Begin Again with Davina McCall - How To Have A Great Sex Life: The Secrets We Are Never Told! With Cindy Gallop.

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

In this episode of Begin Again, Davina McCall sits down with the fearless and refreshingly honest Cindy Gallop to dismantle the myths, taboos, and outdated narratives around sex. Cindy, the powerhouse behind Make Love Not Porn, reveals the crucial lessons we aren’t taught about intimacy, desire, and how to build a truly great sex life—at any age. From unlearning shame to embracing open communication, this conversation is an eye-opening deep dive into pleasure, empowerment, and why it’s never too late to rewrite the rules. Bold, insightful, and utterly liberating—you won’t want to miss this. Follow me here: www.instagram.com/beginagain https://www.tiktok.com/@beginagainpod  (00:00) Intro (00:46) Who Is Cindy Gallop? (02:44) Cindy Gallop on Her Upbringing & Sexual Awakening (05:43) Why You Don’t Need to Find "The One" (11:37) Why Cindy Dates Younger Men (13:55) How to Find the Right Dating Site for You (17:23) Unlocking Your Sexual Confidence (26:37) Cindy Gallop’s Guide to Successful Online Dating (36:52) Adobe Ad (37:58) Marriage vs. Sex Life – What You Need to Know (46:50) The Story Behind Make Love Not Porn (54:42) The Truth About Sex Education (1:08:38) Masturbation & How to Reach Climax (1:13:26) The Language of Sex & Porn (1:15:49) How Porn Affects Young People (1:16:40) What You Can Do to Make a Difference (1:20:11) Menopause, Lubrication & Intimacy (1:23:48) Cindy’s Hopes for the Future (1:27:00) Davina’s Final Thoughts Adobe - https://www.adobe.com/uk/express/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Okay, great. Okay, yes. So women are vibrators. Our parents bring us up to have good manners. A work ethic. Sense of responsibility. Yes. Yes.

Nobody ever brings us up to... So I'm going to give you the Cindy Gallup patterned three-step filter guide to successful online dating. Okay, wait. Is everybody comfortable? Can I just give you? Do you just need a couple of minutes? Go get a piece of paper. and a pen.

There are an awful lot of people out there having very bad sex. I've had great sex that is a transcendental experience and I want everybody to have that experience. What I recommend is... You're sort of blowing my mind every five minutes here,

so I'm just going to have to unpick that a little bit. I am really, really excited today because I'm going to be talking to Cindy Gallup. She is an absolute bottom. when it comes to everything in her career. I mean, she worked for a huge advertising agency. She became head of that advertising agency. She then has become an expert in kind of sexual health.

And she started up a company called Make Love Not Porn, which does what it says on the tin, but it's about making healthy sexual content with real life partners, but with all ethnicities, content for different religions, content for different sexual preferences, everything is covered but done in a respectful and beautiful way. She is so interesting and I cannot wait to get underneath her skin. I'm so excited.

I think I'm going to start, Cindy, by saying that this morning I really did try and sort of think about what I was going to wear today and I thought Cindy's going to get the slightly saucy dress that I love. I love a pussy bow I love a puffy sleeve. You're looking amazing.

A bit of leg. I thought do I get my legs out but they're not brown enough right now so I thought I've got to cover them up at the time that's a bit annoying. But you're, you nearly got latex. I thought, shall I crack out?

I would have loved latex. I would have adored latex. But you're not in latex. I'm quite pleased. I didn't wear it because I would have turned up thinking, oh my God. How are you?

I'm great. all the better for being here. Yeah, I mean, when you got out of the car and I saw you, I really admire you and I love what you do and I love what you stand for. And I'm so pleased that we are having this chat today. So thank you. I'm very touch and moved to hear that, Davina. So equally thank you.

I really appreciate it. I'd quite like to start off talking about your childhood because what I'm fascinated in is how do you become or grow up to be. a sexually liberated woman. So you were born into what feels to me like quite a sort of straight-laced, professional family. What were your parents like? Sure.

So my father was English. He died a few years ago. Very old-fashioned. My mother is Malaysian Chinese. She's still with us at the age of 92 in a lovely care home in Battersea. but essentially equally old-fashioned. And I was born here in the UK,

but when I was six, we moved to Brunei in Borneo, where my father had got a job. And so I grew up in Asia, which is, you know, again, very conventional, very traditional, absolutely no talk about sex whatsoever. There was zero education about sex for me and my sisters from either of our parents. you know, the extent of my mother's addressing of that topic was to say at regular intervals,

girls, you stay virgin until you marry. And that was it. Okay, that was the full extent. So I feel very lucky because I absolutely internalised that repression. You know, I went to university, I went to Oxford, which was the first time I really encountered boys. I did an awful lot of everything but, as one did back in those days. Yes. And so when I finally began, having sex. I went, oh my God, this is amazing. This is wonderful. How old would you have been when that happened? I was, I think I was 21. So it's relatively late in the day, again, compared to a lot of people. But it was because, I mean, I was absolutely being sexually active, but not like crossing that final frontier. Yeah. I mean, what's interesting about that is that I wonder if

this real revelation of how fantastic it was, because you left it to, to an age where, you where you were old enough to really understand the joy of sex. Why do you think it was that? I think, I mean, it absolutely was, I think, partly, you know, I only engage sexually with young men that I was enormously attracted to, thought myself in love with, was infatuated by, et cetera, et cetera. So there was always an emotional component to that. You know, I did not feel, oh my God, I had.

have to like unburden myself of my virginity as quickly as possible, which unfortunately absolutely can be a societal pressure, you know. And so, so first of all, it was very much always in an emotional context. And then secondly, because obviously, you know, I grew up in the era before internet porn, you know, it was mutual exploration and discovery. You know, there was no, I mean, yes, of course, one had all, you know, found one's neighbours, dads, playboy magazine, and wherever. I mean, you know, the classic stuff.

But they once know, oh, I know how you have sex and it's a formula and you've got to break out these moves that's got to happen like this. And so I remember all of that exploration very, very fondly, you know, compared to, you know, in my later years, and especially, you know, dating younger men, as I have been more recently, see. the impact of what happens when you grew up watching porn before you ever have your first sexual experience. So I feel, as I say, very lucky that I came through a pretty repressed, you know, sort of upbringing, out the other end, extremely well-balanced and healthily enjoying sex

and have wanted to encourage people to do the same thing ever since. What's interesting as a positive, well as an advocate for positive sex, what I heard you say just then was positive sex, you know, isn't necessarily about encouraging everybody to start super young. Oh my gosh. It's actually possibly the other way around. Except, I mean, the important thing there is it's not about encouraging everyone to start young, but it is absolutely about educating. as early as possible about sex and importantly in the context of pleasure and relationships and how you decide what you do and don't enjoy and that's what we're missing and by the way you know I'm sure you've read there are all these surveys that go you know so young people

are having a lot less sex and by the way I encourage everyone to take all of those surveys with the grain of salt you know we are talking about the single area of you know universal human experience where what people actually say is very different for what people actually do. So in any survey or a search study done into sex. But what I do think is true just based on my own observation is that, you know, Gen C is is much more open about all things sexual than the previous generations. And what that does mean is being more open to, you know, thinking about discussing it and

going actually, I would like to make sure that my first experience is a good one. And so waiting longer, you know, the wheel has come full circle, as it were. And so I don't think they're having less sex. I think they are thinking more deeply about sex and what they want than, you know, previous generations have necessarily done when popular culture was urging them to operate in particular ways. So when you were a young woman growing up and you'd had your first experience and it was actually way better than you thought, what did that lead you to think about? Because were you thinking, when I was a young girl, and I think I've read somewhere that you feel the same way, I was just being sort of funneled towards good, learn things, be a good wife, learn how to

cook, be a mum, but also, you know, I mean, my granny worked and I found her very inspiring, so I always wanted to work, but we were funneled in a direction. What did, where did you feel like you were going once you'd had sex at 21? Well, you know, absolutely, as you say, you know, from the moment we're born, we are encouraged to believe that our entire life is a search for the one. you know, everything you do is... And the appalling thing about that is that, you know,

what that means is that in your teens and your 20s, every single social event you go to, will he be there? And by the way, I'm a straight woman, so I'm speaking, you know, heteronormitality there. But, so what that means is you spend hours on makeup and outfit changes. Okay, what a waste of time, incidentally.

