Yahoo Lifestyle Is the Feeld app mainstream now?
I open my Feeld app and check my pings. There are quite a few, but women always seem to fare better than men, I suppose it’s no different to any other dating app in that respect. I look at one guy’s profile, he looks handsome but not, like, crazy handsome. Then I look at the profile linked to his and, wow, total smoke show. This woman (I’m not sure if she’s his girlfriend, play partner, or maybe his wife) is stunning. “He’s punching,” I think to myself and start to draft a message.
Feeld, which calls itself the dating app for the curious, launched in 2014; back then it was a hook-up and group sex site known as 3nder. I started using the app in 2018 (it was Feeld by then, renamed after a lawsuit from Tinder) and it had come along a little, but it was still quite a bizarre experience. The UX wasn’t great, the app was buggy, and Feeld felt like a dark corner of the internet gatekept by people who were *very* serious about kink. Flash forward to today and almost everyone you know has heard of the app. In fact, in 2023, the app nearly doubled its revenues, jumping from £20.87 million to £39.5 million (profits increased from £2.4 million to £5.5 million) — turns out it’s big business catering to the kinky.
Or is it? These days, most of Feeld’s users consider themselves to be, well, pretty tame. The app and its community has evolved a great deal since I met my first match in 2018 — at the bar in the Greek Street branch of Soho House right after watching the Love Island final, if you’re interested. I was excited, breathless even in the sweltering London summer heat. I had thought a lot about kink, but not really explored it at that point. Since that first date, I’ve met some of my best friends on Feeld and most people I know have the app on their phone — and it isn’t hidden in a folder either.
The app is pro sex worker (great if you’re a sex worker trying to date but can’t use other apps due to the stigma around your work) and pro LGBTQ+ with a heavy focus on intersectional experiences — there are 18 sexual orientation options on the site, a refreshing departure from the straight, bi, or gay dropdown most apps offer. And it isn’t just for threesomes any more — I mean, you can find that pretty easily on Feeld — but you can also find friends to go to your first sex party with, someone with the same kink as you, a long-term partner who’s into your particular power dynamic, or just someone to sext about your sexual fantasies with for a bit.
Users extoll the virtues of being able to find a community, discover alternative lifestyles and relationship styles, make new friends, embrace their weirdness, and feel less ashamed — especially if they don’t have access to the huge dating pool that exists in most metropolitan areas.
But while it’s great that the evolution of Feeld has reduced shame around kinks, a massive spike in users (Feeld grew by 107% between the first three quarters of 2022 and 2023) has had a ripple effect across the kink community. There are a *lot* of people using the app now, most of whom 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.
Personally, I love that we’re all more open minded and people feel like they can just open an app instead of unicorn hunting on Bumble (because that sucks for queer women) or being pushy with kinky chat on Hinge. But now that Feeld is home to such a huge spectrum of users, is it a sort of diluted, less safe, and less kinky version of what it used to be?
Ana Kirova, CEO of Feeld tells Cosmopolitan UK that this influx of new users could be a problem for the communities that use the app, however, she says, “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”.
For some of the kink community, new members are enthusiastically welcomed, for others Feeld’s recent popularity makes them feel like a “spectacle”. One user tells Cosmopolitan UK that some men “see women on there as being ‘easy’ and too available for sex”, and that it has started to feel like “a platform for men to throw around the word ‘dom’ without understanding it”. Another female user agreed, describing Feeld as, “oversaturated with people with no clue; asking overly intimate questions straight off the bat”.
And therein lies the problem. If you join a community but don’t follow the rules of that community, it ruins the vibe for everyone. You might see a guy on Hinge with a profile that says, ‘Looking for a wifey and a mum to my sausage dog’, but his Feeld profile reads, ‘Looking for a submissive BDSM slut (no strings attached)’. Arguably, both profiles are authentic sides of this man, but there’s also the potential that he’s outsourcing some problematic sexual aggression, doesn’t know how to practice BDSM safely, has fallen victim to reductive ideas about women that play into the Madonna/Whore complex, and has no intention of respecting his no-strings Feeld matches until he meets the mother to his daxxie.
“It’s great that more people are embracing this side of life, giving more options for connections,” says the owner of the Instagram account @sexpositive.memes, a veteran Feeld user. “But it also sadly means it will be on the radar of more problematic people.”
Sex positivity is great, as long as it’s not being fetishised or exploited (sex-positive kinky women make great dog mums, FYI). Late last year, Feeld underwent a glossy refresh, including new features that can help crack down on dodgy behaviour that its popularity could enable. We’re at the precipice of a bold new frontier for sexual expression, so with more people flocking to the platform in search of a more authentic human experience, more honesty, and kinkier sex, safeguarding and support must be as important as — if not more than — a swish new interface and features.
“We’re [always] exploring ways to connect people in different ways and create other opportunities for serendipity and discovery on the platform,” says Kirova. “The most important part of our growth and transformation is our commitment to evolution. We’ve made mistakes and had to make changes along the way, but we’ve always done things very intentionally.”
And, look, kinky sex is fun, dating is fun, meeting adventurous people is fun. And Feeld makes it easier to roll the dice and meet hotties with the same interests as you, there’s no doubt of that. Personally, I love that an app that allows for polyamorous-linked profiles and multiple tags showing your sexual proclivities and preferences exists and I don’t want to gatekeep it — everyone should be able to enjoy it. I just hope it remains a space of safety in its purest, kinkiest form, no matter how popular it gets.
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