URL: BoyAhoy
Date Signed Up: Dec 2011
No. of Conversations Had: 3
No. of Dates Achieved: 0
Imagine how shit Grindr would be if it didn’t just show you nearby homosexuals but picked a random selection from across the world? Well, that’s BoyAhoy. Quite possibly the most pointless dating/hook-up app ever invented.
Overall Score: 0/10 – why, really, just why?!
URL: Grindr.com [app available for iPhone, Android and Blackberry]
Date Signed Up: Sept 2011
No. of Conversations Had: approx. 20
No. of Dates Achieved: 3
Probably the most famous (only?) homosexual locating app of recent years, Grindr has a reputation for being a bit sleazy. But, as a mobile app it’s perhaps in a different league to some of the other sites in previous posts – it is about connecting with nearby homosexuals (for whatever purpose). Certainly as (frankly brilliant) blogs like Groandr demonstrate, Grindr has quickly become the perfect repository for every bizarre, baffling and otherwise hilarious aspect of gayness. That said, it’s kind of unsurprising that all of the new people I’ve met have been via this app. It is perhaps a surprise that none of these encounters have been of a NSA kind. The immediacy of the chat function and the sparse (a few sentences) profile space encourages interaction far more than completing a personality test or completing a complex series of interview questions. Perhaps I’m old-fashioned, but that stuff can wait till you’re actually talking to a real person* (or after you’ve casually bummed each other, your choice). That said, if you don’t consider conversational openers such as “sex now?”, and “wanna fuk my boyf” classy or appropriate, you might want to stay away from about 30% of Grindr chats, or just use the oh-so-helpful block facility. (And FYI, these conversations aren’t included in the totals at the top.)
Overall Score: 7/10 – so long as you don’t mind the occasional unsolicited penis.
* First time anyone (ever) has claimed Grindr is old-fashioned. Fact.
URL: LadsLads.com
Date Signed Up: June 2011
No. of Conversations Had: 30+
No. Of Dates Achieved: 0
This is an interesting one. It appears to be marketed at a particular demographic, yet is by far the most diverse and inclusive dating site I’ve come across. That said, the layout and structure is confusing to start with, and the site makes you believethat you have to pay to access messaging (boo hiss!), simply friend-requesting yourself seems to unlock this functionality. The profile set-up is simple, and you can conceal private photos from casual viewing should you want to. However, none of the members I’ve interacted with seem to have used this facility. The profile questions are a bit prescriptive, but dare I say it, this simple approach perhaps works better than the more complex set-ups found on some other sites. I’ve made some good friends online here, and though none of these ever translated into real life meetings, it’s a really good (and unexpected bonus) of signing up to dating sites!
Overall Score: 9/10 – simple and effective, and fun too. What more can you ask for?
URL: OKCupid.com
Date Signed Up: April 2011
No. of Conversations Had: 10
No. of Dates Achieved: 0 (still…)
This is a dating site that really works for you, if “by really works for you” you mean spams your inbox on a weekly or daily basis with suggestions of men for you to message. They also ran a “12 Atheist Days of Christmas Matches” in which a new atheist fizzog popped up in my mailbox. This is a nice gimmick, but overall the site feels very gimmick heavy. The idea that you make your own questions, add them to a pool, then answer with the answers you like or would like a partner to say is all very well on paper (and to be fair, it does seem to produce accurate matches), but the psychology of it is interesting. Until I joined, I never thought I would hesitate in messaging someone because they had told an internet interrogator that the Earth was bigger than the Sun. You end up answering so many questions that the end-result of the exercise (dates etc) is kind of obscured.
That said, the profile questions are very helpful and allow a certain amount of self-expression (for boxes of internet). Though it appears to be compulsory to begin your profile with “I’m really really bad at filling out internet dating profiles”! The interface is intuitive and easy to navigate and ads, though present, don’t get in the way of the functionality of the site. It’s a good side, and unlike other sites mentioned in previous posts, the friendly interface and fun aspect of the questions did encourage repeat visits and sparked a number of fun conversations.