Then you go to this social event and the will he be there, search for the one, forces you to compete with other women as a result, you know, for the hot guys or whatever, which is a dynamic that I deplore. Yes. And then at the end of the night, you schlep home, you know, despondently going, he wasn't there tonight, maybe next time. And honestly, I mean, because again, I grew up in Asia, I had a Chinese mother. It was absolutely all about one day you will get married and have children. And, you know, it was at some point in my 30s.

that I just went, sod this for a game of soul, as I'm not looking for the one anymore. And oh my God, the relief. Because basically what happens then is that you go to social events, you enjoy yourself. You know, they're not fraught with all of this. You know, I've got to be on the eternal lookout for my soulmate, the right part, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

And yeah, yeah, just, whew, liberation. I have two girls, and obviously I know all of their friends. and I also have, for some reason, a group of friends who are in their kind of mid to late 30s, this search is real. Like, it is, I've got people freezing eggs. They can't find the one. But I'm also thinking it's sort of,

trying to find the one sort of just stops you just having fun, flings. And even a fling could be the one. Like you've stopped being so blinkered. Absolutely. You know, and, you know, there are many more types of relationships than people think, you know, Because I'm very open about the fact that I date younger men casually and recreationally, you know. But interestingly, so of one fundamental criteria, no matter how casual relationship, they have to be a very nice person.

I have great radar for very nice people. As a result, I only date utterly lovely younger men in an atmosphere of mutual trust, respect, affection, liking. And so rather ironically, my so-called casual relationships go on a lot longer than most people's so-called committed ones. Because I will date younger men, off and on sporadically, for periods of two, three, four, five, ten, 15 years. During that time, they may go on to date women in their own age. They may form relationships. They may get married. But we like each other.

We stay friends. I'm friends of most of them on Facebook. We're all connected on LinkedIn. and every so often, by the way, you know, sometimes their relationships end, every so often their marriage ends and they come back and it's very nice. But that is not a relationship in the way the world sees the term with a capital R. But it is a lovely, lovely ongoing relationship and I'm very fond of them, you know, in a non-romantic way and they are very fond of me in a non-romantic way.

Okay, I've got a favour to ask you. I was just wondering if you could just give us. a follow. It costs absolutely nothing. It's completely free and it really helps us to continue to bring you lots more episodes of Begin Again. I'm so pleased you're enjoying it. Thanks. I think it's interesting when I split up from my husband, I was approached by a few people online, all of them under 30 and I was 50. Yeah, absolutely. What is the issue? What is the attraction of an older woman to a younger man. Why is that? So I always ask this question of the men I date because I'm very curious. I tend to meet them predominantly on Cougar dating sites.

Stop it. Wait. Wait, put the car in parks and they. Give me two dating sites that are Cougar dating sites. Well, actually, what I recommend, Davina. No, I recommend to every woman, especially the ones listening, go to Google and enter search Cougar dating sites because a very long list will unfold and Cougar dating sites are like partners and vibrators. You have to find the one that's right for you. So I would not, you know... God, Cindy, I don't know I could love you more.

I'm just letting you know that the next two hours of my life are going to be two of the greatest hours of my life. I just love you already. We've only been... I don't know how you're... even long we've been talking about I love you already. Okay, great. Okay, yeah, so women and vibrators, you've got to find the right match. You're so right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so the same thing, by the way, with dating sites generally, as well as who-gutates sites.

There are so many, find the one that you like the look of, you like the vibe, you know, etc. Why is it, though, do you think that younger men... Oh, yeah, sorry, I was going to answer a question. No, no, it's fine. But I'm just interested. So, like, what is it about older women that young men like? So I always ask this question. And what I hear most often, is, first of all, and by the way, I really sympathise with this because I remember myself in my 20s, they go, girls my own age are so insecure. And absolutely in my 20s, I was insecure as hell, like all the rest of us.

And the trouble with when you're insecure about yourself, without meaning to, you make it all about you. You know, you need to be constantly reassured, you know, you are always asking for validation. And so what I hear is, you know, these young men love older women because at this age, who gives a fuck. Yes. I mean, you know, they like our confidence, you know, the fact that we don't give a damn what anybody thinks. I mean, you know, I'm 65. I happen to think I look great naked. Can I just say, I mean, you look great dressed.

And I have seen you're not that many clothes and you look great. So, yes. Thank you. So, you know, I couldn't care less what anybody thinks of my body. think I'm fabulous, and they find that enormously appealing. Also, you know, when you're confident about yourself, that enables you to kind of flip the lens and be enormously reassuring to them. So I make a point of telling the younger men I date how beautiful they are. And I use that term deliberately because we tend not to use it of men. And men are beautiful, you know,

in the same way that we are, in all sorts of ways, including, you know, because, Corn, unfortunately, you know, educates men to think that sex is entirely dick-centric. It's all about how big it is, how hard it is, how long can keep it up. And actually, all the other parts of man's body are wonderful. You know, and I'm a complete sucker for a great male forearm. Give me a, you know, gently muscled, finely furred with hair, male forearm. So I will praise their forearms. I will go, you know, you have beautiful forearms.

You have a beautiful back. And quite often they have never been told they're beautiful and never been appreciated in that way by women of their own age. And it's really lovely seeing them kind of blossom under that sort of attention. I think, I mean, that's slightly blown my mind, actually. There's two things, I think, that I thought about where you were speaking. One was how attractive confidences and how elusive confidence is in your 20s

and sometimes even into your 30s and wouldn't it be amazing if there was some magic trick that you could teach women to love themselves more and I don't know how to do that. How can women be more confident when they're younger? Do you know, this is absolutely what I am trying to make happen all the time

because, you know, people say to me, Cindy, how do you get to be this confident? I go six to five years of life. Obviously, I want to shortcut that process for everybody else. And so, you know, what I recommend to women is take a long, hard look inside yourself. And that's in two contexts. The first is, and this is what I recommend to everybody, men included, take a long, hard look inside yourself and identify what you believe in, what you value, what you stand for, what to. what you're all about.

What are your truths? Can I quickly ask you something? Yeah. What kind of answers are you like would you... What do you mean by what do you stand for? In what way? What do you... Right.

So what I'm talking about is identifying your core values. Okay, so in life, not just around sex. No, no, no, no, no. Okay. In life, yeah. But I'll come on to how that applies to sex. Because when you do that, I mean, first of all, that makes life so much easier. Life still throws 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 that really is the secret of happiness. Living your life, working your work in a way that is always true to your values. And when you do that, when you know you're being true to yourself, you do not care what anybody else thinks. That gives you confidence because you know you're always being true to you. Right. Cindy, hold my hands again. Wait. I've just had a feeling. Oh my God. God, I feel like I'm going to cry. Sorry. Oh, my gosh.

That's amazing. I'll tell you why. I think what you're describing is somebody genuinely being themselves. Absolutely. Absolutely. And how there's something. My partner became Michael last year. I think I saw it happen.

We were at a party. And something happened and I looked at him and I was like, look how happy. Like he was kind of throwing some shapes. He was doing this thing and I was like, oh my God, he's so fun. Yeah. And I had a lot going on last year. I know. I'm so glad you came through that. Thanks, thanks. Thank you. And I spoke to him this year, New Year's Eve. And he's like, right, this year, it's going to be a great year.

And I said, this year, last year I watched you become you. And I said, this year, I'd love to really, really become a, because part of me's always been a people pleaser. Right. Which is slightly doing things that other people want me to do or expect me. to do. Yeah. Get over that. Yes. But do you know what I mean? Fun that shit. Yes. And from that not letting go. And I've had a couple of revelations already in January that have been absolutely amazing. What you're describing there, setting out your values, what it did was it made me feel

the possibility of really, that's what it's, what it spoke to me. That's what I felt you were telling me. Good. Good. Wow. Okay, I'm okay, I've swallowed it. Good. I haven't cried. Let's crack on. Good. Because there's a second very important part of this.

