Money, Sex, and Ending Rape Culture with Cindy Gallop

Jamie Lee  
I am so excited for this conversation that we're going to have today with the one and only Cindy Gallup. And on her LinkedIn profile, she says that she likes to blow shit up. And she's also one of the most erudite, entertaining fabulous public speakers and feminists that I have encountered. I've had the privilege of meeting in person. So Cindy, let's talk about what we're always thinking about money, and six.

Cindy Gallop  
Sounds good Jamie, thrilled to be here.

Jamie Lee  
I'm so happy to have you here. So for those of us who are listening, we're not familiar with the body of work that you have built up over the years. Maybe you can walk us through, you know, who you are, what you do, and how you got to doing what you do now. Sure.

Cindy Gallop  
So my background is 38 years working in brand building, marketing and advertising. And today, I'm the founder and CEO of Make Love Not porn. We are pro sex pro porn pro at knowing the difference. And, you know, Make Love Not porn is an accident, I should say that everything in my life and prayers always happen by accident. I'm a big believer in serendipity. But it came about because I date younger men, they tend to be in their 20s. And many years before anybody else identified this, I realized that when we don't talk openly and honestly about sex, porn becomes sex education by default, in not a good way. So I launched Make Love Not porn 15 years ago, at the TED conference in 2009. And today, we are the world's first and only user generated 100%, human curated social sex video sharing platform. So we're kind of what Facebook would be, if it allowed you to socially sexually self Express, which He clearly doesn't. The way to think about us is, if porn is the Hollywood blockbuster movie, Make Love Not porn as the badly needed documentary, we have a unique window onto the funny, messy, loving, wonderful sex we'll have in the real world. And what we're doing is we are socializing, normalizing and de stigmatizing sex, bring it out of the shadows into the sunlight, to promote consent, communication, good sexual values and behavior. We are literally sex education through real world demonstration.

Jamie Lee  
Thank you so much for that. And this is negotiate your career growth podcast. And it's for women, it's for smart, ambitious women who, you know, who enjoy sex on their free time, right? And here's the through line that I see, which is that great sex is a result of a good negotiation. And I know because I've been following you on LinkedIn that you have declared 2020 for the year of sex and money. And actually,

Cindy Gallop  
actually, Jamie importantly, money and sex in that order.

Jamie Lee  
Oh, tell me why that's important.

Cindy Gallop  
So this is a this is a personal thing. And and I will just explain to our listeners that I have a sub stat called Dear Cindy, which I encourage everyone subscribed to where I basically invite people to ask me anything, and each week I answer a different question. And so the question I got a couple of weeks back was, you know, somebody asked, you know, do you believe in New Year's resolutions? And if so, what is yours? And so in response to that I wrote, you know, generally speaking, I'm not a big New Year's resolution person, but for 2024, My resolution is that this is going to be the year of money on sets. And the reason I'm specific about the order shaming is because, um, you know, I'm currently working to raise funding for Make Love, Not porn, and that's all quite stressful. And, you know, right now, I'm very hopeful that this will be the year that I make that happen. But I need to prioritize that. Because until I have secured my business's financial future, you know, it's very hard to get out of that into dating mode, and go out there and have all the sex I want to and and I was Franklin, my answer on substack that, you know, the Gallup dating life and somewhat suffered in the past, you know, precisely because of how much fundraising had consumed me. And so the order is deliberate. You know, the moment I can raise that funding, whoopee Watch out world because here comes the sex.

Jamie Lee  
Thank you for that. In fact, I just had a conversation with somebody who was struggling in her career because she was encountering discrimination. She's like, how do I negotiate through this? And we, you know, thought it all the way through all this different angles. And at the end, she's like, Yeah, I'm just I don't see a way out. But I'm spending all my time volunteering for free. And I said, you have to stop that you have Absolutely. Right, you have to prioritize taking care of yourself, you have to take care of yourself financially. And then you can go volunteer, or date or have more sex, right? Yeah. But again, I just want to highlight what I love about you. And the work that you're doing is really embodying what it's like for a woman to you know, we empower ourselves in terms of our sex lives. And in terms of our financial lives. Yeah. And what I'm hearing is first, yes, we got to be able to make the money sustain the business so that we can have even better sex, and where can people go to contribute if people want to contribute to make love not porn, you know, working people go.

