Grindr: a new sexual revolution? By Polly Vernon

The Observer features Grindr 'Grindr: a new sexual revolution?'

Grindr is a free phone app which lets gay men instantly pinpoint each other using GPS technology. It has already transformed the sex lives of 700,000 men around the world. But could it work in the straight market? And would it mean the end of monogamy?

Ever heard of Grindr? If you have, I’m going to guess that you are male and gay; or male, technically straight and somewhat curious; or the straight friend of a gay man. If not, allow me to enlighten you.

Grindr (pronounced “grinder”) is a free downloadable iPhone app which, it promises, will help you “Find gay, bi, curious guys for free near you!” Grindr harnesses GPS, allowing you to establish who else in your direct vicinity is also using Grindr. It shows you – on a gridded display – who these men are and what they look like; it’ll tell you how far away from you (in feet, and even more thrillingly, fractions of feet) they are standing; and it will allow you to “chat” them, if they take your fancy. Although buried deep in the Grindr ethos is the idea that you shouldn’t do in cyberspace what you could be easily be doing in person. Don’t “chat” when you could actually, you know, chat.

Grinding is an intoxicating experience. I was first introduced to it on the roof terrace of a bar in east London by my friends J and W. J launched the app on his iPhone and I got palpitations as the grid of portraits (ordered in terms of geographical proximity – your nearest Grindr user is posted at the top left) instantly unfurled itself across the screen. All these men, effectively coming on to – well, not me, but still… It is literally a sexy app and the overflow of that sexual potency, the decadence, sweeps you along on a wave of lust, regardless of who you are and what your gender or sexual orientation might be. I was reminded of the first time I entered words into the search criteria on Google, of the first time I downloaded music from iTunes – I knew I was engaging with a bit of technology that would alter things on a profound level.

I scrolled on and on through the grid of gay offerings, furtively trying to match the pixelated images with the real-life men ranged around me in the bar.

“But do you want to know the funny thing?” J said. “The best nights you can have on Grindr are the nights when you stay in.” And he laughed, wickedly.

Grindr is reconfiguring the landscape of human relationships. Partly because it’s sex in an app, the sexual equivalent of ordering take-away, or online fashion (my friend Kevin calls it “net-a-port-gay.com”, and he’s so pleased with himself for this he says I can use his real name. Everyone else asked to remain anonymous). Grindr was launched on 25 March 2009; now more than 700,000 (and counting) men in 162 countries around the world are using it to phenomenal effect, if J, W, Kevin and the other gay men I’ve asked are any kind of a guide. “I’ve never, ever had so much sex in my life!” R told me gleefully. “I’ve probably had as much in the past eight months of Grinding as I have over the 20 years since I came out. Maybe more.” It’s only going to get bigger, to facilitate more sex. Two thousand people download it every day, and a BlackBerry-friendly version of the app launched less than a month ago – a development which could triple Grindr’s reach.

But Grindr is more significant even than that suggests. It marks a major evolution in how all of us – gay, straight, alive – will meet and interact with each other. Depending on who you talk to, this is either brilliant (liberating, socially enabling – the end, even, of loneliness and boredom); or a potential disaster (signalling the end of monogamy, facilitating sex addiction). Either way, it matters.

Arguably we are living in a post-gay era. The divide between gay and straight worlds diminishes daily. Gay culture and straight culture become increasingly intertwined. For example, Grindr’s biggest boost occurred in June 2009, after gay icon Stephen Fry told the boorishly straight Jeremy Clarkson all about it during an interview on super-hetero TV show Top Gear.

So Grindr would matter even if it was not in the process of developing a straight version of its sexy self. But it is. It is likely that the Grindr experience will be open to a straight market by the end of 2010.

“Oh, at the very latest,” says Joel Simkhai, the founder of Grindr. He’s a wiry, neatly handsome 33-year-old man with an American accent, a hectic manner and a sharp business edge. I meet him for coffee in a chic hotel in London. This is where he’s basing himself while he checks out Grindr’s flourishing UK market; he usually lives in Los Angeles. “The UK is the second biggest country for Grindr after the US,” he tells me. “London is the third biggest city after New York and LA. You love us.”

Read more @ http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jul/04/grindr-the-new-sexual-revolution

It was all about mobile at the Internet Dating Conference

Julie Spira, LA Dating Advice Examiner

Examiner.com features Grindr 'It was all about mobile at the Internet Dating Conference'

What Makes Grindr Grind? By Michael Musto

What Makes Grindr Grind?

If you’re not on Grindr, you’re either straight, married, or a liar.

