The Glory of Grinder: Equality for LGBT | Hacker News Reader

The Glory of Grinder: Equality for LGBT

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12 pointsmdlm12 comments

Grindr brings out the worst in gay men, it is an STD sharing application and often enough it makes me feel ashamed to be gay.

I believe that all in all it made the world worse for gay men.

I disagree. Sure, there can be crummy people on it, but there's also great people. People you can actually form relationships with—my partner can attest to that one.

Also, sometimes sex is just sex, Tinder is no worse (or better).

I have heard lots of stories of people finding long term partners on Grindr, but I am fed up with searching for someone who looks for a serious relationship among a flood of dick pics and people who did not read my profile even if my profile name was "ReadMyProfile". OkCupid and Tinder led me to more success and half a handful of dates.

I am happy for everyone who is sex positive and enjoys Grindr to it's fullest though, but I believe Grindr is reducing the gay population's interest in monogamous relationship which is what I am looking for.

You're looking for something that isn't easily offered by the app, and yet blame it on the app and the users using it for what it's readily available for. I imagine you see the problem here...

I blame the app for making it harder to find what I am looking for.

How so? In terms of disease .. in terms of how people treat each other there? Something else?

Sex is reduced to a commodity, people get offended if you waste their time by talking about anything but how and where you two will have sex, rampant racism against Asians and black people is common (which, as a white man, does not concern me).

There are countless predators there looking to exploit young and inexperienced men, like me from years ago.

It makes lots people unable to have monogamous relationships, because at every moment sex with incredibly attractive men is less than a minute away.

If you want countless real life examples just search for Grindr on /r/askgaybros: https://www.reddit.com/r/askgaybros/search?q=grindr&restrict...

Sure, but as a bisexaul dude what you speak of happens on Grindr or Tinder or OkCupid.

It's about collecting hook ups and matches that are attractive to you and meet what you seek. No matter the gay or str8 app a good majority of white people seek out attractive white people. This is an unfortunate fact!

Since I'm bi, I use Grindr for hook ups only and have relationships with women. Though most of the women on str8 apps that i want ignore me, so Im busy collecting matches on Grindr and Scruff to hook up with them when the urge hits us both. But, when I found her my focus is her and Im happily monogamous when in a str8 relationship.

Overall dating apps are a negative on our society as its all about looks and the majority judge you and if you don't fit the mold you are ignored. Better to be ignored then to have someone be mean to you though... never be mean... always ignore!!!

On Tinder and OkCupid people usually read my profile unless they can not read German. The rate of people fetishizing me for my abs is significantly lower on those platforms as well. I have NEVER been asked about what's my preferred position in bed on them.

Grindr isn't the only thing in the world reducing sex to a commodity, that happened long before Grindr showed up in the scene. Same with predators; when was the last time you went to a basement gaybar?

You put monogamy on a pedestal as if everyone should prescribe to your world views, perhaps they don't?

Nothing reduces sex more to a commodity than a catalog of abs tagged with top/bottom/vers.

Yes I put monogamy on a pedestal, but I am aware that the majority of gay men do not or seemingly outright reject monogamy.

I think the central point of the article is:

> The Uber opportunity for Grindr is to establish itself as the leader of a new social movement that encompasses gender, racial, and religious equality and freedom.

I don't think the author sufficiently explained what exactly they mean by this nor why this should be true.

It's unclear to me what exactly is envisioned by, "a new social movement that encompasses gender, racial, and religious equality and freedom" in two ways.

First: what specifically are the proposed changes to the current service designed "to connect gay men for physical encounters" to meet this new mission or goal? For example, does the author envision that Grindr should move from a single service to a broader social media platform? Does the author envision Grindr expanding its user base beyond "gay men"? Does the author envision Grindr extending services beyond "physical encounters"? I feel that without concrete proposed changes it is unclear to me what the author imagines the future Grindr would look like.

Second: what specifically is meant by "equality and freedom"? Perhaps this is an unfair criticism because these terms are contentious, more abstract, or simply outside of the scope of what the author intended to discuss. The author does mention a future Grindr that takes "strong social positions" and which would cause "[s]ocial change ... followed by political change and then policy change". But since the author did not define what they meant by "equality and freedom" nor did they offer examples of social, political, or policy changes, it is unclear to me what the author is envisioning the future Grindr would actually accomplish.

By the end of the article I don't have a good sense of what the author thinks future Grindr looks like, what it does, what its new mission is, nor how it accomplishes it. I feel that there is a big discontinuity between a suggested short-term goal of fixing the existing app because it has a two-star rating to a suggested long-term goal of the CEO winning "the Nobel Peace Price just like Martin Luther King Jr." Hyperbole or not, I feel that there are several important conceptual steps missing in between these two.

Since the thesis was neither explained nor proved as a result hile reading the article I kept asking myself, "Why Grindr? Why not Kickstarter, or Kiva, or Facebook, or some other existing service with users?"

What ever it is the author was trying to convey, I don't think the article's reasoning is clear, sound, or complete.

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