Make Love Not Porn: Sex Ed, Personal Branding and Confidence with Cindy Gallop | Chasing Curiosity and Sharing Boundless Insights from Ideas that Matter
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Today we talk to Cindy Gallop, a big-wheeling ad exec from Manhattan that’s worked with the world’s largest brands. Business Insider named her one of the 15 Most Important Marketing Strategists, alongside Malcolm Gladwell and Seth Godin, and #1 on their list of Top 30 People In Advertising. She’s basically Don Draper from MadMen.
Cindy is known for blowing shit up, and her latest target? Sex. As an older woman who loves dating younger men, she was tired of teaching men that had grown up watching porn how real sex works. She launched Make Love Not Porn as a safe place where you can go to see real people having real sex ,in all its silly, messy, beautiful humanness. I’ve done my research and yes - it’s sweaty, saggy, awkward and it feels, well..doable. But it hasn’t been easy. She talks about the structural, cultural and financial obstacles she’s had to overcome, and how she’s used people’s skepticism to fuel her mantra - “I’ll fucking well show you.”
I was also dying to talk to Cindy about her life before MLNP because the things she’s done are exactly the things I struggle with every day. Cindy talks to us about our personal brand, and how to control what people are saying about us when we’re not in the room. She talks about the cure for ageism, and how we can build the confidence we need to do and say whatever we want, without worrying what anyone thinks.
Maybe you’re struggling to figure out your superpower. Maybe you’re concerned about your kids having a healthier relationship with sex. Or maybe you’re just tired of men asking if they can come on your face. Whatever it is, this episode is for you.
Please enjoy Cindy Gallop.
Key Takeaways
The “Michael Bay of Business”: Cindy’s tagline came from a spontaneous moment, but it stuck because it perfectly captured how she helps people and brands radically reinvent themselves by blowing up the status quo.
Finding Your Tagline: We all have a “default throwaway descriptor” — how others describe us when we’re not in the room. Cindy shares how to take ownership of that narrative to build a personal brand that truly reflects who you are.
Confidence Through Values: The key to confidence isn’t “finding your purpose,” it’s identifying your values and making sure you’re living in alignment with them — every day.
Curiosity Over Crisis: When you’re unsure about your next move in life or career, don’t chase a big purpose. Start by doing interesting things, following your curiosity, and letting the path unfold from there.
Say Your Age: Cindy is on a mission to combat ageism by loudly and proudly saying her age (65) — and encouraging others to do the same. Your age is the sum total of your wisdom, experience, and value.
Revolutionizing Sex Ed: Through Make Love Not Porn, Cindy is offering an alternative to porn-as-sex-ed by showcasing real-world, loving, consensual sex — and she’s now building MakeLoveNotPorn.academy to become the Khan Academy of sex education.
Why Men Are Crying (in a Good Way): Many men have written to Cindy saying they cried after watching their first Make Love Not Porn video. It’s a space where men can see vulnerability, intimacy, and emotional connection modeled in a way they’ve never seen before.
The Opposite of Andrew Tate: With Make Love Not Porn, Cindy is quietly dismantling toxic masculinity — showing young men a new model built on empathy, love, and real connection.
The Power of Doing What Everyone Else Says You Can’t: After 16 years of roadblocks from banks, tech platforms, and investors, Cindy is still here. Why? Because she’s fueled by a mission to prove them wrong — and to build a world that’s better for all of us.
