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”.
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.
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.
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.
You see I totally agree with you, but I am not sure if grindr is solely to blame for this. It is a fair generalisation to say that men struggle far more with emotions and open communication. This is clearly demonstrable by looking at the male suicide rates: in my country (UK) they are roughly 3 times that of women. I have no doubt that is common across western countries.
So really to me the problem is that men, on average, struggle with expressing their emotions more. Asking those men to form healthy, loving relationships with other men is then a challenge. Not impossible, but certainly more difficult.
To me, Grindr is a symptom not the cause. If you are taught from a young age that men don't cry, toughen up and be a man etc, then sex is reduced to the physical act. Add in some emotional truama, which is again very common in the gay community, and the problem is exacerbated. Of course Grindr doesn't help and makes it all worse, but really they're just making money off the damage which is already done.
With suicides, it is kinda. Gender rates of suicides wary between countries.
But what is also happening is that men tend to pick more violent ways of killing themselves - shooting themselves and alike. Women tend to go for poisons and such. So, the suicide attempts are much more closer between genders - but men more successful at it.
> To me, Grindr is a symptom not the cause. If you are taught from a young age that men don't cry, toughen up and be a man etc, then sex is reduced to the physical act.
I agree Grindr is a symptom not the cause. There were rough gay clubs for decades before apps ever appeared.
I don't think this toughening up thing is really the issue though. Many gay friends like this kind of sex and are plenty emotional. And for young people this toughening up bullshit isn't really a thing anymore anyway. When I grew up in the 80s the traditionalists were still like that and there was this (in my opinion) fascist thing in Holland with pretty much all men still being forced into the military and be primed into obedience, following orders and stuff. But since the 90s it's a different world for young people. These things aren't expected and part of their lives anymore. Unless they actually decide they want to be told what to do and join the army voluntarily.
Well I have to say it’s very primal and instinctive. As cavemen I’m doubtful there was much chat going on we probably did it like many other animals do it today and strongest man got to have it’s way. So I don’t think it is all that weird people just want instant sex we probably had that for hundreds of thousands of years. In my experience though a lot of the apps you can specify what you are looking for. Set your profile to long term and you will meet people that chat first and get to know each other. I’m week on into chatting a girl. It’s going to be 2 more weeks before we can hang out. Our profiles are set to long term so no expectation of sex right away.
Yeah I think so too. It's more instinctive for men to like this.
I (as a cis hetero man) consider many such things toxic masculinity in today's society but I'm very emo (and proud of it nowadays). But if it's consensual it's fine, it's more that consent is often overlooked by the people who are into this kind of sex.
> 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.
I don't mean to digress, but this statement of yours could easily apply to technology or any cultural change.
This is the impression I've gotten from my gay male friends as well. One in particular seems to get better luck from going to small-medium themed events that are thin excuses for meeting potential partners.
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.
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
Oh man why didn't I think of this? The Vaccine I'm about to get is the third one for a very popular disease, and somehow it will just ... maybe possibly keep me from catching it for ... maybe a year or something?
Of course, alternative treatments such as the nasal spray that is supposed to totally eliminate the disease have, well, lost funding[0].
But I guess those vaccines, right? They just prove that we don't live in a rent-seeking society.
Even family guy had a episode about this. Rich Father-in-law is sitting on a cure for cancer because he owns the pharmaceutical and can profit more off cancer treatment.
Not saying that FG is a good oracle to go off of, but if it's such a prolific mindset that comedy shows are riffing on the concept the people up top have definitely crunched numbers on such factors.
This is the rhetorical equivalent of saying “no offense” and then saying something offensive. Either you think it’s a meaningful example, which you manifestly do, or you think that it’s a joke and shouldn’t be considered seriously. You can’t have it both ways, and trying to just removes credence from your argument.
Family Guy also jokes about virtually every other conspiracy theory, yet birds do in fact exist.
>Either you think it’s a meaningful example, which you manifestly do, or you think that it’s a joke and shouldn’t be considered seriously.
comedy is awareness, and awareness is an important first step. But awareness is not hard proof. It's at best a step to start investigations with.
So I don't know what you want me to say. I do see it both ways. Maybe there is a point, but nothing I can argue in a real capacity.
>Family Guy also jokes about virtually every other conspiracy theory
Indeed. but FG can be strangely prohetic at times. Not always (Trump Guy aired in like, 2019, 3-4 years after everyone made every joke in the book. And FG didn't add much there), but said episode aired in 2012. So we're talking nearly a decade before the internet consensus started taking this hard cynical anti-capitalistic approach.
