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Grindr requires extremely little effort to use, but so many gay men report great satisfaction from it. If the dating apps used by the heterosexual masses spark

Grindr requires extremely little effort to use, but so many gay men report great satisfaction from it. If the dating apps used by the heterosexual masses spark a significantly higher level of disappointment and frustration, then there must be some explanation for that other than “low effort”.

Gigachad 3y ago
It’s a low effort app for low effort sex. Expecting to build a long term relationship on an app is not typically going to work out.
- progne 3y ago
  If you're expecting computer assistance at building a long term relationship, rather than just an assist in meeting people, it's probably not going to work out.
  - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
    Meeting with very specific expectations, I might add. My gay friends using grinder don't expect it to be full-filling, they expect it to be pleasurable. Pleasure is nice, but it doesn't sustain happiness. And intense pleasures that are easy to have regularly mess up with your dopamine system. It's fine if you only have one part of your life like this. The rest balance it out. And we all need fun. E.G: one of my friends is deeply involved in teaching kids, another one is a very dedicated doctor, and so forth. In that case it's healthy.
    - kredd 3y ago
      I was on board with your reasoning, but the end tail is just gatekeeping happiness. People have been satisfied with “simple pleasures” that made them happy throughout centuries. It’s close to saying “you’re not listening to the right kind of music, listening to rock is unhealthy!”. I do agree with you that when people use apps, they should set correct expectations. I think it’s the unmet expectations that are causing problems.
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        > but the end tail is just gatekeeping happiness How can this be gatekeeping? It's a conversation. Saying "repeated shallow dopamine hits will make it harder for you to build long term joy" isn't stopping anyone from doing anything. It's just a proposition. > People have been satisfied with “simple pleasures” that made them happy throughout centuries I don't think this is really...anything. Wisdom tends towards building for the long term and delayed gratification, not short termism at the expense of the long term. Being happy at seeing a beautiful sunset is at the expense of nothing, which is the difference being proposed.
      - lazide 3y ago
        They’re referring to the hedonic treadmill, which is a thing. Heroin feels really good, which is why it’s dangerous. Because it feels too good, for what it actually does to you, and that’s a trap for a decent percentage of the population.
      - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
        Not, it's not about the nature of pleasure. Netflix in itself is not a problem. Filling your life with it is. Which is easy to do because it's intense dopamine effects for little effort.
      - johnnyanmac 3y ago
        Some simple pleasures are fine. Your entire life being nothing but simple pleasures (simple job, simple hobby, simple diet, simple goals etc.) makes you a simple person. I feel like thars why some people turn to making a family. Raising kids is never simple and it's not as easy to back out as trying a new hobby. Then again, divorces are through the roof as well, so maybe that is also failing at large.
        kredd 3y ago
        My usual perspective on life — it is absolutely fine for people to choose simple life as long as they set their expectations accordingly. Who am I to tell others to pick up a hobby or do something “complex”? Back when I was a kid, I’ve only seen a poverty and everyone was “simple”, and people still lived and laughed. Luckily those times are way past me, but as I grow up and meet more and more people in different countries and cultures, not everything is as simple as telling others “get a more interesting life so you can be happier”. Apologies for the rant, I just don’t get it when others say “do X, not Y to be happy”, as if happiness is nothing but a subjective state of mind. Obviously I am not entertaining the obvious physical/psychological addictions and stuff on that level, but if someone chooses a trash reality TV over “life enriching books”, that’s not my place to give them advice.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- poisonborz 3y ago
  > Expecting to build a long term relationship on an app What? All of these apps exist merely to organise the first meeting. Those users will not interact with each other on the platform after that.
- userinanother 3y ago
  It’s actually a high effort app trying to pass as a low effort app. The worst of both worlds
loveparade 3y ago
I mean, it's pretty obvious isn't it? The ratio on most dating apps is 10-100x more men then women, a large fraction of fake profiles and scams, and the companies pushing predatory monetization hacks as a result of all that.
- trident5000 3y ago
  "predatory monetization" Yeah...the goal of these dating apps is not to have you happily be in a relationship and stop paying them money.
  - dylan604 3y ago