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Cindy
I have the ability to take sex places it's never gone before. Two things motivate me to keep going. The first is we hear from our community every day how much we've changed their lives. And the second thing is is a dynamic that I characterize as I'm gonna fucking well show you. You tell me it can't be done, I'm gonna fucking well show you. You put a barrier on a path, I'm gonna fucking well show you. I take all of that daily demoralization and discouragement, and I turn it into inspiration and motivation. Bob
Welcome to the Growth Mixtape podcast, and I'm your host, Bob Mathers. If you're in the autumn of your life and wondering how to make the most of the time you've got left, you're in the right place. Every episode, I talk to ordinary people doing extraordinary things. We hear their stories and how they've overcome the same shitty fears we all face to live a bigger life. And if they can do it, so can we. Today, we talked to Cindy Gallup, a big wheeling ad exec from Manhattan that's worked with the world's largest brands. Business Insider named her one of the fifteen most important marketing strategists alongside Malcolm Malcolm Gladwell and Seth Godin, and number one on their list of top thirty people in advertising. She's basically Don Draper from Mad Men. Cindy is known for blowing shit up, and her latest target, sex. As an older woman who loves dating younger men, she was tired of teaching men that had grown up watching porn how real sex works. She launched Make Love Not Porn as a safe place where you can go to see real people having real sex in all its silly, messy, beautiful humanness. I've done my research and, yes, it's sweaty, saggy, awkward, and feels, well, pretty doable. But it hasn't been easy. She talks about the structural, cultural, and financial obstacles she's had to overcome and how she's used people's skepticism to fuel her mantra, I'll fucking well show you. I was also dying to talk to Cindy about her life before Make Love Not Born because the things she's done are exactly the things I struggle with every day. Cindy talks to us about our personal brand and how to control what people are saying about us when we're not in the room. She talks about the cure for ageism and how we can build the confidence we need to do and say whatever we want without worrying what anyone thinks. Maybe you're struggling to figure out your superpower. Maybe you're concerned about your kids having a healthier relationship with sex. Or maybe you're just tired of men asking if they can come on your face. Whatever it is, this episode is for you. Please enjoy Cindy Gallo. Welcome Cindy to the show. This is amazing to have you here. Cindy
I'm delighted to be here, Bob. Bob
So just a bit of context for this conversation, Cindy. The story around make love not porn is what initially led me to reaching out. I was just so curious. There was so much about it that was intriguing to me. And then so, of course, in preparation for this interview, I start digging into what you actually do as your other day job. And I find out you do speaking and coaching on things like reinvention, personal branding, knowing your worth. And I'm like, oh my god. She's this is the kind of thing I struggle with every day. It's actually why I created the podcast. It's what my audience is dying to hear about. So I guess in short, I'm like, I kinda have three hours of questions before we even get to make love not porn. So this is gonna be an exercise in in discipline for me because I've just got so much to ask you. Cindy
Terrific. And ask away. Bob
So, you call yourself the Michael Bay of business and there's, god, there's so much about that that I love. It's emotional. It's visual. I think everybody would love a clear tagline like that. How did you come up with it? Cindy
So, I came up with it very spontaneously, Bob. So many years ago, I was meeting with some potential consultancy clients because I also support myself myself by consulting on the side, And I was explaining my approach to consulting. So I said to them, I consult very selectively only for clients and brands who want to change the game in their particular sector. So you come to me for radical, innovative, groundbreaking, transformative. I don't do status quo. And then lightheartedly, off the cuff, I went, I like to blow shit up. I'm muckled their business. And everyone laughed, and I left the room, and I thought, actually, that is a really good way to sum up what I do, and I've been using that line ever since. But but the key thing, Bob, is, you know, I use that line not as a bit of whimsy, a bit of creativity, a bit of fun. I use it entirely deliberately because when I characterize what I do in that way, it attracts me the people who want what I do. It repels the ones who don't. And I want to repel the ones who don't because they're a waste of time, effort, and money. Bob
That's that's amazing. And so you kind of stumbled into that that perfect, tagline. But I'm also curious, how do you summon creativity when you need it? Because it's something that I struggle with. It seems to hit me kind of like what you described. I really need to find find a way of controlling it because I can't always find it when I need it. Cindy
Well, you know, I think, we're all inherently creative, and we just have to let ourselves be creative. In my case, Bob, obviously, that process is very much helped by the fact that my background is forty years working in brand building, marketing, and advertising. You know, what my industry is very good at is obviously synthesizing complex business strategies down to one highly memorable and compelling sound bite. But everybody is creative, and everybody can be creative when you simply free yourself up to honestly say what you think and articulate what you feel without worrying about conforming to anybody else's standards. Bob