Comedy is awareness of what’s funny. That’s it. It might tangentially be related to what’s true, but that’s at best a happy accident.
I take it you weren’t around in the 90s when Chris Rock made this exact joke (it was on Bigger and Blacker), and it killed. People have thought that doctors were after repeat business for as long as there have been doctors.
This is a commonly held belief because treating symptoms always* come first. It always comes first not because the pharmacryptoluminati are ghouls after money, but because it’s easier. But that’s not a good punchline.
>People have thought that doctors were after repeat business for as long as there have been doctors.
I'm sure there's always been cynicism. I'm less sure that this isn't yet another peak of cynicism, with the main difference being that that whole faux politeness is crumbling away. Companies can't even keep up that facade anymore like the various 90's "companies are evil" that has been satarized and parodied constantly.
I think the big difference between back than and now is that patents are extremely rampant in a bad way. I can't envision a Jonas Salk of modern times because so much of doctors (especially R&D) has become privatized and because any potential treatment (let alone cure) will be restricted for quite a while before the public (already dependent on insurance to pay for this) can benefit.
You sound unhinged and unaware of history, so you should be aware that nothing you’re saying is new and it’s just as untrue now as it has been for previous generations. People have been talking this same nonsense about how “it’s the corporations, man” despite the steady progress in healthcare for at least the last 60 years. I’m genuinely at a loss for how we can be creating new vaccines at the rate we are and people can simultaneously think such ludicrous things.
> I can't envision a Jonas Salk of modern times…
Fortunately overcoming your baseless skepticism is not a prerequisite for winning the Nobel.
>so you should be aware that nothing you’re saying is new and it’s just as untrue now as it has been for previous generations.
okay, that's perfectly fine. I just wanted to talk about a family Guy episode, I wasn't looking to convince you of... well, whatever we're arguing about at this point. You win.
>Fortunately overcoming your baseless skepticism is not a prerequisite for winning the Nobel.
the COVID vaccine is the exact kind of example of why modern pharmaceuticals is a mess. I understand it was a global emergency, but the mess between 3 companies and the lack of clarification early on regarding insurance and what's covered or not (even though it was also offered insurance free). It shouldn't have been this debate on Pfizer or Moderna or J&J. It shoulda just been "COVID vaccine".
But yes, good on Katalin Karikó. I'm very glad she's getting and gotten the recognition she deserves.
Anyways this discussion has long ran its course and when you resort to insults it's time to disengage. Take care.
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.
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.
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.
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.
At the simplest biological level, the burden of being pregnant is only borne by one gender (or sex, or whatever).
Birth control changes this of course, but society (let alone biology!) hasn’t adapted to that yet. It’s very unclear where we’ll end up long term.
STD risk is dramatically higher for women too, but one could make a ‘giver/receiver’ argument with men that is less clear. Still less risk though I believe.
Men have always been able to ‘hit and run’ in a way that women can’t. No one is getting pregnant because they were ACE, or had homosexual sex (with either gender). So it’s about meeting one’s own needs, with limited consequences, for both parties.
Marriage and other forms of sexual control has always been about trying to get a degree of accountability and stability that is a compromise between the sexes so that society isn’t inundated with the poverty, countless needless deaths and out of control orphans/unwanted children that result otherwise. At least pre birth control.
Shotgun weddings were a thing for a reason! Dad was going to get stuck with the costs of raising some random assholes kid otherwise, and fuck that!
And out of control physical violence and abuse if men don’t get what they need too (which is more than just sex, despite what many men will say).
If things don’t get reined in somewhat, we’re going to be Brazil - if we’re lucky.
(Even more) massive wealth disparities, as the ‘have’s’ are able to keep their eye on the ball more effective and retain/build wealth, and everyone else gets distracted and ‘played’.
Large segments of the population ending up in Favelas, insane crime rates + massive drug use, general chaos and social disorder, especially in the cities.
Think ‘US in the late 70’s, early 80’s’ but with way more people, denser, and more intense.
We know a lot more about heterosexual mating strategies than male-male homosexual mating strategies because you can just apply the vast body of animal behavioural studies to understand human heterosexual (and female-female homosexual) mating strategies.
Males that refuse to mate with females is something that we only see in humans. It’s inherently less well understood. You can’t apply the vast body of animal behavioural studies because all males of all other species will mate with females.
