if I’m experiencing this, other people must be as well.” I didn’t know that because this is 14, 15 years ago.

Jameela [00:17:02] No one was talking about it. Yeah.

Cindy [00:17:05] No one was talking about it, and so this is just me in isolation as a naturally action oriented person going, “Oh, I’m going to do something about this.” So 13 years ago, I put up with no-money, a tiny, clunky website at MakeLoveNotPorn.com that in its original iteration was just words. Porn world versus real world. Here’s what happens in the porn world, here’s what happens in the real world. I have the opportunity to launch Make Love Not Porn at TED back in 2009, I became the only TED speaker to say the words “come on my face” on the TED stage.

Jameela [00:17:40] Hahaha!

Cindy [00:17:40] The talk went viral as a result, and it drove this extraordinary global response to my tiny website that I had never anticipated. And I realized I’d uncovered a huge global social issue.

Jameela [00:17:54] And a gap in the market.

Cindy [00:17:56] A gigantic gap in the market, even bigger today. And so that was what made me feel that I now had a responsibility to take Make Love Not Porn forwards in a way that would make it much more far reaching, helpful and effective. And so I turned it into the business that is today MakeLoveNotPorn.tv which, basically is designed to address the fact that, we are as our tagline says pro sex pro porn pro knowing the difference because the issue isn’t porn, the issue is we don’t talk about sex in the real world. If we did, amongst a host of other benefits, people would then be able to bring a real world mindset when they view what is simply performative produced entertainment. And so I basically turned Make Love Not Porn into the world’s first and only user generated, human curated social sex video sharing platform. We are what Facebook would be if it allowed you to socially, sexually, self express which sadly doesn’t. If porn is the Hollywood blockbuster movie, Make Love Not Porn is the documentary. We’re a unique window onto the funny, messy, loving, beautiful, wonderful ways we all have sex in the real world. And in that sense, we are literally sex education through real world demonstration.

Jameela [00:19:13] I think it’s wonderful. And when I was making this documentary years ago for the BBC, it was about specifically the impact of pornography on children because children are watching pornography, they’re being able to access it on their phones, on their friend’s phones, on their parent’s computers sometimes, and that is their first ever encounter. Like some of us are dirty pictures, I think I had the one minute preview that would turn up on channel like 305. And I would wait at 10 p.m., 11 p.m. and midnight to catch just like a glimpse of of whatever sex was, when I was, like, a single digit child. And that was my first understanding. But I’m very lucky in that even though I had sex late, I was able to, and so is most of my generation, able to learn about sex via having sex, doing sexual things. And obviously that’s never perfect. You have young people who also still don’t talk about sex, who don’t know anything about consent, but it is petrifying the impact on the brain of your first sexual experience as being mainstream pornography. Because mainstream pornography is, in the run up to this interview, I was like, because since that documentary, I just never, ever looked at porn after having researched it because I saw so many disgusting things that I literally threw my laptop in the River Thames.

Cindy [00:20:38] Yeah.

Jameela [00:20:38] As in like if you go to embankment at the bottom of the River Thames, my laptop MacBook, 13 inch air. Haha! Because I couldn’t, I was so disturbed by what I’d seen. And again, I’m pro pornography, but I’m absolutely not pro what so much of pornography has become. And I want to be careful not to kink shame, but there is such an abundance of an abuse of women and a humiliation of women and the language used about women specifically that terrifies me. And I remember this kid, and we had to cut this out from the documentary, but this 12 year old kid, this boy put his hand up and he was he asked so innocent, so innocently, “Ms., if I rape a girl, will she start to enjoy it the way that they do in porn?”

Cindy [00:21:26] Oh my God.

Jameela [00:21:27] And it was, it honestly like sent shivers through all of us. And of course, to protect him because he didn’t know any better and it just would have been so inappropriate to put that on TV we cut it out. But, I, I couldn’t get, I’ve never been able to get that moment out of my head.

Cindy [00:21:43] So, Jameela, this is exactly what I decided to Make Love Not Porn to solve. And by the way, because we are an utterly unique venture, we have an utterly unique capability. We have the power to change people’s sexual attitudes and behavior for the better in a way that nothing else does. And so our mission ultimately in Make Love Not Porn is to end rape culture. And we do that by doing something incredibly 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. Our social sex videos role model good sexual values and good sexual behavior. And, and this is the really key part, we make all of that aspirational versus what you see in porn in popular culture. And I’ll tell you something that is, has been very interesting for me to observe, which is I decide to make love, not porn, to be fully diverse and inclusive. Yeah, we are for women, men, trans, non-binary, you know, our members, our contributors called our make love not porn stars span the full, glorious spectrum of gender and sexuality, but make love not porn is especially a revelation to men. We probably get many more emails from men than anybody else because we are something that men will not find anywhere else on the internet, which is a space where they can be and they can see other men being open, emotional, and vulnerable around sex. And when men discover us, they absolutely love that. There was a picture of a wonderful Twitter exchange a few months back between two men. One man had tweeted jokingly, “Hey guys, I’ve got this really weird porn kink fetish. Can you make some recommendations? I want to watch porn where people are honest, loving, loyal and decent and really nice to each other. Hit me up with the hottest links please.” And another man replied to him and he said, “There’s this website called Make Love Not Porn where you can see real couples fucking and making love. I watched a video where the woman said to her man during their lovemaking, I love you.” Sincerely, I cried when I heard that.” And by the way, men write to us and tell us they cry when they watch our videos because they’ve never seen anything like, you know, the real world, emotion, love and intimacy and feelings that our real world sex videos celebrate that you will not see anywhere else on the net.

