Blowing Up the Sex Taboo: Cindy Gallop on What Drives Her to Make the Google of Sex-Ed

Cindy Gallop (00:00)
when you look at the levels, the heights that mediocre men can reach, why the fuck would you have imposter syndrome?

Annie Wenmiao Yu (00:06)
Today on Low to Grow, we are joined by the Michael Bay of Business.

Cindy Gallop (00:10)
investors listening right now me and I guarantee you returns the likes of which you've never seen.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (00:16)
We are joined by a woman who has made a career out of blowing up the status quo.

Cindy Gallop (00:21)
the single dynamic that most motivates me is the one that I characterize as I'm going to fucking well show you.

tell me it can't be done, I'm going to fucking well show you. You put a bar in my path, I'm going to fucking well show you. I'm a great believer that when you have a truly world-changing startup, have to change the world to fit it, not the other way around.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (00:40)
Cindy Gallop is the founder and CEO of MakeLoveNotPorn. It's a groundbreaking social sex platform that's redefining how we are learning about intimacy, consent, and also real world connection.

Cindy Gallop (00:54)
is the area you cannot tell from the outside what anybody thinks on the inside. people who look like they would totally get it don't. The people who look like complete prudes do.

when you search porn that is not porn, you find make love not porn.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (01:11)
Cindy started as an advertising legend and is now a fearless entrepreneur and a global voice.

for honest conversations that most people are still scared to have.

Cindy Gallop (01:22)
fakes are destroying the lives of millions of girls and women worldwide. Where Elon Musk's grok is running Where child abuse and grooming all of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, because the white guys at the top don't give a shit about any of that going on in the pursuit of revenue and profits and

I have a that is world changing, the proven ability at scale to help end rape culture globally.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (01:50)
Cindy doesn't just challenge culture. She changes it along with business models.

Cindy Gallop (01:55)
I want to prove it's possible to operate safe education platform at scale and then exit to giant FinTech from absolute god-unfucking-shit-tonne-of-money.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (02:58)
Cindy, it's a pleasure to have you on the Low to Row podcast. Let me start by asking you, who do you want to be listening to our conversation today?

Cindy Gallop (03:01)
you

you

There are three groups of people I want to be listening to today. The first is investors who are looking for the biggest money-making opportunity of them all. The second is philanthropists who want to find a truly effective way to change the world with philanthropic capital. And the third is anybody who wants to know how to break through obstacles and achieve what you want to achieve.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (03:34)
you say that your story starts?

Cindy Gallop (03:36)
Honestly, I guess my story starts with being born. So, life.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (03:42)
Okay, it's interesting because some guests take a very philosophical approach when I ask a question and other guests point to a point in their career where they think the motivation for what they do now really started. delve a bit deeper. you started off your career in advertising, from the UK to the US to open BBH. And then now you have been running MakeLoveNotPorn for quite a while.

following your socials, you have talked about struggles of fundraising for that particular type of venture. And also the types of people on social media whose voices and posts are more likely to get traction. what triggered you to start MakeLoveNotPorn?

Cindy Gallop (04:23)
Complete and total accident. I have never consciously, intentionally planned anything in my life or career. Everything is happened by MakeLoveNotPorn came about because I date younger men and I realized therefore through my direct personal experience having sex with younger men, and this is 18, 19 years ago, long before anybody else realized this, I realized

very intimately, 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, and so I went, right, gonna do something about this. 17 years ago, purely at the time as a little side venture, I put up on no money a tiny clunky website at makelovenotporn.com.

that in its original iteration was kind of a public service announcement. Porn world versus real world. Here's what happens in the porn world. Here's what really happens in the real world. I launched MakeLoveNotPorn at the TED conference in 2009. My TED talk went viral it drove an extraordinary global response that I had never anticipated. Thousands of people wrote to me

from all around the world, young and old, male and female, straight and gay, pouring their hearts out, telling me things about their sex lives and their porn watching habits they'd never told anyone before. And I realized I'd accidentally uncovered a huge global social issue. And so that was what then led me to feel that I had a personal responsibility to take MakeLoveNotPorn forwards

in a way that would make it much more far reaching, helpful and effective. And so I turned it into a business designed to do good and make money simultaneously. I turned it into what we are today, which is the world's first and only user generated, 100 % human curated social sex video sharing platform. So 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, sex we all have in the real world. We are sex education through real world demonstration.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (06:57)
how has its reception by the public changed from when you first started it to where it is at today in 2026?

