Grindr for gay guys
Founded in , the app sparked a revolution in sex, dating and the social dynamics of the LGBTQ community. Hal Fischer, Handkerchiefs , , carbon pigment print. I was at Slumbr, a party hosted by the gay sex-and-dating app Grindr, which boasted themed suites designed by artists such as Juliana Huxtable, Jacolby Satterwhite and Stewart Uoo, their bathtubs brimming with booze. By the end of the night, the party had mostly emptied out. At first, I was too surprised to resist. I looked to the boy for help, but he had already begun to undress.
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Gay hook-up and dating app Grindr is a decade old today. Launched to help gay and bisexual men connect with each other, the app now has almost 4 million users worldwide. Grindr is what many gay men used to first experience their wider community.
The ability to download Grindr and speak to other gay men was what motivated me to get my first iPhone. Sad, I know. In , Grindr's founder, Joel Simkhai, said that his "isolation" as a child motivated him to create the app. Building on the popularity of chatrooms like Gaydar and Fitlads, Grindr's signature feature was showing queer men exactly how far away others were, in real time, down to the meter. The little green "online" light revealed that, no matter what time of day, or time zone, gay men are everywhere.
While it undoubtedly has its positives, Grindr's legacy is complex. Philip Ellis, 31, tells me that people often say things on Grindr that they'd never say in person. He's not alone in his concerns over the type of dialogue Grindr facilitates. User experiences can vary immensely, with the app frequently facing criticism for enabling bullying and aggressive behavior, including racist and femmephobic abuse.
It's hard to refute these accusations, given that Grindr allows users to filter out entire races, "tribes" or body types. Founder Simkhai suggests that the app was always supposed to be a "visual experience" because " it's the way that we are as men: visual creatures. There have been several high profile murders and rapes conducted via the app, as well as co-ordinated homophobic attacks against gay and bisexual men.
Chemsex , the practice of groups of men meeting to have sex and consume drugs, has also been facilitated by the app. In , Grindr launched Kindr Grindr , a campaign promoting "diversity and inclusion" over "racism, bullying, or other forms of toxic behavior. John Paul Brammer, a year-old who describes himself as a "writer, Twitterer, and prolific Grindr user," launched his popular queer advice column Hola Papi! He tells me he has received a lot of "weird" messages regarding his ethnicity. I named my advice column after that phrase because I heard it a lot on the app and I thought it would be a funny, mild form of revenge.
But ultimately I'm pretty privileged. I've only had a few people say they wanted to deport me. INTO ceased publication after 17 months , in January of Ultimately, this little orange app is of fundamental importance to gay culture and communication. Given Grindr also paved the way for the likes of Tinder and Bumble, it's also hard to imagine the current landscape of straight dating without it.
To mark a decade of Grindr, I spoke to some of its users about their experiences on the app that changed gay life forever, the one they won't forget.
A lot of guys seem to have this entirely made up contract in their head, that if you are on Grindr then you owe them something. Like, 'Want to fuck? Heteronormative' in between a twink pig bottom and a couple looking for a three-way. Having been happily partnered, then married, for 25 years, downloading Grindr after a separation was a new experience. I remember asking one of my younger gay friends: "Why are many young men calling me 'daddy?!
I fell in love with a guy on Grindr while I was still in the closet because I was so bowled over by how much he had his life together and how true to himself he was. He'd come out, and the idea of doing that was so alien to me at the time. We're still really great friends now, but he basically schooled me in being gay while I was still ashamed of it, which was so sweet.
I was on a work trip in Paris and had a day off to myself, so decided to check out the Parisian talent. It was considerable! In the end I opted for a businessman with a cheeky smile. He had a stunning flat in the 7th arrondissement, the entire top floor of an apartment building—sumptuous decor, marble floors, urns, the works.
He was stunning as well: beautiful bone structure and penis. We drank champagne out on his balcony and started to get down to business just as a summer thunderstorm hit—torrential rain, rumbling thunder, the whole thing was so sultry. I have a vivid memory of cumming as I watched lighting fork over the Eiffel Tower.
It was a mood. I was in Romania, and after checking into my hotel I fired up Grindr. I began speaking to this handsome man, before going out to a gay bar. I was surprised when I arrived to see the same man at the bar. We ended up going back to my hotel room and having the best sex I have ever had in my entire life.
He began to start smashing up my room and shouting, until I reached for the phone to call reception. Then he bolted out of my room, clearing my minibar into his bag in the process. I viewed them as two separate entities, because I thought the app was trash and still do. As a freelancer, it sometimes feels like a large part of my job is being ignored or kept waiting, so I learned to steer clear of Grindr because that was my experience of using the app, too.
It often made me feel invisible. My Grindr profile used to be a picture of me in a pink crop-top. Once, I was very drunk and horny after a night out. I saw this hot guy on Grindr who was very close by. I started speaking to him, while drifting in and out of drunken sleep. There was the guy who insisted on serenading me while making me take a lukewarm bath and drink champagne. Then there was the guy who laid towels down on the sofa and started rubbing olive oil all over me.