Jameela [00:24:15] I’m so glad you’re here. I have so many things that I want to talk to you about because in the lead up to your podcast, I ended up watching more porn in the last couple of days. And I’m obviously gonna throw this laptop in another river. I’m in Berlin, so I guess it’ll be easy to find one, but, I have thoughts and theories, and they’re not fully formed, but I’m just going to try them out on you because I think you’re just so great. So what is stressful to me about the fact that even since 2013, or whenever I made that documentary, I would have thought we’ve had so many conversations in the MeToo movement and conversations about things like Make Love Not Porn and the idea of more like, woman friendly pornography, etc. that conversation has definitely risen. The conversation of consent has definitely risen, and it feels as though places like Pornhub, it’s gotten worse. Now it’s incest. Naughty daughter, naughty step girl, naughty sister gets punished like it’s more and more of like, more rape culture even than what I saw in 2013. My first question is, do you think that’s a backlash to the progress of the conversation around consent?

Cindy [00:25:24] Well, so what I would say Jameela, is what you’re talking about stems from a couple of places that are not obvious to people. And I’ll explain what I mean by that, the first is that so I get called up a lot by journalists who want to do an interview about porn, and the journalist will say something like, “So, Cindy, do you feel that porn objectifies women?” And I will reply that I think any industry dominated by men at the top and throughout the industry inevitably produces output that is objectifying and objectionable offensive to women. And I will then point them to the commercial advertising breaks in the Super Bowl because my industry advertising is as male dominated as every other industry in popular culture, movies, TV, porn. And that’s the problem. And I actually have an art project that I’ve talked about for years that I’m dying to do. I haven’t able to get the funding I need to do it because I have to be able to pay a photographer models. But I’m going to do this one day, and by the way I’ve no shortage of models, because when people hear about this, they volunteer. I want to take the home page of one of the big mainstream tube porn sites, you know, Pornhub, Youporn, Redtube, and I want to recreate it and replicate it by reshooting every video thumbnail with the genders flipped because nothing would demonstrate the ludicrousness of the male lens in porn and the male centricity of mainstream porn more than that. And by the way, I don’t know how graphic I’m allowed to get on your podcast.

Jameela [00:26:58] You can get as graphic as you like.

Cindy [00:27:00] Right, okay, terrific because

Jameela [00:27:01] Yeah.

Cindy [00:27:03] I mean, feel free to edit out anything you don’t want to, you know, that’s fine.

Jameela [00:27:06] It’s all staying in, Cindy

Cindy [00:27:07] But, but, so I’ve done a version of this in the past, I’ve trolled porn sites on Twitter. Okay, so, for example, Brazzers will tweet a video of a blowbang, and I’ll go, “Hey, Brazzers”

Jameela [00:27:21] Sorry, a what?

Cindy [00:27:22] A video of a blowbang.

Jameela [00:27:24] I don’t know what a blowbang is.

Cindy [00:27:26] Okay, count yourself lucky. I think I think a lot of our listeners will, and as I go on to explain what I mean, I think you’ll get it because I tweet back at them and I go, “Hey, brothers, I want to see a female version of that. I want to see a lick bang. I want to see a naked man on his knees grinning with all around him a whole bunch of women naked from the waist down shoving their pussies in his face.”

Jameela [00:27:49] Right.

Cindy [00:27:50] Or Brazzers will tweet a still from video and I’ll go, “Hey, Brazzers, I want to see the female version of that. I want to see a giant pussy looming in the foreground and close up behind it, grinning from ear to ear, three men’s faces covered in pussy juice.” You take my point.

Jameela [00:28:04] Yes.

Cindy [00:28:05] And and and by the way, Jameela, that that male centric lens is and and this is true in all of popular culture is what drives most of the problems because, you know, I date younger men and I’m very selective about whom I date. My fundamental criterion is they have to be a very nice person.

Jameela [00:28:25] Mhm.

Cindy [00:28:25] I have a great rate of very nice people. I only date utterly lovely younger men, and yet I totally see them in bed modeling the behavior, the body language that says, “My dick is the center of the universe,” and that’s what they’ve been told.

Jameela [00:28:38] What does that behavior look like so that we can all identify that?

Cindy [00:28:42] I think it’s pretty easy. And I think it’s very familiar a lot of our listeners, which is simply it’s all about whether or not he comes.

Jameela [00:28:50] Right.

Cindy [00:28:51] You know, it’s all about what’s happening to his dick. And and again, bear in mind, these are really lovely young men, okay. And that that is what they’ve unconsciously internalized, and so, you know, all of this changes when we as women are able to bring our lens to bear because, you know, I mean, I’ve been working on Make Love Not Porn for 13 years, and I’ve done a shit ton of media interviews, and so another question I get asked all the time is, “So, Cindy, you know, why do you think we’re all so messed up about sex? Why do you think we’re all so repressed?” And I get this question so often I now have my answer down pat. Three reasons. So reason number one, socio cultural dynamics, centuries of religion, repression in every single country in the world, what we’re talking about is global. Reason number two, the patriarchy because historically every institution, including government and religion, has been male dominated. We as women have never been allowed to bring our lens to bear on human sexuality, and the world is a poorer place for it. And reason number three, very straightforwardly, is there are not enough people like me. And what I mean by that is the world makes it fucking difficult to innovate and disrupt social narratives around sex. My team and I fight a battle every single day to keep Make Love Not Porn alive. Many people have tried to do everything we’re talking about and given up, but I don’t blame them because my life is shitty on a daily basis because of what I do. We need, we need many more people like me who will not give up no matter what.

Jameela [00:30:22] Why is your life shitty on a daily basis?

Cindy [00:30:25] You know, the one thing I didn’t realize when I began building Make Love Not Porn was that, as I said, my tiny team and I would fight a battle every single day. Essentially because every piece of business infrastructure any other tech startup gets to take for granted, we can’t. The small print always says no adult content, and that is all pervasive across every single area of the business in ways that people outside the sphere don’t realize.

Jameela [00:30:53] And so are you talking about venture capitalists, like you can’t?

Cindy [00:30:57] That’s one aspect of it. I can’t get funded, but I also can’t get banked. It took me four years to find one bank here in America that would allow me to open a business bank account for Make Love Not Porn. My biggest day to day challenge is payment processing. PayPal wont work with adult content. Stripe can’t, mainstream payment processes won’t.