Cindy Gallop (07:04)
In 17 years, MakeLoveNotPorn has received nothing but a wholly positive response from audiences all around the world. The general public absolutely love MakeLoveNotPorn. It's just that they can't find out about it because we are banned from advertising and promoting ourselves anywhere.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (07:23)
Okay and what ways or campaigns have you found in order to get around that?

Cindy Gallop (07:29)
Well, let me just explain this for our listeners benefit because the problem is far more fundamental and far reaching than just that. I and my tiny team have fought an enormous battle every single day for the past 17 years, not even to grow MakeLoveNotPorn just to keep it alive. And as I talk about this issue, I want our listeners to be aware that our mission at MakeLoveNotPorn ultimately is to help end rape.

culture globally. That may sound like a very big mission, but we have 13 years of proof of concept at a micro level. We help end rape culture by doing something very simple nobody else is doing anywhere. We show you how wonderful great consensual communicative sex is in real world. Our social sex videos role model good sexual values and behavior. And here's the important part. We make all of that aspirational.

versus what you see in porn and popular culture. One young man wrote to us saying, your website makes me want to have sex in the more grown up, honest and respectful way. Another man left a comment on the video saying, this video makes want to be a better man in the bedroom and in life. And so I would like our listeners to bear in mind that I have a female lens business that has the extraordinary power to change people's sexual attitudes

and behavior for the better in a way that nothing else can. And this is what we are encountering. Every single piece of business infrastructure, every other tech startup gets a take for granted. We can't. The small print always says no adult content. And that is all pervasive across every single area of my business in a way that people outside this sphere have absolutely no idea about. I cannot get funded.

I can't get banked. I've had banking issues for MakeLoveNotPorn's entire life cycle. the first four years of our existence, I could not find a bank willing to allow us to open a business bank account. Try doing business for four years without a business bank account. Makes life extraordinarily difficult. Even when I found a bank eventually last year,

That bank suddenly, after nine years of banking, kicked us out. We were then debanked twice more in the space of two months. I was debanked three times in two months in 2025. That's got to be some kind of record. Every single tech service I need to use to operate a video platform, hosting, encoding, encrypting, the terms of service always say,

no adult content. In every single case with every service I need to use, I've had to go to the people at the top of the company, explain what I'm beg to be allowed to use their service. Sometimes they let me, sometimes they don't. This is a very labor intensive process. We never get to work with the best in class of anything business partner wise. And we never get to work with best value of anything business partner wise, because we are in no position to negotiate.

My two biggest business growth inhibitors are number one payments. PayPal won't work with us. Stripe won't work with us. Mainstream fintech won't work with us. I have to work with the murky subculture of adult friendly payment processors who, because anybody adult has nowhere else to go, charge extortionate fees. I pay out 12 % of my revenue every month in payment processing fees alone.

when every other tech startup gets to pay 3 % or less. That is a massive business growth inhibitor for a business with the proven ability to help end rape culture globally. My other massive business growth inhibitor is, as I mentioned, we are banned from promoting MakeLoveNotPorn anywhere. We cannot advertise or promote on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Google, YouTube, Reddit. Look at what's on Reddit.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (11:21)
Wow, okay.

Cindy Gallop (11:46)
Reddit bans MakeLoveNotPorn from advertising. Look at what's on Twitter X, they ban us advertising. And by the way, our listeners should be aware, this is not restricted to me and make love not porn and sex tech alone. Every female lens sexual health and wellness venture is also banned from advertising across all of those platforms. Menstruation ventures cannot advertise. Menopause ventures cannot advertise. Fertility ventures cannot advertise. In the meantime,

Male sexual health and wellness, not a problem. Erectile dysfunction solutions are welcome to advertise everywhere. There is a massive hypocritical, gendered, biased double standard at play. And what is especially frustrating is MakeLoveNotPorn is banned from doing paid search ads on Google. But every day all around the world,

People search for make love not porn without knowing that we exist. And what I mean by that is the top organic search terms that send traffic to us are make love not porn, real sex not porn, video sexo na porno, make love not porn, where they don't know there's a company actually called that. One young man told me that he found us when he Googled porn that is not porn.