Yeah. And the other well, I love that. And I think the the hardest part of coming up with a tagline for that just before we move on is figuring out what it is that's unique and special to you that you have to offer the world that nobody else can. And you did a great job. I mean, you you had those descriptors already, so the Michael Bay of business just kinda flowed out of you as a natural extension. Like, what advice do you have when you're talking to people trying to build personal brands to get to that essence so that they can create a really cool memorable tagline like that? Cindy
So when when you say what you've just said, Bob, create a cool memorable tagline. Everyone goes, what? You know? Oh my god. How do I do that? So, so I encourage people to think about it in in a different context because what you are coming up with is what I call your default throwaway descriptor. Now every single one of us has a personal default throwaway descriptor, whether we realize it or not. Your default throwaway script is what happens when somewhere in the world, you know, at a conference, you know, at a cocktail party, two people meet, and one of these people knows you and the other one doesn't. K? So so they're chatting and your name comes up in the conversation. The person knows you goes blah blah blah Bob. And the other person goes, who's Bob? And the first person goes, oh, you know Bob. Your default fraud descriptor is how somebody sums you up very quickly when you are not in the room. We all have one. And as you would imagine, it beholds us therefore to make sure it is what we would like it to be. Especially because your default thread descriptor is really important in a business context. And and and this is something I say to, you know, business brands as well. You know, you need to think about what your business brand default fraud descriptor is because you want your potential clients to go, oh, we must get so and so because they were. Think about it in in that way. How would you like to be summed up very quickly when you are not there? Bob
Yeah. And if you don't own that, then who knows what people are saying when you're not in the room. Cindy
Oh oh, yeah. People people are gonna default. Right. It's something that may not be what you would like it to be. Bob
Yeah. Well, what I wanna circle back to is something else you alluded to early, Cindy, and I know you talk about this a lot. One of the things that absolutely drew me to a lot of the things you were saying on your blog and in your videos, you really do seem to be genuinely one of these people that doesn't give a shit what people think. And not in a way that everybody else says they don't care what people think but really do, like me. You're you're one of these unicorns that really doesn't seem to care, like you're from outer space. So have you always had that? Where did that come from? And how can I be more like you? Cindy
Well, thank thank you, Bob. I mean, and and no. I haven't always had that. That was absolutely, a product of sixty five years of life. You know? But, but but, honestly, I'm a big fan of radical simplicity. I like to keep things very simple. And the answer to your question is extremely simple. Take a long hard look inside yourself and ask yourself, what do I stand for? What do I believe in? What do I value? What am I all about? Because identifying your personal beliefs, values, philosophies of life, you know, what you stand for, first of all, that makes life so much easier. Life still throws at you all the shit it always will, but you know exactly how to respond to that shit in any given situation in a way that is true to you. And by the way, that is the secret of happiness, living your life and doing your work in a way that is always true true to yourself. But that is precisely what then gives you confidence. Because when you know that you are always living and working your values, you don't have to care what anybody else thinks because the most important thing is, again, that you are always being true to what you stand for. Bob
That's beautiful. So beliefs and values, and then from there, yeah, living in alignment with that is really the key to confidence and happiness. One of the other things. So I'm in I'm fifty five, and I talk to a lot of people that are kind of in this season of my life. And I don't know whether it's COVID or what's been happening, but it seems like there's a collective sense of, like, crisis of purpose. Like, I've talked to a lot of people. They're like, yeah. I just feel like I've been having a career that was kind of laid out for me, and I'm looking down the barrel of the last ten years of it, and I just feel like I can't do this anymore. I wanna do something different. Did you ever have this in that, you know, in that sixty five year span you talked about? And what do you tell people when they ask for advice around that? Cindy
I mean, first of all, you know, Bob, my entire life and career has quite honestly been a series of accidents. You know, I I have never consciously intentionally planned anything, and I subscribe to wonderful mantra, that I heard from my old boss in the advertising world, sir John Hegarty. John has this great mantra that goes, do interesting things and interesting things will happen to you. And I'm a great believer in living your life that way. So, you know, what one piece of advice I give to people is if you're gonna start your own business and, you know, there were zero practical constraints, what would it be? And the reason I said it to people is because, when they identify it, I go, great. Now go off and start that. And and what I mean by that is begin having conversations about starting that business because you may not even end up starting that business. But going out and talking about it, meeting people who operate in that world, making connections that could be helpful to expand your thinking, all of that can take you in directions that you never thought of before. You know, at a at a micro level, as I say, doing interesting things, stepping out of the oiled grooves you've been living your life in, and just opening up to pursuing different things that may not even be what you end up doing. But just the process of doing that is gonna put you in the way of other interesting things. Bob