Because so I designed my business, make love not porn, around all my personal beliefs and philosophies. One of which is, as I've just said, that everything in life starts with you and your values. So I regularly ask people this question. What are your sexual values? And nobody can ever answer me because we're not taught to think. like that. Yeah. Our parents bring us up to have good manners.

A work ethic. Sense of responsibility. Yes. Accountability. Nobody ever brings us up to behave well in bed. But they should. Because in bed values like empathy. Yes.

Sensitivity. Generosity. Kindness. Honesty, trust, respect are as important as those values are in every other area of our lives where we're actually taught. exercise them. And so, you know, this is the concept of good sexual values that we're pioneering at Make Love, not Porn, because as I say, it is bizarrely alien to the world and to popular culture, but it's simply about being yourself across every area of your life and your experience, including

your sex life. And there are, you know, to your point about people pleasing, DeVina, and that absolutely goes on in bed, there are an awful lot of people out there having very bad sex, not having the sex they want to have because they have not looked within themselves, identified what they value in a sexual context, and set out to have that part of their lives be as true to themselves as ideally every other part should be. I think what's interesting when you think about that is that there are so many different aspects to sex that for some people would be 100% acceptable. So, you know, I guess you could go from somebody who loves just totally vanilla sex missionary position.

Doesn't really want to go far from that. That's where they feel happiest to somebody who loves all the different positions, to somebody who is into BDSM. I mean, if you're into something from at that end of the range, the BDSM, it's going to be quite hard to find a partner. You can't, how do you lay that out at a, at a date or something? Well, well, so that's the really interesting point, Dvina, because actually it's not hard to find a partner

because you can absolutely go to websites like, you know, Fet Life or Field to give just a couple examples, which are specifically for people who want to explore, you know, kink, BDSM, you know, threesome, etc. But I think the much more interesting thing to represent, reflect on is precisely the question you've just asked, which is, you know, for example, on a first date, we are really happy going, oh yeah, I like Thai food, you know, or I love vacationing in France, okay, but we are not comfortable going, oh yeah, and in bed, I really like this, or it's really

important to me, you know, that whoever I have sex with is this. And I mean, this is, you know, something that I and many other people, you know, equally with sex-positive ventures and causes, are all trying to make it happen, which is make it as easy to talk openly and honestly about ourselves sexually as we do again with any other aspect of what we are into or what we're not into. And equally, by the way, you know, you've discovered you like Thai food because you actually were brave enough to go to the local Thai and try it. then you ought to go, wow, I love this, I'm going to go on vacation to Bangkok. So you explored. But again, a lot of people do not do that sexually and don't feel able to do that.

You know, because this is absolutely the universal air of human experience we're all most engaged with, most fasted by and most fucked up about. And that means that you may never find out what you really, really enjoy because you're going, it's kinky or, oh my God, I can't possibly do that. And again, everyone should feel free to explore or not as they wish. I mean, you're sort of blowing my mind every five minutes here, so I'm just going to have to unpick that a little bit. So what I think is interesting around that is it just means that it feels like an overwhelmingly huge task

because I was just imagining a date with somebody and you are brave and you go, I know this might be a bit strange to you, but do you mind if I just talk about sex because I'd quite like to get this out in the open before we go on to a second date or anything happens. I'm into this. And, you know, if you say that and they go, huh? But you really like that person. What do you do? Honestly, if they're the right person, they all respond very positively.

Okay. And I say that for a couple of reasons. The first is, you know, at Make Love Not Porn, we are spearheading what we call the social sex revolution. What does that mean? The revolution part is not the sex. It's the fact we're out to make it social. Right. Bring it out of the shadows into the sunlight, you know, normalize, destigmatize it.

So first of all, I have to tell you that, you know, in the 16 years I've worked on Make Love Not Porn, when people meet me, and I exemplify what we're about, which is it's not just what we are, which is a real world sex platform. the way that we are presenting it, which is this is completely natural and normal. Honestly, the floodgates open. You know, complete strangers, the moment they find out what I do, go, you know, because everybody is dying to talk about sex. And so, honestly, I think, you know, bringing that topic up on a first date, the right kind of person will be thrilled that you did that. We'll welcome the fact that you are normalising having this conversation.

And secondly, honestly, it's going to save you both a lot of time. Because, you know, to give you an example for my own experience, many years ago, I dated a young gentleman who was living in DC at the time. And so we engaged on, you know, email and phone. I mean, by the way, the dates I meet on Cougat Cougatines Science, I put the very rigorous filtering process before I ever, you know, arranged to meet with them in real life, which is why I've never had a bad first date. Can you just quickly just tell me what is the filtering process? Sure. So I'm going to give you the Cindy Gallup patented three-step filter guide to successful online. dating. Okay, wait, is everybody comfortable? Can I just give you? Do you just need a couple of minutes?

Go get a piece of paper and a pen. Right. Okay. So, so I've been operating this myself for, you know, 23 years and I've advised many, many friends to do this. And trust me, it is a failsafe if you do exactly what I say. So, filter number one is the photographic filter. So this is where, you're on a dating app, you've either been approached by somebody or you're looking at their profile, you know, planning to approach them. But, you know, there's one photograph

on their profile, it could be that really good one they had taken, like 12 years ago, been using ever since. So what you do is, whether they've reached out to you or you reached out of them, you go, you know, profile's amazing, or thanks so much for, you know, your message. I'd love to see, you know, at least three

up-to-date photographs of you, one of which must be full length. Now, it's perfectly okay to say that because everybody knows why you're saying that. Yes. This is online dating etiquette. Of course. Everyone knows why you do that. If they gibbet that in any way at all, if they quibble, if any excuse, off the list.

Okay. No exceptions. Okay. Because this is where you find out whether or not they look like what they say they do and you like look at them. And I can't tell the number of friends who have ignored this first filter and live to regret it. bitterly. So number one, absolutely photographic, you just have to know that they are what they're saying they are and that you like the look of them. So when they pass that filter, you go on to the next filter, which is, do you have chemistry in writing? And so this is messaging, but preferably,

by the way, on email versus, you know, text. And I say that because this is where you get a sense of how they express themselves in writing, which is much more easily evaluated on email than it is with like three-word texts or, you know, et cetera. This is the filter where if you're a straight woman, I encourage you to cut the guys some slack, because men have no idea how to approach women online as much have no idea how to approach them offline.

And they are normally expected to be the ones to do the approaching. So it's a lot of pressure on them. And so they may be a bit crass, you know. I mean, absolutely, by the way, decide what level of crass this you will or won't be forgiving about. In my case, you know, misspelling's illiteracy, you know, that's off the list immediately. That's just me, you know. But this is where you just message back and forth enough to see whether you like the way they are expressing themselves in writing.

Then you move to the third filter. Can I quickly ask you one thing about that? So, Cindy, in order to like somebody in writing, what kind of thing are you looking for them to deliver? I'm just looking for niceness, you know, politeness, by the way, respect, okay? We are not talking about the introduction with Dick Pick. I mean, that's off the list instantly, okay? You know, just a way of engaging in writing that is respectful and pleasant and charming. And if it's got a sense of humour so much the better.

Yes, because I think I'd be looking for humour almost above banter. Yep. I love a bit of banter. Fantastic, yeah. Okay, great. Okay, carry on. So filter number three, and this is going to sound very old-fashioned, and by the way, I get some young men who go, I'm not doing that, I go, okay, fine, bye, off this.

Filter number three is the phone call. So this is where, as a straight woman, you take their number, you do not give them yours, you block caller ID, and you have a conversation on the phone. Because first of all, you can get a very good sense of someone from the sound of their voice. Okay. Secondly, if they cannot sustain a conversation over the phone, they sure as hell can't over a drink or a Starbucks. And it's only, and by the way, also, if you're on the phone with them and it's not going well, then you just say, listen, it's been great talking to you. You know, I don't feel right for each other goodbye. Put the phone down and that's it. Done. And they can't call you back. No, no, yeah, exactly. Great.

But if you have a great phone conversation, then that is when I go, terrific, let's meet IRL. and I have to tell you that going through these three steps means that I've never had, as I say, a bad first date. Which all of us has any time for, by the way. I mean, I've actually met up and there has not been chemistry, we haven't progressed. But it's always been a perfectly pleasant encounter as opposed to an awkward, embarrassing and unpleasant one.

