Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.06.2013, Side 28

Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.06.2013, Side 28
28The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 7 — 2013 “Bloody hell. Good god… It’s quite extraor- dinary, actually,” Cindy Gallop said mere minutes after walking into the Icelandic Phal- lological Museum. This was the first stop on Cindy’s itinerary in Iceland, which is perhaps not surprising given that she is the brains be- hind MakeLoveNotPorn, a unique tech venture designed around sex and social improvement. Cindy really loves sex. Not just for engaging in it herself, but an unconditional kind of love of the act itself. She deeply cares about sex. Of course this museum is not really about sex. It’s just full of body parts—a bunch of disembodied phalli dangling in formaldehyde, looking odd and car-crash-fascinating, like a set of shrunken heads. “I have a few items I could donate to this museum,” she proudly exclaimed as she walked around. Big explosions Cindy was in town over the first weekend of June for the Startup Iceland conference, de- livering a speech at their Sunday night dinner about MakeLoveNotPorn, as well as her other venture IfWeRanTheWorld, which aims to tap the pool of human good intentions that never translate into action. The former one took con- siderable precedence, as it has been a viral hit since she launched it in a graphic TED Talk two years ago. “I’m particularly pleased to have this oppor- tunity to speak in Iceland because it wants to ban violent porn,” Cindy said. “I have a very particular point of view on what all of us should be doing to change the things that concern peo- ple about porn, and it’s not banning it. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It’s opening everything up. I think it’s safe to say that Iceland will not have heard my perspective before, because it’s quite a rare one.” The site that accompanies the venture, MakeLoveNotPorn.com, is definitely one of a kind. Cindy presents myths from the porn world side-by-side with the reality of human sexuality, a porn world/real world construct. There you’ll encounter such wisdom as: Porn world: Saliva, all over everything, as much as possible. Real world: Some women like having their pussies spat on, some don’t. Some men like having loads of saliva all over their cocks during blowjobs, some don’t. Some women like salivating all over cocks dur- ing blowjobs, some don’t. How much sali- va features in sex is up to you. If you’re not wild about it, say so. If you are, spit away. But Cindy is quite the opposite of a pontifi- Date Cindy Gallop O n A D at e W ith: Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby Exploring the penis museum with the woman who's out to change the world through sex by Rebecca Louder “Because of our attitude as a soci- ety towards sex, we’re all ashamed and embarrassed around it. We all do it, we never talk about it and we’re all screwed up about it. My main point boils down to—talk about it.” Dreaming Up The Breast Museum Cindy wasn’t just interested in the penis mu- seum because of her fervour for sexuality—it turns out she’s really into weird and unusual museums, like the Museum of Broken Re- lationships in Croatia. She only found out about the Icelandic Phallological Museum on her way over to the country and it came as a delight, but with one little criticism. “I do feel it should be balanced by a mu- seum entirely dedicated to the vagina, so I’d like to lob this suggestion strongly at Ice- land,” she said insistently. “I saw in one of the rooms that something was donated to this museum from a vagina museum in Rot- terdam, but nonetheless, Iceland needs a va- gina museum!” After telling her about last year’s April Fools’ joke by the town of Mosfellsbær call- ing for a vulva museum, I suggested the idea of an all-gender encompassing breast mu- seum. Cindy approved. “What would be interesting about a breast museum, and what’s also interesting here and would presumably be in a vagina museum, are depictions through history,” she hypothesised. “In a museum like this, you realise that this is a perfectly natural part of us. So it’s great to have artefacts, carvings, things you can use in daily life. With breasts, I would be interested to find out when women had to start covering them up.” She noted that there is a woman in New York City who deliberately walks around topless in the summer to make a statement about men being able to go around shirtless but not women, even though breast tissue is all essentially the same. Cindy’s also a pretty big fan of whipping her own out, but not on the streets of NYC. “I spoke at the Cannes Advertising Festi- val last summer and one of the things I adore about the South of France is topless sun- bathing,” she said. “The minute I arrived, I dumped my stuff at the hotel, raced down the beach, ripped my top off and then I looked around. I was the only one on the beach top- less! I was gobsmacked. Later I tweeted, “France, what is going on?” and someone sent me an article which said that younger French women no longer want to sunbathe topless because they have body issues. So when I gave my talk at Cannes called ‘Porn, Youth & Brands,’ I said that the biggest socio- cultural influence on young people today that we don’t talk about comes from porn, media, and us—the advertising industry. And that’s appalling. It’s France!” Photo: Alisa Kalyanova Cindy Gallop is a former advertising CEO and a tech entrepreneur behind the ventures MakeLoveNotPorn (.com and .tv) and IfWeRanTheWorld.com. We took her to the Icelandic Phallological Museum (www.phallus.is) and the Bubbletea Pancake Café. Book online www.bustravel.is or call +354 511 2600 GRAND GOLDEN CIRCLE GOLDEN CIRCLE Afternoon GLACIER LAGOON SOUTH COAST - VIK BLUE LAGOON Schedule EXCITING DAY TOURS - BEAUTIFUL PLACES More Iceland for less money Continues over

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