The incredibly popular app tells guys who’s in their vicinity and what they look like, and you take it from there.

Rather than go through all that Photoshopping, I instead went searching for some truths about this sexy phenom (which counts NYC as its second biggest city).

I did a Q&A with Grindr’s founder, Joel Simkhai (above), to get some hardcore insight into what makes this linking method so sizzlingly appealing.

I learned lots of hot stuff — for example, that he uses it himself!

Behind The Scenes At Gays’ Fave Hookup App

By Michael Musto

The Village Voice features Grindr 'Behind The Scenes At Gays' Fave Hookup App'

If you’re not on Grindr, you’re either straight, married, or lying. Since its inception two years ago, Grindr has become the largest all-male social network, over 2 million worldwide users having downloaded the app that shows you who’s in the vicinity and whether they look approachable.

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You can then call on your animalistic instincts and sprint across the street for some hardcore pouncing (or discussions of the national debt, if you prefer) or just keep walking and waiting for something closer and better.

New York is Grindr’s second biggest city (after London), but the whole world seems to be taking to this thing like a lynx in heat, logging back on every time they’re mobile.

Rather than try my luck at it, I went for some behind-the-scenes action, interviewing the network’s founder/CEO. He’s Joel Simkhai, an Israeli-born Tufts grad who launched Grindr on the iPhone, with versions now available for Apple iOS, Android, and BlackBerry devices.

And lest you think this is all frivolity-based, Grindr sent messages to its New York users in June, urging them to contact the on-the-fence senators in their nabes and demand that they approve gay marriage. And no, the politicians didn’t tweet back with their crotch shots.

Our interview:

Me: Hi, Joel. Tell me how Grindr works. I swear I’m not sure!

Simkhai: You create a profile. You don’t have to give your name, your email address, anything. You log on and see a grid of photos of other users in order of distance. On the top left is the closest person to you.

You can go through these photos and start chatting and hopefully meet with someone.

Me: How does it know where every-one is?

Simkhai: They’ll log in, they’ll show their location to us, and our servers will do the math to figure out the relative distance. We don’t share your specific location, but your distance. You’ll see that someone is 500 feet away. It could be north, south, east, or west. Then you can talk and give the exact location if you like.

Me: And it’s a big hit, right?

Simkhai: We’re the largest destination for gay men. We have about 500,000 active daily users. Right now, there are 43,000 gays on Grindr as we speak.

Me: And they’re all across the street! What differentiates you from Manhunt?

Simkhai: We don’t allow adult photographs in the profiles. And we’re about location in real-time—it updates as to where you are. Also, with Manhunt, you’re at your house, sitting in front a computer. We’re mobile. You’re on a bus, you’re at Duane Reade….

Me: Or you’re on a bus going to Duane Reade. But do some people use Grindr for things other than sex, or will they need Duane Reade for some rash cream?

Simkhai: It runs the gamut. It’s really what you make of it. We’re a provider of technology.

Me: Do you think most guys that hook up have safe sex?

Simkhai: I don’t have a good sense of that. Twenty years ago, HIV was very, very serious. Now it’s still serious, but maybe not as serious. So maybe that’s changed the mentality, unfortunately. But I think people should always be safe. There’s lots of STDs. The risk is simply not worth it.

Me: Do you use your own product?

Simkhai: Always! I’m on it all the time. I’ve met lots of guys and made some good relationships and dated and had friendships.

Me: So you’ve hooked up from it?

Simkhai: I’ve met all kinds of people and have done all kinds of things.

Me: Hmm. Are you looking for a boyfriend?

Simkhai: I don’t know. Can one look for a boyfriend?

Me: Absolutely. I’ve done it my whole life.

Simkhai: I can’t say I believe in searching for love, or you’ll end up with the wrong situation. Relationships are a lot of work. To make it worth it, you have to find the right person, not force it.

Me: Gosh, you sound so darned grounded. Don’t you have a horrible dark side, like the Facebook co-creator?

Simkhai: I don’t think so.

Me: Do you like being the guy who links all these people?

Simkhai: That’s the best part of the job—essentially being a matchmaker. I meet guys who say, “I met this guy through Grindr, and thank you.” That to me is motivating.

Me: And so is all that cash. Do you make more money from advertising or from the Grindr Xtra (premium service) subscriptions?

Simkhai: Half and half. Grindr Xtra is $2.99 a month.

Me: I always joked that I want to start Troll Grindr, which warns you when someone unattractive is across the street.