I love that, Cindy, and it's similar to something. I think maybe what I hear you're saying is curiosity is a big part of that. Just being curious and not getting paralyzed by what most of us do is sitting around and thinking about, oh, that could never happen, and jeez, that's gonna take forever. It's just like, well, could you have a couple of conversations about that and and be open to the possibility? It even goes back to your idea of creativity. Like, don't lock yourself into a process. Just start the conversation, follow your curiosity, and be open to whatever wherever it takes you. I love that. Okay. And last thing before we leave this kind of age thing or maybe we'll never leave it. That's okay too. You know, I do find, honestly, that I sometimes think, like, the first thirty years of my career was preparing me for this. And I don't know what the next thing is yet, but I do feel really excited about that next phase. But when I say that to people, I think they're probably just thinking, yeah, you're just kind of, like, rationalizing getting older. Like, you're having some sort of midlife crisis. And so I I wonder, like, what's your take on ageism? Because I do feel more creative, more valuable, more energized than I ever have. I just don't know really how to articulate it or what direction to point it in yet. Cindy
Well, you know, I've been combating ageism for a very long time, and I coined the hashtag say your age because I tell everyone how old I am as often as possible. I'm sixty five. I shout it from the rooftops, and that's because I believe the complete opposite of the way people normally, respond, they think positively ageism, which is to say, oh, you know, age is just a number. It's not. Your age is a very special number because your age is a sum total of you. Your age is the sum total of all of your lived experiences to date, all of your expertise, everything you've learned along the way. You know, your age is what makes you valuable. And so absolutely say your age as often as possible. Because also, by going out and proud with your age, you encourage everybody else to do so as well, and you start eradicate eradicating ageism. I remember, you know, some years back, a woman messaged me on LinkedIn to say that she had been at a conference on a panel where the panel said to each been asked to introduce themselves. And so bearing in mind, you know, my injunction to say your age, she said, hi. You know, I'm so and so. I am, whatever she was at the time, fifty five. And she said, you could literally hear the audience do a sharp intake of play. And then every other person on the panel introduced themselves with their ages as well. You know? And and and and that and that's how you absolutely can buy this one very simple everyday thing that anyone can do, start helping eradicate ageism. And, you know, it's important to you, Bob, because ageism operates at every single point of the age spectrum. You can be dismissed for being too young, especially if you're female, as much as you can be dismissed for being too old, again, especially if you're female. And so, you know, young people need to see older people absolutely refuting what young people have been told, which is that after thirty, it's all over. I mean, for crying out loud. You know? And and in fact, Bob, I, you know, I had this really brought home to me when, three years ago, my friends, Alisa and Lily, the mother and daughter team behind a brand called Style Like You, asked me to participate in a video interview series that they do called What's Underneath. And the construct of this series is that, the interviewee sits on the stool in front of the camera, at least when they just sit behind the camera, they ask questions. And as the interviewee answers each question, they remove an item of clothing. The idea being that you, you know, literally and metaphorically strip down to what's underneath. So at the age of sixty two, I sat with Silver on the camera. I took all my clothes off down to my underwear, and and I talked about, you know, how I like to live my life and make knock knock porn and everything. And I was blown away by the response to this interview. I went viral on TikTok. I mean, I wasn't even on TikTok at the time. Clips from this interview have millions of views, thousands of comments on TikTok. There are nine hundred stitches of this of me in this interview on TikTok. Many of them with a Gen Z meme, I have seen my future and it is bright. And and the comments, you know, on TikTok, on Instagram, YouTube, so many young people, young women, but also young men saying this is the older female role model I've been looking for all my life. And in fact, I was especially moved by. There was one comment on under the video on Instagram where a woman said, imagine if we had grown up seeing and hearing women live and talk like this. Imagine how very different our lives would be now. And so it's all of our responsibility to role model the fact that as I firmly believe, the older you get, the better life gets. Bob
What a, like, a beautiful example of just trying something different. I mean, obviously, there was no way for you to know the impact that this conversation would have in stripping down at sixty two to your underwear and going on TikTok, especially since you weren't even on it. And the impact that that had, it's a it's amazing how those things can ripple through. And all it took was some courage, maybe not giving a shit what people thought, and seeing what happened. Cindy