Can I ask you something else? If it's a pleasant encounter, how is that not chemistry? It can be perfectly pleasant and polite and friendly but you're not feeling it. You don't get the fire in your pants. You're not feeling it. Yeah. And it doesn't even need to be fine.

I mean, fire in the pants is fantastic. Yeah. You know, but if it's not even like a few embers smoldering. Oh, I see. You don't even need the fire. Yeah. There's nothing. There's nothing.

Okay. You're in the friend zone. Yeah, you're in the friend zone. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. What would you say are the biggest pitfalls? So we know what you've got to do.

You've got to kind of get through the filter and everything. but what are the biggest no-noes that men or women can do, something that they can avoid if they're going to go on a date with somebody after a dating site? So the way I would respond to that is I really recommend that people think about, if you're looking for your soulmate, you think about adopting the approach that I take to looking for my casual relationships. Because I think, you know, first and foremost,

the biggest mistake men and women make usually is when they go on that first date, they have a dating checklist and must be a nice person is not number one on it. Yes, mad that, isn't it? Yeah. You know, all too often it is, for the men especially, got to be good looking. For the women, it may be, you know,

got to have a good job, ambition, drive, going places. And honestly, I just recommend absolutely start, ground zero is, are they a nice person? Because that takes them a very long way. And then the second thing that I recommend is, so I'm very straightforward about the fact that, you know, by the time they've gotten through my filters, I know I like them, you know, and I've got a sense that they're a nice person. And you can only tell whether you're attracted to somebody when you meet IRL. You know, you absolutely cannot. Oh, sorry, in real life. Oh, in real life. Oh, in real life. As the kids say.

I was, honestly, I was thinking, how long, how many times is she going to say it before I have to ask her? No, I give up and I've got to ask them now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I don't know. I mean, it's only when you meet in person that you really get a sense of whether, you know, you click with somebody. So often, you know, you're going on that first date where you're looking for your soul-made or committed relationship. And what you will say to yourself and your friends are all excited for you is, you know, looks wise, the only thing that matters is that they're attractive to me. not true.

Anybody looking for a soul-made, a competitive relationship is all too often walking into that bar, that coffee shop, and when they first set eyes on that other person, they are not thinking, or they're attracted to me, they are thinking, what are my friends think if I walked into a party with this on my arm? They are looking for socially endorsed attractiveness. Yes, yes.

And I'm not, because if I really like them, I'm taking them home. You know, and no one else is going to get to meet them or see them. And so I genuinely do not care whether they have these socially endorsed, you know, strong jawline and classical good looks or whatever. I genuinely am going. I really know that, you know, this person is a nice person. They seem interesting. Now, really, you know, I'm asking, do I find them attractive? And if I do, whoopee.

And so I would love more people to strip out of their heads, you know, what they think their partner should look like and really go. And really go, you know, am I drawn to this person? And I think types are really interesting because people get stuck in a hair colour. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Which is crazy. Yeah. Or height.

Height is a massive one, isn't it? And shoes. I mean, I always think it's so funny when somebody goes, I didn't like their shoes and you think, how can you not like their shoes? Yeah. But I think I would have done that in my 20s. or 30s, I was so kind of, I don't know, fussy or judgmental.

But now I realize it's a lot more about confidence. It's just what you said, that kind of spark, that appeal of somebody who looks like or acts like they really know what they're doing, what they want, where they're going. And feel very comfortable in their own skin, are happy with who they are, you know, are themselves. I've got a little challenge for you. Think of one creative project you've always wanted to start. Okay, now let me tell you how you can bring that idea to life with our sponsor, Adobe Express. So it's a really quick and easy, create-anything app by Adobe.

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But I think, I guess, when you know them, they become who they are. Yep. And I guess on first meeting, if you've never been with somebody's smaller than you, then that might be a block of some sort. But I think it's a silly block to have. How can people get over that kind of block?

No, I completely concur. I mean, I am, I'm very bad. at assessing height. I can never tell how tall anybody is, by the way. Maybe because I'm five foot three and very small myself. But, I mean, I've dated men who are shorter than me, with whom I had extremely hot sex, you know. So, you know, there is this bizarre patriarchal thing in society.

I mean, again, we're talking, you know, straight relationships here, but, you know, that says the man should be taller than the woman. Why? Why? Who the hell says? You know, absolutely not. And so if anybody is kind of setting a height in the head as criteria for the soulmate, get rid of that. I mean, it's completely irrelevant. And you will rule out so many wonderful people if you insist on making that a deal breaker.

So let's say people are meeting. What's your opinion on marriage, like that piece of paper? What do you think about that? Well, I think it's absolutely not for me, obviously. I've never ever wanted married. And can I ask you why? What is it that about marriage that... Oh my God.

Where do I start? Yeah. I just... I mean, I am not a relationship person. I adore being single. I am that very rare person has absolutely no desire whatsoever to be in love. And that may sound very alien. to you and our listeners.

Yeah. But I think there are many more people like me or people who would realize they were like me if they really stopped to think about it. And so I would encourage everybody, again, to look into yourselves and ask yourself, what would really make me happy?

And when you do that, strip it out of your head, everything your parents want for you, everything your friends are currently doing simultaneously around you, like all getting engaged in a marriage at the same time, or having kids or whatever, strip out what popular culture keeps telling you

you should be aspiring to, going after, should be the all and the end all, take all of that out of consideration and ask yourself what would really make me happy because you may find it is absolutely not to get married.

It is not to have children. You know, it is not to necessarily find your soulmate. You know? And so I, I mean, the thing is, there are obviously people

who marriage works brilliant, including my parents who are married very happily for 60 years, so I had that in front of me, you know, all through my childhood and growing up. But there are far more people who should not have married each other. And honestly, you know, absolutely fine, obviously to get divorced and, you know, gone with life. But if they'd stop to think about it in the first place, they might have gone, I'm not sure this is what I really want to do. And by the way, even based just on a very unscientific test of people I've known in my lifetime,

a surprising amount of people walk down the aisle knowing they shouldn't, have absolutely had reservations, but the invitations have gone out, their parents have spent the money, you know, the whole thing's set up, it's all booked, it's, you know, and so they've gone ahead regardless. And then, you know, things have not worked out. I mean, it's a fascinating thing really when you start to examine it a bit closer that society is getting all of it wrong in terms of intimacy and relationships. How often do you find that people get into marriages and the sex changes? You know, just sort of people go a bit like, oh, is that it?

And before I answer that to me, I just want to make one other point about marriage, which is, I think it's important to acknowledge. that interestingly, the marriages that do really work out and absolutely should happen are the ones that people originally never able to have. And I say that because I have many gay friends. And obviously that is a privilege that was not afforded to them for so many years. And so, you know, I have around me a lot of examples of fantastic gay marriages. And I think that when that was not something that was, as easily accessible and available

as it was for heterosexuals then actually more thought and more commitment and more authenticity goes into it. So I just want to make that point. On top of that I'd just like to say that

do you think that men and this is a bit of a sweeping generalisation and I don't really like making generalisation around sex, but maybe because of their testosterone levels or whatever, men are more likely to want to just carry on having sex all the way through a long-term marriage, whereas women, you know, you might have children, be very tired, you go off at a little bit, then you try and come back to it, but then it's hard because you haven't really had it for so long, then you get perimenopausal,

and then you go off it a bit, and then you get menopausal. is how important is sex? Because I happened, I did say something once and I got into some quite hot water that I think sex is important in a marriage but that's just, you said earlier, you caveated something quite brilliantly and I think I just want to say there,

in my opinion it is, but I'm sure lots of other people can have a very happy relationship if both of them aren't interested, I guess. If both of them aren't interested, potentially, but I have to say, I think it's enormously important. I think it's enormously important in any relationship as well as marriage. And I think it's important because, first of all, again, talking in a heterosexual context,

sex is, unfortunately, how a lot of men communicate, because they have not been able to communicate in any other way, because our society, you know, makes men feel it is not masculine. to talk about emotions, to make yourself vulnerable. And so I think quite often, and I'm basing this on, you know, I've 16 years of people writing to make love not porn, and many, many, you know, married couples and couples in longstanding relationships and in the kind of scenario you talk about,

where quite often sex is the only way that a man feels he can communicate, love, feelings, emotion, make a connection, be intimate. and in that scenario equally, you know, women are going through all sorts of things that militate against that, completely understandably. And so, I mean, this is something Make Love Not Porn plays a very helpful role in, because as, you know, as social sex, we are absolutely for couples to watch together, you know, and so we hear a lot that, again, because of the way we normalise things, you know, what will happen. as one half of the couple will say to the other, oh, I came across this thing called Make Love Not Porn, let's check it out. And, you know, we here, one couple wrote and said, you know, watching videos on your platform,

it feels as natural and normal to talk about what we see in them, as we discuss the movie we just watch on Netflix or a series on the BBC. Brilliant. And from there, it then normalises, you know, it makes it really easy to take it one step further, which is talking about our own sex life. and then we have these communications breakthroughs that lead to much better sex. And so honestly, everything boils down to, you know, my background is 40 years working in advertising.