Jameela [00:31:15] Wait so how does how do all the male porn sites exist?

Cindy [00:31:19] First of all, every porn producer has exactly the same problem, and every every sex tech startup founder like me has the same problem. I will just say what you know I find a lot of people are not aware of. The mainstream porn industry is dominated by one colossal monopoly that would never be allowed to exist in any other sector, but it’s it’s dominant form because nobody wants to go there. A company called Mindgeek owns everything. Mindgeek owns Pornhub, Youporn, Redtube, etc., etc. when you operate at that scale with that stranglehold on industry, you’d be amazed who’s prepared to work with you on the banks and the payments front that won’t tell anybody that they are so. So there’s a whole different issue born out of that monopoly, but just separate to that, every single tech service I use to operate my video sharing platform, hosting, encoding, encrypting, the terms of service always say no adult content. In every single case, I have to go to the people, the top of the company, explain what I’m doing, beg to be allowed to use their service. Sometimes they let me, sometimes they don’t. It’s a very labor intensive process. I had to build a video sharing platform from scratch as proprietary technology because existing streaming services won’t stream adult content. I’m so jealous of friends who built video startups on top of Vimeo. Quick, easy, simple, cheap. I can’t do that. Even something as simple as sending out our membership emails. MailChimp will not work with adult content rejected by 6 or 7 email partners til we found one. And to give you an idea of how ridiculous this is, a couple of years ago, I needed a contract user experience designer. I put a perfectly standard job inspection up on Upwork. 20 minutes later, Upwork took it down and told us, “We’re not allowed to advertise jobs on Upwork because we are Make Love Not Porn.” Every single thing is a battle, and Jameela, that is why the answer to everything we’re talking about is not to shut down, censor, clamp down, block, repress, it is instead to open up. Open up the dialog around all of this. Open up to welcoming, supporting, funding, and helping female entrepreneurs like me especially want to disrupt all of this for the better. Open up to allowing us to do business the same way everybody else does because when you do that, you transform the landscape of adults. I like to repurpose into context Wayne LaPierre of the NRA’s infamous gun control quote, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a business is a good guy with a better business.” That’s what I and so many other women are trying to do, and we are being stymied at every turn because of these barriers that were put in place for one purpose and are shutting out everything that’s open and healthy and helpful and normalizing.

Jameela [00:34:01] Fuck me. I had no idea because, I mean, you are literally still such a success story to me, but I had no idea that this is what you were up against. And I also, I can’t fathom why more people wouldn’t want to help. And even though, like, I don’t know, Melinda fucking Gates or whoever, I can’t remember her name now, the woman who, left Jeff Bezos is now just giving all of his money away. Exactly.

Cindy [00:34:26] Mackenzie Scott. Dying to get to both of them.

Jameela [00:34:27] Yes, we need to, I’m like, we need to find them because this is a vital service, like it is a vital service. So many, an incomprehensible amount of people watch pornography all of the time. And it is creating immense harm on kids, on teenagers.

Cindy [00:34:45] And Jameela here’s an interesting thing. 13 years after my Ted talk, people, people know that they need what Make Love Not Porn delivers because by the way I forgot to mention another huge business growth inhibitor, which is we are banned from advertising. We can’t advertise on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, in traditional media.

Jameela [00:35:03] Women’s magazines, even?

Cindy [00:35:06] No, it’s entirely gendered, by the way. And it’s not just us, it’s any female lens sexual health and wellness ventures, you know, menopause ventures, menstruation ventures can’t advertise on social either. And by the way, social is is affordable. I’m afraid women’s magazines aren’t, but here’s the interesting thing. Make Love Not Porn’s growth has been entirely organic, therefore driven by two things: media coverage and search. An interesting thing about search is that every day, people around the world search for us without knowing that we exist. And what I mean by that is, the top organic search terms that drive people to us are make love, not porn, real sex not porn, make love not porn  where they don’t know there’s a business called that. One young man told me that he found us when he googled “porn that is not porn.” He was so fed up with everything out there. He wanted something different. No idea what to look for. When you google :porn that is not porn,” you find to Make Love Not Porn. That’s how much people want exactly what we deliver, which is real world sex. And by the way, we have so many social benefits beyond correcting, you know, the miseducation of porn, and there’s one I want to I want to make you aware of because it speaks to exactly the issues that you talk about so often on on this podcast. Social sex videos on Make Love Not Porn are enormously reassuring, right? Because we celebrate real world everything, real world bodies, real world hair, real world penis size, real world breast size, real world vulvas. And the reason that’s critically important Jameela, and I know you know this, is that you can talk body positivity all you like, you can preach self-love til your blue in the face. At the end of the day, nothing makes us feel great about our own bodies like watching people who are no one’s idea of aspirational body types getting turned on by each other, desiring each other, having an amazing time in bed. Our mantra  at Make Love Not Porn is “Every body is beautiful when they’re having real world sex,” and they really are. And in a world where everything in popular culture tells us you are not sexy, attractive, desirable unless you are this skinny, six pack abs, look like this. You know our members write to us and tell us, “You made me feel better about my own body.” You know, one man wrote and said, “My girlfriend and I now feel able to be more open and sensual with each other because you made each of us feel better about our own bodies.” Because by the way, socially sharing your real world sex on Make Love Not Porn is as transformative for you and your relationships as social sharing everything else speaking to the world at large. A woman published her first video on Make Love Not Porn, by the way, most of our make of not porn stars had never filmed themselves doing anything sexual before, ever. They’re doing it for us because of even our social mission. But this woman posted a solo masturbation video with many views, and in the personal narrative for it, she said, “All my life I’ve been told my vulvas ugly. It’s too flappy, it’s too big, it’s too this is too that. I don’t agree. And so I’m going to, I thought, I’ll share this video here and see what you think.” And our community is amazing. You know, within an hour the stream of comments going, “Oh my God, you’re beautiful. What are they talking about? You’re amazing. We love you.” There is so much love and affirmation in the Make Love Not Porn community. It is built around shared social and sexual values that is utterly transformative just for people who watch our videos, but for the make love not porn stars who, you know, we feel privileged they share this most intimate part of their lives with us.

