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Pure Launches Sex-on-Demand App, #9 Among Fastest Growing Dating Startups
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- ArekDymalski 13y agoJudging by the video and the deck I'd say that they're approaching a problem that can't be solved by an app. Because it's not about finding someone to get laid - this problem has already several solutions which are working since few thousands years.
- schoper 13y agoThe world is full of women offering sex-on-demand. At very reasonable rates. Edit: The great Michel Houellebecq's Platform, a novel of a travel company that revolutionizes the industry by promoting sex tourism, is a recommended read. http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6040/the-art-of-fiction-no-206-michel-houellebecq http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6040/the-art-of-fic... Sex is the great eradicator of meaning. And we all want our sex to mean something. Hence the difficulty of being a human being.
- jseliger 13y agoThis was downvoted and yet seems to me a perceptive comment. Unless Pure drastically limits the quantity / quality of men, they aren't going to succeed because overwhelming male response will drive out women. The developers behind Pure presumably aren't stupid, of course, and know much more about how to solve this problem than I do. The problem most women have is not sex, but finding someone they actually want to have sex with and (who also wants to have sex with them). That's where filtering becomes important.
- namenotrequired 13y agoI think schoper is referring to prostitution.
- fleitz 13y agoOddly LTR dating sites do quite fine despite the fact that the better they are the sooner their users leave. Men looking for sex drive away women looking for LTRs, that's about it. Women looking for sex having a huge selection just means having their needs met sooner. You're right in that if you're running a dating site for LTRs NSA men drive away women, but NSA men don't drive away NSA women.
- girlsbonetoo 13y agoI think the "most women" mindset is where things start to go wrong with analyses of sex. I think that there are enough people out there (men and women both) that "large enough" subsets exist to make things like this work. My personal hypotheses are: 1) the subset of women who want to have casual encounters regularly is small; 2) the subset who want to have casual encounters sometimes is very large; 3) if you can reduce friction and stigma significantly then you can activate a modest size subset of women who want a casual encounter now. -- When I lived in NYC, I found happy casual consensual sex through Nerve / CL / OkCupid on the same day I looked about 50% of the time I was interested (between 5-10 successes and some awkwardness but no failures).
- xxhere 13y agoYou should publish a how-to guide for women. Really. Some best practices to avoid potential stalkers and maintain anonymity. These two issues are my main reasons for not participating in the online dating environment. I'm afraid of traveling to somebody's place due to potential hidden cams; thank you very much Mr. Tucker Max. I'm afraid of hosting, because if the guy is a creep, now he's a creep with my address, and with a little digging around, my name, which probably leads to my work. Hotels that I would decide to go to ad-hoc are the best option, but as of now I can't spare hundreds of dollars per encounter. Besides do hotels allow registering with a pseudonym? So as a woman who might be open to the idea, but has the above concerns, there really is no option for me other than a relationship (as in, vetting the guy myself before any fun) and social contacts (people who've been vetted by my friends).
- DannoHung 13y ago> Sex is the great eradicator of meaning. And we all want our sex to mean something. Hence the difficulty of being a human being. This sounds like some real corn-fed bullshit.
- baddox 13y agoWhat do you mean? I've only heard "corn-fed" used figuratively in the Midwestern United States to refer to people who live where corn is produced.
- sp332 13y agoCorn-fed is more often a descriptor of cattle, to contrast with grass-fed beef. DannoHung is extending the "bullshit" image to "corn-fed bullshit".
- baddox 13y agoSo is the point that it's even worse than normal grass-fed bullshit?
- schoper 13y agoDanno likely meant "cornpone," a word that connotes 'rural Southern' when used of opinions. The rural South is not usually associated with the idea that people want sex to have meaning, and that this is often transient when we find it, so DannoHung's ruminations on the subject must remain mysterious to us.
- DannoHung 13y agoYour statements are philosophical pablum. They have nothing convincing about them. I thought it might be a quote from something, but if it is, I can't find it. I'm sorry that I used a colloquialism and muddied my meaning. I thought it was a funny turn of phrase.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- navs 13y agoIs something like this going to pass the Apple approval process?
- philipbroadway 13y agoGrindr, jackD, etc are in the App Store, this shouldn't be an issue
- pkinsky 13y agoSo is this Grindr for straight people? (With some nifty features, granted)
- erichurkman 13y agoThere have been other apps that try to mimic Grindr (and Scruff, Jack'd, Growlr, ...) for the non-gay/bi crowd, and this won't be the last one. The question with any dating app/website/service (at least in our cultures currently) is, "How will you attract and keep women engaged with the service?" Fortunately for Grindr, that's not a problem. That said, there is still plenty of room for innovation even with many competitors to Grindr. Grindr seems more and more overrun with spam, bots, and fake profiles. Hopefully they (or competitors) can create ways to deal with these beyond just "reporting" them.
