75. Turned On & Unapologetic: Rewriting the Rules of Porn with Afterglow CEO & Founder Lilly Sparks

What if porn could actually deepen your intimacy, spark real connection, and help you reclaim your pleasure without shame?

In this rebellious and radically honest episode, I sit down with Lily Sparks, the visionary founder and CEO of Afterglow, an ethical porn platform created by women. We dive deep into what it means to be turned on with intention from busting the myths around porn addiction to navigating boundaries, fantasies, and the healing power of conscious erotic content.

We’re talking:
✨ Why ethical porn is a game-changer for relationships
🔥 How couples can use porn to enhance intimacy (not escape it)
💬 Consent, representation, & real communication
💥 Reclaiming your sexual narrative without shame, guilt, or apology

Whether you’re porn-curious or ready to start your pleasure revolution, this conversation is your permission slip to explore, express, and embrace your turn-on unapologetically.

Jump to the mic drop moments...
0:00 Introduction to Afterglow and Ethical Porn
8:26 Representation and Confidence in Sexuality
17:18 The Reality of Pornography and Consent
26:01 Behind the Scenes of Ethical Porn Production
38:31 The Reality of Pornography and Consent

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Afterglow and Ethical Porn
• 8:26 Representation and Confidence in Sexuality
• 17:18 The Reality of Pornography and Consent
• 26:01 Behind the Scenes of Ethical Porn Production
• 38:31 The Reality of Pornography and Consent

Transcript

Kristin (00:00.11)
All right, guys, welcome back to another episode of Sex, Drugs and Soul, my messy, beautiful humans today. I'm so excited that I have founder and CEO of Afterglow, Lily Sparks on. I first discovered her at a conscious porn and wine pairing event, which was like so unique. was like, OK, this is so cool. Loved the screening, by the way. So I'm so curious about like how the idea came to you, how.

Like the creative process, like I remember like me being a little kid, you know, watching some scrambled images as like trying to listen also for footsteps coming down the hallway being like, is that a boob? You know? so I just love this site. I did a little research and self pleasure and joined. And so it's, it's beautiful. I love what you've done. I love also to offer an alternative perspective because I've had a couple of people on and they've like really cast out or made porn like a bad guy.

Maybe it can be in certain scenarios, but I love to offer your perspective and get some insight and dispel some myths and that sort of thing too.

I am excited. I love talking about porn and I'm very pro porn. think porn is an amazing tool for helping you have better sex. So I am Lily Sparks. I'm the founder and CEO of Afterglow. Afterglow is porn that is designed to help you have a better sex life. same as you, know, like my first experiences of porn were actually like after prom night, kind of like.

gathering around, like in a group setting, maybe a little different than most people and like watching, that was back in the DVD era, so watching a DVD called like Young Girls in Prison. wow. And you know, it really turned me on and that's, porn is really effective at turning you on and there's nothing wrong with that. We're humans, we love watching other people have sex. It's hot to watch hot people have sex and I'm not gonna apologize for liking that. Yeah. And you know, I think that

Lily Sparks (01:59.116)
That experience with porn, it's always been, I've enjoyed watching porn, but I also felt really left out of the stories as a woman. it didn't help me actually have better sex in my real sex life with my partner. So I was in a relationship with my high school sweetheart from age 15 to 30. And I did an orgasm until I was 24.

because the stories that we typically see in porn, especially at that time, were really around male pleasure, really around performative sex, and porn is the only place that we can go to see what it looks like to have sex. So of course we're gonna pick up on those narratives, and of course we're gonna pick up on those screens. So the goal of Afterglow is to, it's like if every movie was an action movie, basically. So the goal of Afterglow is to tell different stories in porn to show,

a different type of sex that has communication, that is ethical, that's pleasurable for everybody, that's less performative, that shows people doing acts that they wanna do. then we pair those films with pleasure recaps that are written by certified sex educators. So kind of like a Cliff Notes or Reflection, because a lot of times the stereotypical

experience of porn is you open an incognito window, you're by yourself, you're like typing in your search terms that you don't want to admit to everybody else. And Afterglow is really trying to create a different experience without the ick factor that you can be really.

excited about your favorite porn star and about your favorite film. And you can talk about it with your partner and you can share why you like it and why it excites you. There's actually research that Amber Mallory has done that shows that people who watch ethical porn have better sexual health and better sexual satisfaction than people who watch mainstream porn.