Cindy Gallop  
Great. So thank you for asking that, Jamie. Because I would love everyone listening to go to Make Love Not porn.tv. Please do sign up and subscribe to support us. Subscriptions start at $10 a month, it's very affordable. But also, I'm going to just, you know, give you a sneak peek of the fact that in a couple of weeks time, we are going to be launching our first ever make love not porn equity crowdfunding campaign. And we're launching it with a very exciting partner. And I can't say any more about that at the moment. But I would love everybody listening to support us by joining that crowdfunding campaign, you know, you absolutely become a shareholder and Make Love Not porn. And, and the minimum amount they can fund is it starts at $100. So it's thankfully, you know, affordable for, you know, some people to come and support us that way as well.

Jamie Lee  
I really do believe in control, freedom and empowerment. Oh, I'm hearing a bit of feedback. I can't hear anything. Oh, you don't hear anything. Okay. Let's proceed. Okay. And so let's have a conversation about you know, why it matters for us to destigmatize sex. Because, you know, when we're embarrassed to talk about sex to, to embrace it as part of our lives, I think it's sort of what's the word emblematic of us not being able to own our own agency, individual agency, right, just owning that, whatever gender, race background, you have, whatever, you know, whatever professional experience you have, that you are a human being, and you are a sexual being most people are right, most people identify as asexual. And I do think it contributes to a sense of confidence that spreads into your professional life. And I'd love to hear your experience. I'd love to hear your thoughts about that. Jamie,

Cindy Gallop  
I love the framing you're bringing to this conversation because you're you're absolutely right. You know, I say lightheartedly, but this is absolutely true. I say that. When I've raised the family I'm looking for and I've scaled Make Love Not porn to be the face book of social sex globally, because that's how big I want this to be. One of the side effects is that we will see productivity shoot up in offices worldwide. Because Because here's the thing, you know, because our society is so messed up about sex, we've defaulted it to an act to a thing we do. It's not its personality, who we are sexually informs everything about how we feel about ourselves, you know, other people, our relationships, our lives, our happiness. When you know, I've spent the past 15 years, every day in the messages we receive and make love, not porn in the conversations I have in the comments. I've I've had a front row seat to the enormous human unhappiness and misery caused by the shame, guilt and embarrassment that we imbue sex with. When we take that away. The impact is transformative. When each of us feels at ease with ourselves as a sexual being to your point. The transmission is profound in every single area of our lives. And, you know, the one thing about Make Love Not porn is that as a unique business, we have a unique capability. We have the power to change people's sexual attitudes and behavior for the better in a way that nothing else can see in the 11 years we've operated as a business. You know, we've taught countless young people that porn is not sex in the real world. Gen Z loves us We have saved numerous marriages and relationships inspired communications breakthroughs within couples. And parents tell us living part of our community has made them feel able to be more open and healthy in educating their children around sex. And in fact, parents are buying that teenagers and 20 Somethings children's subscriptions to make love not porn, because they tell us I want my kids to see what happy, healthy loving Secretary shirts look like. And what is also really interesting is, as with any disruptive technology use cases emerge with the founder never dreamt of. So survivors of rape, sexual assault, sexual abuse right to us. They tell us that Make Love Not porn to help them reclaim their bodies. We help them feel able to be sexual again, in a situation where porn is too triggering. And it's not just the people who watch our amazing real world sex videos, we have a number of contributors who we call out Make Love Not porn stars, who tell us that being able to share themselves sexually, in a completely safe and trustworthy space has helped them process and heal from sexual trauma. And that is wonderful to hear. Because ultimately, our mission at Make Love Not porn is to help end rape culture globally. And while that sounds like a very big goal, we have 11 years of proof of concept at a micro level, we help and rape culture by doing something incredibly simple, which nobody else anywhere on the internet is doing. We end rape culture by showing you how wonderful, great consensual communicative sex is in the real world. Our social sex videos, role model, good sexual values, and good sexual behavior. And here's the important part, we make all of that aspirational, versus what you see in porn in popular culture. One man left a comment on a video saying, this video makes me want to be a better man in the bedroom and in life. That's the impact we have. That's beautiful. And I'm

Jamie Lee  
curious, have you ever encountered somebody who had experienced sexual trauma at work in the workplace? You know, because I work with only women. And people tell me my clients saw me they experienced gender discrimination and sometimes sexual assault in the workplace. And I'm just curious, has that ever been an experience that that you heard of, from the users of Make Love, Not porn?