Overall Score: 6/10 – You can learn everything about someone and never even have to speak to them…
In the week that’s seen a very important debate on euthanasia, as well as the Iowa primaries and Dianne Abbott race-gate, it’s not been a high profile week for pushing the Gay Agenda in the news, so Gandalf (sorry, Sir Ian McKellan) told Pink News that there was “no doubt” that William Shakespeare was a massive flamer.
It scarcely matters to me – or, in theory anyway, any right thinking Literature student – who the Bard boned, but really? It must be a slow day on Planet Gay for this to be making headlines. Even if you discount the news value of Sir Ian saying it, he’s hardly the first.
The evidence is, basically, that Shakespeare played around with gender in numerous plays, including my personal favourite, Twelfth Night. Then again, this is hardly unusual in Renaissance literature. Similarly, his sonnets are interrogated for their apparent homosexual desire. However, as the noted literary critic Douglas Bush points out, ‘modern readers are unused to [the] ardor in masculine friendship’ and so ‘leap at the notion of homosexuality’, regardless of the explicitly heterosexual content of the sonnets.
McKellan highlights the homosocial relationship between Bassiano and Antonio in The Merchant of Venice as showing that the play ‘centres on how the world treats gays as well as Jews’. Whilst the play does engage with contrasting bonds of business and friendship, McKellan is over-stating the case. For a start, the relationship between the two characters is nothing beyond the conventions of male friendship current at the time (for a scholarly account, I recommend noted gay historian, Alan Bray’s 2003 book, The Friend).
This is the crux of the issue. It makes no sense to point at a historical figure and call them out for homosexuality. The meaning of the term “gay” has shifted so much over the last 100 years so can scarcely be applied to Shakespeare. More seriously, it is both deeply patronising and deeply anachronistic to attach modern identities to historical individuals.
URL: ManHunt.net
Date Signed Up: Mar 2011
No. of Conversations Had: 5
No. of Dates Achieved: 0
OK, so I was kinda baffled when this popped up in my Facebook ads bar as a “dating site”, but it made a change from Iowa’s only “GLBT-friendly underfloor heating specialist” so I thought I’d give it a go. When I signed up, I got a princely 12 hours free before the site started wanting me to pay. OK, so this isn’t about long-term relationships, it’s about penis and boy, I’m sure you could receive all kinds of phallic images if you put the effort into your trial. (Un)fortunately, I didn’t really bother much with this one. The site’s pretty ad-heavy too.
Overall Score: 0/10 –Turns out Facebook ads define “gay-dating” as “gay-cruising”…
URL: TomDickand Sally.com
Date Signed Up: Jan 2011
No. of Conversations had: 0
No. of Dates Achieved: 0
My first foray into the online dating scene, so I had nothing to compare it with! You can certainly find other men in your vicinity. There aren’t a huge number of them either in rural or urban bits of Britain I’ve been to, but then again, the Facebook banner ad marketed it as for “intelligent and discerning” homos, which essentially means one of the most ridiculously complicated Personality Test (with pie charts!) I’ve ever come across. All the basics of profile info are covered, and plenty of space to describe yourself, and you can also look at a series of baffling infographics on how you and your potential match compare. If you want to find someone who answers Personality Tests in the same way as you, this is all well and good, but it wasn’t way I went in for. FYI, for the thirteen year old school girls amongst you, you can send badly animated, sacharine animations like what AOL Instant Messenger pioneered in about 1999 if you like!
Overall Score: 1/10 – ironically, it’s a dating site that lacks personality.
I have a confession to make. I didn’t believe that internet dating could work. No matter how many friends told me about their wonderfully happy relationships (pass the sick bucket) that had emerged blinking from cyberspace, I firmly believed that it was impossible for the digital experience to recreate actually meeting an actual person and realising your mutual attraction…
Possibly that was because that sort of thing never happens to me. Ever. A year ago I decided to see if this was because I wasn’t using online dating sites. In that time I’ve racked up 6 memberships, only 2 of which have lapsed. In a digital age, these sites and experiences on them seem increasingly central to many gay mens’ lives. I remain open-minded as to whether this is a good or a bad thing, though I have been convinced that it is possible to connect with someone digitally on a real emotional level (I still have a thing about talking on the telephone though…)
Lets give it a go. I didn’t intend this to be a blog post, but given my new New Years Resolution, it’s kind of turned into one. These sites aren’t the only ones out there and my opinions are in no way scientifically validated. Some of the sites were marketed at me via targeted advertising (TomDickandSally, ManHunt), others were recommended via real people on social networks (Grindr, OKCupid), and the rest I just stumbled upon at random (LadsLads, BoyAhoy).