Jameela [00:38:43] This is one of my favorite conversations I’ve ever had. Also, I find the parallels between us really hilarious, and I feel like you are making a love and sex and porn version of exactly what we’re doing at I Weigh, and it sounds like your community is just like my community, and I hope that they enmesh because everyone is so loving. When we put pictures of people with disabilities, people of different sizes, different genders on our pages, I can’t believe that there is, I’d say 99%, and this is on social media, the 99% positive comments reaffirmation, people becoming friends, people writing to us saying that they felt suicidal before, and now they’ve realized that they are loved and they are celebrated and beautiful. And now they feel so good about themselves, like it’s amazing what a safe space you’re building.

Cindy [00:39:42] Exactly. And actually, Jameela, I want to and you may find this interesting, I want to contextualize that in the broader tech landscape as a whole because the young white male founders of the giant tech platforms that dominate our lives today, they are not the primary targets, online or offline, of harassment, abuse, racism, sexual assault, rape, violence, revenge porn. Therefore, they did not and they do not proactively design for the prevention of any of those things on their platforms. And we see the results around us every day. Those of us who are most at risk every day women, black people, people of color, LGBTQ, the disabled, we design safe spaces and safe experiences. I designed to Make Love Not Porn for the female lens around what everybody else should have, but nobody else did, human curation. There is no self-publishing of anything on Make Love Not Porn. Our curators watch every single video submitted from beginning to end before we approve or reject, and we publish it. No one else does that, but we also review every single post on every profile, photo, text, illustration before we approve and publish it. No one else does that. We review every single comment on every single video before we approve and publish it. Again, no one else does that. We can vouch for every piece of content in our platform, and that is why Make Love Not Porn is the safest place on the internet. And our community, to your point, absolutely reflects that because we’ve created a completely safe and trustworthy space where everybody feels affirmed and valued and important and loved.

Jameela [00:41:19] And it is so important and for a multitude of reasons, you know, going back to the thing about kids is that I think what is so dangerous about pornography and, you know, you kind of touched on this at the very, very start of this is that it’s being able to separate real sex from pornography. What kids are able to identify when something is fantasy because it’s blue or it’s, you know, looks like an animal or like it’s very, very clear in, in content made for children when something is human and when something is not. And yet with pornography, you have this kind of complete fantasy play, stuff that would very rarely be be done often or consensually or happily by many people in the world, but it just sort of looks like mommies and daddies, you know, it looks like of just people. There’s no way to, there’s no signal that this is from someone’s imagination rather than this is a real reflection of what all of your porn should be. I remember talking to children where they had started trying anal sex at the age of 12. Right? And she didn’t like it and he didn’t like it. And they both thought that they were supposed to like it, so they were both doing it, neither one enjoying it.

Cindy [00:42:30] Exactly. And by the way Jameela, parents are buying their children’s subscriptions to Make Love Not Porn. They tell us because they want them to see what happy, healthy loving sex looks like. What is very frustrating to me is that, and actually I’m about to set out to raise a round of serious funding, I’m about to set out to raise $20 million to finally do this because for years I’ve been trying and failing to raise funding for the 0 to 18 version of Make Love Not Porn, which is what I call the Khan Academy of Sex Education because Khan Academy tutors on every other topic under the sun except this one. Educational technology edtech excluding not in this area. And so I want to build MakeLove NotPorn.academy what URL

Jameela [00:43:09] What do you mean by 0 to 18?

Cindy [00:43:11] What I mean is parents and teachers have been writing to us since day one of Make Love Not Porn to ask us to create a sex educational

Jameela [00:43:21] Right.

Cindy [00:43:21] Version of what we’re doing. And and by the way, I will just mention this because this is advice possibly your listeners could benefit from. Because I’ve had to talk to parents so many times over the years. I always ask parents to do two things, so they’re really important and they’re very simple. Number one is you cannot begin talking to your child about sex too early. And when I say that, I don’t mean literally talk about sex, what I mean is, the very first time your child ask where babies come from, touches their genitals, the most important thing isn’t even what you say as much as how you say it. Never, ever get visibly flustered or embarrassed. Never shut them up. Never close the conversation down. Instead, just answer calmly, straightforwardly, truthfully, and you will open up a channel of communication that will always be there for them as they grow older. And then the second thing I say to parents is, and today, for all the reasons you’ve spelt out, Jameela, when you talk to your child about sex, you must now also talk to your child about porn. And it’s all easier to do than most parents think. And by the way this really plays into what you were saying earlier because all you have to do is a version of what I’m about to give you, and you dial it up or down, depending on the age of the child. You go, “So, darling we just talked about sex. And you know how together we watch movies and videos and cartoons where things happen that aren’t real? Well, there are also movies and videos about sex, and they’re not real either. And because of that, they can be quite confusing, so we’d rather you not watch them til you’re older, but if anyone ever shows you anything like that or you come across it, come and talk to us, we can explain it. That is all you have to say because just by saying that, you’ve done two critically important things. Number one, you’ve set up in their heads when they stumble across porn as they will, that it’s not real. And secondly, you have said, “Come and talk to me about it,” because again, to a point, you will want them to do that because what they stumble across can be utterly traumatizing. So, so that that’s my quick, quick and easy, you know, advice to parents, but basically the reason I want to build Make Love Not Porn Academy is because sex educators all around the world have all the same problems I do. And so Make Love Not Porn Academy is based on the same principles. of MakeLoveNotPorn.tv,  user generated, crowdsourced, curated revenue share. Because I’m not about reinventing the wheel. It’s an aggregation play. So this is where we open up Make Love Not Porn Academy to sex educators all around the world who can submit to us their own content, videos, coursework, comic strips, books, whatever it is. Now, we will curate, at the heart of everything we do lies human curation because we only publish what is Make Love Not Porn endorsed. So if you are an American sex educator and you slip into what’s depressingly popular over here, abstinence only sex education, we’re not publishing that. We don’t endorse the so-called education project goes “Don’t Do It.” We will then publish segmented by age appropriateness. So if you’re a parent freaking out, going, “Oh my God, my six year old just asked about this. What do I say?” Here’s where you would go for entirely age appropriate tools and content to have that conversation with a six year old.

