Written by Jake Hall for Dazed. Originally published on July 21st, 2016.
Sex is personal. Some of us like to be spanked, sat on and slapped; others like slow, considered love-making. We don’t, however, all love dirty talk, being gagged or ending up with cum on our eyelids – so why doesn’t hardcore porn reflect that? Cindy Gallop asked herself this question – the result was MakeLoveNotPorn, a site sharing real sex submitted by real people. Gallop quickly enlisted Sarah Beall as the site’s curator; Beall states the beauty of awkwardness – “we want to be able to see people drop lube off the bed and have to scurry around naked looking for it” – and encourages performers to steer clear of clichés. Furthermore, every effort is taken to make sure both the sex and the submission are entirely consensual, and that depictions of safe sex are provided (under the ‘Condom Hot’ tag).
The site’s reach has been astronomical, and development plans are currently underway – there are plans for a mini-documentary in collaboration with Chandelier Creative, as well as plans to expand the site to include erotica, photography and a sex education platform. Not only is it refreshing to see a shift from a focus on the (male) money shot, it’s refreshing for a site to depict this climax without women having to wipe the residue from their mascara. Beall is open about the need for diversity, calling out for queer, non-normative couples to showcase their sex lives in order to remove the element of fetishisation too often associated with trans porn stars. The future of online sexual content is in our hands – here, ahead of her talk tonight at Chandelier Creative in NYC, Gallop explains why we should all share our experiences of love, not porn.
What inspired you to create MakeLoveNotPorn?
Cindy Gallop: I realised through dating younger men that I was intimately experiencing the dual nature of what happens when today’s total freedom of access to hardcore porn online meets our society’s total reluctance to talk openly and honestly about sex. I figured I couldn’t be alone, so I did something about it. Eight years ago I put up this site to balance the myths of hardcore porn with reality, and I had the chance to launch it at TED. I made a deliberate decision to be very explicit, because I knew the audience wouldn’t understand otherwise. I am, therefore, the only TED speaker to utter the words “come on my face” – six times. The talk went viral and this site went global without me lifting a finger; I’ve had response from people worldwide who tell me things about their porn habits and sex lives that they’ve never told anybody before. It was then that I realised I had to take this initiative forward in a way that would make it far-reaching, helpful and effective.
I always emphasise that this isn’t anti-porn, because the issue isn’t porn. The issue is that we don’t talk about sex; if we did, people would bring a real-world mindset to viewing what is essentially artificial entertainment. Our tagline is “Pro sex, pro porn, pro knowing the difference”, and our mission is to make it easier for people to talk about sex honestly both in the public domain and in their private relationships. So, what I decided to do was to socialize sex; to make it socially acceptable and just as shareable as anything else on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The first stage of this mission was MakeLoveNotPorn.tv, a user-generated video platform that celebrates real world sex; anybody worldwide can submit videos to us, but we’re very clear that we’re not porn, we’re not amateur. We’re building a new category, which is social sex. Our competition isn’t porn sites, it’s Facebook and YouTube – or it would be if they allowed sexual expression, which they don’t. We’re not about performing for the camera, we’re about capturing the reality of sex in all its funny, messy, glorious human-ness, and we curate to be sure of that. So people pay to rent and then (the) income goes to our MakeLoveNotPornstars, and we hope that they’ll become as famous and celebrated as YouTube stars. We’d also like them to make just as much money!
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