Kristin (04:07.724)
Yeah, I get that, because I guess you can reference it. And one, if you're also watching it with a partner, I guess you mean you're communicating about that. Instead of just keeping this thing like, OK, we're actually going to talk about these things. I love some of the pleasure meditations that I saw on there. I think I saw a video for Sensual. Sexual movement. Yes, I was like, I love all this. I want to go back and play some more. So I'm curious how long it took you from that night, prom night.

to for the idea to develop like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna create this platform and help like release some of the shame and stigma around sex and porn and search terms and all those things like.

been in the back of my mind is this idea where I'm just like, okay, I really want to love porn. Why does it feel, why do I feel so left out of what I see on Pornhub? Why does it just not, you know, I have, I love romance novels and so I would be reading romance novels and like, I'm like, this is awesome. But I also love TV and movies. So I'm like, why can't I get something that feels

makes me feel like romance novels feel and feels kind of like, you know, just good and happy in my body. And, you know, I kind of did, I actually started my career as an accountant. So I accountant for a long time. I'm like, okay, you can't really make a bigger jump than like accountant to making porn. But, you know, it's funny, you know, you're all about like sex, drugs and spirituality and.

Yeah.

Lily Sparks (05:43.99)
actually I was on a seven day meditation retreat, Vipassana style meditation retreat on Maui and it was like just life changing and transformative. And I was sitting there, you know, like trying to clear my head. I, know, at one point there was the waves and the birds and I just got this message like, now is the time for you to start this. Like now is the time to go for it. Yeah. And I knew

Absolutely nobody in the porn industry. had zero experience with porn, which I don't 100 % recommend. Like think maybe I should have worked in the industry a little bit before starting my own company, but that's not the path I had. I just started talking to everybody I know, researching people, cold reaching out to them and saying like, hey, I want to start an ethical porn company. Will you talk to me? Will you talk to me? Will you talk to me? And ended up finding our first producer who made our first films and didn't

Kickstarter campaign to Indiegogo campaign to get started and launched about three, six months after that. And we've been around since we've been launched Valentine's Day 2021. wow. Yeah.

That's a cool little journey. It kind of, to me, also sounds like that feeling of resonance or being seen, like, because I've had that in different books. It's like, OK, I can find like a similarity or commonality. Because I know for myself, whenever I watch like PornHub or something before, then I'm like, OK, or comparison and like body parts. Or I'm like, do I have like, am I normal? Yeah. That type of feeling down there. Or comparison. So I do love that like there's different representation on your site, too.

And is that an element that you brought, I guess, like a common thread from start to finish and... Yeah.

Lily Sparks (07:31.15)
Like I remember it's watching porn or like talking about porn with friends in college and like it was kind of like group of guys and they're like, oh, you know, her labia looks like a poorly packed suitcase. And I was like, oh, like, does mine look like that? You know, am I one of those people? And I think that a lot of experience, a lot of women are turned off by mainstream porn.

for a number of reasons and I'm excited to get into like the myth busting of, you know, that mainstream, I'm a firm believer that mainstream porn is not bad in any way. It just might not be targeted towards me or you or what we prefer to watch. That's totally okay. But yeah, I think that as women seeing...

other women be confident in their sexuality is really inspiring. And that's what I look for in the videos I put on Afterglow, is just like, it doesn't matter what you look like, if you're out there owning your sexuality, owning your power, doing your thing, it does not matter what you weigh or like what color your skin is. And like, we don't reduce people to specific like racial taglines and all of those kinds of things. Cause it doesn't matter, it's about

like this beauty of sexuality that we really want to showcase.

Yeah, I remember watching one video that I was like, definitely the confident one. Was it your first one, the lip service one? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I like, love that one. I think that one was at the screening too. And I was like, yeah, that confident, like just directional guidance and also like a story, but also tips in storytelling way, like in a more non-prescriptive type of storytelling. Yeah.

Lily Sparks (09:15.598)
I love kind of like showing, not telling. And I love like Lip Service, which is one of our most popular films. It's probably my favorite film ever. And there's no penetration in it. When do you ever see a porn that's completely decentered around penetration? And it's a woman who's instructing her partner on how she wants Cunnilingus performed on her. And there's also kind of a fun voyeur element to it. she's...

It's really interesting seeing people's reactions to it, because some people are like, she's bossy. And I'm like, yeah, bossy is great. She's saying very clearly what she wants. And we never, ever see that. And so we don't know how to do it. Because it's like, how do we, like, when I want to learn how to change a tire or like chop an onion, I go to YouTube, I see somebody doing the thing.

But when it comes to like sex and our sexual experiences, there's this weird societal expectation that we're just supposed to know how it's supposed to be perfect every time, stars flying, sparks. You always want to do it. You're always ready without any like training or skills. Like you would never expect that in any other area of your life. So like, why do you expect that?

What it means with your sex life. Yeah, because I don't know. I mean, I definitely didn't grow up in that household or environment too, where it was talked about. What you've said also made me think of how a lot of times women are told they're too much or not enough or being bossy could be too much. I love watching her just communicate. Because yeah, there's been times in my life before when I didn't have a toolkit or the verb of your language to say, now like little circle, know, just like.

a different language to describe what I'm like, okay, yes. And looking at it like a kind of a curiosity aspect of self-discovery to bring to pleasure. I love it.

