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I have been thinking about why Tinder seems like a bad deal for my lady friends. It seems that women used to hold the power in online dating but for whatever r

by Yhippa 11y ago

I have been thinking about why Tinder seems like a bad deal for my lady friends. It seems that women used to hold the power in online dating but for whatever reason Tinder has turned into a site that reduces the cost (time investment and biological risk) to sleep with strangers. It seems that as that's picked up the new norm is a "race to the bottom" for women who want traditional relationships.

bradford 11y ago
You say that Tinder reduces the "time investment and biological risk" of [sex]. I'm not a Tinder user, how does it reduce the biological risk? wouldn't the risk of an STD be just as great, if not greater, than the status quo?
- Yhippa 11y ago
  Just a theory of mine. I feel that the odds would be greater going to a bar and doing the usual pick up routine vs vetting them ahead of time.
  - dethstar 11y ago
    You really can't know though, unless it's explicitly stated in their profile which I doubt it's very common.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - curiousjorge 11y ago
    there's no free lunch, if it reduces the cost of meeting strangers looking for cheap thrills, then it certainly must certainly raise the risks of contracting disease from the very people which it has allowed to freely enter and leave as they please.
  - fredkbloggs 11y ago
    The only barriers to entry are having a smartphone and being able to push a couple buttons and swipe. That's not creating an environment that's even remotely exclusive, and there's zero reason to believe the few people who are excluded by it are more likely than others to have an STI. And vetting them how, anyway? You might be able to find out whether someone is a felon, but I have no idea how I would (legally) find out whether someone has a transmissible STI. This seems like a product of some kind of cognitive bias.
    - xeromal 11y ago
      It buys you time. I think that's what the OP was saying. You can stare at a match for as long as you want. In a bar, the deal expires rather quickly.
      - tripzilch 11y ago
        But you can't tell if someone has an STD by staring/looking at them, either.
  - deanCommie 11y ago
    You're falling into a common misconception of assuming you can tell the likelyhood of a person having an STD by the rest of their attributes. Fact is, I see very little correlation. Intelligent, well-paid, well-groomed, well-cultured men who bitch and moan and complain about having to use condoms only wondering if the girl is on birth control. I don't think you can vet someone for STDs ahead of time. You can only practice safe sex and hope for the best.
- baddox 11y ago
  I think the reductions in risk already happened a while back, with the development and increased availability of birth control, condoms, medical testing and awareness, etc. I've heard similar arguments about a paradigm shift in gender relations after the advent of the pill (COCP) in the 60s.
- RachelF 11y ago
  More Sex is Safer Sex, according to economists, apparently: http://www.sld.cu/galerias/pdf/sitios/revsalud/more_sex_is_safer_sex.pdf http://www.sld.cu/galerias/pdf/sitios/revsalud/more_sex_is_s...
  - brighteyes 11y ago
    An entertaining theory, but I believe it's wishful thinking. The idea that non-promiscuous people having more sex can reduce STDs is more that the risk to a person having sex is lower, the more non-promiscuous people are options for them. Which is true - if only promiscuous people are looking to have sex with you, then every sex act is more risky. But the risk for those non-promiscuous people goes up the more sex they have. STDs exist that are like vampires in modern entertainment - once you become one, you are one forever, and you have a chance of turning others into one as well. Vampirism therefore spreads without limit, and so do STDs, if enough people have sex, for STDs that are incurable are not entirely preventable by condoms. If people are having a lot more sex due to Tinder, as the anecdotes suggest in this article, there is no doubt that we will see a surge in STDs.