    Every thing is a SaaS mentality. Dating apps need you to forever be dating to keep you paying.Pharmaceuticals don't want cures, but forever treatments. We have pretty much completely moved to a rent seeking society
    - trident5000 3y ago
      Absolutely. Its probably time the govt steps in and shifts patent law to favor cures over treatments. There will be incredible resistance to this from lobbyists though. Other thing they need to do is eliminate the requirement that all new treatments reviewed by the FDA meet the requirement of a "disease". Theres a lot of things people want out of lets say gene therapy that is not strictly a disease but benefits your health in the end. And I dont know why cosmetic or enhancing treatments should not be considered as well. They need to loosen up. FDA approval for (gene therapy for instance) is taking something like 15 years to get approved. And only their narrow definition of whats necessary for the public is even considered. This is an absurd situation. Govt red tape is literally killing us.
    - c0pium 3y ago
      > Pharmaceuticals don't want cures, but forever treatments You don’t have to look very hard to realize this trope is totally wrong, just google “vaccine”.
BiteCode_dev 3y ago
True. Hence the "usually". I put very little effort in my sleep and have a very good one. Some things are just good and cheap. It's nice. Unfortunately, that never characterized heterosexual courting, eating healthy food while working full time or finding meaning in your life. Most people struggle with those. Also note reporting satisfaction with something can just validate the pleasure it brings to you. I'm personally satisfied with Netflix. But you can't fill your life with such things and expect happiness.
- bobmaxup 3y ago
  How can something be obvious and also nuanced?
  - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
    The sky is obviously blue, but there are a lot of shades of blue in it. And clouds. And it changes at night and during sunset. Etc.
    - bobmaxup 3y ago
      Okay, but in plain language, it wouldn't really make sense to say something is obvious and then to say there are many exceptions, no?
      - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
        Obvious doesn't exist. Everything is learned. Obvious just means "given our context, we don't expect to require much complex thinking to get to that conclusion". It's just another convention. Given our context of most of us having eyes and color receptors calibrated in a similar fashion, I expect most people will see the sky blue. Of course if you dig deeper, it opens the discussions to nuances. It's the same here. Nothing wrong with that.
        besse 3y ago
swagempire 3y ago
The explanation is obvious here and the very existential crux of heterosexual dating.
reureu 3y ago
As a gay man, I hate grindr and many of my friends do too. We still may use it because it's ubiquitous, honest to a fault, and it's easy to confuse solutions to horniness with solutions to loneliness. But I know it often takes a toll on self-esteem, particularly in areas where you don't match the dominant "type" (e.g., a nerdy guy living in LA or OC). There aren't better options and many of the guys on hinge or tinder are also on grindr -- so, I think grindr gets used often despite it not really delivering on the users' hopes. So, I wouldn't confuse use with satisfaction, and I'd really love to see data on how many gay men actually are satisfied with grindr.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  I'm in the kinky community and I visit gay clubs sometimes because they have way bigger and better venues (their community is just a lot bigger) and often have all-orientations nights and many popular gay themes overlap strongly with ours (eg submission, pet play, leather) But one thing I notice is that there's a subset of the gay community that seems shallow and very physical in their sexuality. When you speak of 'satisfaction' in this sense it seems to be purely the physical side and nothing else counts. For me that doesn't work at all. Good for them of course (and I do really think they are truly fulfilled by this so power to them!). But it's a phenomenon that seems pretty unique, I have not heard of this in the lesbian scene for example (my friends are very diverse and open about their sexuality) Of course this subset is highly represented in those clubs and on Grindr because that is where they find their partners easily. In these clubs I don't feel so comfortable because they take consent for granted while in the kinky community we always confirm consent before doing anything. Even as much as touching someone's arm. But I also know a lot of gay people that are more sensual and careful like me. You just don't find them much in those places because they are similarly put off by the attitudes.
  - reureu 3y ago