He was so fed up with everything out there. He had no idea what to search for. Fortunately, when you search porn that is not porn, you find make love not porn. That is how much the world wants what we do and cannot find us. And that is why I say this is a huge opportunity for investors

Annie Wenmiao Yu (13:07)
Hmm.

Cindy Gallop (13:27)
because by the way, all these barriers fall when I can write big enough checks. You bet if I could invest $1 million in paid search ads on Google.

I'll be allowed to do paid search ads on Google. And I cannot even begin to describe to you how shitty my life is on a daily basis because of obstructive infrastructure.

20 bloody 26. Okay, that's how difficult everything about running this business is on a daily basis. And by the way, that makes a statement about the kind of founder I am that

After all these years, we are still operational and still alive when the entire tech business and financial world has been trying to shut us down for years. I am the kind of founder investors claim to want to back.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (14:18)
I think your grit and also resilience and determination comes across. What keeps you so dedicated to this particular mission and this particular venture, Cindy? Because given your expertise and also your experience, you could have easily given up and gone back to another corporate job or started another venture that is not MakeLoveNotPorn What keeps you going day after day for the past 17 years?

Cindy Gallop (14:45)
things. The first is our community at MakeLoveNotPorn writes to us every day and tells us how we've changed their lives. I I have a business that that is world changing, that has the proven ability at scale to help end rape culture globally.

If I didn't have product market fit, I would have given up many, many years ago. I have a business that

could not be more badly needed in the world today. So first of all, those emails, comments from our community every single day keep me going. The second is what is happening around us. MakeLoveNotPorn could not be more badly needed in a world where white tech bros are destroying the future of humanity. And I've talked about this publicly for years.

The young white male founders of the giant tech platforms that dominate all our lives today, they are not the primary target online or offline of harassment, abuse, sexual assault, violence, racism, rape, intimate image abuse. Therefore they did not and they do not proactively design.

for the prevention of any of those issues on their platforms because they don't give a shit because they don't happen to them. Those of us who are most at risk every day, women, black people, people of color, LGBTQ, people with disabilities, we design safe spaces and safe experiences, but we do not get funded. Only 1.7 % of all venture capital last year went to female founders. That is why

98.3 % of our lived experience through technology every day is through the male lens, male-centric, default male setting. 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 can be when it's designed and built through the female lens. And these are the two key words at scale. So in a world where right now,

Deep fakes are destroying the lives of millions of girls and women worldwide. Where Elon Musk's grok is running rampant. Where child abuse and grooming permeates all of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, because the white guys at the top don't give a shit about any of that going on in the pursuit of revenue and profits and growth. I've built solutions.

Because the only solution to all of that is lifelong sex education.

Sex education as early as possible, and I'll come on to what I'm doing about that in a moment, and sex education on an ongoing basis to preempt the appalling digital children and young people are now subject to in a way they never were before. And reason number three, very straightforwardly, is the single dynamic that most motivates me is the one that I characterize as I'm going to fucking well show you.

You tell me it can't be done, I'm going to fucking well show you. You put a bar in my path, I'm going to fucking well show you.

I take all of that daily demoralization, discouragement, attempt to destroy the business I'm building for good. And I challenge into motivation and inspiration. So I'm a great believer that when you have a truly world-changing startup, you have to change the world to fit it, not the other way around.

If the ecosystem that is meant to enable you to scale and thrive shuts you out, build your own ecosystem. So I have a product roadmap, MakeLoveNotPorn, that is focused on infrastructure. At the heart of it is, MakeLoveNotPorn, sex tech, very challenging to raise funding for, although investors listening right now fund me and I guarantee you returns the likes of which you've never seen.