Over the next six days, I’ll post a new review of a site. These reviews are based solely on my recollection, and I haven’t revisited the sites other than to collect the few stats I’ve included for that small minority of homosexuals with a chronic statistics fetish.
So, how do I feel after completing this odyssey? Well, I’m definitely still single, but definitely not alone in it any more.
During a recent item on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, barrister Paul Diamond who represents Eunice and Owen Johns, a Christian couple who had recently been barred for adoption after a social worker had “expressed concerns” when they said they could not tell a child a homosexual lifestyle was acceptable as a result of their Pentecostal Christian beliefs.
The courts decision to bar a couple from adoption because of their view of homosexuality raises some profound moral questions. At what point do laws designed to protect one minority actively impinge upon, and deny freedom toward, another social group? Does freedom of sexual orientation trump the right to hold religious beliefs? In short, what happens when two fundamental human rights come into conflict?
Paul Diamond’s position was very clear. In the ten-minute debate with former Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, he argued that “decent wholesome people” such as the Johns were being prevented from adoption because of a “new morality, or immorality dependent on where you stand on this [issue of homosexuality].” Up until 2000, the Johns had been able to adopt, until social workers became aware that – in Mrs Johns own words in a 2008 interview with the Daily Mail – she “would not be able” to tell a child that “homosexuality was fine.”
“I said I would have to tell a child that, as a Christian, I don’t believe in homosexuality - but I can give as much love and security as I possibly can.” However, the High Court rejected their appeal, with Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson ruling that protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation “should take precedence” over the right not to be discriminated against on religious grounds.
Diamond argued that to prevent the Johns from adopting was “totalitarian”: it is not the place of the state to set the standard of what was morally acceptable. He claimed that there was “something… very wrong with the moral and ethical compass of our country as a whole” following “surprising judicial decisions” in which “anti-discrimination [legislation] is taking precedence over freedom of religion and freedom of sexual orientation takes precedence over freedom of religion.”
Whilst many readers of this blog may feel little sympathy for the Johns’ plight, you will also doubtless be aware that Diamond’s argument that “there is a liberal tyranny in this land in which people are scared to say what they think or practice their beliefs… the balance has gone too far [in the favour of protecting minority groups]” receives widespread support.
However, Diamond’s representation of the Johns was called into question in the judge’s verdict. His claim that their religion was at the heart of the refusal to allow them to adopt was roundly rejected. Defending the legal establishment on Today, Lord Falconer claimed that Diamond, and the Christian Legal Centre that paid the Johns’ costs, were effectively “asking for special favours” for religious groups. The law as it stands prevents discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation whatever the origin of those views, religious or otherwise. In short, the Johns’ religion was not at issue: it was the simple fact that they could not endorse, or even acknowledge, homosexuality.
Eunice John told the BBC: “We have been excluded because we have moral opinions based on our faith and we feel sidelined because we are Christians… We are prepared to love and accept any child. All we were not willing to do was to tell a small child that the practice of homosexuality was a good thing.” The Johns had successfully fostered 15 children prior to the introduction of the 2008 Equal Rights (Sexual Orientation) Act.
The feeling that “rights culture” is detrimental to freedom was endorsed on the online Comments on the BBC article covering the ruling. Two weeks ago, on the day of the ruling, Simon commented: “I am a gay man and I would not tell a ‘small child’ that homosexuality is a ‘good thing’ .For a teenager unsure of sexual orientation it could be up for discussion but this decision is madness!”
