The Secret World of Tinder: are we really all technosexuals?
By Gerard O’Donovan
Pete is one of the many dating app-users featured in Channel 4’s The Secret World of Tinder Photo: Rory Mulvey
“We’re living in a technosexual world now,” said one contributor to The Secret World of Tinder (Channel 4). Which, on the evidence presented by this entertaining documentary, was definitely overstating the case.
But as an introduction to how the advent of dating apps has “revolutionised” the way in which people in Britain can meet potential partners – for one drink, one night or something more long term – this was interesting. Especially for someone who remembers antediluvian times when it was considered daring to answer an ad in the personal columns.
No doubt about it, the endless number of dating apps – Tinder, PlentyofFish, Lovoo, Grindr et al – increases opportunity, if not necessarily satisfaction or even take-up. The more recherché your sexual tastes, it seems, the more useful apps are likely to be, as evidenced by a man whose penchant for “puppy play” (leashes, collars and lots of sniffing, with men rather than actual dogs) went largely unfulfilled until he discovered the gay “kink and fetish” app Recon.
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For those with more mainstream preferences, the gap between opportunity and fulfilment seemed wider. Recent reports that upwards of 40 per cent of Tinder users are already married weren’t specifically addressed here.
But the high sleaze factor was; with all the usual warnings and didactic anecdotes about the perils of meeting people you’ve only previously communicated with online. The high “fakery” factor was emphasised too – especially regarding the many men who seem to see dating apps as opportunities to pretend to be someone they very much are not in real life.
Or to send photos of their genitals to people who don’t want them.