And and and you would not believe, Bob, you know, the number of younger men who slid into my DMs. Bob
Yeah. I can imagine that. I can see that. Hey. It's Bob, and I'm taking the growth mixtape on the road in a series of keynote speeches inspired by the stories of my amazing guests. At their core, these signature talks are about how to get you and your teams off autopilot and stop settling for small incremental improvements. This isn't gonna come from spewing business advice. My podcast is full of people that have done incredible things, and every one of them struggles with self doubt, imposter syndrome, and the crippling fear of judgment that holds so many of us back. They've also found ways through it by rediscovering their creativity, their curiosity, and the confidence to do scary things. Imagine the power of bringing these vulnerable stories to life live and on stage to help you and your teams hit your targets, find your voice, and be the rock stars you are. Book me for your next event at bob mathers dot c a. Now back to the show. So you talked, about make love not porn, and I'd like to, I'd like to talk a bit about that. First of all, where did this idea come from? Cindy
Well, you know, like everything in my life and career, Bob, as I said earlier, it was a complete and total accident. So I did not set out to do anything that I very bizarrely find myself doing now. I date young men, and seventeen, eighteen years ago, long before anybody else realized this, I began realizing through my direct personal experience dating younger men that when we don't talk openly and honestly about sex, porn becomes sex education by default in not a good way. I'm a naturally action oriented person. I went, right. Gonna do something about this. So sixteen years ago, purely a little side venture at the time, I put up on no money, a tiny clunky website at make love not porn dot com that in its original form was kind of a public service announcement. Porn world versus real world. Here's what happens in the porn world. Here's what happens in the real world. I launched at the TED conference in two thousand nine, became the only TED speaker to utter the words come on my face on the TED stage several times. The talk went viral as a result, and it drove this extraordinary global response to my tiny website that I had never anticipated. Thousands of people wrote to me from all around the world, pouring their hearts out, and I realized I'd uncovered a huge global social issue. And so I then felt I had a personal responsibility. I had to take make love not porn forwards in a way that will make it much more far reaching, helpful, and effective. And so I turned into a business designed to do good and make money simultaneously, which is what I would like to see all businesses do ultimately. And so I turned it into what Make Love Not Porn is today, which is the world's first and only user generated, importantly, one hundred percent human curated social sex video sharing platform. So we're kind of what Facebook would be if it allowed you to openly, healthily, socially, sexually self express, which it clearly doesn't. The way to think about us is if porn is the Hollywood blockbuster movie, Make Love Not Porn is the badly needed documentary. We are a unique window onto the funny, messy, loving, wonderful sex we all have in the real world. And what we're doing is we are socializing, normalizing, stigmatizing sex, bringing it out of the shadows into the sunlight to promote consent, communication, good sexual values and behavior. We are literally sex education through real world demonstration. Bob
Okay. So I have a thousand questions. And I checked out the site, and a few things struck me, of course. One is that this is very different than any porn I've ever seen. And so I've and so I was reflecting. It's like, yeah. I guess I never thought of it, but I've had sex. I've watched porn. I've never watched other people have real sex. I guess I hadn't thought of it before. One of the things though too, and being the father of two boys, it has made me realize that I probably have outsourced unknowingly more of sex education to Pornhub than I really want to admit. And, yeah, and then so I imagine this is it's welcome, but it's also making people confront sort of their sense of identity because, like, there's nothing more important to me than being a good dad. But I'm like, shit. I don't think I've done nearly as good a job as I should have. And I'm sure you're you're hearing that, and you're forcing some uncomfortable conversations. Cindy
No. No. So I'm delighted to say, Bob, first of all, that make, not, not porn has been helping on that front for many years, and we're about to help, parents even more. So first of all, you know, as a unique business, we have unique capability. We have the power to change people's sexual attitudes and behavior for the better in a way that nothing else can. And so we've taught countless young people that porn is not sex in the real world. For years, parents have been buying their teenage children's subscriptions to Make Love Not Porn because they tell us, and I quote a mother, I want my kids to see what happy, healthy, loving sexual relationships actually look like. And I can tell you that in the past year, those messages and parents become more numerous and more desperate. So mother wrote to us, a few months ago and said, I've just discovered my twelve year old son is watching Pornhub. Mhmm. Bob
I Cindy
