Disrupting Porn with Sex: Cindy Gallop on Identity, Power, and Sexual Agency

In this bold and radically honest episode, Chisom Udeze sits down with legendary brand innovator and sextech entrepreneur Cindy Gallop, founder of Make Love Not Porn. Together, they explore themes of identity clarity, leadership, power, sexual agency, and culture change — all through the lens of someone who refuses to play by outdated rules.

Cindy shares how her tagline “I like to blow shit up” isn’t just branding, it’s a philosophy: be your own filter, repel the wrong rooms, and stay unapologetically true to your values. She reflects on her upbringing across cultures, her rise in advertising, and how sheer luck (and male allies) protected her career from the worst effects of sexism — but that this shouldn’t be the norm.

The episode then dives into why she created Make Love Not Porn: to counteract porn as default sex education and to normalize real, human, communicative sex. She reveals the massive resistance she’s faced from banks, tech platforms, investors, and regulators — not because of what she does, but because of society’s fear of sex and shame around pleasure. And yet, she keeps going, propelled by the life-changing impact her work has had on survivors of sexual trauma, men craving intimacy, and people reclaiming agency.

Chisom and Cindy talk about:

Why tokenism fails, and three women on a board is the bare minimum for change

The myth of meritocracy and what it takes to hire for potential, not proof

• How Make Love Not Porn empowers women and men to redefine pleasure and consent
• Why we need a new, inclusive vocabulary for sex
• The link between sex education and ending rape culture
• How investors’ personal discomfort often blocks world-changing ventures
• What Cindy would tell her younger self, and why rage fuels her resilience

Whether you’re a founder, leader, educator, parent, or simply someone questioning the script society handed you — this conversation is a firestarter.