  - Torgo 11y ago
    https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2035585 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2035585 "Internet’s Dirty Secret: Assessing the Impact of Online Intermediaries on HIV Transmission" http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/26/technology/rhode-island-tinder-stds/ http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/26/technology/rhode-island-tind... "Tinder and hookup apps blamed for rise in STDs"
angersock 11y ago
I think technology is somewhat to blame, and agree with you in a way. With broadcast mediums and technology, we first made it easy to compare any potential with the pool of all potential partners, and so many women (the historical gatekeepers of sex and relationships, fair or not) began to hold out on local suitors because they didn't meet some platonic ideal they'd seen once somewhere. Now technology has ticked again, and men have access to a marketplace of potential mates. Unfortunately, women are no longer the gatekeepers on relationships or sex, and the winning strategies in this new market happen to be uncouth and crass and, most importantly, effective. Speaking frankly as a somewhat bitter and jilted engineer: If they'd wanted traditional relationships, they should've been friendlier and less aloof when they were being courted earlier. Now that we're older and wiser and more financially secure, and with the technology giving us a ripe marketplace for relationships, why settle for anything less than convenience and our own arbitrary standards?
- normloman 11y ago
  "and so many women (the historical gatekeepers of sex and relationships, fair or not) began to hold out on local suitors because they didn't meet some platonic ideal they'd seen once somewhere." Citation needed. Pretty sure women had standards before television and movies. "If they'd wanted traditional relationships, they should've been friendlier and less aloof when they were being courted earlier." Ah, the 'nice guy' argument. Plus a bit of generalizing. It disturbs me that you refer to women as 'they' as if they all collectively decided to ignore you.
  - angersock 11y ago
    So, for the first part, it follows pretty directly from basic logic: Assume women are looking for mates (reasonable). Assume women will more favorably choose a mate the farther they are above some arbitrary standard (reasonable, though at the extreme end we see falloff--"I don't deserve him, he'd never date me, etc."--sames as we do in the other direction). Assume that these standards are the result of exposure to local norms (an example: as a friend returned from Kazakhstan explained to me, "A good Kazakh man is one who doesn't beat his wife after bedding down with a whore"). Assume that mass broadcast and the internet have redefined what local is (reasonable). It follows then that standards are being influenced by members outside of the physical local community of women (for an example of similar issues, consider the body image research done with Barbies and other deconstructions of beauty). That being the case, it seems perfectly reasonable that these same standards can be raised above local market rates. Ah, the 'nice guy' argument. Well, no, not really--the observation is that, at a time where there was a large supply of men looking for traditional arrangements, they held out, and now with the advent of technology, that supply has decreased because of the substitute good of hookups enabled by Tinder et al. There's no point in being mad, for example, that carriages are hard to come by if you didn't buy until cars were widespread. I'm a bit bitter because it all seems like such a waste: some of us were disappointed before, some of them are being disappointed now, and the sum total of unhappiness in the system (taken through time) has increased unnecessarily. It's just unfortunate, and could've been avoided. It disturbs me that you refer to women as 'they' as if they all collectively decided to ignore you. Don't read too much into it...it's just a useful and short pronoun in English to refer to women, saving a few characters.
michaelchisari 11y ago