would much rather he watch Make Love Not Porn. I know he's underage. Can we find a workaround? Now at make love not porn, we are more legal than legal. You know, we are fully age gated. We are for eighteen and over, but our policy is that parental judgment trumps that. As a parent, you know what is right for your child. As a parent, you can absolutely, you know, join Make Nothing Not Porn. You are then free to gift a subscription to, you know, anybody you want. So that mother has now gifted a subscription to a twelve year old son. And by the way, it's just one example of many messages like that, including the mother who wrote to us and said, you know, I have three teenage sons. I want to give them all subscriptions. Do you have a family plan? And and and and brought my team and I went, that's a great idea. So now we're trying to figure out how we can do it, do a family plan. So I faced huge challenges, not even growing makeup, not porn, just keeping it alive. Basically, because every piece of business infrastructure, other tech startups take for granted, we can't. The small print always says no adult content, and it's all pervasive. I can't get funded. I can't get banked. You know, we were debanked three times in two months earlier this year. Fortunately, we now have found a bank that welcomes us. But everything everything is is a huge obstruction to, you know, honestly, a business whose mission is to help end rape culture globally, you know, which is ridiculous. And I'm happy to tell you that we finally, managed to raise, a small amount of equity crowdfunding last year with a crowdfunding campaign and we funder. We have been raising bridge funding, on a safe note, and we will, in a couple months time, be launching make love not porn dot academy. And make love not porn dot academy is what I characterize as the Khan Academy of sex education. So, we are building Make Love Not Porn Academy on the same principles as Make Love Not Porn, user generated, crowd sourced, one hundred percent curated revenue share. Because I'm not about reinventing the wheel, this is an aggregation thing. We are building the go to global hub for the best of the world sex education content. It's already out there, but it's being blocked, censored, and deplatformed everywhere. And so our mission at Make Love Not Porn Academy is to organize the world's sex education information to make it universally accessible and useful. You can search the best in the world sex ed by age appropriateness. So if you're a parent freaking out going, oh my god, my six are us like this. What do I say? We're gonna give you the tools and kind of be able to have that conversation with a six year old. We will only serve him age appropriate sex education content. Bob
Wow. That's so powerful. I wonder you know, it just makes me remember back. I don't know I don't know what personal experiences you have from early on in sex education. My friends and I, we had a Playboy magazine that we would bury in the woods, And we would get on our bikes and pedal up to the forest and leaf through it together. And, like, what an image of of sort of shame. Right? Like, we've had we've had there was the only way for us to see boobs back in the day was to go up and watch a Playboy and dig it up from the moldy leaves. But I compare that to what kids have access to now. Like, every possible version of sex, hardcore, softcore, anything at their fingertips for free. It's so hard for me as a middle aged man to even appreciate what that would do to my understanding of relationships and sex. Like, it's one of those things that I I I really have a hard time getting my head around. Cindy
There there's a reason our name is Make Love Not Porn because we do everything through the lens of love. Make Not Porn Academy will be education through love. And and I say that because, you know, what we now have is, you know, a generation of children, young people messaging and communicating through screens so much that IRL social interactions are awkward and insecurity inducing. They are forming relationships with AI chatbots, which are completely friction free because a chatbot just tells you exactly what you want to hear. And what is getting missed in all of this is the wonder, the joy, the friction, the humanness, the connection. And when you're ready, the manifestation sexual expression of first love. And so I've been saying to parents for years, you must talk to children about sex as early as possible, but I've also said you must also talk to them about love. Love is such a foundational construct in our society. We leave it to popular culture to define it, and we absolutely shouldn't do that when it's such an important formative inference in growing up. There are two very simple pieces of advice that I give every parent. The first is, today, 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 asks where babies come from, you know, plays with 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. You know? Never, you know, shut them up, you know, change the topic, leave the room. Instead, answer them calmly, straightforwardly, honestly, because by doing so, you open up a channel of communication. The two of you around this topic will be there for them for the rest of their lives. Then the second thing I say to parents is, when you talk to your child about sex, no matter how early, you must also, at the same time, talk to your child about porn. And that's much easier to do than most parents think. So 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 watch until you're older. But if anyone ever shows you anything like that or you stumble across it, come and talk to us. Come and talk to me. We I can explain it. That's all you have to say. You can end the conversation right there because just by saying that, you've done two very important things. The first is you've set up in their minds when they stumble across porn as they will, it's not real. And the second thing you've said is come and talk to me about it, And you'll want them to do that because what they stumble across can be utterly traumatizing. Bob