Simkhai: I think that’s part of it. You can see who you want to meet and who you don’t want to meet and navigate it. Maybe Troll Grindr should be our next project. [Laughs.]

Me: I want points! Actually, I mentioned that idea to someone and he said, “There already are trolls on Grindr.”

[Pause.]

Me: Tell me about your new app, Project Amicus.

Simkhai: It’s a geosocial network that will allow gays, straights, everyone to meet the people around you. It goes beyond social orientation, gender, any of that. You can go on Facebook and talk to all the people you already know, but how do you meet new people? We’ll hopefully launch this summer.

Read more @ http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-07-20/columns/grindr-joel-simkhai-gay-hookup-app/

A gay hookup app goes straight

Joel Simkhai, founder of Grindr, talks about “Project Amicus,” his new friend-finding tool By Drew Grant

Salon.com features Grindr 'A gay hookup app goes straight'

Joel Simkai, a slender, young-faced man, is eating granola and yogurt when I meet him for coffee. He is the founder of Grindr, a location-based app that allows gay men to “connect with guys in (their) area” and “browse men.”  Since its launch, Grindr has grown to 2 million users and gained a reputation as something of a hookup widget for the gay community. (The app has a simple interface that shows photos of the closest 100 users at any one time, and allows you to chat and exchange photos with them.)

Now Joel and his team are about to launch their second program, code name Project Amicus, which has been referred to as a “Grindr app for straight people.” “Users can expect a unique mobile app experience unlike anything currently on the market that caters to how women and men communicate together,” boasts the press packet for new project. But does a straight version of Grindr even make sense? According to Joel, Amicus will do far more than help people have sex (which he argues is not what Grindr is for in the first place).

I interviewed Joel about his two apps — and what, exactly, the point of a “straight” Grindr would be.

How did Grindr get started?

Throughout my whole life I’ve always been walking into a room and wondering, “Who’s that?” Or when you walk into a subway and make eyes with someone, and then nothing happens. There’s all these missed connections throughout your daily life, and I just feel like, “I wish I could have said something.”

And as a gay man, you’re always wondering who else is gay. I used to use online chat rooms and dating sites for many, many years. I would talk to people in Minnesota, or Ohio, or wherever. And then as it got more advanced, I’d talk to people in New York. But it’s a big scene; there are a lot of people here. So location wasn’t even the biggest factor in meeting other gay men. At the end of the day, I realized it would have to be new technology.

When the second-generation iPhone came out with the GPS unit and the ability to write and distribute the apps, all these things kind of came together. All the pieces fell into place and I said, “This is it.”

Foursquare became famous for being able to track friends, and Dodgeball allowed you to see how you were connected socially (i.e., how many friends you had in common) to anyone else checked into a given space. How would you say Grindr is different from that?

Well, I’m not interested in helping you find your friends. I’m really interested in having you meet new people. It’s like, “You and me, we’re both here, let’s get together and see if there is some kind of chemistry.” There are so many invisible walls, and Grindr is really just a tool to break those down. I was just at New York Pride, and I met an Australian couple who said they had met over Grindr and they just got married.

Do you consider Grindr a dating app?

I’m less interested in what happens after you meet. Maybe you like them, maybe you just want to chat, and maybe you’re like, “This is not for me, I want to get out of here.”

If Grindr is at least partly being used to meet guys and hook up, how will this project you’re launching work for straight women?

Well, this new app is an evolution: taking what we know from Grindr and putting it on the next level. It’s not even focused on dating. Its code name is Project Amicus, and it’s a lot more about friendship, like a girl meeting another girl, and they are both straight. Or she can meet a gay guy, or whatever. It’s really about helping you meet people. There is that issue right now, of “How do I meet new people? Where should I go? What should I do? I’m bored!” And it’s really a tool to help you figure that out.

Will Project Amicus be open to men too, then?

Yes, though we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about women when developing this project. I’m a guy; I have a harder time getting into the mind-set of a woman. We’ve definitely made extra efforts to think about the woman: what she wants, what she’s comfortable with, who she wants to socialize with.

In terms of making a “Grindr for women,” I think, “Well, isn’t locating the nearest straight dude just called ‘Going to a bar’?”

Right. Well, I still think of both programs in terms of someone who wants to meet new people, people they want to meet, that special someone, someone to spend time with.

So you don’t think of Grindr as being focused on hookups or one-night stands?

I don’t care what people do, as long as it’s legal. You know, I’m happy people are using the program. It’s a whatever-you-want-it-to-be app. Some people want to hook up, some want to network professionally. You know we did a survey, and the majority of people said they used Grindr to find friends. It’s all kinds of things.

