Slashdot Mirror
Online Creeps Inspire a Dating App That Hides Women's Pictures
HughPickens.com (3830033) writes "Tricia Romano reports at the Seattle Times that Susie Lee and Katrina Hess have developed Siren, a new online dating app designed to protect against men inundating women with messages that are by turns gross, hilarious, objectifying and just plain sad. A 2012 experiment by Jon Millward, a data journalist, found that women were messaged 17 times more than men; the best-looking woman received 536 messages in four months, while the best-looking guy received only 38. Lee hopes to change the nature of the messages and put women in the driver's seat. As online dating options have grown, Lee noticed that her friends' frustration did, too: With every good introduction often came a slew of lewd ones. "I just started looking (at online dating options) and very quickly realized how many things are out there and how immediately my 'creepy meter' went up," Lee says. The free iPhone app, currently launched to a select market in Seattle in August, allows women to peruse men's pictures and their answers to the "Question of the Day" ("You found a magic lamp and get three wishes. What are they?") and view their Video Challenges ("Show us a hidden gem in Seattle"). If a woman is suitably impressed by a man's answers, she can make herself visible to him. Only then can he see what she looks like. "It's a far more thoughtful — and cautious — approach than the one taken by the dating app of the moment, Tinder, which is effectively a "hot or not" game, with little information beyond a few photos, age and volunteered biographical tidbits," writes Romano. "And the implicit notion that it's a "hookup" app can be uncomfortable for some women."
OK Cupid's stats as illustrated by co-founder Christian Rudder give another example of how steep the curve is, when it comes to physical attractiveness vs. messages received on online dating sites.
If you TRULY want to solve the problem of abusive men, then the solution is simple:
Create a website where the men can NOT make first contact.
You don't have to require the women to actually write an email - heaven forbid you do that. Just set it up so that the women have to 'wink' (or whatever you want to call it), at the men before the guy can write back.
This would have several advantages - including saving the men from wasting their time.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Because these systems are built on milking the ugly men who have no real chance of ever doing anything but creeping out women. Banning them removes the sites bread and butter.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I haven't been on a dating site for some time since having found someone (not on a dating site, BTW) and taking myself out of the game. But several years ago I was on a couple of dating sites geared specifically towards Christians. I was in my 40's and looking for age-appropriate matches. I try to be as well mannered online as I am face to face, especially on a dating site. I had very little problems getting responses, and what I learned from many of the women I talked to surprised me. A lot of them told me about how lewd and creepy the men were -- and this was supposed to be a Christian dating site! In contrast I always behaved as a gentleman, and in fact, I had to hide my online status sometimes because when I logged on I would get inundated with chat requests.
Unfortunately I never found anyone who was a great match. Distance was usually a problem. I met someone the traditional way.
It seems to me that a lot of people cannot handle the anonymity that an online presence provides. This is true, not just of dating sites, but everywhere. There is a tendency to objectify everyone. Men are particularly bad at it, but I've seen women do it too. The thing is, people like to be treated like people. A good rule of thumb is to not say anything to anyone that you wouldn't say within arm's reach.
Proverbs 21:19
than this crap.
These women seem frustrated that there are so many men they don't approve of approaching them. Apparently they think continuing to enforce the paradigm of "men must do all the work to gain my favour" is going to fix that.
ok, so since I used to work on an online dating service, I had a female fake profile in addition to my male fake - I'm male. You would not believe the level of crap some men think is a good idea to send to women, and no, it does not go the other way. This is not about playing hard to get or expecting favors, this is about creeps with very lacking social relationship skills. Even as a man I got mad about "males".
They should add a moderator ability to both men and women. Sort of like Slashdot. You get a few mod points to use to vote up or vote down the behavior of the person's interactions. Then you can set their messages to whatever threshold of moderation you want. "Only show me messages from people modded on average above 3.5"
They want the man to do all the work and assume all the risks involved too, such as (and not limited to) being labeled as scum if you do anything that is not exactly what she wants at the time she wants and how she wants. As I do not want to go to jail because of a woman who decides to end my life just because I have committed the "crime" of say hi (and not be a rich man with luxurious car in the garage), so I prefer to simply keep distance.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Yeah, I can really relate to this.
The decent chaps (particulary ones who naievely point out "not all men..." before discovering this is like a red rag to a bull) are the ones who attempt to engage positively with these issues.. and because they are the ones trying to engage, they are often in receipt of some of the unpleasant feedback that should really be going to those other guys.
The problem is that once bitten, twice shy - it inclines most of us to back away and not prod that particular hornet's nest again. Which is a shame, because the idiots who create these problems in the first place are far more likely to listen to "bro's before ho's" - getting more of the decent men on side and active against their idiot step-brothers would be a victory for feminism.
I was really encouraged to see this point of view put forward by Emma Watson in her speech.
Both sides have something to learn - the well-meaning men need to learn that they don't need to engage with the women - they already *know* about discrimination. They need to engage with the misogynists.
And the feminists could help matters by swallowing some of their totally understandable rage and politely explaining this to us, instead of biting our heads off.