Lily Sparks (11:05.324)
And then we also have a guided Cunnilingus exercise on the site. it's an audio exercise that you do with a partner. like, because what circles means to you and to your partner and to your partner's previous partner, like that could be three different things. so it's like, don't, it's also really nice just to have it be like a third party kind of telling you what to do. So it takes the pressure off and being like, partner's fault if you don't like it. It's not your fault if you don't like it. It's just a...

thing that you're trying. I think, you know, we, bring so much internal pressure and judgment on ourselves when it comes to sex. And that's true for men and women, that it makes, makes the stakes ridiculously high when things go wrong. Like if you were, you know, changing a tire and you didn't get the wrench on just right, you know, you wouldn't judge yourself and be like, I'm a horrible mechanic. You'd be like, you know,

Like things happen. got to call in assistance for me. If it's not YouTube, I'm going to call in some support in some way. Exactly. I'm going to just stay on the side of the road.

Exactly, exactly. Like sometimes we all need support.

Yeah, for sure. That's definitely been a learning learning journey of mine. It's like the asking for support when I need it and that sort of thing. I'd love to jump into some of the myths too. I love you also came on to Leola's Pleasure Priestess group and I was like, I want you on my podcast. Because one of the big ones and you can totally expand on this too that I've heard people come to me is around shame or the language we're talking about porn addiction. Yeah. And then

Kristin (12:44.238)
Maybe even you just take it from there about your thought. Yeah.

So porn addiction is not a recognized diagnosis in the DSM-5 manual. And also certified sex therapists do not recognize porn addiction. That's not to say that people don't have, they recognize it as a compulsive use disorder when it's negatively affecting your life. I'm not saying everybody has a healthy relationship with porn. I think you can definitely have a healthy relationship or an unhealthy relationship with it.

Same thing as exercise, same thing as social media. I think social media is probably like the best analogy for porn use because it's meant to feed your engagement, it's meant to really, it's meant to excite you, it's meant to excite parts of your brain. It doesn't get to the point of like rewiring your brain in the same way that like hard drugs and addictions that are recognized as addictions do.

It's just not at that same level. addiction treatment also, like the kind of treatment that we do for addiction doesn't work for porn use disorder. A lot of times it's much better to kind of do more traditional therapy and kind of look at some of the underlying causes of like what's going on in your life that you're using this, you're using porn as a coping mechanism. So yeah, that's...

porn addiction, think, and it's similar with social media, like 80 % of the people out there, like, use it and have a, it's generally a positive thing in their life. And there's a specific organization called Nicosia that's really pushing this like porn addiction agenda. because of that, I think a lot of people who have very normal porn use, but have shame around watching porn think that they have,

Lily Sparks (14:45.646)
porn addiction and it's like this kind of shame spiral where really they just like to watch porn and master it. So I think it's like, is your porn use really impacting your life, your relationship? I think another way that porn impacts people's lives that's not porn addiction is just that they have different beliefs around porn than their partner. So, and they're not...

Yeah.

Lily Sparks (15:12.49)
And sometimes that leads that shame and those different beliefs leads them to be dishonest about it. And so then that's an issue with your relationship is like, you're not, you're not, your, partner says they don't want you watching porn or create some kind of rule around it and you agree, but then you don't do it. And it's like, okay, that's a different tricky situation.

Yeah, or like fuel on the fire if you're gonna keep it hidden or that shame or yeah Okay, so Yeah, I had someone to mention something about a porn induced erectile dysfunction and I was like, I don't know much about that I was gonna ask you if you've heard of that or Yeah

Breaking Trust.

Lily Sparks (15:58.158)
I think that it's mostly, again, like mostly not true. I think there's a lot of like, okay, if you are masturbating 10 times a day, you're not, like what is normal erectile function? And like, what erectile function are you expecting and is it reasonable? So I think that's, you know, people just.

whatever, see a five minute porn video. like, it's, think, think a lot of times there's a lot of focus on women and how, you know, porn impacts us and stuff. But I think, and like the shame that we have around sexuality, but I think men also have a lot of expectations and a lot of fame around, you know, their...

erectile function and how long it takes them. it's like, sometimes it takes us a long time to warm up and, you know, guys have this expectation that they're always ready to go. And that's an unreasonable expectation sometimes. So I think that most people are normal and we just have these crazy expectations that we give ourselves. having those expectations kind of creates a feedback loop of inhibiting our desire.

Because when you're expected to perform on a moment's notice, you're excited, you're not kind of in the relaxed, chill, horny state. Like it's really hard to be horny on command.

Yeah, I know there's definitely been times too where I'm like, okay, if I take the goal of orgasm out of the picture and just enjoy and like be where my boots are, instead of like up here. I love that, be where my boots are. It's just like being more present and in my body versus like, okay, worried about reaching an orgasm to please me and my partner. So was in like, give the feedback in that aspect versus like...