By the way, MakeLoveNotPorn operates in the single biggest sector of them all. Not sex, not porn, the market of human happiness. Around it have a road map that has an EdTech product, a FinTech product, an AdTech product, and an AI product. By the way, I didn't set out to be an EdTech founder, a FinTech founder, an AdTech founder, and an AI founder, but I'm being forced to because of the circumstances I'm dealing with.

So I am building solutions to my own problems that everybody else can use. And I intend to make an absolute gun and fucking shit ton of money out of those solutions. So the first one, EdTech, is an idea I came up with 10 years ago because parents and teachers began reaching out to me from day one of MakeLoveNotPorn begging me for this. And bear in mind, Annie and listeners, everything I talk to you about.

is not finger in the wind stuff. This is not me going, ooh, I think this might fly. This is what I've been asked for on a daily basis for 17 years. The gap in the market is absolutely colossal. So parents and teachers reached out saying, please, will you build a zero to 18 and beyond sex education extension of what you do?

So I came up 10 years ago with the idea for MakeLoveNotPorn.academy, which I characterize as the Khan Academy of Sex Education. Because Khan Academy, the online tutoring platform, tutors on every other topic under the sun except this one. Ed Tech is exploding as a category, not in this area. So I conceived MakeLoveNotPorn.academy.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (20:24)
Hmm.

Cindy Gallop (20:34)
as a global aggregator hub for the best of the world's sex education content that is already out there but is being blocked, censored and deplatformed everywhere as we speak. Our mission at MakeLoveNotPorn.academy is to organize the world's sex education information to make it universally accessible and useful. That is a deliberate paraphrase of Google's original mission statement, organize the world's information to make it universally accessible and useful.

Because today in this area, Google is not doing that. The algorithm is biased. It's censoring. Parents and teachers tell me regularly they search for the resources they need to educate about sex. They cannot find them. And so we are building the Google of sex ed. Now, as I said, I came up with this idea 10 years ago. That is how long investors have refused to fund it.

Investors have refused to fund the Google of sex ed. Listeners, try and get your heads around that. I managed to raise a small amount of equity crowdfunding last year. I honestly thought in 2024, 25, I'd be able to raise just over $1 million on WeFund. I spectacularly failed. still sex. We We raised just over $400,000. But that enabled us to design and build.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (21:52)
How much have you raised?

Mm-hmm.

Cindy Gallop (21:59)
makelovenotporn.academy. And so listeners, if you go to that URL, makelovenotporn.academy, you will find a very bare bones, very early stage beta that we took live very quietly under the radar, literally just last month, a few weeks ago, in order to real world test it and to make it easier to load educators and content onto the platform. So be forgiving.

when you look at it, we are still loading content on. We're going to launch officially as soon as we have a critical mass of educators and content, hopefully in about a month or so. But you will see how the academy is designed to work. aware that it operates our unique 100 % human curation model. On MakeLoveNotPorn, there is no self-publishing of anything. On the academy, there is no self-publishing of anything. Just as we vet

Every single video on Make Love Not Porn with human eyes, we approve or reject, we publish. With the Academy, we vet every single educator and every piece of work and we publish their profiles and their work. we can guarantee that all the education on the Academy is safe and we endorse it. Our curation criteria are broad but fundamental. Your work must be educational, fact-based and non-judgmental and then we'll accept it from the Academy.

Be aware also that the Academy is 100 % safe for work. This is purely educational. There's nothing explicit. You will see that you can search by age-appropriateness. That simply applies to the particular age group an educator has developed their work for. You know, with educators with adult education, with educators with child education, teenage education, et cetera. And the Academy is completely free to access everybody.

⁓ But we do have a membership model because we desperately need financial support. So please, when you go to the Academy, please consider becoming a member, because that's how you can support our work. And members get a monthly newsletter, access to events, we plan to have remote events, RL events, as well as the ability to input feedback and help shape the future of the Academy. And by the way, philanthropists,

⁓ We have a nonprofit vehicle. We've partnered with the nonprofit Inspire Access, which was started in order to be able to channel philanthropic capital, tax-deductible donations, foundation grants to founders like me of for-profit social impact ventures who struggle for funding. So we can take philanthropic capital and donor-advised funds donations.