- olalonde 13y agoThe problem with those services is that the amount of girls just looking for sex is tiny compared to the amount of guys just looking for sex.
- jseliger 13y agoThat's true in general, but, as I wrote here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6214504 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6214504 , the founders presumably know that—and know that plenty of women are looking for sex with the right guy. The interesting question to me is how Pure will solve that problem.
- sdoowpilihp 13y agoThe real question is how does one define "the right guy", and are the requirements to define it for the average women something that can be satisfied within a 24 hour time constraint?
- jseliger 13y agoExactly! That's the hard the problem I presume they are going to solve, or try to solve.
- nawitus 13y agoEasy: limit the supply of men but not women (e.g. let almost all women register, but only let the top x% of the men register). There's pretty much no gender-neutral solution (which is "ironic" since the service is supported by a feminist). EDIT: The app appears to allow requests only if two profiles have been mutually selected as attractive, which would indicate that men need to spam those attractive buttons quite a lot..
- jiggy2011 13y agoQuestion is, how do you decide on the top % of men without falling back onto "shallow" factors like classical good looks or income?
- lectrick 13y agoSite is 500'ing. Oopsy! In any event, this app won't get past the severely disparate interest in casual sex between the sexes. Unless men just accept that women interested in casual sex might have FAR more conquests than they do. Good luck with that.
- stcredzero 13y agoThe site 500's unless you leave off the /en/ from the URL. (It's posted in the article as http://getpure/en/ http://getpure/en/ though.) Someone misconfigured something. I commented about this, but then someone else downvoted me. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6214711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6214711
- reader5000 13y agoSorry, but the "government" isn't why you need an app to get laid.
- tinkupandey 13y agoright on!
- sdoowpilihp 13y agoThis does not solve the issue that men and women, in most cases, have fundamentally different mind sets in regards to sexuality. It assumes, incorrectly, that anonymous sex is something that appeals to a large majority of women. I am going to go out on a limb here and say the inverse is true.
- enraged_camel 13y ago>>It assumes, incorrectly, that anonymous sex is something that appeals to a large majority of women. I don't have any citations handy, but in several gender studies classes back in college, I learned about research that has shown that most women actually have fantasies about hooking up with complete strangers. Where it gets complicated is that these fantasies almost never reflect actual desire, but rather serve as a way to enable certain feelings in the woman: excited, wanted, dominated, etc. This is why romance novels almost never describe the physical traits of the male character and focus overwhelmingly on how he acts and how he makes the female protagonist feel. It's also why men can almost never relate to such novels even when they read them.
- zhemao 13y agoIt also assumes that anonymous sex is something that appeals to a large majority of men. I'm not entirely certain that this actually holds up to evidence either. Does anyone know of any research that studies this? I vaguely remember reading an article about this at one point.
- emilisto 13y agoYou're so incredibly wrong here. From my life experience, you can be one of the following: 1. a smart guy who has slept with less than 5 girls and never had a non-sexual friend who's a girl, or 2. An ignorant, average intelligent guy who's slept with a lot of girls but as in 1, never been friends with a girl. I see upon writing this that the common denominator in these is the lack if a girl _friend_. Because if you had one, who would talk open heartedly with you, and without the boy/girl politeness mask on, you'd see that they share a lot more than you think. They occasionally fantasize about a stranger who can give them a quick and dirty lay as well. Although not if said stranger had no idea what is happening and is gonna tell his buddies the next day about the slut he fucked over. But rather that he met this awesome person who had an great sense of humor, taste in movies, and knew how to give awesome blow jobs. That's the kind of girls that our world, being more and more rid of caveman sexism, is fostering. I excuse myself in advance fornthe possibility that I'm putting too many words in other peoples mouths, but your attitude just makes me depressed and angry.
- cliveowen 13y agoI'm a bit skeptic, what are the chances that it hooks you up with a transvestite? And besides, is it even legal? Also this: "We believe it’s natural for someone to feel a powerful sense of attachment to a long term partner, while experiencing romantic love for somebody else and at the same time, feeling sexually attracted to a diverse range of people." Sounds like these guys are encouraging cheating on your spouse. There's no way this can pass the App Store's strict policy.
- namenotrequired 13y agoI don't see how they're encouraging to lie. I read it as encouraging open relationships, which I don't consider to be cheating.
- cliveowen 13y agoJust read what I pasted, there's no other logical way to interpret it. Having a long-term partner and a sex-hookup on the side, what is that if not cheating? If they can't even get their PR blurb right I wonder how they're gonna manage the media shitstorm that's probably coming their way.
- nawitus 13y ago>Having a long-term partner and a sex-hookup on the side, what is that if not cheating? Cheating means "doing something which is not agreed upon". If both partners in a relationship agree to have a possibility of a 'sex-hookup', it's by definition not cheating.
- inyourtenement 13y agoThat's an open relationship.
