The invasion feels personal

January 3, 2025 4:41 PM

Even in the few months Kelly has used the app, she’s noticed an increase in straight men who don’t seem to be interested in actual kink and are just there because they think it’s a place to find easy sex: “I saw a man’s profile once that said, ‘Here when my libido requires it, otherwise happy on [members-only dating app] Raya.’” To try and fit in, some of those men pretend to be kinkier than they actually are. Kelly once went on a date with a guy who wasn’t explicit in his profile about the stuff he was into, and so she asked him. When he said he was “open to whatever”, Kelly responded that she wasn’t going to “just do whatever” to him. from How “vanilla tourists” and threesome-hunters ironed out Feeld’s kinks [GQ; ungated] [NSFW text]
posted by chavenet (4 comments total)

It seems that almost every matchmaking site eventually regresses to the mean -- chasing the vanilla monogamous heterosexual market because that's where the most people are and thus the most money to be made -- or disappears.

OKCupid was once a great place to meet queer and/or poly folks, but approximately 15 minutes after being bought by Match.com they removed all of the poly indicators from the site to avoid scaring away the normals. Even Tinder, which was explicitly intended to facilitate hookups and one night stands, turned into a monogamous dating service. Craigslist did a passable job with their personals but understandably removed that feature when FOSTA/SESTA happened.

The only spaces that I haven't seen this happen are explicitly gay sites and apps. Grindr charges an absolutely obscene amount to actually be able to see and contact matches, but it's apparently enough to be able to keep them afloat.
posted by fader at 8:53 AM on January 4 [1 favorite]

Oh, and not to abuse the edit window, Feeld is definitely going the same way. My only hits there in the last three months have been from straight men interested in sleeping with one of my partners I'm linked to on the app. It's a far cry from even 6-9 months ago and I'll not be renewing my membership.

The straight monogamous people now have yet another playground and I'm bitter about it.
posted by fader at 9:00 AM on January 4 [1 favorite]

Normie media covering kink is always embarrassing. The author conveniently glosses over the fact that the app was literally called Thrinder before rebranding as Feeld. The threesome hunters aren't some invasive species, they were the site's core userbase in the beginning. Also, this is what happens to every kink focused platform when it blows up. Fetlife used to be a platform just brimming with kinksters of every stripe. It's unusable now. This isn't a new phenomenon.
posted by Lusy P Hur at 2:34 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]

I downloaded Feeld a while ago and it required a picture of your face for your profile which made me uncomfortable not only because I'm not willing to share my face on a kink-focused app (although that was the main reason) but also because if, as an explicitly queer and kink-friendly app, they didn't understand why requiring people to show their faces was a bad idea it made me skeptical about them in general. As someone trans, non-monogamous, and, without getting into details, not vanilla, dating is really hard and really sucks and it would be great if there were more options available for those of us on the edges because fuck it can be really lonely.
posted by an octopus IRL at 4:43 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]