Cindy Gallop  
So I have heard all about that for many years, from vast numbers of people. And what I mean by that is, I've been speaking out publicly about sexual harassment for years, years before me too. And I spoke out about it publicly because nobody else was. And so for years, women have been writing to me from my industry advertising, sharing horrific stories, and for years, I would try and encourage them to go public with their stories, and they were too scared to it, which is entirely understandable. So, so six years, seven years ago now, and well, the spoiler is seven years. But when the Harvey Weinstein expose, they happened in October 2017. I thought maybe now finally, this will inspire people to name names. So I wrote a post on Facebook, in October of 2017. I didn't think very much about it. I just posted I said, Women of the advertising industry at the time has come to expose the Harvey Weinstein's of our industry. The time has come to name names like all these brave women have done with Harvey Weinstein. Please write to me. And I will connect you with trusted reporters who can who can tell your stories in the media and an avalanche hit my inbox and went on hitting my inbox in the next six months. And by the way, has never has never really stopped. And I was just horrified by what showed up. And in fact, I was giving a big keynote at an advertising industry conference next month. At the last minute, I rewrote my presentation to make the first half of all about what I was seeing my inbox. And I said to the audience, you know, I always knew it was bad. I never knew how bad it really was. You know, I said to the audience, you know, I'm hearing from women who were sexually harassed and raped 30 years ago, and I'm hearing from 20 Somethings who can't believe the industry they just joined. I said, you know, our industry has shielded rapists, serial rapists for decades. I said I'm appalled and disgusted at the fact that you know, the names of being named to me, or men, I thought were good guys. Men are considered friends, many men have sat across me looked me in the eye and told me how much they support women. And by the way, I mean, I also heard from, you know, men in our industry who are harassed by, you know, powerful gay men. And, and so I tried to get those stories broken. And at the end of the day, I couldn't because everybody men and women alike, were too terrified to speak up because the powerful men doing the harassing are the gatekeepers of everything, jobs, pay raises, promotions, you know, awards, careers. And, and, you know, it was notable how terrified the men of the industry were because because when I realized this is going to be really challenging, I did a number of things to try and encourage people to speak up make this happen. So I set out to guilt the men of my industry. I put the word out, I went men who stood by watched, laughed, joined in, participated, now is your chance all these years later to be able to look yourself in the mirror every morning, you know, speak up now. And actually, that worked. I did guilt a number of men into reaching out to me about what they'd witnessed. But they equally, were too terrified to speak up to an extraordinary degree. And by the way, my inbox was global. And so there are parts of the world where literally, the men who contacted me would only do so on an encrypted app. And they were literally worried about having something really lethal happen to them when they exposed what the men in power had done. So that didn't work. Then I tried a bit because obviously, everyone was too terrified, because they thought they'd never work again. Yeah, so then I tried to get agencies to commit to hiring whistleblowers. I went, you know, the whistleblowers of our industry, are the people you should be falling over yourselves to recruit. Because these are

Jamie Lee  
sorry to interrupt, but you're talking about people who have already spoken up who have no debt?