I spent 40 years working in the business of communication. I know, therefore, that everything great in life and business is born out of great communication, sex is no different. Great sex is born out of great communication. Talk about it. and that solves so many things. And I think that to your point, in long marriages and relationships, you don't do that because life subsumes it. And when you have external prompts that enable you to communicate around that,

you'll be amazed at, you know, even years, you know, 20 years into a marriage, you can have a total breakthrough. One woman wrote to us, she said, you know, my husband and I just discovered make love at porn, best $10 a month I ever spent on a subscription she wrote we've been married for 20 years and sex had dwindled to once maybe every three or four months

she said we found your website we had sex eight times in the first month you know all these lovely couples all these videos but what was interesting to me was she said it's not just the sex my husband and I now feel more connected and more in love than ever before

And she literally ended, thank you for saving my marriage. And so it's my point about, you know, sex is important because it absolutely is how you connect, spiritually, you know, intimately. And honestly, you know, I've had great sex that is a transcendental experience. And I want everybody to have that experience, and not everybody does. I think I read somewhere about somebody that had contacted you and it was a man and they'd contacted you and said that they'd seen something on mate love not porn where somebody had said, I love you.

Yes, yeah. Can you tell me about that? Sure. So that was actually a wonderful exchange I picked up on Twitter a while back. So two men had tweeted each other because the first man had tweeted as a joke, obviously, Hey guys, got this really weird fetish. I've got this kink where I want to watch porn where people are honest, loving, loyal, decent and really like each other.

Hit me up the hottest links, please. And another man replied to him and he said, there's this website called Make Love, not Porn, where we can watch real couples fucking and making love. He said, I watched a video where the woman said to her man, I love you while they're making love. He said sincerely, I cried when I heard that. And, Davina, we hear that all the time from men.

They write to us and say, I just watched my first mate love not porn video, and afterwards I cried. And that is because I've said for years, I wish society understood the opposite of what it thinks is true. Women enjoy sex just as much as men, and men are just as romantic as women. Yet neither gender is allowed to openly celebrate either fact. We would all be so much better off if they were. And so what men see on Make Love Not Porn is something they will find nowhere else on the internet, which is a safe space where men can be and watch other men being open, emotional and vulnerable around sex. We are the opposite of Andrew Tate. Yeah.

I mean, I love the fact that it's two men having a bit of banter online. Because I must say, one of the things that's frustrated me so much about porn is, the acting that women do and you know it's acting because I have never ever seen well I mean I haven't seen in true life people make love but I've never ever seen a girl go

cross-eyed from having sex you know those ones where somebody's going and I was like nobody does that that's acting and if you're not in the moment then that's not sex that's a show it's like not real And that's what I find so weird about pornography, that it's a show, it's acting,

and often it's not real, you would never see. This is the conversation that I tried to have with my children, is that what you're watching isn't what real life is like. Do not expect that in real life. I'm just saying, be aware, be careful of what you see. And you did describe it earlier, which was great, but you described it in terms of heterosexual sex because I was suddenly a bit aware that we haven't really spoken about

what is Make Love Not Paul. Could you just tell me widely, like what else does it show? So it's real couples. No, it's not just couples. So basically, I created to Make Love Not Porn to celebrate the full glorious spectrum of human sexuality in the real world. You know, if porn is, as you've just said, the performative, you know, Hollywood blockbuster movie,

we are the badly needed documentary. Right, that's such a good description. We're a unique window onto the way we all make love in the real world. And so we are fully diverse and inclusive. Our members and our make love not porn stars, as we call our contributors, are all ages, 18 to 80, all racist ethnicists. We're a global platform. We have trafficking members from like over 200 countries and territories.

You know, male, female, trans, non-binary, straight, LGBTQ, asexual. you know, we show you honestly, you know, just all of the wonderful ways that all of us out there are masturbating. So we have a ton of solo, you know, videos. We are not just for couples. And we have, you know, many, again, male female trans, non-binary masturbation videos, which are wonderful. We're not just couples either. We have a ton of freesoms, you know. And we absolutely have, you know, BDSM Kink videos.

The difference being on make love not porn, you see the real world version. You know, so you see the negotiation beforehand, the boundary setting. You see the coming out of it, you know, the aftercare, the cuddling. And very importantly, you see things like, so we have a ton of roleplay videos. But only on Make Love Not Porn, will you see a video where a couple of decide do a roleplay, you know, maybe it's, you know, boss, secretary, office, whatever. And halfway through, one of them says the other, you know what, this isn't really doing it for me. And the other one goes, yeah, you're right, it's all about men.

They go, let's just fuck. And it's really important that people see. that because it shows this is all very low stakes. Yeah. It's absolutely fine to try something, go, oh, didn't like that, right? You don't have to power through. You know, you can absolutely go, okay, well, fuck that shit, you know.

And they go, this is fuck, you know, and they do. They abandon the roleplay immediately. And so, yeah, but we show the accidents, the messiness, the pets wandering in, the snack breaks in the middle, you know, because that's how we all make love in the real world. I feel like every household, I feel like there should be an. on our televisions with Make Love Not Porn on there. They should.

That is so good. Yeah. Because I, when you were starting this business, I mean, obviously you've worked in advertising for so long. Was it a hard business to promote? Did people get it immediately? Was it, you know, it wasn't off the ground yet. You're trying to raise money. It's an idea.

Yep. No, they most certainly did not. You know, and no, let me correct myself to me, correct myself to be in it because I can tell you that everybody gets it immediately. In fact, all I have to do is when I meet someone, they go, what do you are? I go, I'm the founder and CEO of make love not porn. And without even knowing what make love not porn is, they know exactly why it exists. Yeah. So everyone gets it. But it's been a battle every single day basically because people are funny about sex. And one of the biggest obstacles for me is the same. And one of the biggest obstacles for me is the

social dynamic, I call fear of what other people will think, which operates around sex unlike any other area. So everything is challenging, you know, raising funding, using business services, etc. Still to this day, which by the way, you know, I'm working on solving, building my own infrastructure, you know, payments, places to advertise, etc. But it is... Are you? Yeah. That's so smart. Every business obstacle I encounter is a huge disruptive opportunity in itself. Yes. You know, the first payments app that processes payments for legal, ethical, transparent

veterans like mine at mainstream rates, cleans up. I plan to build that app. And actually, investors are getting it. And I'm in that conversation right now. You are brilliant. Can I also just say very quickly, because you initially came onto this podcast. It's called Begin Again. It's about beginning again at any stage of your life and how do you do it?

But not only did you start Make Love, not porn, and you are also trying to, not trying to, you are starting a sexual revolution where we should all be a lot more comfortable talking about sex. But you're starting another business. Yep. At whatever age, I can't remember. I'm 65, live and proud.

6.5, 65. And, you know, doing something that's really great that's going to help your platform help hundreds of thousands of people. I love that. Thank you. Thank you. But I love what you just said, Dvina, about every household trip to have access to make love not porn. Yes. Because I have to tell you, so for the past few years, parents have been buying their teenage children subscriptions to make love not porn.