Kristin (18:01.218)
Okay, well how do I feel in my body? Am I feeling the pleasure? Maybe I need more sensual massage to warm up or more breathe, maybe breathe or do a little eye gaze. I love eye gazing. So maybe do that.

that's not linear. I love sex where you, you know, you're advancing and then you take a step back and you kiss again or, you know, you just take a break and kind of like create more of a fun up and down wave flow. think that can be really pleasurable.

I like that idea too. I also like whenever you mentioned the recording for the oral cunnilingus, like how you can make it playful. It's like, ooh, someone else is coming into our session today, babe. I tend to like things to be playful anyway. What other myths should we

Another really common myth is that people feel bad watching porn because they're worried that the women are exploited or trafficked. if you've been on Pornhub, it's pretty easy to tell if the person in the film is a performer. There's like performer pages, they have links to their OnlyFans. If that's the scenario, then they're doing this. They're making a career out of this. They're doing it on purpose. It's highly unlikely that they are being

traffic and Pornhub put in place better regulations around making sure everyone has consent and kind of moderating their film. So that's definitely improved kind of like in the past five years. But in general, it's it's uncommon for like to watch kind of like mainstream studio porn and have it be.

Lily Sparks (19:52.398)
have to worry about people being exploited or trafficked.

good. think that a lot of times, even with sex work in general, lot of times people assume like, do they really want to be there or is it a conscious choice and that sort of, at least I've experienced that in different capacities, whether it's online, whether it's sex work in a different capacity like escorting or sugaring or all kinds of different ways.

I think when you're, people, we usually do work to make money and we try to find the work that will make us the most money that we are happy doing. And if you're somebody who has been working a retail job, making minimum wage, and if you can make 700 bucks in a day, that's a pretty attractive offer. And so I think that's kind of...

like one of my friends who's a performer, was a librarian, she like graduated college, did a master's degree, she was a librarian. And she was making like 40K a year and her boss was an asshole. And she started doing porn and she's like, people treat me so much better in the porn industry and I'm making so much more money than I did as a librarian.

so then you get more freedom in your life.

Lily Sparks (21:09.986)
Yeah, you get flexibility. mean, it's definitely, I think it's also a myth that porn is easy. Like, if I can't make it, I'll just do porn or do an OnlyFans and make a ton of money. Like, it's a career and you have to work at it every single day. it's, mean, showing up to have sex on camera, I could not do it. Like, I'm a terrible actor, number one, but like, it takes a lot of balls to do it. And it's...

Like the people who do it well are extremely talented.

I feel like that guy would give me a little bit of a hummingbird heart even. I've done some other capacities, but that is so vulnerable too.

I mean, even when I just act with a normal camera, I'm like...

I'm like, and then add in naked and maybe someone you do or don't know. And maybe we can talk about some of the dynamics too of like some, I don't know, the consent conversations or I love bringing that in. guess intimacy coordinators are now more common.

Lily Sparks (22:10.798)
who are like, they're common in Hollywood and they're becoming a lot, they kind of came from the porn world and now are becoming common in sex scenes in Hollywood too. And basically the intimacy coordinator is there to make everybody feel more comfortable with what's going on in the scene. A lot of the common practice is to do kind of like a yes, no, maybe list so everybody knows what the boundaries are in a scene.

talk about what acts are expected in the scene, what you're not gonna do, what's off the table. We had one person who's like, I have a really bad allergy. And so like, you can't eat this specific food for lunch because if you do and then you kiss me, then like I'll break out. And that like, you can't do that. So these are important things to talk about before shooting a scene. And then the intimacy coordinator is there to make sure that those boundaries that.

everybody went through are honored and to be the performer's advocate if the director or the producer is asking for things and being able to challenge the person in power.

I watched a documentary at South by Southwest on intimacy coordinating and I was like, this is so neat. Just seeing the negotiations and going to, I think the director or writer had one vision in their mind, but they had to cross over, change things whenever. It's like, okay, I'm comfortable with this or I thought I was comfortable with this, but really now that I'm here and I have the hummingbird heart or whatever. I don't know if that was maybe.

in more like Hollywood capacity, but it's the same.

Lily Sparks (23:47.798)
It's the same. also when you've had sex, you might have an idea of what you're gonna do. You'll be like, I'm gonna be on top, I'm gonna do this. And then when you actually do it, things don't go that way. So I think sex is a thing that doesn't always fit our expectations in a lot of ways. And so when we film...

our films, like we, a lot of times we say, okay, this is kind of what we want, but when it starts happening, sometimes they just go for it, do something completely different. And usually like that, we want to capture that authenticity. So we want to let them as long as everybody is comfortable and safe.

And so I'm curious, so I kind of want to know the process too and like more of the mess, like someone's writing something or like an idea or is it like that whole journey? I'm curious about the behind the scenes of it. I guess I haven't watched any of it yet, but you have some of the behind the scenes footage on Afterglow too. Okay, cool.