So if it’s a friend thing, will Grindr’s app feed its profiles into Project Amicus?

No. They are two separate apps.

So there is a distinction in terms of the purpose of what these two programs are supposed to do?

The new project is a social app. Grindr is somewhere between a geo-social app and a dating tool. People from Grindr can join the new project, but we keep them separate, because they are two different things.

The Sunday Times features Grindr in it's 'The Sunday Times App List '

The App List is your definitive guide to must-have games, tools and distractions for your iPhone, iPod, iPad, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone 7 or tablet. Don’t miss it this weekend.

The Sunday Times App Awards

ShanghaList.Com features Grindr ‘Popular gay mobile app Grindr now back online in China.’

ShanghaList.Com features Grindr 'Popular gay mobile app Grindr now back online in China.'

Grindr, the gaydar-in-your-pocket mobile app that’s taken the international gay community by storm is now back online in China after an extended period of being blocked by the Great Firewall.

The way it works is simple — you turn on the app on your iPhone, it identifies your physical location, and in just a matter of seconds, profiles of other gay men will start appearing on your screen, starting from those closest to you. And you’ll be able to chat with any of them instantaneously. It’s like magic! Only better!

News of the unblocking has created limited excitement, however, among members of the Chinese gay community as they’ve since moved on to the multitude of Grindr clones that have appeared like a thousand flowers blooming.

Nobody knows exactly why Grindr was the only gay geosocial dating app to be blocked by China — it’s possible that as the first of many such apps, it was the first to appear on the Net Nanny’s radar. Well now that her royal highness has changed her mind about blocking Grindr, nobody’s really complaining either.

Grindr recently announced it crossed 2 million users in 192 countries (including, we assume, the Vatican City). Now that the world’s most populous nation of homos is able to freely access Grindr, it’s safe to assume they’ll reach their third million in no time.

P.S.:
1. For those of you wondering, other popular gay geosocial dating apps in China are Jack’d and BoyAhoy.

2. And for those of you wishing there were similar apps for heteros, you’ll be glad to know they already exist! Try Skout, or Flurv!

The New York Times features Grindr ‘In the Calculations of Online Dating, Love Can Be Cruel ‘

By SCOTT JAMES

The New York Times features Grindr 'In the Calculations of Online Dating, Love Can Be Cruel '

Heidi Funai sat perched at the swank bar at Circa in San Francisco’s Marina district, the city’s mecca for straight singles. As men sidled up, she noted which ones might be there to mingle and which wore wedding bands.

“The real world is a lot of work,” said Ms. Funai, an attractive 30-something with shoulder-length, wavy blond hair freed from her Vespa helmet.

She had scootered into the real world to talk about the virtual realm of online dating. Ms. Funai once found love online, and now that she is back to search again, she has noticed a disheartening trend: it is getting increasingly cruel out there in cyberdating.

“The social contract is broken with online dating” in a way that does not exist in real life, Ms. Funai said. She has used online dating sites for nearly a decade — and she does not like what she sees happening.

Since the current recession began, the popularity of online dating has surged — memberships are up and new matchmaking portals have emerged to take advantage of the demand — industry growth of up to 30 percent is expected in the next year or two, according to the tracking site DatingService.com. This has also led to an increase in behavior that would earn a slap in person, but has become de rigueur on the Internet.

Never-answered messages, explicit requests for sex, fake bios, outdated photos and insults are ubiquitous. Ms. Funai said men in their 50s had contacted her, completely unsolicited, just to say she was too old. “They wouldn’t do that in person,” she said, “but online …”

It is love in the time of ones and zeros, the rudimentary language of computers. In the digital age, everything must at some point be reduced to this basic construct of choice: One or zero. Yes or no. On or off. Subscribers to online dating sites are forced to come up with a list of their desires. Red hair? Yes or no. Over 30 O.K.? Please check a box.

The result is that millions are now trained to be dismissive based on detailed and sometimes arbitrary criteria. Combine this growth in fantasy checklists with the anonymity of the Web, and it gets ugly.

Laurie Davis, an online dating analyst at eFlirtexpert.com has observed the problem — with men. “They forget about the chivalry factor sometimes when they date online,” Ms. Davis said.

Who comes up with these measures? In most cases, it is the Web site’s owners. At OkCupid.com, however, it is left up to members to suggest dating criteria, and the result is an astonishing example of the need by some to quantify the ideal mate.