You're killing me, Cindy, because what you just described isn't anything like how I handled those early conversations. Where were you ten years ago? One of the things you mentioned earlier I'm really curious about, you mentioned that it's one hundred percent human curated. And I know you've got make love not porn stars. So how does the content get generated? And you so you have people sitting and watching it, and how do you gauge what's healthy or what's not? That's got it's some some kind of subjective criteria, I'm guessing. Cindy
I'd like to just contextualize my response in the broader tech landscape as a whole because the young white male founders of the giant tech platforms that dominate all our lives today, they are not the primary targets online or offline of harassment, abuse, sexual assault, racism, violence, rape, intimate inter abuse. 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 of that around us every day. We design safe spaces and safe experiences, but we don't get funded. Only one point seven percent of all venture capital last year went to female founders, and that is why we have still not seen how much safer, better, happier, and, by the way, way more lucrative the future of the Internet will be when it's designed and built through the female lens, and these are the two keywords, at scale. I designed make love not porn through the female lens to be the safest place on the Internet. Our curators watch every frame of every video from beginning to end before we approve or reject and republish it. And by the way, our curation criteria are very broad. Your video must be legal, consensual, and real. Beyond that, anything goes. We exist to celebrate the fullgore spectrum of human sexuality in the real world. We review every comment on every video before we approve or reject and republish it. No one else does any of this, by the way. We can vouch for every single piece of content on our platform. You will find no trolls, no hate, no abuse. You'll find nothing but love on make love love porn. And the key point about that, Bob, is we are tiny bootstrapping, have no money, and we've human curated everything for twelve years. Imagine what Facebook, Instagram, TikTok could do with their billions if they chose to. Safety on the Internet is not a matter of viability. It's a matter of will. Bob
Yeah. That's amazing. And you so are there people making money from this? Like, you have people recording and they they share in the in the revenue? Cindy
So our members pay to subscribe, rent, and stream social sex videos. Half that revenue goes to our contributors whom we call our makeup not porn stars. Bob
When you started this, you knew that you were doing something unconventional. Has it been harder than you thought? Cindy
Oh my god. Infinitely. You know, I honestly had no idea of the business tech and financial barriers that I would come up against. In fact, you know, sixteen years ago when I was discovering those, somebody said to me, Sydney, to do what you want to do, you're gonna have to start your own bank. And I was so angry at what I was encountering. I went, right. I'm gonna start my own bank. And I literally, sixteen years ago, investigated starting my own bank, which is when I discovered, you know, regulation makes that impossible. But I am extremely fired up about the the barriers that the business tech and financial world have put in in my way. Our social sex videos role model good sexual values and good sexual behavior, and here's the important part, 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. And so it is appalling that we face as many barriers as we do. Bob
Yeah. You've you've received some really powerful feedback, whether it's from parents, women, men. How is it how has that surprised you? Cindy
Well, I think, you know, the most surprising thing has been, I designed to make love not porn be fully diverse and inclusive, and we are. But in the twelve years we've operated, we've discovered that make love not porn is especially a revelation to men. More men, young and old, send us grateful emails, leave appreciated comments than anybody else. You would not leave the number of men who write to us regularly and say, I just watched my first video on make love not porn, and afterwards, I cried. I've said for years, I wish society understood that the opposite of what it thinks is true. Women enjoy sex just as much as men, and men are just as romantic as women. Yet neither gender is allowed to openly celebrate either fact. We would all be so much better off if they were. We are one of the solutions to toxic masculinity. We are the antithesis of Andrew Tate. We are transforming the lives of boys and men through the power of love, intimacy, and human connection. Bob
God. There's so much I love about that, Cindy. Given the obstacles that you've faced, did you ever consider walking away? Cindy
Oh, many times. You bloody bet. But, you know, fortunately, Bob, two things motivate me to keep going. The first is we hear from our community every day how much we've changed their lives. You know, you know, if I thought I'd start a business with no product market fit that nobody wanted, I would have walked away long ago. I absolutely have not. I've started a business that the world is crying out for that has not even begun to see its full impact global scale as it can. We are funded to be able to do that. And the second thing is, fortunately, the thing that most motivates me is the dynamic that I characterize as I'm gonna fucking well show you. You tell me it can't be done, I'm gonna fucking well show you. You put a barrier on my path, I'm gonna fucking well show you. I take all of that daily demoralization and discouragement, and I turn it into inspiration and motivation. Bob
In listening to you talk, Cindy, it honestly feels like, and I wonder if you ever feel this way, that your everything you've done in your career up to this point was sort of preparing you for this, and that you are uniquely positioned more than anyone else in the world to take on this massive challenge. Does that ever occur to you? Cindy
