Cindy Gallop Kevin Abosch As the founder and CEO of MakeLoveNotPorn (MLNP), Cindy Gallop is ushering in a new type of intimacy for couples who want to share their private moments and those who want to watch.

MLNP is a crowd-sourced porn site where anyone can submit an intimate video and share it with the world.

The site evolved into a global phenomenon without Gallop actually doing anything at all. Initially, the site, which started out as MakeLoveNotPorn.com received high traffic from all over the world including China, India, Pakistan, and Indonesia.

MLNP launched as a business in 2009 as MakeLoveNotPorn.com after a TED talk Gallop conducted. After extraordinary response from the .com world, MakeLoveNotPorn.tv was born.

MLNP places emphasis on real life intimacy, the funny, messy, and awkward parts that the average porn studio would never show.

Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks focus on connecting people and furthering social interactions but Gallop wants to enable people to talk about sex in the same way. "Why not take every dynamic that exists out there with social media currently, and apply them to the one area that no other social media platform has ever gone, or is ever going to go, which is sex," she said.

The MLNP Team (from L to R): Madame Curator, Sarah Beall, Co-Founder/User Experience, Oonie Chase, CEO & Founder, Cindy Gallop, and Co-Founder/CTO Corey Innis at Gallop's Apartment/Office. Daniel Goodman/Business Insider



MLNP participants and viewers must be 18+, users submit videos to the site and they are reviewed by "the Madam Curator," Sarah Beall, to ensure that they live up to the standards of the site. Once they've received approval, videos are posted to the site and viewers pay $5 to watch one for up to three weeks. MLNP splits the profits with viewers (aside from a few fees) and Gallop says that she pays on a 90-day cycle. Some participates have made sales in the four figures.

Videos aren't limited to couples — solo, and multiple-participant films are also accepted.

"Porn by default has become the sex education of today and in not a good way," Gallop explains.

"Porn by default has become the sex education of today and in not a good way," Gallop explains.

"I found myself encountering a number of sexual behavioral memes, if you will. I went 'whoa, I know where that behavior's coming from!' And I thought if I'm encountering this other people must be as well. And I want to do something about it."

Gallop's ultimate goal is to change how we as a society view sex. She wants to live in a world where a naked picture leak is an afterthought and no one cares because we're more comfortable with our sexuality.

Gallop's believes her site is the type of disruption that the multi-billion-dollar porn industry needs. But there are some who think that while her project is creative it may not necessarily work.

Not everyone thinks it's going to work



Dr. Ogi Ogas, a neuroscientist, recently published a book called "A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What The Internet Tells Us About Sexual Relationships" with another neuroscientist, Sai Gaddam. Ogas had never heard of MakeLoveNotPorn until we brought it to his attention but his experience in the digital porn space helped us see Gallop's site from a different perspective.

Dr. Ogas is skeptical of Gallop's view:

Men and women develop sexual interests in very different ways, are predisposed towards very different sexual interests, and respond differently towards the same sexual material. In particular, women have a more emotional and psychological response to erotic content, while men have a more visual and physical response. It's true that porn can serve as a sexual education, but a very useful education for exploring one's sexual interests and learning about one's sexual identity -- am I gay? Do I prefer to be dominant or submissive? Though women frequently voice fears that men are learning "negative messages" from watching pornography, men's sexual brains don't tend to process pornography in the same psychological way as women. Getting aroused from looking at a woman's breasts (or a man's chest), for example, is a natural and deep-rooted male response that is independent from any cultural "message."

In terms of the MLNP project itself, Ogas says:

It's highly doubtful her project will disrupt the porn industry; indeed, amateur pornography is already one of the most popular genres of pornography around the world, and "candid" pornography in particular (featuring amateur content that is surreptitiously photographed and/or uploaded) is widespread, highly diverse, and easily obtained for free. In addition, erotica that features the "funny, messy, awkward moments of sex" generally appeals to women more than men and is already found on female-targeted erotic sites, particularly lesbian sites. Even more challenging for her project, women are highly reluctant to pay for visual pornography. Having said that, I'm always in favor of creativity and innovation in erotica and certainly hope that she might find a unique niche for her material that satisfies the desires of a under-served sexual audience.

Despite Ogas not necessarily believing in the project, MLNP is already a movement. At seven months old the site has over 75,000 members and have taken in tens of thousands of dollars in revenue.

MakeLoveNotPorn.tv is scalable. Together, we can build our community and our reach to the point where, one day, your #realworldsex video could hit that YouTube holy grail of one million rentals – hey, no reason why not, this is #realworldsex we’re talking – and at $5 per rental, where you get half of what your video makes….well, you do the math.

Gallop says, "in a world where the received wisdom is 'nobody pays for porn', she counters that her users are paying for 'real world sex' and have made two revenue-sharing payouts to date. Gallop would also like to help the porn industry with what her company is doing. "What I mean by that is I would like to show the industry it is possible to create a new innovative, disruptive business model, and to leverage human sexualized entertainment in a whole different way."

The home page of the MLNP site. Everything with the exception of the videos are Safe For Work, Gallop says. Make Love Not Porn

Gallop shares the story of one particular young man who wrote to her about the effects of pornography on him from a very young age:

One young guy left a comment on MLNP.com that said i'm 23, and anyone that tells you that watching porn doesn't influence people, I'm living proof that it does, he said I began watching porn at 10 or 11, and for years, I thought that sex was just this degrading thing that people did. I had no idea that it was something that had to do with affection let alone love. It's really scary.

But can Gallop's future of porn actually become a business?

Gallop believes so. "When I say that [MLNP is the future of porn], what I mean is, I bring a very particular perspective to the porn industry in general. I bring a business perspective, and that's relatively rare. The only reason it's rare is that the people with brilliant brains [particularly venture capitalists and angel investors] have no interest whatsoever in turning any of that brilliance on the adult industry and they should," she explains.

It took Gallop over two years to secure funding and set up MLNP. Normally a venture at this stage in its lifecycle would be gearing up for a Series A round of funding. Gallop and MLNP cannot do that now because she doesn't want to "bang her head against a closed door."

Instead, the company is looking for brand partners who are interested in investing in a partnership with the site. Gallop explains that she is looking for brands "whose own business growth is forever inhibited unless the societal barriers we're out to break down are broken down for them, and that's brands potentially in any area of sexual health and well-being, whatever."

We really want to find partners who believe in our mission who want to work with us to make this happen, particularly on the payments front. Which has been an enormous headache for us. Anybody who believes in what we're doing and offers a service that we could use, we would just love to hear from them.