    I think you're totally right, and I think that's the tragedy of apps like grindr. I was on gay websites as a teenager in the late 90s/early 00s, and it was only tech savvy guys. You could chat with someone for weeks without exchanging photos. The horny, shallow guys somewhat weeded themselves out because there wasn't a large enough population to sustain that. But as the internet became more popular, dating sites became more mainstream, and then the location-based ones matured, it almost became a race to the bottom (so to speak). If someone is horny right now, why chat with person A (with a text-based profile) when person B has photos? Why chat with person B when person C has shirtless photos? Why chat with person C when person D sends dick pics right away? Why chat with person D when person E sends dick pics and will drive to your house in 10 minutes? So a subset of users start pushing this towards being hyper efficiency, but that comes at the expense of the other subset of users who don't necessarily want that. My experience has been you can't ever escape that. That mentality has permeated the system, and now we're conditioned to "meet up within 3 messages", "send pics in first message", "no fats, no fems, no flakes", etc. And if you don't like that and want something slower then you get told "it's just grindr, what do you expect?" (which eventually morphs into "it's just tinder what do you expect?", "it's just hinge, what do you expect?"). But even the people saying "it's just grindr" also complain that after they have sex, they just feel lonely again and that they feel trapped or addicted to grindr. Obviously I'm painting with really broad strokes. Some people do find relationships on grindr. Some people are satisfied with their interactions. But, I think like the original article describes, it feels soul destroying. And by the time you're in your 30s, I think a lot of gay men realize that easy sex doesn't necessarily mean good sex and it often doesn't mean feeling satisfied or content afterwards. But it's difficult when you have a heterogenous population, with a vocal faction of the population that keeps pushing the limits of efficiency, and the rest of the population is just sorta dragged along.
jeegsy 3y ago
Well, clearly, the groups want very different things
photochemsyn 3y ago
My conspiratorial (*completely evidence-free as far as I know) theory on hookup apps is that they're secretly backed by the major pharmaceutical manufacturers of various STD treatments. The numbers are interesting: there are about 32,000 new HIV cases in the USA each year, and the per-month cost of ongoing anti-retroviral therapy is estimated at $1,800 - $4,500. This works out to a gross cost of ~ $0.7 billion to $1.7 billion - and it's cumulative, year after year. as HIV patients need this treatment for the rest of their lives. Given profit margins of 10-15% in pharma at least, this is a huge cash cow for the industry. (Also explains the reluctance to invest in seeking a permanent cure for the disease that would allow patients to terminate their therapy). Now, would a profit-hungry industry deliberately encourage reckless sex practices in order to grow demand for their product, year after year? It might bear some investigation.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  Can you not just trace the investments and find out either way?
- eru 3y ago
  From what I've heard, The better anti-HIV drugs we have these days actually decrease your viral load so much that you can not infect other people. (Please correct me, if I am wrong.) From the perspective of your theory, that would seem counterproductive. As a greedy pharma company you'd want people to take a drug that makes them feel good while they are on it, be no permanent cure, _and_ still allow them to spread the condition.
- c0pium 3y ago
  Moderna is in trials with an HIV vaccine based on mRNA tech. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36454825/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36454825/ https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05854381 https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05854381
- Levitz 3y ago
  Given the rates of transmission, Grindr would be the obvious choice, yet the app is pretty damn responsible around the issue. You can list your STD status, whether you take pre exposition meds and when you last checked yourself for STDs.
lazide 3y ago
Heterosexual women and men have fundamentally different biological incentives. Gay men don’t.
- ben_w 3y ago
  The "biological incentives" of being gay (or bi, or ace, or aro, or child-free-by-choice, or (hetero) butt stuff and blowjobs, or all the other things from the a-z of human relationships that aren't pro-reproduction) were still an open question last I heard.
  - 4gotunameagain 3y ago
    not really. it is well known in non politically influenced circles that hormonal exposure in the uterus is a great predictor of sexuality and behaviour.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      The causal mechanism isn't the same thing as "why hasn't evolution selected against this"[0] and neither is the same thing as subjective incentives. [0] one suggestion is the "gay uncle hypothesis" which posits that people who themselves do not have children may nonetheless increase the prevalence of their family's genes in future generations by providing resources (e.g., food, supervision, defense, shelter) to the offspring of their closest relatives; this hypothesis seems to be consistent with the evidence without being sufficient on its own.
      - lazide 3y ago