Cindy Gallop  
No, no. This was me faced with a situation when nobody wants to speak up. And so they didn't want to speak up because they thought they'd never work again. So I put the call out to agencies and holding companies, I want you to pledge that you will rush to interview and recruit anybody who speaks up to create a safety net. Yep, exactly. Because because these are the people who have integrity and principles, these are the people who want to do the right thing. Our industry should be falling over itself to hide the fuck out of whistleblowers. And I got my friends who ran smaller agencies to publicly pledged clips, but I couldn't get any of the big ones too. So that's it. Then I took a leaf out of the Harvey Weinstein playbook. And I said, you know, women are the advertising industry. You know, because this is also a huge barrier, you know, they were pressured into signing NDAs into signing agreements. So I said, you know, first of all, you can break an NDA as often as women did with the Harvey Weinstein saga, because when you go public with what actually happened, they can't come after you. And I said, secondly, you may have signed an NDA, your partner didn't, your parents didn't, your friends didn't, your colleagues didn't. Other people can speak on your behalf. Because that also happened, again, with the Harvey Weinstein saga where, you know, the boyfriend of one of the survivors, you know, spoke on her behalf. But that didn't work either. So, I have been trying and failing to bring justice to the advertising industry, in the context of me too, for, like I said, seven years, and I failed. And by the way, the following a year later, I keynote at the same ad industry conference again, and I said, you know, I said to you a year ago, that I would do everything it took to work with survivors to bring these men to justice. And I'm here to tell you, I failed. And I said, and I fail completely, understandably, because nobody's willing to speak up on the record or name names. I said, but I'm not giving up. powerful men who think you've gotten away with it. I'm here to tell you you haven't. Half the women who enable those powerful men you haven't gotten away with it either. And I've been continuing for the past seven years to try and bring justice and I'm not gonna stop. I'm

Jamie Lee  
just, you know, how do you create so much courage to keep trying and keep spinning? Hang up on behalf of the victims, what drives you?

Cindy Gallop  
It's very simple. Jamie, you know, something I encourage everybody to do if they've never done this before, is to take a long, hard look into themselves. And ask yourself, what do I believe in? What do I value? What do I stand for? What am I all about? And then live your life and work your work according to those values. Because all I'm doing is I'm living my values. And honestly, living and working in a way that is true to you, is the secret of happiness.

Jamie Lee  
Yeah. And so thank you so much for taking a stand speaking up. I don't think you have failed, I think you have made a valiant effort. Right on the system is, is a system and it breaks my heart that there are so many, you know, so many stories of victimhood, and it breaks my heart that people don't even want to acknowledge that the system is flawed and the system victimizes people in a way that holds the system back from growing and evolving into something even more fabulous.

Cindy Gallop  
No, exactly dreaming. When I, when I gave that presentation in October 2017. I said, What has shown up in my inbox over the past few weeks has changed my own thinking. Because previously, I stood on stage and I said, the single biggest business issue facing our industry in every other industry is lack of diversity inclusion. Yeah, for some of the audience, I've changed my thinking I was wrong. The single biggest business issue, facing our industry in every other industry is sexual harassment. And that is because sexual harassment, manages women out of industries. Sexual harassment, destroys women's careers, ruins women's ambitions, crushes women's dreams. And in doing that, sexual harassment keeps out of power and leadership and influence the female leaders who would make diversity and inclusion happen. The single biggest business issue facing every single industry today is still sexual harassment, and

Jamie Lee  
that I had experienced sexual harassment. It wasn't until me to happen and was speaking to a journalist. And she explained to me sexual harassment is when you feel through what people are saying that you are excluded, or that you've been othered. And you've been made very uncomfortable by comments people are making at work. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I've heard plenty of comments that made me just want to just crawl out of my skin in the workplace. And yes, I have walked out of those workplaces myself, I'm like, This is not a point where I can thrive. Yeah. And

Cindy Gallop  
so the interesting thing, Jamie is, you know, I designed Make Love Not porn, when I say our mission is to end rape culture. Our mission is, is equally as part of that to end rape, culture and harassment in the workplace. So I wrote an op ed years ago, for The Daily Telegraph in the UK, which was headed, why sex belongs in the office. And the point I made in that article was that if you want to end sexual harassment in the workplace, you have to welcome sex into it. And what I meant by that was, and I've been saying this to corporate leaders for years, you know, so I decided to make love not porn around my own beliefs and philosophies. And as you've just heard, one of them is that everything in life starts with you and your values. So I rarely ask people this question, what are your sexual values? And nobody can ever answer me because we're not taught to think like that. Our parents bring us up to have good manners, or work ethic, a sense of responsibility, accountability. Nobody ever brings us up to behave well in bed. But they should, because in bed values like empathy, sensitivity, generosity, kindness, honesty, trust, respect, are as important as those values are in every other area of our lives, where we're actively taught to exercise them. So I say to corporate leaders, if you want to end sexual harassment in the workplace, and by the way, I absolutely speak to their self interest if you want to stop spending millions on payoffs and agreements and legal fees and lawsuits if you want to avoid all of that. Make good sexual values as much part of your corporate mission statement. As you make every other value, make make it an openly announced part of the employee onboarding process, the employee townhall, the corporate mission statement at this company, we operate good sexual values and good sexual behavior. Our expectation is that of every employee, and that is how you end sexual harassment in the workplace.