women used to hold the power in online dating Anyone who has ever seen a pretty woman's okcupid inbox can attest that being dog-piled by hundreds of desperate men is an odd definition of "power". Tinder at least requires a mutual match.
- pyre 11y ago
  It's "power" in the same way that a hiring manager inundated with resumes from desperate job-hunters is in a position of power over them.
- jff 11y ago
  All those men want to talk to her. She decides if she wants to reply to them or just ignore them. I would find it odd to claim the men were holding the power in this situation. The neat thing about Tinder is that nobody has to assess those first-contact messages, they just swipe people they think they'd be interested in and if they both like each other, they can talk. I've never used it but I'd say it's probably equalized a lot of things--men no longer spend all their time carefully composing introductory messages only to be ignored, women don't (necessarily) have to sort through hundreds of "wanna fuk?" messages to find the decent ones.
  - michaelchisari 11y ago
    I would find it odd to claim the men were holding the power in this situation It's the stable marriage problem. There's higher risk initiating, but higher reward. Being in a receptive position means you're unable to even try for your highest preferred choice. You have to wait to see if that person chooses you. It's not a clear cut power dynamic of one over the other, though.
    - fossuser 11y ago
      Of course women can also obviously send a message - just because they don't have to culturally doesn't mean they can't do it.
tomp 11y ago
> It seems that as that's picked up the new norm is a "race to the bottom" for women who want traditional relationships. I'm inclined to not believe that. Anyone on Tinder, woman or man, is very unlikely to want a traditional relationship. Or rather, people who want a traditional relationship shouldn't be seeking it on Tinder.
storgendibal 11y ago
I actually think that it's bad for all but the best looking men as well. In a bar, music festival, coffee shop, etc, men could use a combination of looks, grooming, and personality to attract a woman. On Tinder, it boils down completely to looks, and that too, a 2-3 second evaluation. This has two implications: 1) In terms of physical attributes, women have more options "outside their league", but those options are not interested in a relationship. 2) The men at the top of the physical attributes ladder normally have a slight-to-moderate advantage. Historically, men not at the top of this ladder could still use personality, wit, etc. to attract a mate. With Tinder, this advantage is hugely magnified because men not at the top of the ladder don't even get an option to use other aspects of what they bring to the table before they are swiped left.
anon3_ 11y ago
> It seems that as that's picked up the new norm is a "race to the bottom" for women who want traditional relationships. This is so backwards. Women use tinder to get attention, not relationships. Rarely sex. Men are the one's in the race to the bottom. They get ignored by all of them. The women use it to treat men like ants. Yet these studies and willing betas still treat women like the victims. As men, the larger issue is this cuckold-psychology where you have to sound charitable to females, even if it takes flat out denial of situations. Women still hold the power.
- johnny22 11y ago
  Seems like you're projecting. Finding amazing women (as a cis hetorosexual) has never been easier. ATM it's more like the paradox of choice.
  - anon3_ 11y ago
    (Disclaimer: I used to work at a dating website.) You have it backwards. A paradox of choice for females. Men aren't picking, they're the one's pasting messages desperately to get responses. It's a hopeless situation. Ever been to a night club? Male:Female ratio? You have any idea how much worse it is on a dating website? It's interesting how you say I projected, I'm interested in the tendency of men to fib about their success with females. Yes, I've seen hundreds of comments like yours, then I saw their accounts get banned out of frustration the next day. Even if you did have success on a dating website (I have, and have had friends who married), by no means are they in favor of men. If you need me to elaborate on the data, I can.