        Near as I can tell, it’s also evolutionary advantageous to have significant ‘randomness’ as far as traits across a population. Especially for humans due to the extreme variation in environmental conditions and stresses we end up producing for ourselves. Being a hero by jumping on a grenade is a pretty terrible survival trait for an individual for instance, but essential for the group to have at least one in any decent sized population. All the non-grenade-coverers will strongly support such folks, as long as it doesn’t hurt their own survival chances somehow. So if we look at individual tendencies as coming more from die rolls than anything else, with a wide distribution, a lot of outlier behavior makes a lot of sense. A hardcore survivalist most of the time is going to be selected against, for instance, for many reasons when things are going well. They’re dumping all their stats points in the wrong categories! But any population that doesn’t have at least a few is going to completely disappear on those rare long tail events (an actual nuclear war?). And if those survivalists are actually capable, they get the benefit of ‘seeding’ the next generation without any competition! Long odds, but potential huge payoff biologically.
xwdv 3y ago
If there was an app where I could quickly hook up with a woman just for some physical satisfaction as easily as men do on Grindr I’d be pretty satisfied too. Low effort sex should be more readily available so that people don’t have to pollute serious dating apps looking for it.
- swagasaurus-rex 3y ago
  These apps exist, but you’re paying for an escort
  - xwdv 3y ago
    I wouldn’t mind paying for an escort, but it feels like such a gray market and I don’t know how to navigate it. I’d really like some kind of Uber Eats type thing where I can make an appointment with someone and have them come over for an hour and then just be on their way. No BS.
    - ambicapter 3y ago
      That sounds exactly like an escort with a fancy app.
      - xwdv 3y ago
        How else is one supposed to find an escort? People are always saying “just hire an escort” casually like if this was some common knowledge. Plus maybe you don’t need an escort if you are a match with someone else looking for the same thing as you.
        dehrmann 3y ago
        Feels like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UifycM6lBvQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UifycM6lBvQ
        johnnyanmac 3y ago
        >How else is one supposed to find an escort? strip clubs I imagine. They can't legally say they have escorts, but it's an entire scene. Like any other tribal knowledge, you need to know the edge cases and know the right people. And/or be rich. You can't just google this kinda stuff, you gotta get out to your town and dig (well... you kind of can. But you don't want to take the risk asking for certain Craigslist ads on this stuff). Or you can go to Vegas where prostitution isn't illegal.
Der_Einzige 3y ago
You know why this is. Gay men are far more promiscuous than straight women are.
- polartx 3y ago
  Or they’re just less affected by the public’s perception of their promiscuity
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    Idk about less affected. Especially these days where trying to call a woman that is almost as bad as sexual assault in many's eyes. Gay stuff is just more underground. You're never going to just walk into a gay club, for instance. Nor wander into an LGBT meetup by surprise.
Redoubts 3y ago
> so many gay men report great satisfaction from it. Yeah man, love this app, who wouldn't... https://imgur.com/a/Ff0qaPn https://imgur.com/a/Ff0qaPn
- Levitz 3y ago
  How is that the app's fault? Are those conditions created by grindr? People have preferences, disclosing them as soon as possible saves everybody's time. There might very well be a problem in the gay community in this regard, but if so it runs way deeper, this would happen with or without grindr.
- fennecbutt 3y ago
  As a gay dude myself, idt this is too bad. He's just listing preferences, he's not being offensive about it. If what he listed is wrong, then is it wrong for me to be gay because I'm being sexist by excluding women? I actually prefer people list their preferences up front, that way that's no disappointment later. For example, I can think a straight guy is cute, but I'm not personally attracted to straight guys, I find it unattractive, because I know they're not interested (in addition to hetero culture, chest beating etc that is just gross). Easier for someone to say "not into short guys" up front cause then I just skip over them rather than interact and have awkwardness later on.
  - Redoubts 3y ago
    > He's just listing preferences to be clear, there are multiple examples here of varying politeness.
ssnistfajen 3y ago
If you've actually interacted with gay men in general you'll also find out the vast majority also have negative experiences with Grindr. It still falls within the "low effort = low quality" equation. Or you can just read the reviews on App Store / Google Play and see for yourself.
fennecbutt 3y ago
I hate grindr because I can't filter to introverted geeks like I am. The geek section has been taken over by self described "nerds" aka jocks who live in the gym but have an xbox to play fifa. Ugh.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  response bias at work. If you let people describe themselves they will lie to become whatever they feel gets them the most success.