Yes. usually we come up with the idea. Usually we don't write a script necessarily because we, but we try to have some kind of a story, even if it's not like specific lines. And you know, we break, but we break out kind of like beginning, middle and end of like what we want to happen. So more of like a short treatment.

And sometimes I'll add like some pictures for the vibe and stuff like that. But it's pretty low, low budget, low key kind of like shooting a student film. And a lot of times we reach out, you we have relationships with performers that we want to work with. Sometimes we reach out a lot of times on Twitter X to people since they're a little bit more adult friendly. And then a lot of times we'll start with one of the performers and then ask them if they have somebody that they want to work with.

Lily Sparks (25:45.486)
because we try to get it so that people are going to have, I think, if they're more comfortable with somebody, then it's going to be more fun. It's going to be a better performance. Then we have usually a director and lighting sound camera person and maybe a PA, but pretty small set. We have to find a location that's cool with us filming there. Usually, it's a one-day shoot and the films are

between, they could be like eight to 30 minutes.

Yeah. Are they found primarily in California or?

Filmed a few different places, mostly Cal.

Okay, cool, interesting. because I mean, just feel like whenever I lived in California, I'm like, we get the valley where...

Lily Sparks (26:30.03)
I mean, that's what a lot of the talent and even like people in the film industry, like that's what the real set is.

Yeah, I was just curious. like, I get to peek behind the curtain a little bit, you know? Yeah, what other myths do we have?

Good question.

I like the relationship one if you want to expand on our the couples.

think just some interesting facts is that couples that watch porn together have better communication and more satisfying sex lives. So the idea that porn is going to ruin your relationship is false unless you're hiding something, unless it's being used in a way that breaks trust. We have a lot of couples that love Afterglow, that love it for like date night and just having a way to kind of

Kristin (27:12.749)
haha

Lily Sparks (27:25.474)
get out of the busyness that's going on in your head and unwind and relax and kind of like get into that sexy space. And I use it for that myself with my partner.

That's definitely something that I want to weave into a partnership. Well, I guess I did go on a date that was an interesting first date. So it just kind of came across, I had lunch with someone and it was vibing well and we had a bunch of like witty banter leading up to the lunch. So I was like, okay, maybe I'll leave a little bit of a space afterwards. And Leola had sent me the invite to that, to your event. And I was like, well, that's really cool. That's unique. I've never been to.

I

Kristin (28:05.198)
a porn and wine pairing screening, like cool. And then I think that, you know, he was like, well, I'm gonna end up staying in Austin anyway, we could get dinner. And I'm like, okay, well, we could get dinner or we could go to this. What are your thoughts on this? I know it's kind of wild and out there, but, or it sounds so fun and exhilarating to me. And so we said yes. And so we went and really enjoyed it. I love like the different,

like little snippets of the videos, getting to watch multiple and then like hearing people's different feedback and reaction and being in a group setting, because I had never been in a group setting to watch porn before. Yeah. And now I was like sitting there, I'm like, oh, I'm getting turned on for this one. I'm like looking around, you know. I'm like, can they tell which one is, which is hitting the button for me? So I really liked that. I was on a cleanse at the time, so I didn't have the the wine pairing, but I loved his descriptors too. Yeah. I was like, those are so like

cool you described and like the erotic language kind of woven into or I thought it was very well but I hope you do another one. We will. Okay. Yeah.

my friend's wine rack soundtrack, the sommelier is like, his descriptions always, I'm like, they're so good. Yeah, I think that, you know, watching porn is a great way as a couple to explore fantasies and you know, things don't, fantasies don't have to be something that you want to do in real life. They can stay as fantasies and porn's kind of a great safe way to explore. You know, you don't have to,

This is awesome.

Lily Sparks (29:43.15)
risk getting an STD or like put yourself out there. Like it's just a really, and it can be just for you too to explore a fantasy and see, do I like this? Do I not? You don't just kind of like, you don't have to like everything when you're having sex. You also don't have to like everything when you're watching porn. And sometimes with Afterglow, people like the variety and that they can watch something that they didn't think that they would like. And they could be like, it can just be

It doesn't have to be just for like masturbating and getting off. It can be a little bit more for exploration.

Yeah, I like that idea too. I I definitely leaned a little bit voyeuristic too. And I'm like, okay, like little snippets or takes in and weaving in that self pleasure in multiple ways. whether it's like this, for me, like, I get pleasure anything from a piece of dark chocolate to the sensual embodiment to self pleasure and like really connecting to my body. I'm like, how can I communicate to a partner if I don't experiment and find that with myself too? That was a big piece for me. Me too.