So that's the EdTech venture. And again, investors, I'm being very pragmatic. The path to exit is very clear. I want to prove it's possible to operate a safe sex education platform at scale and then exit to giant FinTech from absolute god-unfucking-shit-tonne-of-money.

My second product, which I'm also working on currently, is my FinTech product.

Because given the payment processing issues I talked about earlier, I've said for years, I want to build the stripe of Sextech. Because the first payments app that welcomes legal, ethical, transparent ventures like mine cleans up. There is a huge market opportunity in so-called restricted business payments and payouts. Not just adult and Sextech like me, but

cannabis, psychedelics, crypto itself, and interestingly, a number of businesses that you would not think would be restricted but are. So in the past couple of months, I picked up two separate posts on LinkedIn from two different female founders. Each of these female founders is building a crowdfunding platform. They had integrated Stripe to take payments. Stripe had suddenly decided

that crowdfunding is a restricted business and refuse to work with these women. And by the way, they both spent a significant amount of money integrating Stripe in their platforms and now they can't use Stripe. So I am planning to build and launch Block Free. Listeners, there is a holding page at blockfree.us. I like the rallying cry of Block Free Us. I'm calling it Block Free because I want to free us all from the blocks of fintech injustice.

but also because this is built on the blockchain. I've been looking for years for the right crypto partner. I finally found one. We have an excellent partner. This is stable coin play by the way. So what we're doing at the moment is we are integrating our partner into MakeLoveNotPorn. We're to proof test this solution to make sure it works for us taking member payments and making payouts with all the same issues, by the way, with payout mechanisms for our MakeLoveNotPorn stars. Once it's working as we want it to, we're going to turn this into a standalone app.

called Block Free that everybody else can use. And there are two unique things about how Block Free is going to operate. First of all, Block Free will operate again a 100 % human curation model. Human eyes will vet every application to make sure that they are legal, ethical, and transparent. That is how we guarantee we can take restricted business payments safely and securely.

And secondly, what I said to our partner is, you know, when we launched this as BlockFree, the words crypto, blockchain and stable coin must appear nowhere near it. The crypto community has not told its story well enough. Sam Bankman Fried does not help matters. As far as people will be concerned using BlockFree it's money in its money out. And if we can make that work seamlessly and delightfully.

Many more people want to use this than just restricted businesses. And we can deliver the mass market mainstream use case that the crypto community is desperate for. And by the way, again, I'm being very pragmatic. The path to exit is very clear. When I prove I can take restricted business payments safely and securely, Giant Fintech buys me for an absolute goddamn fucking shit ton of money.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (28:26)
Cindy, what have you learned about yourself over the course of starting Make Love Not Porn to today?

Cindy Gallop (28:35)
Honestly, I think I've learned that, there is a path around, over, under and through anything. You know, I absolutely refuse to be deterred and stopped by anything. if you simply use your brain,

Annie Wenmiao Yu (28:46)
Mm-hmm.

Cindy Gallop (28:55)
And if you look at the world strategically in a way that is very different to the way other people look at it, by which I mean, as I said, how can I change the world to fit me, not the other way around, then anything's possible.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (29:09)
Did you ever have imposter syndrome?

Cindy Gallop (29:12)
Oh, fuck imposter syndrome. the reason I say that Annie is as far as I'm concerned, there is no such thing as imposter syndrome. Okay? There are only people, predominantly women, who have never been appreciated, valued, promoted and celebrated and championed in the way that they should. So,

I've not had imposter syndrome because, and as many women have observed, when you look at the levels, the heights that mediocre men can reach, why the fuck would you have imposter syndrome?

I've absolutely insecure about something, will this work? I have a theory here, I'm building this work? I've obviously felt fear many times.