Gigachad 3y ago

It’s a low effort app for low effort sex. Expecting to build a long term relationship on an app is not typically going to work out.

progne 3y ago
If you're expecting computer assistance at building a long term relationship, rather than just an assist in meeting people, it's probably not going to work out.
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  Meeting with very specific expectations, I might add. My gay friends using grinder don't expect it to be full-filling, they expect it to be pleasurable. Pleasure is nice, but it doesn't sustain happiness. And intense pleasures that are easy to have regularly mess up with your dopamine system. It's fine if you only have one part of your life like this. The rest balance it out. And we all need fun. E.G: one of my friends is deeply involved in teaching kids, another one is a very dedicated doctor, and so forth. In that case it's healthy.
  - kredd 3y ago
    I was on board with your reasoning, but the end tail is just gatekeeping happiness. People have been satisfied with “simple pleasures” that made them happy throughout centuries. It’s close to saying “you’re not listening to the right kind of music, listening to rock is unhealthy!”. I do agree with you that when people use apps, they should set correct expectations. I think it’s the unmet expectations that are causing problems.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      > but the end tail is just gatekeeping happiness How can this be gatekeeping? It's a conversation. Saying "repeated shallow dopamine hits will make it harder for you to build long term joy" isn't stopping anyone from doing anything. It's just a proposition. > People have been satisfied with “simple pleasures” that made them happy throughout centuries I don't think this is really...anything. Wisdom tends towards building for the long term and delayed gratification, not short termism at the expense of the long term. Being happy at seeing a beautiful sunset is at the expense of nothing, which is the difference being proposed.
    - lazide 3y ago
      They’re referring to the hedonic treadmill, which is a thing. Heroin feels really good, which is why it’s dangerous. Because it feels too good, for what it actually does to you, and that’s a trap for a decent percentage of the population.
    - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
      Not, it's not about the nature of pleasure. Netflix in itself is not a problem. Filling your life with it is. Which is easy to do because it's intense dopamine effects for little effort.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      Some simple pleasures are fine. Your entire life being nothing but simple pleasures (simple job, simple hobby, simple diet, simple goals etc.) makes you a simple person. I feel like thars why some people turn to making a family. Raising kids is never simple and it's not as easy to back out as trying a new hobby. Then again, divorces are through the roof as well, so maybe that is also failing at large.
      - kredd 3y ago
        My usual perspective on life — it is absolutely fine for people to choose simple life as long as they set their expectations accordingly. Who am I to tell others to pick up a hobby or do something “complex”? Back when I was a kid, I’ve only seen a poverty and everyone was “simple”, and people still lived and laughed. Luckily those times are way past me, but as I grow up and meet more and more people in different countries and cultures, not everything is as simple as telling others “get a more interesting life so you can be happier”. Apologies for the rant, I just don’t get it when others say “do X, not Y to be happy”, as if happiness is nothing but a subjective state of mind. Obviously I am not entertaining the obvious physical/psychological addictions and stuff on that level, but if someone chooses a trash reality TV over “life enriching books”, that’s not my place to give them advice.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
poisonborz 3y ago
> Expecting to build a long term relationship on an app What? All of these apps exist merely to organise the first meeting. Those users will not interact with each other on the platform after that.
userinanother 3y ago
It’s actually a high effort app trying to pass as a low effort app. The worst of both worlds

loveparade 3y ago

I mean, it's pretty obvious isn't it? The ratio on most dating apps is 10-100x more men then women, a large fraction of fake profiles and scams, and the companies pushing predatory monetization hacks as a result of all that.

