Call Out Loud Against Sexual Harassment, Says Cindy Gallop of MakeLoveNotPorn
Women are transcending the contemporary times. The ballads of empowerment sung at the time of French revolution have been spreading its wings since then. CEO or a homemaker, the community have come a long way to grab their slice of growth and prosperity. Acing against the odes, battling with patriarchy, shrugging off prejudices and living the life on their terms take a lot of courage and conviction.
One of the members of the feminist brigade, Cindy Gallop, Founder of MakeLoveNotPorn and IfWeRanTheWorld talks about her journey with BW Businessworld.
The outspoken TED speaker and leader of Social Sex Revolution says, “The goal of MakeLoveNotPorn is to provide more realistic information about human sexuality than that provided by hardcore pornography. Gallop hopes to create an ecosystem where talking about sex in public domain is as normal as talking about food.”
She further added, “It was nine or ten years ago that the idea came to my mind. I have felt for the issue since a long time. I am an action- oriented person so I thought I would do something about this so I created the website and got a chance to launch at TED. It received an extraordinary global response that I had honestly never anticipated. Even now, I have not received one single negative response. I realise that I had unearthed a global social issue.”
Pornography fosters sexual objectification and gender inequality, what Laura Mulvey coined as “Male Gaze”. The male gaze is the way in which the visual arts and literature depict the world and women from a masculine point of view, presenting women as objects of male pleasure. Gallop posted on her Facebook account about incidents of rape, sexual harassment in India and advocated the need of MakeIndianLovenotPorn.
“The state of Sex education in India is none- existent. India is our second largest consumer and we keep receiving emails from people. In one of the email, a 17-year-old boy wrote.”Tell me what sex is”, this shows the gravity of the situation. The root cause of the problem is that people do not talk. In India, the sex is a taboo because of the shame, embarrassment and guilt associated with it. However, Indians are the largest consumer of porn sites. We are trying to socialise and normalise sex through our website,” Gallop explained.
“Social platforms like Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are being used for sexting, sharing pornographic images but if you upload a real love making the picture with you partner, you will be trolled and shamed.”
Social disruptions are not profit driven. Gallop’s website is financially on the skids.
“I can’t get funded. After a long struggle, one bank agreed to open the account for payment processing. All the prominent bank and digital platform Pay Pal rejected my applications for the account.”
“I decided the Revenue sharing business model because another one of my philosophy is that everybody should able to get the financial value of what they create. I have been was in Advertising and theatre where ideas and creativity are undervalued.
“Despite being committees set and laws passed, why do we still have sexual harassment cases? People do not talk about it, the hushed word around buries half of the story and is the root cause of less number of women in top management positions.”
Sexual Harassment is one of a topmost reason for working women not making to top management positions. “Call out Loud. Change happens from Bottom to top not top to bottom. Change starts with you. The onus is on men also to stop other men not to stop it. As the saying songs, When 4 good men say nothing, things become worse,” said Gallop.