They tell us, and I quote, I want my kids to see what happy, healthy, loving, sexual issues actually look like. But in the past year, those messages have gotten more and more desperate. So mother wrote to us a couple months ago and said, I've just discovered my 13-year-old son is watching Porn hub. I would much rather he watched Make Love Not Porn. I know he's underage. Can we figure out a workaround? Oh, I see, of course, because you've got an age.

Now, very importantly, at Make Love Not Porn, we are more legal than legal. We are for 18 and over. And also, by the way, we're 100% human curated. You know, our creators watch every video from beginning to end. We publish them. Oh, wow. No self-published anything. That's amazing.

I designed Milt Corm, with a female lens to be the safest place on you. internet. But our policy is parental judgment absolutely trumps that. You know, as a parent, you know what is right for your child. And so this mother has now gifted her son, you know, 13 year and son as subscription, which we hope will help. I got a wonderful email from a social worker sometime back. And she wrote and she said, I work with families with developmental disabilities. And I'm working with a family where their teenage son was distressing everybody because he was accessing violent extreme porn on computers all around the house, leaving it open.

I mean, everyone's sort of, you know, horrified. And she said, it turns out that he hated this as much as everyone else did. He did not have the language skills to search for and find porn that you prefer. She said, I sat down with the family, and we agreed that if he keeps the watching to his bedroom, he can have a subscription to make love not porn. She said three months later, I'm sending you a screenshot of the email he's just sent me thanking me for your website. And she said, thank you for making

safe sexual exploration wonderful for everybody. So yes, yeah, that's what needs to happen. That's amazing. Because I'm always amazed by parents. I did a great documentary for Channel 4 when I was pregnant with Chester. So it would have been 19 years ago because he's 18 there.

And it was called Let's Talk Sex and it was about our sex education in the UK. Oh, fantastic, right. And we went to Holland with some kids from schools over here and took them to a sex ed lesson of 12 year olds. And the kids that we were taking with 15 were so good. We went to a five-year-olds sex education lesson. It wasn't about sex.

It was more about kind of giving somebody permission to be in your space. Who do you love, your parents, your friends, your dog? What does love feel like? It was talking about emotion. and then they go up six, seven, eight, nine, ten they just learn a little bit more incrementally each year.

They layer it upon layer. Here you have one hour and that's it. It's never kind of instilled and it's always done in a bit of embarrassing way and it's always taught by sports teacher who you've just, you know,

you've played hockey with yesterday and suddenly they're talking to you about putting a condom on. It's like, I can't handle that at all. But the interesting thing is is any of those parents that are going, I don't want my child to have a sex education lesson. I can tell you they are

watching porn. No, no, exactly. And so, Davina, that is why I'm building the solution to this as well, because we are currently raising funding for, and we've raised some with an equity crowdfunding campaign. So we are designing and building, a product I had in the pipeline for 10 years, because parents began begging me for it from day one, which is mate love, not porn, dot academy. This is the zero to 18 and beyond sex education expansion of what we do. And importantly, need, Vena. I'm not reinventing the wheel. This is an aggregator hub for the best of the world's sex education content that's already out there. Because in all the time I've worked to make love not porn, I've built up a network of brilliant sex educators all around the world who face all

the same problems I do. Their content gets blocked on Facebook, Instagram, their accounts get suspended. You know, they're banned from advertising. And so what we're doing is we are building at make love not porn dot academy effectively Google for sex education. We, because Google's original mission statement was organize the world's information to make it universally accessible and useful. We are organizing the world's sex education information to make it universally accessible and useful. So we're bringing all of this together and we're going to aggregate and then make it searchable by age appropriateness. Yes. So if you're a parent freaking out and going, oh my God, my six-year-old asks this, what do I say? We will give you the tools and content

to have that conversation. If you are a teacher or a school, you know, there are a ton of brilliant companies out there who've put together amazing curricula. There's one, by the way, right here in the UK called Life Lessons, that's only four years old, but they've built a curriculum around peer-to-peer education. So it starts with, they have a ton of videos of young people, you know, talking to their peers about, you know, dating, sex, relationships, etc. And the teacher plays that in the classroom.

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

They kind of don't know what would happen if they brought it in. They're just going to be really bad. in their heads they have this abstract common. Sodom and Gamora will ensue. So when I can build and launch the academy and I can show you the best of the world's sex education content all in one place, you can see for yourself at a glance how brilliant,

informative, educational, healthy and non-threatening it is. And important, as I said, you pick and choose. You search by age, culture, and by personal comfort level. You can decide what's right for your family. You can take that. What's right for your school, your classroom, And when I can do that, I think that that is how I can help get sex ed into schools. I'm building this outside the system to help get it into the system.

What's fascinating is that it's like one woman is, you know, potentially going to make a difference to hundreds, millions of children. Well, fingers crossed, fingers crossed. If I can get the sport I know. It's absolutely amazing. I mean, I think one of the things I was thinking about was around the, the sex ed thing and how interesting it was that the reason why I did this documentary, let's talk sex, was because at the time, our teenage pregnancy rate, was incredibly high, but we had no sex education on the curriculum at all.

We went to Holland, where it is literally ad infinitum from five weekly, layering upon layering, reminding, reminding, and they still had youth clubs. So in the youth clubs, once a month, somebody would come down, they'd get the old cucumbers out with the condoms. You know, I was, I was 38. I'd forgotten that you have to pinch the top of the condom.

Like, I was like, they went, put this on. They went, no, you have to pinch the top. I was so embarrassed. I was like, I'm literally pregnant. Like, I looked like, yeah, you obviously messed that then up. And I thought, I was like, so what's the average age of, you know,

losing your virginity in Holland? And they were like 17, and it's the vast majority of the time, they are in a committed relationship when it happens, and the parents know, and it's a very healthy... I was like, what? How does that happen? But it's because it's not weird or funny. It's just spoken about in a completely normal way.

Every way you go, social club, school. And do you know, Devinna, the one good thing, and this is how things have changed since you shot that documentary 19 years ago, So 16 years ago, I was the first person to stand up on stage at TED and publicly identify that when we don't talk about sex, porn becomes sex education by default, not a good way. Today, you cannot move without falling in another headline going, oh my God, kids learning about sex and porn. Now, the one good thing about the widespread awareness of that is, so I had this amazing evening last month where a couple of mothers reached out to me in the US where I'm based from an organization called the National League of Young Men. Now, I had no idea this organisation existed until they reached out to me.

It's a nationwide non-profit in the US with chapters all around America. And it's an organisation for mothers and high school teenage boys, i.e. 14 to 18 is what that means in America. With the aim of bringing these young men up to be upstanding fine leaders of the community as adults. Love this idea. Mothers and sons together. And so these mothers reached out from the Greenwich, Connecticut chapter of National League of Young Men, to ask me to come and talk to 50 high school teenage boys about make love not porn. So first of all, kudos to those mothers for going as part of the National League of Young Men's programming, we want to have this.

So they, you know, Santa Calfrey brought me out to Greenwich, which is, you know, somewhere outside New York, to the home of one of these mothers who had a large living area screen I could, you know, to put my presentation on. And 50, you know, 40-8-year-old boys who, you know, who, you know, And plus Zoom set up for a number who couldn't actually make it, IRL, you know, but remotely. And first of all, they fed them, very good move. Pizza, sushi, stuffed them. You know, always a good idea before a couple hours, you know. And then the mother said to the boys, right, we're all going into another room in the house.

We know nothing. We hear nothing. We will know nothing about what you are, Cindy. This is your opportunity. Make the most of it. So they closed the doors. They left us to it. And so I had a short presentation about why make love not porn, why I started it, everything we've learned since.

And I did something I don't normally do, which is I began it by going through every screen of the original Make Lovelnotporn.com website that I presented, Ted, which was Porn World versus Real World. It was kind of a public service announcement back in the day. Porn World, women have no hair down there. You know, real world, some women like shaving or waxing, others don't. Some men like Onatirel. It's entirely about a personal taste. It's not obligatory. But I did that because when I wrote those slides,

I wanted to get to young people. I used the language of porn. I was extremely graphic. And I thought, this is going to, you know, I want to show these young men that I'm going to go there. And they can go there too. Now, as you can imagine, you know, as a presentation kicked off, gales of laugh every time I said the word fuck.