⁓ but no, you know imposter syndrome is a complete fucking fantasy. It doesn't exist

Annie Wenmiao Yu (30:08)
Great, I

think you replied exactly the way that I thought you would. I personally had the sense that imposter syndrome wasn't part of your vocabulary. And I think you would also align with the understanding that imposter syndrome is how you know that you are really pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and challenging yourself to do something it's a new opportunity that you should take. we live in a world that's quite dominated at the moment by social media performances, by dating apps.

How do you think that young professionals, whether they're living in London or in New York, how do you think that they can cultivate meaningful connection in addition to, of course, using MakeLoveNotPorn?

Cindy Gallop (30:47)
So honestly, the answer is very simple because it's why I built MakeLoveNotPorn. I built MakeLoveNotPorn to use technology to make good things happen in the real world. And I encourage especially today, focus on what great connections can I make IRL. And I say that very deliberately, for...

a number of reasons. The first is, and you may not be aware of this, but for the benefit of our listeners, for the past year of the whole of 2025, I've been waging a battle on LinkedIn against the algorithm. And I began doing this in early 2025 because I, right now, have over 143,000 followers on LinkedIn.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (31:26)
Yep.

Cindy Gallop (31:36)
I've hit my limit of 30,000 connections. By the way, who knew there was a limit? I didn't till I hit it. And when you actually hit 30,000 connections, you can no longer send or receive connections. And LinkedIn makes it very difficult to cull. I have something like 2,200 connection requests on my wait list I can do nothing about. And my impressions at the start of this year fell off a cliff. My posts on average get a few hundred impressions each.

So I began calling this out on LinkedIn. I asked LinkedIn to open a formal investigation to what had happened. They assured me there was nothing untoward. I wasn't doing anything I shouldn't do. This continued. And other women noticed it happening to them. And in the course of the year, I've mobilized a very large group of people. And we have a movement called Fairness in the Feed.

listeners, you go to fairness in the feeds.com, ⁓ you will see what I'm talking about. And our group contains some brilliant deep tech engineering people whose business is studying AI and machine learning and especially the impact of algorithms in an ⁓ HR and employment context. We have a number of people who specialize

in that in our group. And one that we've identified is that there absolutely is algorithmic bias. And it's not intentional, but the correct term is proxy bias. And proxy bias is what happens when you go, we're assuming all things are equal, know, we're building an algorithm that is absolutely balanced and equal.

But that algorithm has been trained on what has historically been deemed to be most credible in a business context, most professionally relevant, most weighty and gravitas written, and that is white men. And so unintentionally, the LinkedIn algorithm is absolutely suppressing

marginalized groups. Women, people of color. And by the way, bear in mind that LinkedIn is an American company based in the US, trained on American data. But globally, you have a global majority, a global south majority of professionals who are being marginalized. this is very, very problematic.

First of all, because visibility on LinkedIn absolutely not a matter of, I want lights, I want to be popular. The way I put it is algorithmic suppression equals economic oppression. The algorithm decides who's visible, who is visible for job opportunities, who's visible for industry thought leadership and therefore gets the

paying gigs and the paying consulting gigs. who is visible in terms of their business decides what small businesses live or die by the algorithm. My friend Jane Evans, who's been campaigner with me on this front, we were both especially concerned because last year we both launched businesses. I launched MakeLoveNotPorn Academy and Jane launched a community platform called The Seventh Tribe.

which you can find at 7thTribe.com, seven is the number. she posted on LinkedIn last year saying, if you had shown this post to 10 % of my followers, I could have paid my rent this month. Because she is doing paid events on the 7th Tribe, and that is how she's supporting herself. And nobody's seeing her posts. And she cannot make revenue and she cannot pay her rent. So A, algorithmic suppression equals economic oppression.

And B, this is especially concerning because LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft. The same data training models are being used not just to train the LinkedIn algorithm, but to train Microsoft's business products that are integrated and embedded into the working world globally. And think about what that means. So.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (35:41)
Hmm.

Cindy Gallop (35:42)
And by the way, this interesting, this another infrastructure point. This is a very, very big problem. I really encourage people to be aware of it, is also Annie why I'm saying to young LinkedIn is no longer working the way it should, the way it reported to. It is not providing equal access to opportunity for everybody.