trident5000 3y ago
"predatory monetization" Yeah...the goal of these dating apps is not to have you happily be in a relationship and stop paying them money.
- dylan604 3y ago
  Every thing is a SaaS mentality. Dating apps need you to forever be dating to keep you paying.Pharmaceuticals don't want cures, but forever treatments. We have pretty much completely moved to a rent seeking society
  - trident5000 3y ago
    Absolutely. Its probably time the govt steps in and shifts patent law to favor cures over treatments. There will be incredible resistance to this from lobbyists though. Other thing they need to do is eliminate the requirement that all new treatments reviewed by the FDA meet the requirement of a "disease". Theres a lot of things people want out of lets say gene therapy that is not strictly a disease but benefits your health in the end. And I dont know why cosmetic or enhancing treatments should not be considered as well. They need to loosen up. FDA approval for (gene therapy for instance) is taking something like 15 years to get approved. And only their narrow definition of whats necessary for the public is even considered. This is an absurd situation. Govt red tape is literally killing us.
  - c0pium 3y ago
    > Pharmaceuticals don't want cures, but forever treatments You don’t have to look very hard to realize this trope is totally wrong, just google “vaccine”.

BiteCode_dev 3y ago

True. Hence the "usually". I put very little effort in my sleep and have a very good one. Some things are just good and cheap. It's nice. Unfortunately, that never characterized heterosexual courting, eating healthy food while working full time or finding meaning in your life. Most people struggle with those. Also note reporting satisfaction with something can just validate the pleasure it brings to you. I'm personally satisfied with Netflix. But you can't fill your life with such things and expect happiness.

bobmaxup 3y ago
How can something be obvious and also nuanced?
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  The sky is obviously blue, but there are a lot of shades of blue in it. And clouds. And it changes at night and during sunset. Etc.
  - bobmaxup 3y ago
    Okay, but in plain language, it wouldn't really make sense to say something is obvious and then to say there are many exceptions, no?
    - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
      Obvious doesn't exist. Everything is learned. Obvious just means "given our context, we don't expect to require much complex thinking to get to that conclusion". It's just another convention. Given our context of most of us having eyes and color receptors calibrated in a similar fashion, I expect most people will see the sky blue. Of course if you dig deeper, it opens the discussions to nuances. It's the same here. Nothing wrong with that.
      - besse 3y ago

swagempire 3y ago

The explanation is obvious here and the very existential crux of heterosexual dating.

reureu 3y ago

As a gay man, I hate grindr and many of my friends do too. We still may use it because it's ubiquitous, honest to a fault, and it's easy to confuse solutions to horniness with solutions to loneliness. But I know it often takes a toll on self-esteem, particularly in areas where you don't match the dominant "type" (e.g., a nerdy guy living in LA or OC). There aren't better options and many of the guys on hinge or tinder are also on grindr -- so, I think grindr gets used often despite it not really delivering on the users' hopes. So, I wouldn't confuse use with satisfaction, and I'd really love to see data on how many gay men actually are satisfied with grindr.

wkat4242 3y ago
I'm in the kinky community and I visit gay clubs sometimes because they have way bigger and better venues (their community is just a lot bigger) and often have all-orientations nights and many popular gay themes overlap strongly with ours (eg submission, pet play, leather) But one thing I notice is that there's a subset of the gay community that seems shallow and very physical in their sexuality. When you speak of 'satisfaction' in this sense it seems to be purely the physical side and nothing else counts. For me that doesn't work at all. Good for them of course (and I do really think they are truly fulfilled by this so power to them!). But it's a phenomenon that seems pretty unique, I have not heard of this in the lesbian scene for example (my friends are very diverse and open about their sexuality) Of course this subset is highly represented in those clubs and on Grindr because that is where they find their partners easily. In these clubs I don't feel so comfortable because they take consent for granted while in the kinky community we always confirm consent before doing anything. Even as much as touching someone's arm. But I also know a lot of gay people that are more sensual and careful like me. You just don't find them much in those places because they are similarly put off by the attitudes.
- reureu 3y ago
  I think you're totally right, and I think that's the tragedy of apps like grindr. I was on gay websites as a teenager in the late 90s/early 00s, and it was only tech savvy guys. You could chat with someone for weeks without exchanging photos. The horny, shallow guys somewhat weeded themselves out because there wasn't a large enough population to sustain that. But as the internet became more popular, dating sites became more mainstream, and then the location-based ones matured, it almost became a race to the bottom (so to speak). If someone is horny right now, why chat with person A (with a text-based profile) when person B has photos? Why chat with person B when person C has shirtless photos? Why chat with person C when person D sends dick pics right away? Why chat with person D when person E sends dick pics and will drive to your house in 10 minutes? So a subset of users start pushing this towards being hyper efficiency, but that comes at the expense of the other subset of users who don't necessarily want that. My experience has been you can't ever escape that. That mentality has permeated the system, and now we're conditioned to "meet up within 3 messages", "send pics in first message", "no fats, no fems, no flakes", etc. And if you don't like that and want something slower then you get told "it's just grindr, what do you expect?" (which eventually morphs into "it's just tinder what do you expect?", "it's just hinge, what do you expect?"). But even the people saying "it's just grindr" also complain that after they have sex, they just feel lonely again and that they feel trapped or addicted to grindr. Obviously I'm painting with really broad strokes. Some people do find relationships on grindr. Some people are satisfied with their interactions. But, I think like the original article describes, it feels soul destroying. And by the time you're in your 30s, I think a lot of gay men realize that easy sex doesn't necessarily mean good sex and it often doesn't mean feeling satisfied or content afterwards. But it's difficult when you have a heterogenous population, with a vocal faction of the population that keeps pushing the limits of efficiency, and the rest of the population is just sorta dragged along.