Jameela [00:46:36] Fantastic.

Cindy [00:46:38] If you’re a teacher with a class of 14 year olds, here’s where you go for age appropriate teaching materials. If you’re an adult, access all areas because adults are as desperate for this as anybody else. Some of this will be free to access but will also charge to download, subscribe, bulk buy for your school, different revenue streams, different use cases. By the way, we’re talking a huge, huge revenue generator. And we will then split the income 50-50 with its creators the same way we do with our make of not porn stars because, Jameela, right now, nobody goes into sex education to make money. I have friends who are brilliant sex educators. They face all the same barriers I do. They can’t even make a living doing this. They’ve had to take other jobs. I want to change that. This is enormously valuable work.

Jameela [00:47:19] I think that’s incredible. I mean, I have some sex educators on this podcast, and this is work that I am completely obsessed with because I think it’s so important. And I grew up knowing nothing about sex and being absolutely terrified of sex and and scared to talk about it and embarrassed, and I’m sure the reason that part of why I didn’t watch porn until I made that documentary is because I felt shy. I think a lot of women feel like porn isn’t really for us or some women that I know watch porn just to see what men are watching, to see what men, quote unquote, want. And the reason I say, quote unquote, is because, not dissimilarly to children, there is also a part of teenage or young male or old male minds that is watching this and hyper normalizing it to the point where they think that this is what women want, this is what they think they should want. Some of them really do want that, and that’s fine. And that’s, you know, each to their own, but they’re, the hyper normalization of the dehumanization of pornography, especially towards women and especially the the more marginalized they are it seems to be, the more derogatory the sex that’s being had is.

Cindy [00:48:24] And and here’s another important aspect, Jameela, which I think you will appreciate because Make Love Not Porn is a global platform. Everything I’m building is global, so when I say I want to showcase my friends who are brilliant sex educators, I mean friends like Parodevi in India. Parodevi is an Indian filmmaker. She’s amazing. And she started a company called Agents of Ishq to create culturally appropriate sex education for India. She makes these videos, which are bloody brilliant. They use Bollywood musical, spoofing to communicate really important things about sex. Every time she produces a new video, I share the shit out of all over social, and I said to her, you know, “Why do your videos only have 60, 70,000 views on YouTube?” And she said, “Because I can’t get them seen anywhere in India because of the issues.” So imagine, but I’m dying to showcase her work on Make Love Not Porn Academy, you will be able to go and identify culturally appropriate sex education, you know, and not just in India, but for the entire Indian diaspora. Or, you know, again, I have friends in China, I have friends in, you know, and so there’s there’s also a whole dimension of this, which is this is needed so badly globally and in every country in the world I know there are people working to try and educate, and they are shut down even more than we are the US or the UK. And I want I want to change that.

Jameela [00:49:50] Absolutely. And just to return to the point I was making about men is that amongst my male friends, I find that so many of them come back and tell me that, well I mean some of my male friends, not all of them, but they come to me and they say that, “I had this sex with this girl and it looked amazing, like she was doing all these amazing things from pornography. Clearly she’d watched a lot of pornography, and obviously I have, and it was hot, but I didn’t feel anything. It felt disconnected. It felt like a performance rather than making love.” And it is, the older they’re getting and the more in touch with and in tune with themselves they’re getting, the more that is starting to kind of perturb is a strong word, but it’s definitely jarring for, for increasingly amount of men. And then women and men aren’t really having these conversations. And so there’s just this intolerable amount of guesswork that goes into the most intimate and important to be transparent about act that maybe humans can interact with each other in.

Cindy [00:50:47] No. Absolutely. So there are two ways in which we solve that in Make Love Not Porn because the first is we celebrate, as I mentioned earlier, we celebrate real world emotion, love, intimacy, feelings. And the reason that’s crucial is because, again, all around us popular culture, movies, TV, streaming, we see many creative expressions and narratives of relationships, but we never see the actual sex. On Make Love Not Porn you see the actual sex, but you also see the relationships because in our videos those two things are indivisible. And when I say that, by the way, I don’t just mean that in our partnered couple threesome, etc. videos, you see what it’s like to have amazing love, you know, healthy relationship dynamics between people. You know how many solo videos you see, what it’s like to have a healthy relationship with yourself, with your own body, your own genitals, your own sexuality. And then the other thing we do, and this is ultimately why I created Make Love Not Porn. As I said earlier, I realized the issue isn’t porn, the issue is we don’t talk about sex in the real world. And so everything we do has one mission in mind, which is to help make it easier for every single person in the world to talk openly and honestly about sex because we don’t. Because we don’t talk about sex generates an area of rampant insecurity for every single one of us. We all get vulnerable when we get naked. Sexual ego is very fragile. And to your point, people find it therefore bizarrely impossible to talk about sex to the people they’re actually having it with while they’re actually having it. Because in that situation, you’re terrified that if you say anything, talk about what is going on, if you comment on the act in any way at all, you will potentially hurt the other person’s feelings, put them off you, derail the encounter, 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 from any way you can. And if the only cues you’ve ever seen are in porn, those are the ones you’ll take. And so I’ve, I mean, I obviously, am my own research lab, you know, as I said, I encounter what I’m addressing. So, you know, I, met a few years ago, an extremely attractive, lovely young gentleman. He was 19 at the time, and we happened to seen each other the next couple of years. And this is a very good looking young man who had a ton of partners. It became apparent in bed that he had never, ever talked, I mean, none of them had ever talk to each other about anything, He was being wordless. Because I, you know, you know, issued instructions about how to make me come while he was inside me and, and and did very satisfactory. But then afterwards he went, “Wow. Oh, my God, I’m, you know, no one’s ever said anything to me about what I’m doing.” And, and and he said, “Actually, you know, you’ve made me realize I need to communicate more and I’m going to do that going forwards.” And so literally, at the most basic level, we exist to make it easier to talk to each other in bed because people don’t know.