I really encourage people to look at how you can make more connections IRL, network IRL. consciously think about going to conferences and events that enable you to do that. Because, LinkedIn has absolutely fallen prone to the syndrome that Corey Doctorow describes as end shitification, which is when platforms become too big to care. They're so focused on growth at all costs. And by the way,

There is no coincidence that the LinkedIn algorithm change happened at the same time paid boosting. You will see whenever you post - want more people to see this post? Pay to boost it. what this also means is the opportunity is enormous for anybody who wants to build the next LinkedIn. That is definitely fifth on my product roadmap after my EdTech product, FinTech product, Tech product, AI product.

I can tell you also that a friend of mine, a woman, is building something very interesting that could well be a LinkedIn killer. And as and when I'm able to make that public, I will. But in the meantime, professionally, you know, look to make IRL connections. Emotionally and romantically look to make IRL connections as well. And this is where MakeLoveNotPorn helps because we show you love in action.

We show you the power of love, intimacy and human connection. We show you what works brilliantly in relationships, what the world is really countless people have told us that they find that enormously empowering, giving them their own sexual agency to go out and make sure that they look for the kind of relationships they want. As we all know, dating apps have fallen prey to enshittification as well.

dating industry is again dominated by male founded apps. Female founded ones are very rare. There's a huge opportunity there through the female lens to create something completely different. But in the meantime, go to IRL events where you'll meet other people. Really look to make IRL connections where you find authenticity. That's where you find chemistry. That's where you find real connection.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (38:14)
Hmm. Cindy, who are some of the unexpected allies that you have actually come across and worked with over the course of building MakeLoveNotPorn? And it could be people or organizations that you really weren't expecting to be aligned to the mission that you are on.

Cindy Gallop (38:31)
Honestly, the depressing answer is, very few. My challenge is, and always has been, and I'll talk about this in the context of investors, but it applies to champions and partners generally, I know that my investors are out there, and there are ton of them. And there are a ton of them, by the way, in every single country in the world. No matter how repressed you think a country is,

My investors are there in profusion in Asia and the Middle East. But they are impossible to find by the usual means because they all have one thing in common. Your willingness to fund MakeLoveNotPorn is entirely a function of your personal sexual journey. It's a function of your personal lens on sex and sexuality that's been shaped by your own experience of it.

And I obviously have no way to research and target for that. Not least because sex is the area where you cannot tell from the outside what anybody thinks on the inside. The people who look like they would totally get it don't. The people who look like complete prudes do.

And so my strategy is I put what I'm doing out there all the time across all my social channels.

I go on every podcast, I do every media interview because I have to make synaptic connections that will attract those investors, those partners, those champions to me. that has to happen by chance. there is no way of telling from the outside who is going to get it and who won't. And I'm always looking for the people who get it.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (40:13)
Cindy, I'm curious, in terms of geographic locations, which area do the majority of your users of MakeLoveNotPorn come from? And also, how does that correspond, if at all, to where the investors of MakeLoveNotPorn have been?

Cindy Gallop (40:30)
is no correlation, because is a global platform. Okay, so we have traffic and members and MakeLoveNotPorn stars from over 200 countries and territories. Now, our ⁓ proportionate member base is entirely down to familiarity. our biggest market is the US, which accounts for about half our membership because we are based here.

And there's a market, mean, you know, limited awareness, but just more awareness over time. Our second biggest market is the UK. Our third biggest market is Germany. Now also depressingly, that is representative of the fact that because we're tiny bootstrapping have no money, we've never been able to afford to automate and supervise translation on Make Love Not Porn.

Our site is English language only. that's a problem when every single country in the world wants what we do, but it can't always access it. during the pandemic five years ago, one of the biggest daily newspapers in South Korea, Chosun ran an article about us.

And I found out because I woke following morning, to South Korea as the number one source of traffic to make Love Not Porn accounting for 56 % of all of our traffic. That was how much South Koreans wanted what we do, the documentary Porn's Hollywood movie, when they found out about it. Now, South Korea is one of those markets where actually English is not like hugely widely spoken.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (41:49)
Wow.