I think you're absolutely right, Bob. You know, you know, I like to say that I have the best possible experience, for doing what I'm doing now because I've spent forty years working in advertising. That's forty years working in the business of getting people to do things they wish they had no intention of doing. So, yes, I have the ability to take sex places it's never gone before. You know, we're spearheading at Make Love Not Pull what I call the social sex revolution. The revolutionary part is not the sex. It's the fact we're finally making it social, bringing it out of the shadows into the sunlight. And also, I'll be perfectly frank because this is actually my pitch to investors. I'm uniquely positioned, therefore, to make an absolute goddamn fucking shit ton of money doing that. The first is, oh my god, the money we made out of sex. We all have it. We all enjoy it. Recession proof. Market never goes away. But the second area is, oh my god, the money to be made out of socially acceptable sex. When you do what we're doing, you normalize people feeling really okay about publicly buying, you know, goods, products, services, about publicly doing what they do with everything else, reviewing, sharing, recommending, advocating, and publicly turning themselves into brand ambassadors. That's the trillion dollar financial future I'm going after. Bob
You know, I started off this conversation, Cindy, with a thousand questions. We've probably answered maybe a fraction of them. I it's just there's so much about this conversation that is gonna stick with me that I'm gonna reflect on. I just I couldn't be more grateful. One question, what are you most excited about now? Cindy
I think, you know, what I'm most excited about, Bob, is that, I do feel that I am finally finding investors who get it. And I say that because the only thing holding me back from realizing the vision I've talked to you analysis about is lack of access to funding. And by the way, not just investors, but also, we now have the ability to take philanthropic capital because we've partnered with an amazing nonprofit called Inspire Access. So I'm feeling very optimistic and very hopeful that in twenty twenty five, I will be able to access the capital I need, you know, the lack of which is the only thing holding me back. Bob
Yeah. I'm hopeful for you. So one last question, I guess, Cindy. If you had a giant billboard I stole this question from Tim Ferris. If you had a giant billboard with your brilliant marketing mind that millions of people could see and you could put anything on it, a picture, a meme, or a saying, what would it be? Cindy
Oh, it would obviously say in huge letters, make love not porn, and then dot com. And and by the way, Bob, it's very funny you asked that question because so, we have, so, I pitched Make Love and Pull for two years, two thousand nine, two thousand eleven. That's how long it took me to find one angel investor who got it. But, you know, some years back, he said to me, Sydney, I have one request. He said, you know how when you take a taxi from JFK into Manhattan, there's that moment when you come over the brow of a hill and you see the entire, you know, Manhattan, you know, skyline laid out in front of you. He said, I want us to buy a giant billboard at exactly that point and put make love not porn on it in bright pink neon letters so we become part of the York skyline. And probably this is why I love my investor. So I went, you got it. So, I then tried to make that happen. And the reason I couldn't was because Upfront Media, they operate all the billboards in New York City on behalf of the MTA who own the billboards. They basically refused to allow us to put make love not porn, on billboard. I went, okay. Let's try this a different way. I bought the URL social sex revolution dot com, put up a home page there that was simply our manifesto, went back with social sex revolution dot com instead. They went, nope. Doesn't matter. You can put whatever you want. We're not letting you because you are make love not porn. And by the way, I was so angry. This is, like, seven years ago. I went, okay. If I'm not allowed to be part of the landscape in New York, I'm gonna impose myself on landscape in New York. And we took the money meant for the billboard, and we spent it on a guerrilla marketing exercise over pride weekend where we went out and we projected make love, not porn ads, entirely safe work, by the way, all over buildings across New York City. But that is why, in answer to your question, I would absolutely have a giant billboard that said make love not porn dot com. Bob
That's amazing. You know, as you were telling that story, I was thinking, she's gonna tell me that she bought a bunch of Manhattan real estate and painted make love not porn on the side of a building, which is essentially what you did. Cindy
I wish I yeah. Yeah. I wish I could permanently. Yeah. Bob
Needless to say, so other than make love not porn dot com, where can people go if they've liked what they heard and they wanna learn more? Cindy
Terrific. So, so yeah. Do do follow me and make love not porn on Instagram on x. We're at Sydney Gallop at make love not porn. Do, follow me on LinkedIn as well. We are on Facebook, MLNP TV. I'm on Facebook as well. I have a Substack called dear Cindy where I answer a question a week. You can write in with anything about business, sex, love, whatever it may be, and I answer it. So so do, subscribe to dear Cindy on Substack. And, you know, obviously, please do go to make love not porn dot com. Support us by signing up, subscribing. Do consider becoming a make love not porn star. You know, it's transformative for the people who do that. And, you know, if there are any open minded forward thinking investors out there, hit me up at cindy at make love not porn dot com. Bob
This has been amazing, Cindy. One of my all time favorite conversations. I cannot thank you enough. Cindy
It's been an absolute pleasure, Bob. 
