Make Love Not Porn, LLC

Today on Trailblazing Talks, we are joined by one of the world's most provocative entrepreneurs and cultural changemakers, Cindy Gallop.

After a successful career in advertising, Cindy has spent the past two decades challenging cultural norms through bold ventures, including the groundbreaking platform, Make Love Not Porn, which is also an academy for education.

and encouraging us to rethink some of society's biggest assumptions.

Cindy, I'm so pleased to welcome you to Trailblazing Talks.

And how did your experience of growing up teach you to sort of understand people?

Well, you know, I've spent 40 years working in advertising.

And I always say that that was actually a very useful experience, what I do now with Make Love Not Porn, because I've spent 40 years working in the business.

of getting people to do things they originally had no intention of doing, which is advertising.

Oh my God, what an episode.

We talk about, well, of course, she is the founder of Make Love Not Porn.

So we talk about sex.

We talk about how that affects the advertising industry.

And actually, I just want to expand on what Kate referenced, because I think not everyone heard that.

So I was on a podcast some time back, which was actually specifically about entrepreneurs and the stressful lives we lead.

And the lovely woman host said to me very earnestly, so Cindy, obviously, you have a ton of startup stress building Make Love Not Porn.

Do you have a daily self-care routine? And I went, oh yeah, no, absolutely.

Mm

... which is a play on the '70s film, uh, No Sex Please We're British, 'cause we want to change, myself and Cindy Gallop, who is the, uh, founder and CEO of Make Love Not Porn, we want to change the na- the way the nation thinks and talks about sex, so that we can take away shame, guilt, and embarrassment.

And what's interesting about John Lewis is actually they've been doing sexual wellness for two to three years now.

Right.

Yeah, so, and I've said this to Samantha before, I knew immediately before I even sat down to do the interview that it was probably going to go big.

Just because the initial message that Samantha sent me on WhatsApp explaining what she was doing and that she wanted to campaign for lifelong sex education, that she was partnering with Cindy Gallop, the founder of Make Love Not Porn.

I just thought this has all the hallmarks of quite an unusual backbench MP campaign that you don't see very often.

And I've also known Samantha now for a couple of years in Parliament, I think.