Jameela [00:53:55] No, I mean, we’ve, I’ve spoken a fair bit with sex educators and sex therapists on this podcast about BDSM, for example, and it’s kind of considered the outskirts of the sexual community. And yet it’s one of the only sexual communities that has consent and communication as a foundation.

Cindy [00:54:10] Yeah, yeah.

Jameela [00:54:11] You know, I’m in Berlin where there’s a lot of that here, and people explaining to me how it works and sending each other their menus of what they like in bed, or kind of meeting up on websites and being like, “We’re into the same stuff, let’s meet up.” Which we, we never do. We never do in the mainstream. And it leads to so many needless, awkward or scary or like traumatizing or just like shit nights.

Cindy [00:54:37] That’s what you see at Make Love Not Porn because our kink videos show you the pre negotiation. This is the real world. And so you see the real world application of negotiating boundaries and consent. And then you see the real world aftercare. You know, you see what it’s like to come down from a scene and take care of each other. And also again, because this is the real world and you won’t see this anywhere else. We have, for example, many roleplay videos. Okay, you know, but only on Make Love Not Porn will you see a role play video where halfway through one person goes the other, “You know what? This isn’t really doing it for me.” The other person goes, “Nah, it’s all a bit meh.” And they go, “Let’s just fuck.” And you know, it shows it’s very low stakes. You can start doing something, you can find out you don’t like it. It’s fine to drop it. You don’t have to stick it out till the end, you know? And that’s real world sex. That’s the funny, awkward, loving, wonderful, hilarious time we all have in the real world.

Jameela [00:55:26] 100%. And I think that that’s so important. I also, I just would love to see more pornography with women my age, older than me, older than that, older and older because the the pubescent teen obsession of of mainstream pornography is is very pedophilic. And I’ve always been disturbed by Lolita as in like the the the pedophile romanticized novel being the kind of, the set standard for what is sexually enticing. It’s not realistic, and my friends, again, like a lot of my male friends, have been really fucked over by this because their brain has been sort of like almost neurologically warped by pornography because they’ve seen so much of such developmental ages, and so they find themselves attracted to these very young looking women or young bodies, you know, very taut, etc. but then they don’t actually have very much in common with people younger than them, and they actually find stuff in common with women their own age more often or older than them per se. But and so they end up often not getting into the sex because the date is just a bit, you know, they’re not, they don’t have anything in common. There’s no real connection. It feels a bit weird to be with someone, for them who is, is who looks a certain way, but maybe doesn’t have as many like, things in common. And again, age gap dating’s fine. I’m just saying that it’s just funny how they kind of feel like, slightly imprisoned. A lot of them have stopped watching pornography. They’ve gone off social media. They’ve decided to kind of detox their brain in order to be able to get back to what actually, instinctively feels right to me. Maybe it’s an older woman? Maybe it’s someone my own age?

Cindy [00:57:11] Here are the four micro-actions every single woman can take to transform the porn industry and make it more feminist. Okay? And, and I say that because genuinely, I’m a big believer in micro-actions, simple, easy to do actions where every one of us doing them on a daily basis to change what we want to see changed cumlulatively adds up on a  scale to an enormous impact.

Jameela [00:57:32] Right.

Cindy [00:57:32] So everyone listening here are the four micro-actions. Number one, women talk publicly about the fact that you enjoy watching porn because we don’t. Because that’s a total double standard where men can go, “Oh porn! Oh!” You know, whereas nice girls don’t do that.

Jameela [00:57:47] Right.

Cindy [00:57:47] The reason the reason it’s really important

Jameela [00:57:50] But is that, but are they not doing it because we go on fucking Pornhub and then we just get assaulted with horrifying images?

Cindy [00:57:58] No, because we want to watch porn. And they may not like the porn, but, but but the reason it’s really important to talk publicly about the fact that women love watching porn is because when enough women do that, the porn industry goes, “Fuck me, there’s a huge market opportunity there.” Okay, people, people, people will will deliver against a market opportunity when they see that market opportunity in front of their eyes. And as long as women are too embarrassed to say that we enjoy watching porn, that’s not gonna happen. So that’s micro-action number one. Micro-action number two is recommend the shit out of the porn you enjoy to your girlfriends.

Jameela [00:58:30] Right.

Cindy [00:58:31] And I say that because so Make Love Not Porn is not porn but social sex, but nevertheless, we end up on a lot of those lists that women’s media brands create of porn women want to enjoy, you know? So Glamor, for example, a couple of years ago produced a list of 15 porn sites women will absolutely love, and we’re number one. And I mention that because every time we’re on one of those lists, it sends a ton of traffic to us because women are desperate recommendations.

Jameela [00:58:57] Right.

Cindy [00:58:58] Because because porn exists in the shadows, we don’t have the tools that we use in other parts of lives. There is no Yelp of porn. There’s no social acceptable curation of navigation, so mirco-action number two, women recommend the porn you love your girlfriends because that’s how I have many brilliant female queer put on for friends who are making exactly the porn you want to see, older women, you know, real world bodies. Because of Mindgeek’s stranglehold on industry, they can’t get the traffic and the revenue, the numbers they deserve. And so every one of us, when we discover porn we love recommending it on, helps them. Micro-action number three, and this is for straight women, sit your male partner down and show him the porn that you really enjoy. And the reason I say that is because I hate the terms feminist porn and porn for women.

