Continuing the Conversation: Quinn CEO Caroline Spiegel on porn, pleasure, and random things that are hot

Porn is back.

Season 1 of Thinking Is Cool was all about considering generation-defining issues, big topics, and sources for thoughtful conversation. My first episode of this show was about making a better porn industry—but it was also about pleasure, social norms, getting comfortable being uncomfortable, and engineering ethical industries. 

Those are all ideas that we can’t cover completely in one 38 minute podcast episode. So today, we’re kicking off a new project from Thinking Is Cool called Continuing the Conversation. The point is to get people to continue talking about big topics...they’re not a flash in the pan, and this will show why that is.

Continuing the Conversation starts with Caroline Spiegel, the CEO of the audio erotica company Quinn. We’re talking about how the porn industry changes for the better and the ways consumers (read: all of us) can expedite that evolution.

Here are some of the questions Caroline and I answer:

• What are traditional porn’s biggest shortcomings?
• How has the internet changed the way we get off?
• Why can’t we assign value to the concept of pleasure—plain and simple?
• Where do we most observe the impacts (positive and negative) of the sex positivity and sexual wellness movements in the world of porn?
• How do you know when something is porn?
• What are the realities of creating a truly good porn product—the Netflix of porn, if you will?

And those are just the big ones—we’re also comparing porn to fast food, considering why some people watch porn for the plot, listing the random things people do that are inexplicably hot, and more.

Listen now...but maybe make sure you’ve listened to Thinking Is Cool’s porn episode first. Do that here.