Sam Yagan, OkCupid.com’s co-founder and a Stanford M.B.A. alumnus, said the site started with this premise: Can you use math and data analytics to match people up? With the goal of creating a screening process that was “more human than a checkbox,” Mr. Yagan said, the site takes thoughts from its 4.2 million monthly users to build the questions. Users answer as many as they like — the average is 233.

With such a high number of expectations, no wonder some become disgruntled.

And that might explain what is happening in the gay community and its rapid embrace of the iPhone application Grindr. When activated, a grid of dozens of tiny succinct profiles fills the phone screen, using GPS technology to tell users how far away they are from each another.

“17 feet away,” the message said one evening when fired up at a cafe in the Castro district — a disproportionate number of men were then seen holding their phones and looking over their shoulders. Less than a year old and limited to gay men, Grindr already has 500,000 users.

“We keep it PG-13,” said Joel Simkhai, the company’s founder. Although some use the application to facilitate casual hook-ups, no lewd language or photos are allowed.

There is also the reality that users stand a good chance of actually seeing each other in person, not hiding anonymously behind a keyboard, enforcing accountability for one’s conduct.

“It’s more consistent with real life,” Mr. Simkhai said, “a little less in your face.”

A version for heterosexuals is in the works.

But even this emerging slice of the online dating world is not immune from random acts of malice. Almost as soon as Grindr was created, a rogue Web site started called Guys I Blocked On Grindr, dedicated to publicly burning men considered undesirable.

Perhaps there is no way to separate the more public forms of love and the more public forms of cruelty.

Still, Ms. Funai will continue to try to navigate the minefield of online dating, although as a tech marketing manager, she knows that applying ones and zeroes to relationships is problematic.

“What everyone is looking for is chemistry,” she said, “and that’s not quantifiable.”

Celebration of Gay Pride Masks Community in Transition

By SCOTT JAMES Published: June 25, 2011

Celebration of Gay Pride Masks Community in Transition

The rooftop deck of the San Francisco Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community Center offers a sweeping view of Market Street, and to bring in much-needed revenue, the area could soon be leased to Medjool, a nightclub that one Yelp review called “Frat boy meets Girls Gone Wild.”

That an essentially straight establishment could crown one of San Francisco’s most prominent gay landmarks might seem contradictory to some, but it is emblematic of the times.

When thousands converge on the city this weekend for the San Francisco Pride celebration and parade, they will find a community at a complex crossroads. Although experts estimate that 15 percent of adults here claim a sexual orientation other than straight — the highest percentage in the nation — longtime gay and lesbian institutions are struggling.

Examples are everywhere: Lyon-Martin Health Services, the women’s health clinic founded in 1979, has financial troubles; South of Market’s Eagle bar, a fixture for 30 years, closed last month. In the Castro neighborhood, turnover among merchants is so rampant that it has become difficult to keep track.

Interviews with more than a dozen experts, gay rights leaders and residents paint the picture of a multilayered transition. To some, the community is simply evolving, as it has in the past, to become less parochial. (The Medjool deal, for example, would include an innovative lesbian, gay and transgender job-training program at the site.)

Others, however, believe recent gay rights victories and greater societal acceptance have led to complacency.

“We’re at a tipping point as far as America’s embrace of L.G.B.T. issues,” said Fred Sainz, spokesman for Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights advocacy group. “But tipping points can go both ways.”

Perhaps most significant, however, is change from within: a new generation of gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders who see the world, and themselves, quite differently. Born during the AIDS pandemic, when sex was linked to death, and having matured in the more tolerant “Will and Grace” era, they are rewriting the old paradigms of sexual and gender identification.

Many have rejected being called “gay” or “lesbian,” and instead prefer “queer,” an all-encompassing word that was once considered offensive.

Jessica Fields, a researcher at the Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality in San Francisco, is conducting a study of the generational trend by interviewing 18- to 24-year-olds from the city’s broad gay spectrum.

Although her study is not yet complete, Dr. Fields said many young people were finding traditional labels of sexual orientation too restrictive. “They felt that ‘queer’ had more possibilities — that things were more open,” she said.

And movable. “They rejected the idea that if they were with a woman now they would always be with women,” Dr. Fields said.

Notions of gender also seem fluid.

Rebecca Rolfe, executive director of the L.G.B.T. Community Center, which runs programs for youth, said, “We’ve got a lot of folks who don’t identify as male or female.” Instead, some use the ambiguous word “boi” to describe themselves.

When asked to describe herself, Alix P. Shedd, 28, a local artist who has taken hormones to transition from man to woman, said, “A word is a box — that’s the problem.”

Read more @ http://tinyurl.com/3tvzcfh