Jamie Lee  
Now, you're really blowing shit up. Because what you're saying is, it's revolutionary. It's how we relate to ourselves, how we relate to our sexuality, how we relate to our co workers, I mean, we'd have to blow everything up from the ground level of way up to the highest level. And I'm kind of blushing. To be honest.

Cindy Gallop  
Do you know, Jamie, the irony is that when we do that, we will create a far better world for men. Okay, so So I am, the conference I've keynoted at over the 10 years of its existence was was the 3% conference, which was so named because a wonderful man called Kat Borden, a creative director started it 11 years ago now, to change the fact that at that time, 97% of all advertising agency prep directors were men, only 3% were women, we as women are the primary targets of all advertising, because we are the primary purchasers influences purchase, but we are sold to through the mail ends, that's to start something to change that. And and so I keynote it every year. And, you know, what I'm always trying to do is to change the way that men think about all of this, because we need them to be a part of driving change. And so back in, this would have been, I think, this talk was in 2019. So I gave a keynote titled The future for white men and advertising. And you know, I said to the audience, white men, I'm talking to you, everybody else's has overheard conversation, absolutely listening. But this is for the white men in the audience and watching the live stream. And I then went through seven surprising ways in which men would benefit from a more gender equal diversity inclusive future. And point number one was, I said, you will be able to make jokes about sex in the office. And I explained what what I meant by that. So I recounted the story of how some years ago, I was at an advertising industry dinner, and a whole bunch of us around the table women and men, and one of the women at the table was talking about how they had recently pitched for a new account of her agency. And when the chief marketing officer walked in, he was an extremely attractive older man. And so she nudged her female planning colleague and went caught, you know, I do that, okay. And we all laughed, okay. And, and I was sitting next to a man who was very seen in the ad industry. And he said to me, later, on the dinner he went, he said, If I had said that, about a female, a client, you know, you wouldn't have laughed, you'd have been offended and outraged or whatever. And I said to him, here's the difference. We have a male dominated industry, we have a massive power imbalance, and we have a huge systemic sexual harassment problem. That is the abuse of that power. And, and so I said to the audience, that you're my keynote, I said, when we are fully gender equal, when we are fully diverse and inclusive, what that will mean is that we can all make jokes about sex in the office, because there is no power imbalance, we are all equally empowered. And, and by the way, a lot of things about sex are very funny. And we can all make jokes and enjoy them, when we take away that power imbalance and that abuse of power.

Jamie Lee  
That is brilliant. And again, I'm thinking about how this when that ideal is achieved, we're talking about a change in the fundamental fabric of how we're socialized, we're socialized from a very young age to be ashamed of our sexuality, and especially for women for a lot of women that I have talked to you, they're also taught to feel ashamed about wanting to have money. So I that's the connection, right? Because money and sex has always been through through, you know, millennia of time, been seen as the trophies of people in power, the patriarchy. And so I coached women who hate office politics, and they see that as you know, symptoms of they're like, oh, that's because they've abused that power, that they're able to have so much money, and so So are multiple wives and girlfriends or what have you, right? And so it's like what you're offering the vision that you're painting for us, we just completely turn that on its head, where none of us feel any shame for having sex, for having money for having power. And we can share it equally. And it could just be something that is like, of course, it's like water. And on that note, I know, you know, you have inspired me because I started coaching in 2016. And was in 2015, you were mentioned you were interviewed in a bustle article, and it was called How to Get a raise no matter what, this is, like a very sharp turn that we're taking in this conversation after we talked about Make Love Not porn, after we talked about sexual harassment. And revolutionary. What's the word completely turning up how we associate and relate to money and sex? Now, let's talk about how to get a raise. Is that okay with you? Sure. Yeah, sure. Yeah. So I know you coach, executives in advertising now, is that right? Well,

