4 ms·

Given it has a 'date' as well as a 'sleep with' option, it really does seem built around sex positivity principles to me. I can understand the trads being mad

by mst 3y ago

Given it has a 'date' as well as a 'sleep with' option, it really does seem built around sex positivity principles to me. I can understand the trads being mad about it because they abhor casual sex in general, but at least from a second wave sex positive liberal feminism POV I really don't see any toxicity to the concept.

jprete 3y ago
I personally don't think sex positivism has done the general population any favors, so I think it's quite toxic to make an app explicitly to facilitate friend hookups. It's just going to create hurt feelings and destroyed friendships when one of the parties wants more and the other doesn't. I really do not believe that peoples' short-term impulses are at all aligned with what they want in the long term. Frequently they're opposed! Most Big Tech and Internet startups are based on giving people easy access to their short-term impulses and then claiming it's a useful service even when it is bad for the users long-term. An explicit hookup app is no exception.
- mst 3y ago
  You can believe that it's bad for people overall, certainly - friends with benefits type things require greater than zero management to avoid running into problems, and as with any type of relationship, not everybody is as good at handling it as one might like. But I was talking 'toxic' as in the 'toxic masculinity' comment, which is a fairly specific thing and I don't see in evidence here. Plus, I mean, trying to frame it as an 'evil male' thing (which you didn't but was what I was responding to) seems to me silly given women can enjoy casual sex too - and intending to find somebody suitable for the long term doesn't mean your libido doesn't exist -now- so it's perfectly possible to have short term impulses that are separate from your long term goals without them interfering with each other. (I -do- think there are people who interpret sex positivity in exceedingly stupid ways that can be actively harmful in application, but I don't think this app is responsible for that since that's a decades old problem and in the end you kinda have to accept that other people are their own person and allowed to make decisions you're sure are a terrible idea ... much though I grumble when it's one of my friends about to blow their own foot off ...)

by mst 3y ago

jprete 3y ago

I personally don't think sex positivism has done the general population any favors, so I think it's quite toxic to make an app explicitly to facilitate friend hookups. It's just going to create hurt feelings and destroyed friendships when one of the parties wants more and the other doesn't. I really do not believe that peoples' short-term impulses are at all aligned with what they want in the long term. Frequently they're opposed! Most Big Tech and Internet startups are based on giving people easy access to their short-term impulses and then claiming it's a useful service even when it is bad for the users long-term. An explicit hookup app is no exception.

mst 3y ago
You can believe that it's bad for people overall, certainly - friends with benefits type things require greater than zero management to avoid running into problems, and as with any type of relationship, not everybody is as good at handling it as one might like. But I was talking 'toxic' as in the 'toxic masculinity' comment, which is a fairly specific thing and I don't see in evidence here. Plus, I mean, trying to frame it as an 'evil male' thing (which you didn't but was what I was responding to) seems to me silly given women can enjoy casual sex too - and intending to find somebody suitable for the long term doesn't mean your libido doesn't exist -now- so it's perfectly possible to have short term impulses that are separate from your long term goals without them interfering with each other. (I -do- think there are people who interpret sex positivity in exceedingly stupid ways that can be actively harmful in application, but I don't think this app is responsible for that since that's a decades old problem and in the end you kinda have to accept that other people are their own person and allowed to make decisions you're sure are a terrible idea ... much though I grumble when it's one of my friends about to blow their own foot off ...)