You know, lots of giggling and snorting. But the message landed. And then I opened up to Q&A. And of course, to begin with, deathly silence. Then one boy asked the question. That's great, isn't it? And then the floodgates. Wow.

And honestly, Devin, it was adorable, okay? Because the questions were all about insecurity to do with sex. You know, how do you do it right? You know, do girls really like really big cocks? You know, which is my chance to land the, it's not what you've got, it's what you do with it, message. Yes. But the reason I'm showing this is because, to your point, so it's, one of the one of the ones, point, one boy asked the question about condoms. And, you know, I was talking about the fact

that at Make Love Not Porn, we make carrying and using condoms a badge of good sexual values. We have a tag for videos that use condoms, which is condom hot, you know. They're condom hot because condoms don't get away a great sex. They can be an integral part of great sex. And another boy said something like, but, but, you know, what about like Plan B in the pill? And, you know, bear in mind I'm based in America, and right now we have a complete shit show playing out of America. And so I just burst out with, have you seen the political climate in this country? Then I thought, no, your teenage boys, of course you haven't.

But that made me to go, this is your responsibility. You know, we are in a situation where it's very likely there will be a federal ban on abortion. It's like there be a federal ban on contraception. Girls and women are having their power taken away from them as we speak. you carry condoms, you use condoms, always, always, always. So I was able to really land that message with this audience. How were they about that? They really took it on board.

I mean, you know, what was wonderful about this was that there were so many things they wanted to know, and I just talk about them completely frankly. Yes. And so the mothers reached out again and said, we now have a group of mothers who'd love to talk to you. And so a couple weeks later, I did a Zoom call with their mothers. This is great. And which was great because then I could talk about how.

to talk to their sons about porn and sex. And I think, you know, the message I really like our listeners take away from this as well, Davina, is, you know, the issue with, you know, a lot of current sex ed in schools, whatever, is it's all about the bad things that can happen. You know, it's about con, whatever. It's so important to talk about pleasure. You know, we all enjoy this. Oh, my God. You know, when you talk to children, talk about the fact this is a wonderful thing. You know, that's why it's great to wait, make sure that your first thing.

experience is with somebody that you're going to really, you know, enjoy it as much as you can with, et cetera. Talk about pleasure. I always think that masturbating is so important to wang on about, wang, wank on about. But because it is something that you can do alone. Nobody needs to kind of know. You don't, nobody's going to tell anybody about it because you're the only person there. It is safe. you can explore yourself. It's free entertainment. You're not going to get pregnant.

And you can... So talking about masturbating from a relatively early... I mean, we're always kind of going, don't do that, don't touch that. Or if kids are... There's a lot of shame around... Obviously, you've got to be careful because they can't be masturbating in a public place

or there are boundaries, right? But at the same time, you can set a boundary without shaming someone around it. Exactly, Davina. Because, and again, this is why with the economy, I'm trying to get sex education as far upstream as possible. Because I have a friend who has a five-year-old daughter. And her daughter began masturbating when she was three. And having a high old time and obviously loving it.

And my friend has been terrific because what she has basically educated a daughter on is, yep, it's wonderful. You know, this is great fun. And what we do is, this is private me time. and so we do it in our own space, in our own bedroom. We don't do it other people around, but it's absolutely wonderful, and you can do it all you want in the privacy of our own room.

And that's a really healthy way to address this. And you're absolutely right. That happens very early on, and parents who are lost for words don't know what to do can do the wrong thing that starts, as you say, embedding shame around that straight away. I'm happy to report also

that I have over the years advised many of my girlfriends on the best first vibrator to give to their daughter, you know, because... I'll ask you which one would you... Which one have you been recommending? Right. So, so actually... And again, like I said, got to find the one that's right for you. Yeah. So... But I am a very big fan.

This is my personal favourite of the Lilo, Gigi2 vibrator. I have it in pink. What is that good? Well, I like it because... And again, you know, masturbation is so interesting because it's all about how you like to do it. And incident, this is why our... solo videos on make love not porn are great because, you know, most people never get to see somebody else masturbate. We show you that in the real world and you pick up tips and tricks

from how other people are. One man said to us, I suddenly realized, I can be having so much more fun masturbating when I watched other men on make love not porn. So in my case, I like clitoral stimulation, you know, I don't need anything inside me, just pressure on my clit. And the GG2 gets me from naught to 60 in like seconds. Obviously accompanied by whatever I'm fantasising about at the same time. But it's a very powerful vibrator. I, and again, you know, this is mine experience not other women's, but I am not a fan of, there are a number of vibrators

that are about suction on the clit. Those do not work for me. You know, I just can't get them to... Well, I've heard, and I've used that. Oh, yeah. And I feel like sometimes, if you were to use it too often, you'd go a bit numb. Right, right.

Actually, you don't ever want that. You want that to stay very sensitive. No, no, absolutely. I'm sure the numbness is temporary, but by the way, but I just can't get that to work for me. So I like strong vibratory pressure on my clitoris and the Lilo-G-2 still delivers. Is that the general consensus that most women need

to have their clitoris stimulated in order to reach orgasm? Because I don't know many women that have the inside, Right. So actually, and again, I say this from 16 years of emails to make love not porn. No, not necessarily. No. So there are women, and I'm deeply embarrassed to them, who can come from nipple stimulation alone. I mean, that is a thing, by the way, women and men. We actually have a video on make love not porn of a man who can get erect and ejaculate just by playing with his nipples. Amazing. Fascinating. And women have written to me saying that's, so there are people who can come. from stimulation on other erogenous zones alone. There are absolutely people who can come from G-spot stimulation.

I have not managed to make that work myself again, but there are plenty of women who can. Again, we're all different. You know, when we email our members at Mail Love Porn with, you know, themed collections of videos, I mean, we have a ton of squirting videos, okay, which is real is a thing. But equally, we are always very careful to say, you know, some people can do this, others can't,

and it doesn't mean anything either way. It's just we're all built differently and we all enjoy different things. We do not have a socially acceptable vocabulary for real world sex. The language of porn has rushed in to fill that gap, and that it's not a good thing for a number of reasons, not least of which is that, as you would expect in a male-dominated industry, the language of porn is predominantly male-generated. So the person who coined the term Finger Blasting didn't have a vagina

Because if you hear the term Finger Blasting you want to cross your legs At least I do What can I just ask you? I'm really sorry I've never even heard of finger blasting Oh okay yeah And trust me you know Savage yeah

The person who coined the term Getting her ass railed Never got his ass Railed Pounding, banging, slamming, wrecking Destroying and destroying All terms Wrecking and destroying are horrible

Yep Yeah, no, and that's why when, you know, I mean, I find it ironic that, you know, my lovely young gentleman will message me going, can't wait to wreck you, and I'm going, that doesn't sound like the way you wanted to land. But literally, that is what the kids are saying these days. Those are terms created by people who are not possessed the soft internal tissue to which those things are being done. So at Make Love Not Porn, we are building a new language for real world sex. We tag our videos with tags like juicy, succulent. Our tag for oral is downtown. Our tag for anal is deliberately derived from the recipient's experience of anal. We tag our anal sex videos, ow, ow, oh, hey now. And we're doing that because we want our members to take this language and use it beyond our platform in the real world. Because this is language you can use to talk about sex without worrying about being overheard in the bar, the coffee shop,

and it's language you can use to talk about what you want to do in bed in a celebrity, positive and gender equal way. And we are using our tags to reframe how people think about things. So, you know, as I said earlier, porn unfortunately makes men believe that sex is entirely dick-centric. You know, how hard, how... In the real world, men are frequently not erect or semi-erect. You know, in these days, if that happens, men think there's something wrong with them, which absolutely isn't. So on Make Love Not Porn, we have a tag for those of our videos, where the man is, you know, not erect or semi-erect.

That tag is derived from the world of ice cream. We call those videos soft-serve because soft-serve's a yummy and delicious. I mean, it's messed up for kids nowadays. I feel quite sorry for them and trying to navigate their way through it. And add to all of that is the shame. What country do you think is doing it right? Nowhere. And I say that conflict demeanour because, so we're a global platform.