by Yhippa 11y ago

bradford 11y ago

You say that Tinder reduces the "time investment and biological risk" of [sex]. I'm not a Tinder user, how does it reduce the biological risk? wouldn't the risk of an STD be just as great, if not greater, than the status quo?

Yhippa 11y ago
Just a theory of mine. I feel that the odds would be greater going to a bar and doing the usual pick up routine vs vetting them ahead of time.
- dethstar 11y ago
  You really can't know though, unless it's explicitly stated in their profile which I doubt it's very common.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- curiousjorge 11y ago
  there's no free lunch, if it reduces the cost of meeting strangers looking for cheap thrills, then it certainly must certainly raise the risks of contracting disease from the very people which it has allowed to freely enter and leave as they please.
- fredkbloggs 11y ago
  The only barriers to entry are having a smartphone and being able to push a couple buttons and swipe. That's not creating an environment that's even remotely exclusive, and there's zero reason to believe the few people who are excluded by it are more likely than others to have an STI. And vetting them how, anyway? You might be able to find out whether someone is a felon, but I have no idea how I would (legally) find out whether someone has a transmissible STI. This seems like a product of some kind of cognitive bias.
  - xeromal 11y ago
    It buys you time. I think that's what the OP was saying. You can stare at a match for as long as you want. In a bar, the deal expires rather quickly.
    - tripzilch 11y ago
      But you can't tell if someone has an STD by staring/looking at them, either.
- deanCommie 11y ago
  You're falling into a common misconception of assuming you can tell the likelyhood of a person having an STD by the rest of their attributes. Fact is, I see very little correlation. Intelligent, well-paid, well-groomed, well-cultured men who bitch and moan and complain about having to use condoms only wondering if the girl is on birth control. I don't think you can vet someone for STDs ahead of time. You can only practice safe sex and hope for the best.
baddox 11y ago
I think the reductions in risk already happened a while back, with the development and increased availability of birth control, condoms, medical testing and awareness, etc. I've heard similar arguments about a paradigm shift in gender relations after the advent of the pill (COCP) in the 60s.
RachelF 11y ago
More Sex is Safer Sex, according to economists, apparently: http://www.sld.cu/galerias/pdf/sitios/revsalud/more_sex_is_safer_sex.pdf http://www.sld.cu/galerias/pdf/sitios/revsalud/more_sex_is_s...
- brighteyes 11y ago
  An entertaining theory, but I believe it's wishful thinking. The idea that non-promiscuous people having more sex can reduce STDs is more that the risk to a person having sex is lower, the more non-promiscuous people are options for them. Which is true - if only promiscuous people are looking to have sex with you, then every sex act is more risky. But the risk for those non-promiscuous people goes up the more sex they have. STDs exist that are like vampires in modern entertainment - once you become one, you are one forever, and you have a chance of turning others into one as well. Vampirism therefore spreads without limit, and so do STDs, if enough people have sex, for STDs that are incurable are not entirely preventable by condoms. If people are having a lot more sex due to Tinder, as the anecdotes suggest in this article, there is no doubt that we will see a surge in STDs.
- Torgo 11y ago
  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2035585 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2035585 "Internet’s Dirty Secret: Assessing the Impact of Online Intermediaries on HIV Transmission" http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/26/technology/rhode-island-tinder-stds/ http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/26/technology/rhode-island-tind... "Tinder and hookup apps blamed for rise in STDs"

angersock 11y ago

I think technology is somewhat to blame, and agree with you in a way. With broadcast mediums and technology, we first made it easy to compare any potential with the pool of all potential partners, and so many women (the historical gatekeepers of sex and relationships, fair or not) began to hold out on local suitors because they didn't meet some platonic ideal they'd seen once somewhere. Now technology has ticked again, and men have access to a marketplace of potential mates. Unfortunately, women are no longer the gatekeepers on relationships or sex, and the winning strategies in this new market happen to be uncouth and crass and, most importantly, effective. Speaking frankly as a somewhat bitter and jilted engineer: If they'd wanted traditional relationships, they should've been friendlier and less aloof when they were being courted earlier. Now that we're older and wiser and more financially secure, and with the technology giving us a ripe marketplace for relationships, why settle for anything less than convenience and our own arbitrary standards?

normloman 11y ago
"and so many women (the historical gatekeepers of sex and relationships, fair or not) began to hold out on local suitors because they didn't meet some platonic ideal they'd seen once somewhere." Citation needed. Pretty sure women had standards before television and movies. "If they'd wanted traditional relationships, they should've been friendlier and less aloof when they were being courted earlier." Ah, the 'nice guy' argument. Plus a bit of generalizing. It disturbs me that you refer to women as 'they' as if they all collectively decided to ignore you.
- angersock 11y ago
  So, for the first part, it follows pretty directly from basic logic: Assume women are looking for mates (reasonable). Assume women will more favorably choose a mate the farther they are above some arbitrary standard (reasonable, though at the extreme end we see falloff--"I don't deserve him, he'd never date me, etc."--sames as we do in the other direction). Assume that these standards are the result of exposure to local norms (an example: as a friend returned from Kazakhstan explained to me, "A good Kazakh man is one who doesn't beat his wife after bedding down with a whore"). Assume that mass broadcast and the internet have redefined what local is (reasonable). It follows then that standards are being influenced by members outside of the physical local community of women (for an example of similar issues, consider the body image research done with Barbies and other deconstructions of beauty). That being the case, it seems perfectly reasonable that these same standards can be raised above local market rates. Ah, the 'nice guy' argument. Well, no, not really--the observation is that, at a time where there was a large supply of men looking for traditional arrangements, they held out, and now with the advent of technology, that supply has decreased because of the substitute good of hookups enabled by Tinder et al. There's no point in being mad, for example, that carriages are hard to come by if you didn't buy until cars were widespread. I'm a bit bitter because it all seems like such a waste: some of us were disappointed before, some of them are being disappointed now, and the sum total of unhappiness in the system (taken through time) has increased unnecessarily. It's just unfortunate, and could've been avoided. It disturbs me that you refer to women as 'they' as if they all collectively decided to ignore you. Don't read too much into it...it's just a useful and short pronoun in English to refer to women, saving a few characters.