Jameela [00:59:49] And female friendly porn. Like, it kind of creates this

Cindy [00:59:52] By the way, you know, I do have friends who call themselves feminist pornographers, say they make porn for women.

Jameela [00:59:55] Yeah.

Cindy [00:59:56] The reason I hate those terms is because the moment men hear that, they go, “Not for me.”

Jameela [01:00:00] Yeah.

Cindy [01:00:01] Those terms marginalized that porn.

Jameela [01:00:03] Agreed.

Cindy [01:00:03] Men have no idea how hot, arousing, creative, and innovative they would find porn made by women for women. So, sit your male partner down. Make him watch it. He’ll be plesantly surprised. My fourth and final mirco-action for women is actually make and I don’t, I don’t mean do it yourself, I don’t mean be in it yourself, but but, make the porn you want to see in the world. Over the years, so many women have come up to me in corporate environments and said, “Do you know, Cindy? I really wanted to make porn. But, you know, I live in a country where the laws make it impossible.” And one woman in Ireland said that to me, by the way, it is very difficult legally there. Or, you know, they came against all the problems I did and they couldn’t. And the reason I say that is because we have not even begun to see the future of porn through the female lens.

Jameela [01:00:52] Right.

Cindy [01:00:53] And so my message to women is, you know, whatever fantasy you have that you would love to see porn of, and by the way, while rule 34 of the internet goes, if it exists, there is porn of it. That is not true for the female lens. Whatever your fantasy is, however specific, bizarre, or crazy, I guarantee you there are millions nay billions of other women who would also be turned on by that.

Jameela [01:01:16] Right.

Cindy [01:01:17] And so the, you know, it’s easier now than ever before to make films and put them out there in the same way that many indie filmmakers are. Put the porn you want to see out into the world, and you have the opportunity to make an absolute fucking shit ton of money after doing that, especially because women like me are breaking down the infrastructure barriers and, I mean, there are many female founded porn platforms coming up at the moment because we want to change all of this.

Jameela [01:01:44] Okay, and so maybe don’t put your face in it if that’s something that you don’t want on the internet forever or blur your face out.

Cindy [01:01:52] Well, I’m talking about becoming a porn director, by the way. Not.

Jameela [01:01:56] Right, right right right right, right. I didn’t understand, didn’t understand. I was about to upload all kinds of videos onto the internet. God, thank God you clarified.

Cindy [01:02:03] No, but I will just say, Jameela, also that if Make Love Not Porn achieves its ultimate social mission, one of these side benefits is that nobody should ever have to feel ashamed or embarrassed ever again about having a naked photograph or a sex tape on the internet because it’s simply just a natural human part of what we all are.

Jameela [01:02:24] Yes, I agree, I fully agree. It’s just that because we’re not yet in a society that doesn’t punish women specifically, more so than men, I agree.I’m very down for the hyper normalization revolution. And I’m very, very, very excited about what you’re doing. And I, when I really mean it, I say this on the podcast so that it’s there forever, but however, I can be of service to you to support your work and your efforts, please let me know because this is the kind of thing that I feel helps so many people around the world. Sex is so lovely, if that’s your thing. You might be asexual or aromantic or any of these different things. But if sex is something that you enjoy or would like to enjoy, you deserve that. And there is a more integral and beautiful and fun and filthy fuckin side of sex that you maybe think you’re not allowed to have because of the way that you look or because it doesn’t exist or because you think men won’t be into it or women won’t be into it. There are fucking almost 8 billion people on this planet. The chances are there are people out there who are into the same things as you, and a lot of the people who aren’t don’t even know what they’re into because we’re a culture so dominated by what we’re told to like. We’re so dominated by fucking tastemakers. And my last point about what I saw on the kind of main porn pornography sites in the last couple of days is that, as with anything, right, as with any form of advertising or movie making, the way to gain virality in an online world with so much endless competition is to make things that are more and more shocking. They have no, they are no longer focusing on what is sexier or what will actually be popular for being sexy, or what will get people off or make people come. They are, they are now just making the most shocking possible videos so that people, even if they’re not aroused, will talk about it or share it to their friends being like, “Jesus fucking Christ, have you seen this? Have you seen what they did to that woman or this girl or this, you know, 13 year old stepdaughter in this video?” They are just going for the shock factor now above all sensuality or even really sexuality. It feels more like the kind of, it feels a bit like the horror genre. Do you know what I mean? Like, the horror genre is just moving beyond the realms of what, like even the worst psychopath could conjure up. Sorry, that’s the porn police coming to get me, if you can hear them.

Cindy [01:04:52] Hahaha!

Jameela [01:04:54] For speaking ill of porn, but, but, but I love that you’re bringing reality back to sex. You are grounding sex while still keeping it, like, fun or kinky or all of the different things that sex can be for whom you know, for whatever someone’s taste is. I feel very, very sad and scared for anyone, any age, especially men, but really also the women who are watching the same shit who think that this is where sex is elevated too. It’s nothing to do with sex. It’s just like the fucking horror genre. It is just about clicks. It’s just about shocks. It’s just about being memorable and getting people talking. Now, for that to be what’s on the home page of these sites makes me extremely sad and extremely concerned because as we talk about tastemakers, that guides people into thinking, well, this is what’s popular, this is on the homepage, this is what people want from me. And regardless of your gender, whether you are the doer or the taker, you might be complicit or part of something that you don’t even really like fundamentally actually want to do you just think you should based on a fucking marketing strategy. So I just want everyone to keep that in mind. Like Cindy, you have no idea how down for your cause I am, maybe you do now but

Cindy [01:06:05] Jameela, I’m thrilled to hear that. And I will tell you what I would love you to help me with.

Jameela [01:06:11] Sure.

