Playing the “feeld” is losing its allure.
Feeld, “the dating app for open-minded individuals,” has been lauded by its users as a safe space for sexual openness, honesty and communication.
“Feeld showed me that there are men out there who can exist in a way that is fully rooted in equity and respect,” Emily, 28, who asked to go by her first name for privacy reasons, told Mashable.
But some kinky folks are now complaining the app has become too mainstream as it’s being infiltrated by heterosexual “vanilla” men seeking casual, basic sex — and putting more women in harm’s way.
The app — which gives users 20 sexualities and 19 genders to choose from — was originally launched in Britain in 2014 as 3nder by Dimo Trifonov and his partner, Ana Kirova as an app to allow people to express themselves sexually with everything from BDSM to group sex.
Since then, it’s slowly grown in popularity over the last decade with a major spike in downloads coming in over the past few years.
In the last three years Feeld’s monthly active users rose 190% and paid memberships surged 550%, Fast Company reported.
While some users might appreciate having more options, many card-carrying kinksters have complained that the influx of new users has watered down the dating pool.
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Sabrina, 27, who asked to use a pseudonym, told Dazed Digital is concerned about the trend.
“It’s not about gatekeeping or shaming people for being vanilla,” she said. “It can be a safety issue if people don’t understand the importance of safe words and aftercare. Most of the time it comes back to men not respecting women and equating kink with casual sex or engaging in risky acts like choking and impact play without understanding how to do it safely.”
Sabrina joined the app several years ago to find a kinky romantic partner but believes it has become “harder to find single people with kinks who are open to a long-term relationship.”
“Someone on Feeld recently asked me to send a list of my kinks. When I did, they kind of freaked out and said I was obviously way kinkier than them — and honestly, I didn’t send anything extreme, it was all pretty standard stuff in my opinion,” she said.
Ellie, 26, whose name has also been changed also expressed her dismay at the lack of sexually adventurous and kink-educated men on the app.
“For some reason, casual sex is now considered kinky [by some men on Feeld] because they’re finding it via this app, but it’s really not,” she told Dazed.
Ellie believes that many straight men are using terms such as “naturally dominant” and “ethically non-monogamous” (ENM) to get away with abuse and infidelity.
“I feel like the language of sex positivity has just been co-opted by men who haven’t changed their sexual behaviors, but now get to feel good about themselves by calling themselves ‘sex-positive’,” she lamented.
Gen Z has been credited for leading the sex positivity movement and touting more dating apps, but newbies should proceed with caution and do their research before entering the playing field.
Emilie Lavinia, a longtime user of the app, told Cosmopolitan UK that it’s a struggle nowadays to find people who are serious about kink. Too many matches “don’t really know anything about the nuances of kink, how to be ethically non-monogamous or how to navigate consent. And that’s a problem.”
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More women are coming forward with stories of being disrespected and harassed while using the app.
For Mashable, writer Sarah Freedman recalled an experience when a man on Feeld “pestered [her] with questions about non-monogamy” called her boyfriend a “cuck” and eventually deemed her a “pretentious c—t” for not engaging with him.
Unfortunately, online harassment isn’t just escalating on Feeld and dating apps. Surveys have continued to find that the issue is continuing to worsen — especially for women and girls.
With competitor dating apps largely ignoring the vast spectrum of non-“vanilla” dating and sex preferences among singles, Feeld remains a crucial resource for kinksters.
Emily only joined the app last year and told Mashable she found that “it was so refreshing to [talk] with people in a way that was sexual, but not transactional…it was based in understanding and respect and communication.”
Feeld’s CEO, Kirova, who took over for ex-partner Trifonov in 2021, told Cosmopolitan UK that “in terms of scale, there’s so much potential for Feeld, but we have to make sure people are involved for the right reasons and they behave in a certain way.”
“We’re not trying to grow at all costs.”
