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

Cindy Gallop is a British advertising industry veteran turned entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of MakeLoveNotPorn, the world's first user-generated, 100% human-curated social sex video platform, which she launched at TED in 2009. She is a globally recognised public speaker and a leading voice for honest conversations about sex, gender bias in tech and venture capital, and building businesses that do good and make money simultaneously.

MakeLoveNotPorn is the world's first user-generated, 100% human-curated social sex video platform. Unlike pornography, it features real people sharing real-world intimacy, not scripted performance, and every video is reviewed by human eyes before publication. Cindy describes it as the documentary to porn's Hollywood blockbuster: sex education through real-world demonstration that normalises consent, communication and healthy sexual values.

Cindy believes that when you have a truly world-changing idea, you should change the world to fit it rather than contorting yourself to fit the existing system. When the ecosystem meant to help you scale shuts you out, you build your own, which is why she has been forced to develop her own EdTech, FinTech and AI products around MakeLoveNotPorn.

No. Cindy says there is no such thing as imposter syndrome, only people, predominantly women, who have never been appreciated, valued, promoted and championed the way they should be. Her view is that when you look at the heights mediocre men reach, there is no rational reason to feel like an impostor.

Fairness in the Feed is a movement Cindy Gallop founded to document how major platforms like LinkedIn algorithmically suppress content from women, people of colour and the global majority through proxy bias, algorithms trained on what has historically been deemed credible, which skews white and male. Her core argument is that algorithmic suppression equals economic oppression, because visibility determines who gets opportunities, gigs and income. More at fairnessinthefeeds.com.

MakeLoveNotPorn Academy is a forthcoming, 100% human-curated EdTech platform Cindy describes as both the Khan Academy and the Google of sex education. Built in response to 17 years of requests from parents and teachers, it aggregates the world's best, fact-based, non-judgmental sex-education content, which is otherwise being censored and deplatformed, into one safe, searchable, free-to-access hub.

Cindy argues the connection is direct: she has spent 17 years seeing the human misery driven by the shame, guilt and embarrassment society attaches to sex. Helping people feel comfortable with their own sexuality, she says, lets them form relationships rooted in love, intimacy and connection, making better sexual health a powerful and under-discussed lever on mental wellbeing.