I speak all around the world. I can tell you, even in Scandinavia, you know, where, yes, They absolutely happen in school. But nevertheless, everyone's watching porn there too. And honestly, I mean, this is why I created Make Love Not Porn, Real World Sex Videos, because, you know, it doesn't matter what the theory is through books and comic strips and videos and courses. Porn is where everyone goes to see it actually happening. And, you know, until we came along with the real world version, you know,

that's porn is the only place where we can see people actually having sex. If you are a parent and you have a 13-year-old son like that lady was, should a parent, if it is going to be for her son, should she be transparent and say to you, I'd like to get this for my son, I am permitting him to, is that okay? Can you? They don't have to, by the way,

because what they can do is you can gift subscriptions from your account. They can do that if they don't want to engage with us. But we would love them too because we like to keep tabs on how much this is happening, because it's a really good data point for all the things that need to happen around this. Especially for the academy. Yeah, exactly.

And by the way, we welcome all feedback as well. We love people to tell us what they think, any improvements we can make, all of that too. How do you get your pawn? Well, I, like any entrepreneur, built a platform for the product that I wanted to use that was missing in the marketplace. So I built Make Love NotPathes.

because I want to watch how the world makes love. You know, I want to see, you know, the real world sex we're all having. And by the way, you know, to this day, at a weekly team meeting where our curators debrief us on the newest videos, we will go, wow, I did not know that was a thing. You know, as the other thing... So do people send it to you then? People submit videos of themselves having sex in the real world. And they go through, as I said, a 100% human curated process because there's no self-publishing.

You know, we watch every video from beginning to end, we approve or reject and we publish it. So if a couple are listening to this and they think I want to be on Make Love Not Porn, is there a place on the website? Yeah, but if you just go and click on Share, and then that's where you can submit your video. And a couple of things about that. I foresaw the creator economy 16 years ago, long before OnlyFans. I designed our revenue share model to democratise access to income. So basically, our members pay to subscribe rent and stream social sex videos.

Half that revenue goes to the contributors to make love not porn stars. But importantly, our make love not porn stars tell us that sharing their real world sex or make love not porn is as transformative for them, as sharing everything else on social media has been for the world at large. So the people who share their masturbation videos, and by the way, the vast majority had never filmed themselves doing anything sexual before ever. They're doing it for us because they believe in our social mission. So our solo make love not porn stars say that sharing this very intimate act

made them love themselves more. It enhanced their sexual sense of self, sexual self-esteem. Couples tell us it transformed their relationship. Because when you decide to film yourselves having sex, you have to talk about it. And when you talk about it, doesn't matter how long we've been together, the conversation goes places it's never ever gone before. People write and say, we thought we were open. Doing this just took our relationship to a whole new level.

So it's as transformative for our contributors. as for the people who benefit from this privileged glimpse into other people's real world sex lives. I can't help but feel it's kind of a really nice, kind of more loving version of OnlyFans, you know what I mean, where it's something... No, it is because the difference between us and OnlyFans is OnlyFans is performative.

Yes. People are performing for fans. And on Make Love Not Porn, you are simply sharing the sex you have anyway. Yes. And our members feel privileged to get that glimpse into actual real world sex lives. I think one of the really appealing things about you and the way that you talk about it is that it's very matter of fact. It's not like, oh, and you know what I mean?

It is just sex. And sex is enjoyable and we should all be enjoying it. And if we talk more and we're just honest and open about it, we all probably would. Exactly. And I have seen this a little bit in my own, you know, I talk quite a lot about the menopause. And there is this great woman who has a shop that sells sex toys and lubs and things like that. And she is called Joe Devine and she's called Sam Talk Sex on Instagram. And I met her through the menopause chat because when we did the documentary,

we went to go and meet her to talk about vaginal atrophy when you get dry in your vagina and taking vaginal estrogen, which, by the way, for anybody that's watching or listening, is now known to be 100% safe. You can take it for your entire life. Excellent. It is only topical. If you don't want to take any kind of other HRT,

if your dry vagina is bothering you, take vaginal estrogen. It's got no side effects apart from reopening your shop. and she's great to talk to. She's like you, an educator, very keen. She talks a lot about lube. Oh my God. Loub, I adore Loub.

Everything goes better with lube. There is no such thing as too much lube. Lube, loop. All the way. I have it on my nightstand within, you know, a moment's reach. Yeah, absolutely. But it's interesting how many women go, never use lube. You think, who's not using lube?

No. No, I mean, I got an email from a teenage girl, again, years ago, saying, you know, I'm a bit dry and, you know, I want to use Lou, but my boyfriend thinks I should get really wet like all those girls in form. And unfortunately, I think that's factored into, oh, I should be able to naturally, gosh, you know. And actually, no, you shouldn't. And by the way, especially, you know, with that teenage girl, if a boyfriend's not approaching this in the right kind of way, zero, four play, etc.

No, no, bring on the Loub. And what I always say to women is, you know, even if, you know, again, if you're straightened and the guy's thinking that way, the moment he feels the difference Loub makes is going to be all about it. Worry not. She's very particular about talking about the type of loeb that you get because there are certain ingredients in Loub that can aggravate a vagina and there are ones that are good for it. So do be really careful if anybody's listening to make sure that you get the right one for you. but what was interesting was of all my menopause chats that I do with all these different doctors around, you know, hot flashes and peri menopause and the menopause and all of that.

My sex talks, the ones where we talk about sex and how to reignite were always the most popular. And I think if we can just start talking about it in a non-sensationalist way, it's just normal. It's just a part of life. No, no, exactly. We have to break down this prudish. and embarrassment and shame in society generally. And it is interesting, I think, that there is a wave of keenness from everybody to try and start a revolution, a sexual revolution, for us to be able to come together.

Literally. Literally. Yeah, it's really interesting. I just want to ask you, what are your hopes for for the future? What do you want? I mean, obviously, the academy. Yeah, so bear in mind, I'm going to answer that question in terms of the future that I see coming on the one hand, because I live in New York, you know, I'm based in the US, where our freedoms are being rolled back as we speak, especially, you know, reproductive rights.org, the government website was taken down,

like the moment Donald Trump got into the White House, things are very bad for women and girls in all of this area. area. But, you know, I'm going to say what I've been saying to everybody else, which is it is only when things get as bad as they are currently break down completely. That is what allows new forms and new models of resistance to emerge that never would have otherwise. So in my case, I want to scale, make love, not porn, to be ultimately the Facebook of social sex. I mean, not an issue because Facebook's not great either, but scale-wise. Because our mission ultimately, is to help end rape culture globally. Now, that may sound like a very big mission, but we have 12 years of proof of concept at a micro level. We help end rape culture by doing something very simple that nevertheless nobody else is doing. We end rape culture by showing you how wonderful

great consensual communicative sex is in the real world. We eroticise consent. Yes. Our real world sex videos role model, good sexual values and good sexual behaviour, and here's the key point. We make all of that aspirational versus what you see in porn and popular culture. One man left a comment saying,

this video makes me want to be a better man in the bedroom and in life. We can do that. So I want to help end rape culture globally. Well, I'm on board. Excellent. Yeah. There are so many things about you, Cindy, that I have learned today that I have made me love you even more.

Oh my God, thank you. impossible, but I admire you so much because it's not easy talking. It's almost easier to talk as an extreme sexual minks, you know, the girl that's having sex with a thousand guys. You know, she's being applauded. You know, it's harder, I think, doing what you're doing. But what you're doing is so important. And I just want to thank you for that. and thank you for being a voice and a shining light and let's get the message out there and magnify and amplify you as much as possible

but I really have loved talking to you today thank you for coming here I'm very touched and move to here you see that and thank you for giving this opportunity to share what I'm doing with you and your audience I'm very very grateful for that round of applause everybody fuck me you're amazing

well Cindy Gallup did not disappoint. I mean, I knew she was going to be good, but she was knockout. And I don't know about you, but I just feel like I want to amplify her message everywhere I go. She deserves, well, I'm not going to tell you what you have to do, but she deserves my support. I want to help her. She is brilliant, isn't she? And that academy and the idea that there could be a healthy way for our children to,

to learn about intimacy and making the correct decisions. And with that knowledge and that power, they might wait and lead healthier sexual lives. Oh, wouldn't that be great? Wow, so much to think about.