Cindy Gallop is a living business and advertising legend, so when she told me, "I like to blow shit up. I am the Michael Bay of business," I knew she wasn't lying.
In December of 2009, she launched a new business venture: Make Love Not Porn. She announced the launch at what is now one of the most widely viewed TED Talks in the world, (currently has over 2.2 million views on Youtube).
Without going too much in detail (because you should just watch the whole four-minute TED talk) she realized through dating younger men, that the younger generation of males have no idea how to have real sex. They simply mimic all the things they've seen in porn.
This inspired her to create Make Love Not Porn, which, to be clear, isn't anti-porn. It's "Pro-sex. Pro-porn. Pro-knowing the difference."
OUT caught up with Cindy Gallop for two reasons. One, to learn more about MLNP, but two, because there have been a dearth of gay sex on their site, and they're looking to change that.
Given the number of sex videos I receive on a daily basis from men on Grindr, I know damn well we're filming our sexual interactions and have no qualms sharing them with the world. Now, we have an opportunity to put those vids to good use and make some actual money from them.
OUT: How would you describe MLNP?
Cindy Gallop: MLNP is the world's first social sex videosharing platform, celebrating #realworldsex as a counterpoint to porn - we're 'Pro-sex. Pro-porn. Pro-knowing the difference' - in order to socialize sex and make it easier for everyone to talk about, to promote good sexual values and good sexual behavior. We're what Facebook would be if it allowed you to socially, sexually self-identify and self-express. We call ourselves the Social Sex Revolution: the revolutionary part isn't the sex; it's the social.
OUT: Talk about the inspiration for MLNP? What's its main message and goal?
MLNP started as an accident that came out of my personal experience dating younger men. The men I date tend to be in their 20s, and I began realizing 10 or 11 years ago, through dating younger men, that I was encountering what happens when today's total freedom of access to porn online meets our society's equally total reluctance to talk openly and honestly about sex: porn becomes sex education by default, in not a good way. I found myself encountering a number of sexual behavioral memes in bed, realized where they were coming from, and being an action-oriented person, decided to do something about this. Nine years ago, I put up a small 'Porn World vs Real World' site at and launched it with this talk at TED 2009.
The entire world responded. I realized I'd uncovered a huge global social issue, and I turned MLNP into a business to tackle it. We have just one single-minded goal: to help make it easier for everyone in the world to talk openly and honestly about sex. Talk about it in the public domain - by which we mean, parents to kids; teachers to schools; everyone to everyone - but even more importantly, talk about it openly and honestly privately, in your intimate relationships. Because we don't talk about sex, it's an area of rampant insecurity for all of us.
We all get vulnerable when we get naked - sexual egos are very fragile - and people therefore find it bizarrely difficult to talk about sex with the people they're actually having it with, while they're actually having it. I said earlier MLNP was an accident: what is no accident, is that my background is 33 years working in advertising - in the business of communication. I know therefore that everything great in life and business is born out of great communication, and sex is no different. Great sex is born out of great communication, and that's what we help with.
Do you think it's just a matter of increasing visibility of everyday people having everyday sex? What else can we do?
I concepted MLNP around my belief that everything in life starts with you and your values. I regularly ask people, 'What are your sexual values?' and no one can ever answer me, because we're not taught to think like that. Many of us, if we're lucky, are born into families where our parents bring us up to have good manners, a work ethic, responsibility, accountability. Nobody ever brings us up to behave well in bed. But they should - because there, empathy, sensitivity, generosity, kindness, honesty, are all as important as they are in every other area of life where we are actively taught to exercise those values.
It doesn't matter how many people write wonderful thought pieces about consent - nothing, but nothing, educates people about what great sex is, sex that operates good sexual values and good sexual behavior, like watching people actually having that kind of sex. In that sense, we're just the starting point. Because it's so difficult to talk about sex, people often need an outside prompt. We are that prompt. You can watch our social sex videos together with your partner(s) to start conversations, give you ideas, expand your horizons, demonstrate how to communicate in bed. And then just integrate all of that into your life going forwards.
You're looking for more gay submissions? Why is that?
We designed MLNP to be fully inclusive, but because we've been bootstrapping for the past five years, our growth has been organic (we haven't had funds and resources to target and promote ourselves to specific communities). For some reason, our least-represented community on MLNP is gay men, and we are very keen to change that! We would love to see gay men fully represented on MLNP, not just because we've had many gay men write to us over the years applauding our tackling of the 'porn world vs real world' issue.
Also, we know from our members that they're keen to be able to watch gay male #realworldsex (as a straight woman who enjoys gay porn and is a big fan of our many solo male MakeLoveNotPornstar videos, so am I!). And we believe that social sex at scale has a role to play in reducing homophobia. Watching the wonderful human #realworldsex connections and intimacy showcased on MLNP has the potential (if you need this) to change your worldview in terms of how you perceive sexualities other than your own.
Can submissions be anonymous?
Sarah Beall (who helps with submissions at MLNP): You can absolutely remain anonymous on MLNP! You can hide your faces in shadow, cut your heads completely out of the frame, use a blur tool, or wear masks. We're all about meeting you where you are in terms of comfort level. You can read more about that here.
You can make money off of submissions too?
We split the profit from our video rentals 50/50 (minus hosting and transaction fees) with our MakeLoveNotPornstars. Your earnings on MLNP can quickly become passive income because videos continue to earn as long as they're on the site. So, for example, where in the porn industry people earn a set amount up front but don't receive royalties for any of the sales, the people who share videos on our site continue to earn and don't have to perform porn cliches they don't like in real life.
We pay out every 90 days with our highest earning MLNPstars making four figures. The especially nice thing is that you have total control over the filming and can take your video down anytime. We just ask that people not perform for the camera or copy porn cliches that they actually don't enjoy doing in their real lives.
What's the best way to submit?
Sign-up for an account at MakeLoveNotPorn.tv and upload directly through our site's upload page.