jeegsy 3y ago

Well, clearly, the groups want very different things

photochemsyn 3y ago

My conspiratorial (*completely evidence-free as far as I know) theory on hookup apps is that they're secretly backed by the major pharmaceutical manufacturers of various STD treatments. The numbers are interesting: there are about 32,000 new HIV cases in the USA each year, and the per-month cost of ongoing anti-retroviral therapy is estimated at $1,800 - $4,500. This works out to a gross cost of ~ $0.7 billion to $1.7 billion - and it's cumulative, year after year. as HIV patients need this treatment for the rest of their lives. Given profit margins of 10-15% in pharma at least, this is a huge cash cow for the industry. (Also explains the reluctance to invest in seeking a permanent cure for the disease that would allow patients to terminate their therapy). Now, would a profit-hungry industry deliberately encourage reckless sex practices in order to grow demand for their product, year after year? It might bear some investigation.

robertlagrant 3y ago
Can you not just trace the investments and find out either way?
eru 3y ago
From what I've heard, The better anti-HIV drugs we have these days actually decrease your viral load so much that you can not infect other people. (Please correct me, if I am wrong.) From the perspective of your theory, that would seem counterproductive. As a greedy pharma company you'd want people to take a drug that makes them feel good while they are on it, be no permanent cure, _and_ still allow them to spread the condition.
c0pium 3y ago
Moderna is in trials with an HIV vaccine based on mRNA tech. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36454825/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36454825/ https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05854381 https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05854381
Levitz 3y ago
Given the rates of transmission, Grindr would be the obvious choice, yet the app is pretty damn responsible around the issue. You can list your STD status, whether you take pre exposition meds and when you last checked yourself for STDs.

lazide 3y ago

Heterosexual women and men have fundamentally different biological incentives. Gay men don’t.

ben_w 3y ago
The "biological incentives" of being gay (or bi, or ace, or aro, or child-free-by-choice, or (hetero) butt stuff and blowjobs, or all the other things from the a-z of human relationships that aren't pro-reproduction) were still an open question last I heard.
- 4gotunameagain 3y ago
  not really. it is well known in non politically influenced circles that hormonal exposure in the uterus is a great predictor of sexuality and behaviour.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    The causal mechanism isn't the same thing as "why hasn't evolution selected against this"[0] and neither is the same thing as subjective incentives. [0] one suggestion is the "gay uncle hypothesis" which posits that people who themselves do not have children may nonetheless increase the prevalence of their family's genes in future generations by providing resources (e.g., food, supervision, defense, shelter) to the offspring of their closest relatives; this hypothesis seems to be consistent with the evidence without being sufficient on its own.
    - lazide 3y ago
      Near as I can tell, it’s also evolutionary advantageous to have significant ‘randomness’ as far as traits across a population. Especially for humans due to the extreme variation in environmental conditions and stresses we end up producing for ourselves. Being a hero by jumping on a grenade is a pretty terrible survival trait for an individual for instance, but essential for the group to have at least one in any decent sized population. All the non-grenade-coverers will strongly support such folks, as long as it doesn’t hurt their own survival chances somehow. So if we look at individual tendencies as coming more from die rolls than anything else, with a wide distribution, a lot of outlier behavior makes a lot of sense. A hardcore survivalist most of the time is going to be selected against, for instance, for many reasons when things are going well. They’re dumping all their stats points in the wrong categories! But any population that doesn’t have at least a few is going to completely disappear on those rare long tail events (an actual nuclear war?). And if those survivalists are actually capable, they get the benefit of ‘seeding’ the next generation without any competition! Long odds, but potential huge payoff biologically.