And so it's been fun to explore, go into it. And plus, I think that there's so much sex, mean, so much taboo around sex anyway. And I feel like the more you communicate it, the more open that you can be in that dialogue and exchange and release some of the taboo, even though the taboo does turn me on. Because I think I grew up in the Bible Belt and that religious shame, or I can't do it, I'm like, if I do that, am I?

Am I going to go to hell or you know? So like releasing that and so it's been interesting to even explore fantasies and it's cool that you brought it up to explore fantasies through porn too because it just seems like a safe, grounded way to

Lily Sparks (31:34.37)
And it's like, hey, you don't have to do this. Maybe let's just watch this film and then we can talk about it. yeah, and our recaps have little like reflection questions. Maybe there's a film that has kind of like gender play where people are kind of, you know, being, doing like kind of acting like traditional assigned female as well as assigned male as birth. it's like, hey, you know, was that weird for you? Like what made it weird? Was it hot? Like, did you like, you know, talk about

debrief.

Lily Sparks (32:03.918)
kind of which aspects make you dive that one layer deeper of just like, okay, like think our audience is very much nerds. I'm a nerd.

Sex nerds who want to explore and have the most amazing sex that they can. I think sex is a skill and we need to practice.

Yeah, you know, what a fun thing to practice. I love that you brought up like the different questions and prompts because even for me that makes me think I believe I have masculine and feminine energy. And so if I want to tap more into like a masculine or dominant energy, maybe watch something or how could I?

Yes, exactly.

Kristin (32:49.45)
weave a piece of that, you know, in and out of the bedroom type of thing. I'm like, I got a fun outfit. yesterday, I was like, this feels like Total Dawn vibes. So I'm like, do I need an alternate name? know, to like create this, you know, for me. Yeah. What are, like, if someone's gonna like go to the website or like, is there a certain, you know, just explore their own curiosities or do you have like a couple of like,

favorites or that you like to hit on first or suggest or.

So we have a what porn should I watch? So if you Google like afterglow, what porn should I watch quiz? It'll come up and it will get you a free movie as well. So you can check it out. You can watch it. And we've got a lot of amazing stuff. We have different categories. So, you know, if you like something kinky, if you like something soft at the event that you were at.

Well, okay.

Lily Sparks (33:46.412)
you're like, can people tell if it's turning me on? And then at the end, we asked people to raise their hands of which ones was their favorite and it was totally different. People's sexuality is impossible to nail down and that's one thing that I love about making Afterglow is just trying to figure out those different things that really make it hit for people. Yeah.

It's cool to see the raising of the hands, different, I'm like, oh, okay, oh, that one really. I'm like, okay, well, let's explore, talk more about that too. It's fun. And I love anything that like gamifies. I'm like, okay, if there's a quiz that makes it little more fun. I remember like filling out, you know, like the Cosmo quizzes back in the day. And so I'm like, okay, see what, oh, which one should I watch? Cause I just went in.

I'm like, I'll share a search term. I just moved into a new place and my neighbor is French. And so I just put in French, I think, and one popped up. I was like, cool. So that's been fun. what I love, because it felt edgy. And for me even too, whenever I think he says, let's share our search terms with our friends or with our partners or if we're not ever looking separately in together. So I just thought that was kind of fun and playful.

reminds me, so women actually search for rough sex and gang bangs more than men do. wow! That's another fun fact that I like. You know, women don't love everything soft. We like it, we have our own fantasies. We like it hard as well.

Yeah, I would say for sure, at least for me, I know in different times of my cycle, there are different types. Like I get more ovulation, I'm like, okay, more primal or maybe a little more hard or aggressive, but you know, and then maybe we're luteal, I'm like, okay, I really want a little more tender sensual massage and gentleness where I might bite at you type of thing. So yeah, that's a good point. Any other cool like little statistics like that or?

Lily Sparks (35:51.736)
think women watch a lot of lesbian porn.

That's one of the top.

think there's a lot of different reasons for that. think sometimes it's softer and more sensual. Like it's more focused on women's pleasure, because it can't not be focused on women's pleasure. Even though a lot of people are upset at kind of like the mainstream depiction of lesbian porn, because it's not, then the porn is not actually made for lesbians. It's made for like mostly heterosexual identifying people, like of what they think lesbian sex is.

But yeah, that's super popular. Yeah.

If you get to see, I saw someone on Instagram posted, I guess, like Pornhub's top search terms. Like, I guess you get all the cool data too, maybe of like what the top search terms are or I don't know if you do, I'm guessing. we.

Lily Sparks (36:47.662)
We do, I haven't looked at it for a while. I think it's pretty, I think it's similar to Pornhub. I mean, we don't have as many people searching for MILFs. And we don't use MILFs as a term. Yeah, it's like, we have like lesbian stuff and like kinky stuff, I would say is the most popular.

And then I'm curious too about some of the challenges as far as like, cause I know I think in Texas, the VPN thing with, okay, so what has been, I'm not as well versed or tapped into what's going on in that scene. So if you want to talk about it a little bit or share.