Whether the commenter would agree with Paul Diamond’s view that the ruling was “totalitarian” and marked “excessive intervention by the state into private affairs” is uncertain. Madness and totalitarianism can go together in a number of ways. What is clear, however, is that there are strong views – and powerful moral arguments – on both sides.
As a result, it is arguably impossible to play top trumps with human rights. Personal freedom of conscience is a very precious thing, and should be defended to the death. Equally, if freedom of conscience is to mean anything it must be backed up by a liberal culture that defends the rights of all members of a given society. There is a strong legal and moral consensus in support of the ruling against the Johns. However, there is an equally strong counter-current of opinion that believes the balance has gone too far the other way. It is up to us as a society to ensure no-one’s rights are infringed in the search for a consensus.
In my experience, it is remarkably hard to keep your sexuality private from your housemates.Certainly, I didn’t officially “come out” till Year 2, and didn’t become comfortable with the whole thing till much later, but during preparations for Halloween 2005 (which, for some reason, involved me being frankly lacquered in black eye make-up), my housemate (who was applying said make-up), said between slurbs of vodka jelly, “so, you are gay then?” As is traditional, I mumbled something incomprehensible and probably suggested putting Kings of Leon on. I’m not proud. The difference was, they were. The fact they weren’t going to treat me any differently — even though I didn’t know how I really wanted to be treated — made everything so much easier for me in the end.
But it’s also true when people say they
never stop coming out. Only in the last few months, four or so years since I came out, has it felt appropriate to be really open with my Mum. Much as I hate jargon of all sorts, but we genuinely do live in a heteronormative society. It enforces all sorts of strange quirks on us gays.
One of my favourite presumptions about homosexuals is the urban myth that we all, without exception, have ravenous sexual appetites and, essentially, cannot keep our hands off each other. A few years ago, after a night out, I stayed over at a friend’s house, sharing the lounge with another friend who was also gay. We thought nothing of it – till my friend reported later that her parents had presumed we were a couple simply because we slept in the same room, regardless of the fact that we slept apart, or that one of us was in a relationship with someone else at the time!
As ever though, it’s my own dear family that provide the most bizarre exemplum for this blog. This year, NUS Student Pride takes place over my birthday weekend. When I told my Mum I was going – she gave me the usual “be sensible” talk, including the gem that “I mustn’t tell anyone it’s my birthday since I’ll go home with a prolapsed anus…”
Now, I had to Google that because – apart from sounding unimaginably painful – I wasn’t entirely clear what she meant. (You don’t need to look. It’s not pretty.) Now, I’ve been to a fair few friend’s birthday parties at gay venues, and I’m pretty certain that ““prolapsing of the anus” is not one of those homosexual birthday traditions I have missed. Getting twatted and humiliating yourself on the stage in Pulse, yes. Invasive cauterisation? Less common.
It’s a ridiculous story, and perhaps detracts from the serious point I was trying to make. Certainly, Britain is one of the most liberal countries when it comes to legal rights of homosexuals. However, in some ways, our own minds are conditioned in a very different way. Answer the following questions, I’d like to think there’s people out there who can answer no to all of them, but I have my doubts…
Have you ever… introduced a partner/date as a “friend”? Avoided publicly displaying intimacy or affection with a partner, either in public or due to the company you were in? Been anxious about being seen reading a gay publication (i.e. Attitude/GT) in public? Avoided answering (or lied about the sex of) a partner in a conversation with a neighbour/acquaintance? Avoided small-talk all together because of the awkwardness that could arise? Or received censure for not doing so?
We live in a society which – if we don’t keep fighting – is more than happy to classify love between individuals of the same gender as deviant, or at least marginalise it to the murky realm of “things that are just not talked about.” We all know about the things other people do that are wrong, hurtful or homophobic. However, the way we react – and the way we mentally process and deal with this information, often from a very young age – has left a deep psychological impression on the LGBT+* community. It’s no wonder that around 50% of LGBT people has suffered from depression at some point in their lives.
Note:
* Although this article is written from a gay man’s point of view, I feel that many of the points apply to lesbians, bisexuals and trans people as well as many other gender and sexuality minorities. More on these in a subsequent post.