You can hypothesis generate with evolutionary logic, but that doesn’t mean anything until you do some experiments.
I am not sure where you got your data but male male mating seems to be rather well researched in animals.
Just grabbing one of the many quotes:
-----
One species in which exclusive homosexual orientation occurs is the domesticated sheep (Ovis aries).[8][9] "About 10% of rams (males), refuse to mate with ewes (females) but do readily mate with other rams."[9]
The part you’re missing is that all of those males that mate with males will mate with females as well.
The paper Wikipedia references about rams notes that the only mammals with exclusive homosexual behaviour are sheep and humans. Exclusive homosexual mating is exceptionally rare. There are about 6000 mammal species.
The Wikipedia sentence should read the only other mammal which exhibits exclusively homosexual mating behaviour is sheep.
Also domesticated animals have been under some pretty weird selection pressures so you have to be careful comparing their behaviour to a wild type animal like humans.
But the dynamics between men and women are so damn different it's evident there must be a difference to begin with. Just because it's not proven and not certain 100% doesn't mean we can't look at it and go "yep, this really seems to work a certain way".
There are no double blind tests done for parachutes.
That is not true. Especially after you leave the 20s. Men in western nations have a loneliness problem that women never experience as a group to that extent. After women give up on the prospects of children which usually happens somewhere in the 30s, the dynamics of sex and relationships changes dramatically with men by far being the more clingy ones.
Hmmm....men are fairly highly pressured by (modern western) society to not get attached after sex, and are somewhat likely to deny or at least play down feelings of attachment that they might naturally feel - even to themselves.
I'm not sure how you'd be able to control for that sort of bias in any kind of rigorous study, or how much variation might be left if you did.
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.
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.
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.
That's the 'how', not the 'why'. I think biological incentive here means, the reason human evolution retained certain traits. An interesting theory for that is that gays and lesbians can cooperate with their siblings to raise nieces and nephews, instead of competing with them for resources.
And individually would benefit from positive relationships with those nieces and nephews (financially, physically when old, socially), without having to directly bear the costs of having those kids either.
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.
That was supposed to be what Tinder was for! Then somehow it turned into people trying to find actual relationships on there, and then everyone else decided to try to copy their success. So we had the situation you describe, but it didn't last.
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.
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.
See this is already more work than I’d want to do. I hate strip clubs. And I don’t want to grease palms in some shady underworld to get access to escorts. Literally just want to pay someone to come over, get me off, then I go about my day. It should be like getting a massage, not negotiating for drugs.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>Who am I to tell others to pick up a hobby or do something “complex”?
I don't make this assertion as some form of gatekeeping, and I don't expect everyone to have the same values. I don't have the answers, but I want to ask these question, in a Socratic style. Dig down and figure out what makes one "tick". Not quite as philosophical as "what is the meaning of life", but a similar vein of "what gives you* a meaning to live"?
It's a relatively simple question: "If you had 10 million dollars today, what would you do?". If that answer is still just netflix, beer, sex, and games: well, that's your answer. Not what I would have gone with (and I imagine others have other riches or charities or power they'd do), but if they truly just want to live simply even when granted riches, so be it.
The question isn't about some fantasy land, but more to figure out what values and other factors in life they care about. e.g. If you would by a yatch with 10 million, that probably means you would like to explore some water based activities. Maybe not fancy sailing, but rowing or fishing. Just an exercise to think outside the box many are trapped in.
>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.
Why do I care? I feel like at some point in the plot of life many forgot that they had passions and aspirations about what they wanted to grow up and do. We get bogged down by college grades (if that), by trying to grab a job, by trying to live and make rent, and then by retirement... what's left? you spent 40+ years working without a purpose just to fulfill check-boxes, without filling in the blanks in between the lines. It may be out of place, but living to be some corporation's peasant isn't a way to live.
I simply want people to remember that spark and remind them that they can still work at it, not work to simply get by and pass your life by. If that spark is as simple as netflix, so be it.
> Back when I was a kid, I’ve only seen a poverty and everyone was “simple”, and people still lived and laughed.
in some ways I miss that simplicity. Honestly, part of my goal with those kinds of riches would be to just gather some old friends and hang out for a while. I wasn't a rich kid either, but I remember the days where it didn't take a month's planning to get 4 people together for a 2 hour sunday brunch.
But there's some things money can't buy, and I know most of my friends are too prideful to take a "vacation" off, even if I was perfectly willing to compensate them for it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