Yeah, so there's a big push for age verification of porn sites and implementing age verification. And I'm very mixed on it. It's like the same organization that I was talking about, Nicosi, that like pushes the porn addiction narrative that's pushing for age verification. And they're doing it out like to try to illegalize. They wanna make porn illegal. Like that's their goal. That's what they have said that they wanna do.

And that's not popular. People don't want porn to be illegal. But I'm very much, I don't want people who are under 18 to be watching porn and it is super accessible. So a lot of states are passing age verification rules, but it's like the, and a lot of the porn sites instead of complying with the age verification rules are saying it's not legal, it's not constitutional for free, it's going too far to protect it.

porn is free speech. And so that's kind of being fought out by the courts. It's going to the Supreme Court. And in Texas specifically, the rule that they passed says like, you need to have on the footer of your website that like porn has proven to be harmful, which is like patently not true. So like the Texas rule is especially egregious and ridiculous. So it'll be interesting. It's happening in Europe too. It's not just the United States. So it'll be interesting to kind of see.

Lily Sparks (38:54.296)
how that plays out. Yeah, we're a subscription service. So, you you need to be over 18, you need a credit card, et cetera. And the other interesting thing in terms of challenges,

is just that we cannot advertise or talk about our product anywhere. Like people who are our members, if we try to send them an email that says porn, it goes to spam filters. We can't post anything on Instagram. Like we've been shadow banned even when we're just trying to do sex ed. And people who are sex educators, people who are sex researchers who are like have their PhDs get constantly shadow banned on Instagram. just overall the...

restrictions that we have to talk about sex is a big problem.

That is challenging. I've experienced that a little bit with my book and podcast too. I'm like, there's been a wealth of just like awesome content and information, but I'm like, because I chose the word sex in a title.

And then you have to use the stupid like S-E-G-E-S. Or... You know.

Kristin (39:58.316)
Yeah, or some like little one with the, yeah, and it still somehow gets, I guess with all the AI, like, I don't know if it can be searched for a certain term or lingo or even if it's like in print on the video versus. Yeah. So that's definitely a bit.

We like bleep our videos. Yeah.

I mean, I feel like Leola had a reframe on that. She's like, well, think about who all used to be shunned or thought of as taboo or kept her maybe shadow band in a different aspect back in the day.

You were shadowbanned by your friends in the public square.

Yeah, and died for certain things. I'm so I'm not facing that, sorry. But at the same time, it's challenging because we want to shift narratives. And how do we begin to shift narratives around certain things if we can't talk about it or speak to it or write an email to people or even end your death?

Lily Sparks (40:53.486)
To give factual information to people about how to have pleasure in their lives. And when you restrict the information, that's what creates the shame and feeds into that.

Hmm. It's like a vicious loop and I feel like pointing at one thing as the bad guy. mean I always think of the thing. Okay, if we're pointing at one thing like what aspects of yourself are you not willing to address or look at or what are you projecting or yeah, or you know, just making that one industry or a bad guy and that's

because porn is totally like the scapegoat for everything. It's this thing that everybody does. Like 90 % of people have watched porn in the past six months, but nobody talks about, nobody admits to it, and like nobody sticks up for porn. And I think like, you know, I really wanted to stick up for porn and it deserves, you know, it deserves its place as any artistic medium. Yeah, I firmly believe that.

Yeah

Kristin (41:54.446)
I I definitely think that me going to your event and me just having more conversation around it and exploring it through a different lens has released some of the shame that I had about whenever I would watch, I'm like, oh, okay. I'm like, young me liked it at a young age, watching those scramble, you know. And now even though I'm like, I know I want kids, you know, them to be 18, but like I think I saw on your website, it's like the number one place where we learn. So.

It's like, well, and are we gonna bring it to the forefront and have dialogue around it or are gonna keep it in the shadows? I think it should be given a space at least to talk about. You can have different opinions about it, but.

Yeah, and I have a daughter now. wow. So I think a lot about what I want for her. She's still young, but now I'm like, okay, I'm gonna wash your vulva now. And it's like not being embarrassed about like poop and pee and having a body that works. And I think that's where it starts. I definitely don't know how I'm gonna be a sex positive parent in the future, but I'm really excited for that journey.

Yeah, how old is she? She's like two. Two? Okay, yeah. Yeah. No, I even remember, like, I've dated people that were like, okay, well, he had a daughter and it comes to mind, he's like, I'm gonna wash your front butt. And I'm like, wait. Yeah. Front butt? You know, or like the different terminology. And I'm like, can we just like have some...

Yeah, let's just call it what it is. You don't have a weird name for your arm or nose or whatever.