xwdv 3y ago

If there was an app where I could quickly hook up with a woman just for some physical satisfaction as easily as men do on Grindr I’d be pretty satisfied too. Low effort sex should be more readily available so that people don’t have to pollute serious dating apps looking for it.

swagasaurus-rex 3y ago
These apps exist, but you’re paying for an escort
- xwdv 3y ago
  I wouldn’t mind paying for an escort, but it feels like such a gray market and I don’t know how to navigate it. I’d really like some kind of Uber Eats type thing where I can make an appointment with someone and have them come over for an hour and then just be on their way. No BS.
  - ambicapter 3y ago
    That sounds exactly like an escort with a fancy app.
    - xwdv 3y ago
      How else is one supposed to find an escort? People are always saying “just hire an escort” casually like if this was some common knowledge. Plus maybe you don’t need an escort if you are a match with someone else looking for the same thing as you.
      - dehrmann 3y ago
        Feels like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UifycM6lBvQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UifycM6lBvQ
      - johnnyanmac 3y ago
        >How else is one supposed to find an escort? strip clubs I imagine. They can't legally say they have escorts, but it's an entire scene. Like any other tribal knowledge, you need to know the edge cases and know the right people. And/or be rich. You can't just google this kinda stuff, you gotta get out to your town and dig (well... you kind of can. But you don't want to take the risk asking for certain Craigslist ads on this stuff). Or you can go to Vegas where prostitution isn't illegal.

Der_Einzige 3y ago

You know why this is. Gay men are far more promiscuous than straight women are.

polartx 3y ago
Or they’re just less affected by the public’s perception of their promiscuity
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  Idk about less affected. Especially these days where trying to call a woman that is almost as bad as sexual assault in many's eyes. Gay stuff is just more underground. You're never going to just walk into a gay club, for instance. Nor wander into an LGBT meetup by surprise.

Redoubts 3y ago

> so many gay men report great satisfaction from it. Yeah man, love this app, who wouldn't... https://imgur.com/a/Ff0qaPn https://imgur.com/a/Ff0qaPn

Levitz 3y ago
How is that the app's fault? Are those conditions created by grindr? People have preferences, disclosing them as soon as possible saves everybody's time. There might very well be a problem in the gay community in this regard, but if so it runs way deeper, this would happen with or without grindr.
fennecbutt 3y ago
As a gay dude myself, idt this is too bad. He's just listing preferences, he's not being offensive about it. If what he listed is wrong, then is it wrong for me to be gay because I'm being sexist by excluding women? I actually prefer people list their preferences up front, that way that's no disappointment later. For example, I can think a straight guy is cute, but I'm not personally attracted to straight guys, I find it unattractive, because I know they're not interested (in addition to hetero culture, chest beating etc that is just gross). Easier for someone to say "not into short guys" up front cause then I just skip over them rather than interact and have awkwardness later on.
- Redoubts 3y ago
  > He's just listing preferences to be clear, there are multiple examples here of varying politeness.

ssnistfajen 3y ago

If you've actually interacted with gay men in general you'll also find out the vast majority also have negative experiences with Grindr. It still falls within the "low effort = low quality" equation. Or you can just read the reviews on App Store / Google Play and see for yourself.

fennecbutt 3y ago

I hate grindr because I can't filter to introverted geeks like I am. The geek section has been taken over by self described "nerds" aka jocks who live in the gym but have an xbox to play fifa. Ugh.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
response bias at work. If you let people describe themselves they will lie to become whatever they feel gets them the most success.