By now, you guys all know that I'm the biggest Cindy Gallop fangirl ever, and I've written about her sex startup Make Love Not Porn before. For those of you who aren't familiar with the crowdsourced real-life sex sharing site, though, this documentary is worth the watch - whether you'd be interested in safely sharing your sex videos or not.
There was one quote in the short documentary - taken at ad agency Chandelier's Mermaid Ranch - that I thought summarized the premise of MNLP (not an anti-porn company) as well as the future of social media and sex particularly well:
"This is where you can publish the kind of content that gets you kicked off Instagram, taken down on Facebook." The difference between MNLP and amateur or pro-am porn is that videos on this site aren't supposed to be performances at all - it's just about sharing your real, actual sex life. You can profit, too - the company only keeps half of the revenue per video, giving the performers the other half. The goal here is to be as real as possible, which means awkward moments, funny sounds, and messy sex are more than welcome.
It gives people, porn fans or not, a way to be more open and interactive about sex - I know I, of one, have great interest in sharing on a platform like this. (I apologize to my editor for scarring her with such a visual.) I've taken sex tapes before, and I think they get a sadly sleazy rap. If you take one because you genuinely you want to, it can be a revelatory experience that teaches so much about the nature of sex and how explorative and psychological it really is.
We all need more of that. Don't we?