- jlgreco 13y agoI think you need to open your eyes to the diverse shapes and forms that human relationships can take. While what they are suggesting may seem to be categorically "cheating" to you, it is not to many others. I doubt a bunch of puritan talking heads on CNN complaining about this company will do anything but drive popularity among people who are not as disturbed by it as you. "Weathering that storm" should require nothing more than a "If you don't like it, don't use it" attitude. People who like it will use it anyway; they don't need to court the approval of the staunchly traditional.
- aminbandali 13y agoBrave New World
- gojomo 13y agoThere's also 'The Circuit' in Logan's Run, which actually delivers the semi-random anonymous partner to your residence (via hyperloop tubes?): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMlHZNMH5KA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMlHZNMH5KA
- aminbandali 13y agoGood one! Thanks for the link :)
- patmcguire 13y agoDoes this actually exist? As in, is there a product in the wild?
- klibertp 13y agoIt's in 'private beta', I think.
- nawitus 13y agoThis PDF[1] explains the app in more detail. The PDF claims that online dating costs $15, which is clearly false.. Interestingly, to request sex you need to buy a 24h pass for e.g. $9.99. Apparently you need to first select attractive profiles before they can send you a sex request. 1. https://www.dropbox.com/s/hd3f814nsxflnbl/Pure-Invest-ENG.pdf https://www.dropbox.com/s/hd3f814nsxflnbl/Pure-Invest-ENG.pd...
- stcredzero 13y agoThe pill changed the rational cost/benefit equation for casual sex for women. Now what we need is another pill that changes women's feelings about it, but one that is marketed as something other than a promiscuity pill. EDIT: The link currently returns Server Error (500): http://getpure.org/en/ http://getpure.org/en/ However, if you put in http://getpure.org http://getpure.org and let the server redirect you to http://getpure.org/en/ http://getpure.org/en/, it works. Someone must have misconfigured something.
- callmeed 13y agoAfter recently reading this thread in /r/AskReddit, I'm skeptical this will work: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1j8jkm/people_whove_hooked_up_on_craigslist_what_was_the/ http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1j8jkm/people_who... A lot of bad experiences on there (at least for straight people) and, after all, this is what Pure is trying to do ("a better casual encounters").
- clavalle 13y agoThey have more than just the 'more men want sex with a stranger than women' problem to deal with. I would think that safety would be a significant concern in using a service like this.
- 7Figures2Commas 13y agoFrom the fundraising document: Our target audience is sexually active people with smartphones/tablets, who are using dating services, watching porn, buying pleasure products and escort services. What could be more appealing than the prospect of hooking up with a random stranger who's active on half a dozen dating services, frequents porn sites, has a closet full of sex toys and, when all else fails, doesn't mind paying for a little affection? Sounds like the man/woman every attractive, sane person is looking for a quick romp with!
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- SmokyBorbon 13y agoYou referred to sex as a "romp". ALERT: Virgin Detected
- rjvir 13y agoThe $9.99 to request sex is an interesting way to fix the supply and demand problem of women and men. For $9.99, you can request sex from as many females as possible, without any guarantee that any of them will say yes. This will inevitably lead to a lot of unsatisfied buyers.
- aethertron 13y agoTinder is one competitor. It uses much less explicitly sexual words/pics in their promotional stuff. That seems to be something that would be more agreeable to women (stereotypically). But I've heard it described as Grindr for straight people. Seems it's known as a straight-up hookup app. [une] http://www.gotinder.com/ http://www.gotinder.com/ [deux] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5294253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5294253 [trois] http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/jackrivlin/100009761/tinder-the-casual-sex-app-that-makes-us-even-more-vain/ http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/jackrivlin/100009761...
- jmtame 13y agoA few things that seem strange: - Where's the Y Axis on that graph? It could be 10 or 1,000 downloads and I wouldn't know the difference. - #9 fastest growing based on what index? It'd be impressive to say it's #9 in the App Store under the dating category, but there's only one mention of it being #9 fastest growing. It doesn't elaborate futher. - If you're going to pilot launch this, don't do it in San Francisco. There's a reason why Tinder was launched in LA and Grouper in NYC. Girls in SF will not use this; I talk to a lot of them because I run a dating startup and they're already very hesitant about meeting complete strangers for drinks. If anything, launch this thing in Las Vegas and be the Uber for prostitution. - There's nothing here that stands out as compelling as a way to overcome the chicken and egg problem. A wait list is not going to solve that problem for you.
- jkscm 13y agoThey could go for full adress verification like ebay does. Or customer service that calls you 1h after an encounter if you don't "check in" otherwise.
- malandrew 13y agoI wonder how long until someone launches an app for couples seeking unicorns and vice versa?
- SideburnsOfDoom 13y agoThey're going to have trouble with the name. Pure ( http://www.pure.com/ http://www.pure.com/ ) is a radio company - which means they're in the business of moving bits around and may want to have a smartphone app for streaming at some stage.