Cindy [01:06:11] And by the way, you know, to what you’ve just said, this is what I say to people. Make Love Not Porn operates in the single biggest market of them all. Not sex, not porn, the market of human happiness. And so I will say to you because I need help with this generally, and so any listeners who might, you know, be able to help too. I need help finding investors and funding. And, and I’ll tell you why I need help. Because I know that my investors are sbsolutely out there. There are tons of them. They’re impossible to find by the usual means because they all have one thing in common. Your willingness to fund Make Love Not Porn is entirely a function of your personal sexual journey. It is a function of your personal lens on sex and sexuality driven by your own experience, and I have no way to research and target for that, especially because sex is the one area where you cannot tell from the outside what anybody thinks on the inside. The people who look like they would whoa, totally get it, don’t. The people who look like total prudes do. And so that’s why I put what I’m doing out there all the time, you know? And why, you know, I really appreciate doing interviews like this because I have to rely on making synaptic connections that’ll draw those people to me.

Jameela [01:07:32] I mean, I’m all over this. I’m not joking. I’m all over this, and I’m someone who’s been a prude way more of my life than I haven’t. And I’m really just, like, only finding my feet sexually in the last, like 7 or 8 years. And learning to not feel embarrassed about being sexual because I come from a Pakistani and Indian family, so that’s just not, you know. Sex is for children. Sex isn’t for pleasure. Especially not women’s pleasure. And so I’m unpacking all of this shit, and I couldn’t feel more grateful to come across your work. It feels like we’re all on the same page. And we have the same feeling of this coming. Not from a place of judgment, a place of love, of information, a place of love, of honesty, autonomy, consent, joy, pleasure for all.

Cindy [01:08:21] Absolutely.

Jameela [01:08:22] And this is a conversation that absolutely does not just impact one gender, one age, one size. I was curious because I, I hadn’t yet investigated deep enough, do you also include disability on your website?

Cindy [01:08:36] Oh my God, yes, absolutely. So we’ve been working for years to build up our make disabled love not porn category. We have a network, we’re working with a number of disability activists. It’s obviously more difficult because if you are a person with disabilities, then it’s trickier to find, you know, ways to kind of be able to video yourself, you need assistance, etc., etc. but we, we have reached out to and we have a number of activists working with us to build up this category. And by the way, Jameela, the reason for that is not only because we want to celebrate the fact that disabled people are sexual beings.

Jameela [01:09:10] Yes.

Cindy [01:09:11] But also because non-disabled people really benefit from watching the sensitivity and the empathy and the care that goes into make disabled love not porn.

Jameela [01:09:21] Right.

Cindy [01:09:22] And and also, I will just make you aware of something else because. Porn, sorry, Make Love Not Porn, I’m constantly blown away by how well Make Love Not Porn just does what I designed it to do, but also how well it does things I never designed it to do.

Jameela [01:09:35] Right.

Cindy [01:09:35] So I only designed to do front, I mean we hear all the time from couples who say, “You saved our marriage. You saved our relationship, haven’t had sex in years.” But on the didn’t design it to do this, we hear from survivors of rape, sexual abuse, sexual assault. We hear from female and male survivors who tell us that Make Love Not Porn helped them reclaim their body. It helped them feel able to be sexual again and be and be able to have a sexual life again. In a scenario where porn is obviously way too triggering. That is true not only of our members who watch our videos, but we have a number of our contributors, our make love not porn stars, who came to us from backgrounds of sexual abuse and trauma, and being able to share themselves sexually in a completely safe and trustworthy space is helping them heal. And honestly, I had no idea when I concepted this that this was also a use case for it, and I’m blown away by that.

Jameela [01:10:32] I love that, and it feels like you really have just covered all bases. And I also feel as though this whole conversation has spoken so much I hope to my followers the way it has to me. I feel energized and galvanized and excited to get on that website tonight, as I’m sure many of us will. And to tell all of my, not just my female friends, but my male friends and my non-binary friends, I want to tell everyone to like, you know, to to make sure that they get on this. Like, I’ve been familiar with your work, especially as an activist, but I think again, my like, the trauma of that documentary is why I haven’t been on any pornography websites until the last couple of days. And so, you know, maybe, maybe today as my as my journey back to real pornography.

Cindy [01:11:23] No, no, no and again Jameela, we’re not porn. Remember, we are pro sex, pro porn, pro knowing the difference. We are social sex.

Jameela [01:11:30] You are social sex, right? That is the terminology I will use, to my journey to social sex.

Cindy [01:11:36] Because all I’m doing is I’m applying the types of social media to the one area no other social network platform would allow in order to socialize sex.

Jameela [01:11:45] Right.

Cindy [01:11:46] To normalize it, bring it out of the sunlight. And in fact, this is why at Make Love Not Porn, we call ourselves the social sex revolution. The revolution part is not the sex, it’s the social. It’s this bringing out of the sunlight, taking the shame, guilt and embarrassment out of it. You know we are a shame changer.

Jameela [01:12:04] I love that, I love that. Well, that is the exact name of the I Weigh game. And so I am thrilled, thrilled to have this chat with you. Everyone go and look at Make Love Not Porn, follow Cindy Gallop’s work and and please walk into the world of social sex with no shame and just desire for your own right to pleasure. Thank you for coming. You’ve been a fucking legend. I’m freaking out.

Cindy [01:12:32] Jameela, honestly, I can tell you this is one of the most enjoyable interviews I’ve ever done. I so appreciate everything you’ve said, and I’m just thrilled to have this opportunity, so thank you so much.

Jameela [01:12:41] Thank you. We’ll speak soon. Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode. I Weigh with Jameela Jamil is produced and researched by myself, Jameela Jamil, Erin Finnegan, Kimmie Gregory, and Amelia Chapellow. And the beautiful music that you are hearing now is made by my boyfriend, James Blake. And if you haven’t already, please rate, review, and subscribe to the show. It’s such a great way to show your support and helps me out massively. And lastly, at I Weigh we would love to hear from you and share what you weigh at the end of this podcast. Please email us a voice recording sharing what you weigh at iweighpodcast@gmail.com.