But at one point in my life, Grindr made it much easier for me to get drugs. When I moved to Notting Hill it was a matter of hours before I'd connected with two dealers who I continued to use for the time I lived there, which meant I could access other like-minded individuals to go and have chemsex with.
I keep it hidden on my phone and I feel guilty every time I use it. It's not ideal, but works for me. It was my 21st birthday. I was sat in my room alone on Grindr and saw his beautiful face. I messaged him, expecting to be ignored. We chatted and scheduled a date for the following Friday. When he arrived, he introduced himself with a handshake, which I still make fun of him for. I made out with him in my car, then drove him home.
That was the Friday. We ended up going out again on the Saturday. And the Sunday. And the Monday. And the Tuesday. I grew up in the s, so I know what racism is like. I have used Grindr over various periods in my life, while identifying as a gay man, non-binary person and now a trans woman.
Using Grindr in each form has been both useful and frustrating. As a feminine-presenting person, my femininity has either been mocked or highly sexualized. As a gay man, people always assumed I was a bottom. As a trans woman, men often mean well, but end up treating me like some kind of sex doll. I also find it very othering to see gay men making jokes in the "pronoun" section, and I got tired of being fetishized or called a "tranny," so eventually I deleted the app.
Using Grindr as a new father was a minefield. This made me both happy and sad. It was after a party and I was wasted.
A guy sent me his address so I stumbled to roughly the correct location. There was a guy outside a house who seemed to be waiting for someone. He motioned me inside—we had sex, it was great. Follow Louis Staples on Twitter. A publicity image for Grindr not real profiles. Photo: Grindr.
Grindr is the world's #1 FREE mobile social networking app for gay, bi, trans, and queer people to connect. Chat and meet up with interesting people for free. “No matter how Grindr advertises their new 'Kindr Grindr,' it will never help ease a gay man's concern for his safety, especially since unlike Tinder.
If you're gay, single and ready to mingle then there's never been a better time to go on the hunt. Well, better and We take you through every app for every need. So your gay ass is looking for love. Or sex.
Yannick Glaudin, 31, stalked the man and his then boyfriend, sending their families, friends and colleagues the intimate pictures and films using a number of fake identities, Inner London crown court was told.
Chat and meet up with interesting people for free, or upgrade to Grindr XTRA or Grindr Unlimited for more features, more fun, and more chances to connect. Looking for even more? Want the ultimate Grindr experience?
Grindr was the first big dating app for gay men. Now it’s falling out of favor
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The best apps for gay dating, gay sex and gay romance
Gay hook-up and dating app Grindr is a decade old today. Launched to help gay and bisexual men connect with each other, the app now has almost 4 million users worldwide. Grindr is what many gay men used to first experience their wider community. The ability to download Grindr and speak to other gay men was what motivated me to get my first iPhone. Sad, I know. In , Grindr's founder, Joel Simkhai, said that his "isolation" as a child motivated him to create the app. Building on the popularity of chatrooms like Gaydar and Fitlads, Grindr's signature feature was showing queer men exactly how far away others were, in real time, down to the meter. The little green "online" light revealed that, no matter what time of day, or time zone, gay men are everywhere. While it undoubtedly has its positives, Grindr's legacy is complex.
Chat and meet up with interesting people for free, or upgrade to Grindr XTRA or Grindr Unlimited for more features, more fun, and more chances to connect. Looking for even more?
Grindr comes in both free and subscription-based versions the latter called Grindr Xtra. The app makes use of a mobile device's geolocation , a feature of smartphones and other devices, which allows users to locate other users who are nearby.
Woman who posed as man on gay dating app jailed for stalking
They created the account together, intending to connect with other queer people in their small Midwestern city of Appleton, Wis. By all accounts, should have been a record year for the leading gay dating app, which touts some 27 million users. Instead, the Los Angeles-based company has received backlash for one blunder after another. The Kindr campaign attempts to stymie the racism, misogyny, ageism and body-shaming that many users endure on the app. For nearly a decade, Grindr resisted doing anything about it. Talk about too little, too late. Concerned about user data leaks and irritated by a plethora of pesky ads, Bray has stopped using Grindr and instead spends his time on Scruff, a similar mobile dating and networking app for queer men. A precursor to modern dating as we know it, Grindr helped pioneer geosocial-based dating apps when it launched in It maintains one of the largest queer communities online, offering one of the only ways gay, bi and trans men can connect in corners of the world that remain hostile to LGBTQ rights. But nearly 10 years on, there are signs that Grindr may be losing ground in a dense field of competing apps that offer similar services without all the baggage. Other apps seemed to have taken what Grindr did, but make it better. Unsurprisingly, Scruff tries to distance itself from Grindr every chance it can — claiming to be a safer and more reliable option.
The New Glory Hole
Grindr is going straight. The mobile app that helps gay men track their nearest potential date is launching a new service that will allow women to turn their mobiles into GPS-powered dating tools. Joel Simkhai, Grindr's year-old founder, said he had received tens of thousands of requests from women asking for a straighter, female-friendly version of Grindr. Project X, which will be named in the next few weeks, will be very different to the gay version. But Simkhai said location would still be the service's key selling point. We are all social creatures. But men and women are different. Grindr was made for a man. If we are going to bring women in to this we have to do things differently.