michaelchisari 11y ago

women used to hold the power in online dating Anyone who has ever seen a pretty woman's okcupid inbox can attest that being dog-piled by hundreds of desperate men is an odd definition of "power". Tinder at least requires a mutual match.

pyre 11y ago
It's "power" in the same way that a hiring manager inundated with resumes from desperate job-hunters is in a position of power over them.
jff 11y ago
All those men want to talk to her. She decides if she wants to reply to them or just ignore them. I would find it odd to claim the men were holding the power in this situation. The neat thing about Tinder is that nobody has to assess those first-contact messages, they just swipe people they think they'd be interested in and if they both like each other, they can talk. I've never used it but I'd say it's probably equalized a lot of things--men no longer spend all their time carefully composing introductory messages only to be ignored, women don't (necessarily) have to sort through hundreds of "wanna fuk?" messages to find the decent ones.
- michaelchisari 11y ago
  I would find it odd to claim the men were holding the power in this situation It's the stable marriage problem. There's higher risk initiating, but higher reward. Being in a receptive position means you're unable to even try for your highest preferred choice. You have to wait to see if that person chooses you. It's not a clear cut power dynamic of one over the other, though.
  - fossuser 11y ago
    Of course women can also obviously send a message - just because they don't have to culturally doesn't mean they can't do it.

tomp 11y ago

> It seems that as that's picked up the new norm is a "race to the bottom" for women who want traditional relationships. I'm inclined to not believe that. Anyone on Tinder, woman or man, is very unlikely to want a traditional relationship. Or rather, people who want a traditional relationship shouldn't be seeking it on Tinder.

storgendibal 11y ago

I actually think that it's bad for all but the best looking men as well. In a bar, music festival, coffee shop, etc, men could use a combination of looks, grooming, and personality to attract a woman. On Tinder, it boils down completely to looks, and that too, a 2-3 second evaluation. This has two implications: 1) In terms of physical attributes, women have more options "outside their league", but those options are not interested in a relationship. 2) The men at the top of the physical attributes ladder normally have a slight-to-moderate advantage. Historically, men not at the top of this ladder could still use personality, wit, etc. to attract a mate. With Tinder, this advantage is hugely magnified because men not at the top of the ladder don't even get an option to use other aspects of what they bring to the table before they are swiped left.

anon3_ 11y ago

> It seems that as that's picked up the new norm is a "race to the bottom" for women who want traditional relationships. This is so backwards. Women use tinder to get attention, not relationships. Rarely sex. Men are the one's in the race to the bottom. They get ignored by all of them. The women use it to treat men like ants. Yet these studies and willing betas still treat women like the victims. As men, the larger issue is this cuckold-psychology where you have to sound charitable to females, even if it takes flat out denial of situations. Women still hold the power.

johnny22 11y ago
Seems like you're projecting. Finding amazing women (as a cis hetorosexual) has never been easier. ATM it's more like the paradox of choice.
- anon3_ 11y ago
  (Disclaimer: I used to work at a dating website.) You have it backwards. A paradox of choice for females. Men aren't picking, they're the one's pasting messages desperately to get responses. It's a hopeless situation. Ever been to a night club? Male:Female ratio? You have any idea how much worse it is on a dating website? It's interesting how you say I projected, I'm interested in the tendency of men to fib about their success with females. Yes, I've seen hundreds of comments like yours, then I saw their accounts get banned out of frustration the next day. Even if you did have success on a dating website (I have, and have had friends who married), by no means are they in favor of men. If you need me to elaborate on the data, I can.