Cindy Gallop (42:04)
So massive traffic, massive bounce off was tricky for them to access the site. I'll give another example of how massive our global appeal is when people find out about us. Back in July of last year, I gave a talk on MakeLoveNotPorn at South by Southwest London and in the audience was a journalist from NZZ Neuf-Zeuter.

German phrase, but it's from one of Switzerland's biggest German language, like daily publications. And so she asked if she could interview me. I went, absolutely. So she published the interview in July and tiny Switzerland rocketed to be our third highest traffic no, a fourth highest traffic source, because it knocked Canada out of fourth place. And now look at the relative size of those two markets. Switzerland is minuscule.

But the moment Swiss people discovered MakeLoveNotPorn that's how much they all wanted appeal is equal everywhere globally. It's just how we get to tell people about us. And also, I need to raise funding to be able to operate translation on the site.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (43:08)
Hmm. Thank you. And I really hope that the evolution of AI tools for translation and also the reduction in costs of that can help you spread what MakeLoveNotPorn have been doing. your experiences.

Cindy Gallop (43:20)
sorry, sorry, just to counter that, because I think in the age of AI, it's very important people understand where we come from on this. know, in our business plan, when we pitch for investment, we have an allocation for translation that is a combination of automated translation and humanized supervising. And the reason that's important, Annie, is because we are talking about a very

delicate and sensitive area, sex, sexuality, sexual activity, we must ensure that translations are fully accurate and appropriate. And you do not do that by leaving it purely to AI, especially when AI has been trained on literally centuries of repression and prudishness.

and hypocrisy ingrained into everything about how society interacts around sex. I want to be able to bring our 100 % human creation model to more people and more businesses because I'm all H.I. powered by AI, you human intelligence powered artificial intelligence.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (44:33)
Understood. I guess it's the nuances in this sector that you're in as well, Cindy.

Cindy Gallop (44:34)
I was like, I'm so sorry.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (44:38)
How are you managing to find your employees?

Cindy Gallop (44:41)
Right, so first of all, I'm not hiring because we have no money to hire. I have a tiny team of just five employees. found them because they came to us. So our head of curation, Ariel Martinez, wrote to me years ago from college saying, I love what you're doing. Do you accept interns? And we were tiny and I went, we haven't, but we could. So she interned for us.

you know, then came to work for us and worked her way up to head of curation. Our head of sales, Abigail Mleinart, wrote to me how many years ago this was, just as I was thinking, I need to hire somebody for sales. Our people have come to us. And by the way, every week we get at least half a dozen people writing to us saying, please, I'm going to come and work for you. Do you have any jobs open? Okay. We can't hire anybody. We have no money. Again, you know,

Annie Wenmiao Yu (45:30)
Hmm.

Cindy Gallop (45:33)
I need to raise funding to do two very important things, be able to hire, be able to market and promote. But as and when I have that funding, we will have no problem at all recruiting because people want to work for a mission-driven business and more and more people see the appalling sexual online harms that the white tech bro founded, Tech for World is driving, and they want to be a part of a female-led solution to that.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (46:01)
Hmm, understood. Cindy, it's been a pleasure to have you on to share your experiences, also your day to day experiences on the battlefield. is the one thing that you believe will allow more people to have better mental health?

Cindy Gallop (46:14)
It's very simple and again I'm obviously biased. Better sexual health, better comfort with your own sexuality is hugely impactful on mental health. I've spent 17 years seeing first hand every day the enormous human misery and unhappiness driven by the shame, guilt and embarrassment we've imbued sex with.

And so absolutely being able to reap the benefits of what MakeLoveNotPorn is designed to do at scale, know, take the shame, guilt, embarrassment out of sex, make people feel at comfort with their sexuality and therefore better able to form relationships around love, intimacy and human connection, that will have a dramatically beneficial impact on mental health worldwide.

Annie Wenmiao Yu (47:04)
Thank you. Cindy, it's been a pleasure to have you on the podcast.

Cindy Gallop (47:08)
It's been great to talk.