Tales from the Tinder continues this week. First, the entire app crashed on my phone and when I reinstalled NONE of my over 250 matches were there. My profile was completely blank, my pictures and description was gone. And I had to start from absolutely zero – blank canvas. I was disappointed, but not entirely as now might be the time for a reset on all of it. There were loads and loads of men I never had any interaction with and while it made my ego feel good, it really wasn’t useful or actionable.
Second, maybe it’s obvious because of my fresh restart but I am seeing a lot of men on Tinder who are into some type of alternative sex. They might say they are dominant in their profile (or submissive). They might show some handcuffs or a blindfold in their pictures. They might bring it up during a chat after a match.
Over at my project with Cheryl Sloane at Grown-up Women, we did include an alternative sex module in our online course all about sex and dating for women over 40. At the time, Cheryl stressed to me one importance of including this information. I wasn’t sure how much we needed to be talking about it. I actually learned a lot from Cheryl (sex educator and Sexual Happiness Coach!) during the production of that module, including the fact that people who have alternative relationships are likely to have much better communication in the bedroom. It’s necessary in order to make it work. And better communication can of course lead to much better sex, kinky or not.
I mostly filed that knowledge somewhere in the back of my brain, but this last week on Tinder its bringing all of the facts to the forefront and I admit I am curious. Remember that movie 9 1/2 Weeks from the 80’s? Kim Basinger and Micky Rourke. That was THE film to sneak away from your parents and watch when I was in high-school . It was full of dom/sub, kinky, bondage-type scenes. And it was super-hot. And super-romantic. I loved to watch the way he took care of her and there is something quite interesting about this type of relationship. It’s still one of my very favorite films and it might be time to explore some of those fantasies.
Per usual, I sought some facts to validate what is going on here. And according to a sample of 400,000 OkCupid members, “71% say they’re into kink. While there’s no one way to define kink, over half say they’re into bondage or rough sex, and nowadays BDSM is a bigger turn-on than ever. We found that 75% of men and and 62% women say they like rough sex. Turns out, “Do you prefer sex rough or gentle” is one of the most agreed-upon sex questions on all of OkCupid.” And this is OKCupid. Not Tinder…
I don’t know where this is leading in my life. But I do know it’s a thing. More of a thing that I would have guessed. And it’s something that you need to have knowledge of in order to make decisions for yourself. The dating world has changed. Knowledge is power, ladies. Knowledge is power.
FYI – If you have some questions about kink or anything sex-related, Cheryl is a fantastic, safe source. Drop her an email and you can set up a 1:1 appointment with her!
What do you think?