Kristin (43:27.502)
I also love like even just the different, for some reason it comes up. I don't know if you know Sam and like the pussy casting workshops or the- yeah. Yeah, that was really cool to, I went to like a women's circle where we did a casting workshop and then we passed each one around and just got to see like, okay, what messages are coming up or that we just all look so different. Yeah. And so I think like viewing things and talking about things and

helps release shame and just come like more comfortability and at home and at peace and love our body. And self-acceptance. But we'll see. Where do you, do you have like a vision that you want to take this to or continue to grow?

My number one metric is just helping people have better sex and hoping to impact people's sex lives in a positive way. want to make some more films that have a lot of stories that I want to tell that are in here that I want to really get out there. But I'm really happy with just doing what we're doing and we're doing more pleasure recaps with sex educators.

Yeah. That's cool. Do you mind sharing any of the stories that you have that you haven't filmed yet? Or you have to take to,

I really want to show one where somebody has a little bit of a PTSD kind of response or just like, where they're having sex and it's like going well, but then like someone's triggered and just showing like kind of a loving response to that. But I'm like, need to find the right people and like be really, who are going to be able to execute it well.

Kristin (45:13.39)
I love that, that really warms my heart as someone that's had different woundings and initiations. And there were, a long time, I was like, I didn't want anyone to touch my breast because of a previous experience. And then, you know, I just had a recent encounter where we had offered to have like give a forehand and massage and it brought up like some feelings and we're like, hey, no is, a full sentence. And so I love like offering that as well.

Because a lot of times too, like, partners don't know how to respond. And it's like, again, if you don't, no one's teaching you or showing you what, being a positive role model, then how are you expected to know?

Is this real?

Kristin (45:56.632)
And like you didn't do anything wrong, per se, but it could have reminded. I know for me, I'll speak from experience, like if someone did it for a long time, like it reminded me of that scenario. And then it's like, shut down. I'm like, suddenly I want to go to sleep or, you know, or, or disconnect from the intimacy or that sort of thing. So I really, I hope that that one comes to fruition. I think that can benefit a lot of people.

Me too.

Mm-hmm. Are there any other ones that you want to feed?

I want to do MMF threesome. We have some on the site, but I want to do more. Potentially like a cowboy orgy. So some fun. You know, can be serious, can be fun, can be silly, and sex encompasses all.

Ooh.

Kristin (46:47.886)
Yeah, when I see that I'm like I get an image of like boots on and cowboy hats. And then I'm in like some different women's chats where we're exploring yeah like how the fantasy of two men is or more or gangbang is like a common fantasy. Which I don't know if you know people would look automatically assume kind of like what you reference about women searching those more than men. So I love that.

The cowboy bath. Is that giddy up? Yeah. Is there anything else you want to share or any other questions or areas that we could explore? I think that we have a little bit more time.

Yeah, I think just want to reiterate that Afterglow and that porn in general can be a really amazing tool for self-discovery and for relationships. And we shouldn't be scared of porn. There's nothing to be scared of. It can be a really amazing tool to add to your sexual toolkit and a really good partner for other things like guided meditations and sensual movement.

There's a whole world of sexuality there. So I think if I had one takeaway for people, it would just to be to try something new in your sex life and don't worry about if it's perfect or not.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, take that. And that brings up for me what we do in our sex life is often has ripple effects in our other worlds or interactions. And I know that for me, once I reclaimed like either sexual curiosity or the ability to speak or voice desires and boundaries and...

Kristin (48:32.014)
Fears all of it, even if it's like, okay, I think I'm kind of weird so like I might fart I think they're funny a group with brothers, but you're just like voicing it name it helps release it but like having that in that space had ripple effects and the confidence and Everything just kind of outwardly. Yeah

I like our sexual selves is kind of like top of like the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So it's like the thing when you're tapped into it, you're like at your best self and like peak power. And when other things happen in life that, know, other things are going on and sex might not be a priority and that's also okay.

I mean, there's definitely been phases too of like conscious, like celibacy times or reflection or like maybe I've been giving too much of energy outward and then maybe I'll go on an inner reflection journey or time for self. So I love that piece too. So where do people find you connect with Afterglow, all that good stuff too. Yes.

So xoafterglow.com is our website. We are on Instagram, xoafterglow with two Ws at the end. And we can also give a free seven day tour to listeners. We can do sex, drugs, and spirituality. I don't know. We might have to cut this and edit it, but I'll come up with a... We can have a link to that.

Yeah

Kristin (49:55.688)
Yes. Thank you, Tills. Awesome. Well, thank you for coming on and being open and exploring and connecting in person. I love it. It's the first one. Thanks for having me. my God. I've been wanting you on for a while. And I think just the timing of it too helps me step into where I want to expand this.

defy censorship a little bit. There's a bit of me and it's like, if you tell me I can't do something. Oh. That's why I started this company. Well, I'm so glad you did. And I'm happy to share it with friends too and the link and the show notes and all that jazz.

You want to do it. Me too.

Lily Sparks (50:38.35)
Cool, thank you. Thank you.