Cindy Gallop  
I coach anybody and everybody who needs my help. And so that ranges across all industries, all ages, you know, women men, you know, so I coach, anybody and everybody. Yeah,

Jamie Lee  
amazing, amazing. And the article, I will link to it in the show notes, it was called How to Get a raise no matter what. And I remember reading, and I'm like, This is so smart. This is brilliant. And it's something that I coach my clients on now almost on a daily basis. So thank you so much for that. And yeah, it's like we've been, we've been talking about sexual harassment, power imbalance, but how can smart women get better paid? What What are your thoughts about it now in 2024?

Cindy Gallop  
So I mean, my thoughts are exactly the same. They've always been Jamie, because I urge every woman to unashamedly and, unembarrassed is set out to make an absolute gun, I'm fucking shit ton of money. And I deliberately articulate like that, because that is how much money I want each of us to make. The point being that well, that there are several reasons. I mean, first of all, you owe it to every other woman to absolutely set out to make the most money you possibly can. Because if you don't, when the leadership of your company looks at that giant Excel spreadsheet of all the employees salaries, and when they see as they will, the women are paid less than the men, that translates automatically in their minds to that's because women are less good than the men. So you need to make damn sure you're earning the most you possibly can to help all the rest of us. But also, because when every one of us makes an absolute got on fucking shit ton of money, we can then use that money to fund other women, to help other women to support other women to donate to other women. We need to build our own financial ecosystem, because the white male one is not working for us.

Jamie Lee  
Thank you for that. Thank you for that. And so I'm curious. These are strange times that we're in. Right. 2024, early 2024. When we're recording this, the stock market seems to be going up. But every day I log into LinkedIn and their news about layoffs and like some people are feeling kind of worried. You know, am I going to be next? Yeah. And I'm just curious, what do you think smart professional women can do to create that sense of financial security, maybe even job security when the world seems topsy turvy and like they don't know what's what and uncertainty is just running amok? But well, I'm curious what your thoughts are about that.

Cindy Gallop  
So first of all, there is no such thing as job security. Too many people make the mistake of thinking that a job is the safer option. It's not because in a job you at the complete mercy of management changes, industry downturns marketplace dynamics. I always say to people, whose hands would you rather face your future and those of a large corporate entity, who at the end, the day doesn't give a shit about you, or someone who will always have your best interests at heart, ie you. And so what I say to everyone I've been saying this for decades is start your own industry. And what I mean by that is start your own business. But I deliberately articulate like that because when you start your own business, you can make it work exactly the way you want it to. You can design in the workplace culture in which you thrive. You can design in the work life balance you want to operate, you can design in the business world that means that you make money the way you really want to make money. And when you do that, you are starting the industry. We all We all want to live and work in. Still

Jamie Lee  
good. It's great. That's great. And I have had clients who did exactly that. They're like, I'm smart enough. And once they regain their self confidence, they realize, oh, I can take these skills and I could create my own business. I can create my own industry, I can set my own hours ask for the raid setup that actually works for me. And I've had had clients create amazing success with that. Thank you so much. Is there anything else that I haven't yet asked that you wish I did or that you want to share? No,

Cindy Gallop  
I think I think that that was that was a great conversation.

Jamie Lee  
Well, thank you so much, Cindy. I really appreciate your time. I love your energy and your vision. It is scintillating. It is you know it's it like cracks open your mind. I really appreciate you

Cindy Gallop 
it's been a pleasure.

Jamie Lee
As an executive coach for women, I'm super passionate about helping smart women who hate office politics get promoted and better paid. 

I do this through my unique combination of:

Number one: self directed neuroplasticity tools, backed by science. 

Number two: negotiation strategies proven to work for women by academic research and number three: intersectional feminist lens that honors women's lived experiences. 

To learn more about my one on one coaching series and to book your free hour long consultation with me, come on over to Jamie Lee coach.com/apply. It's JamieLeeCoach.com/apply 

JAMIELEECOACH.COM/apply. 

Talk soon.