So apparently there is a new dating swipe app, and this one is for the bisexuals. Which… well, before we talk about it, I invite you to watch this video introduction to the app.
I feel like if I were that uncomfortable on camera I would not be the star of the video introduction to my app, but that is just me.
Anyway. Bindr! Huh! I am admittedly put off by the name owing to the fact that I used to run a non-profit called Out of the Binders/a professional development conference called BinderCon (it was a reference to a Mitt Romney comment and… it doesn’t really matter anymore) and also because if you’re saying “binder” in a queer context it just sounds like you’re talking about chest binders but… whatever. I get it, peeps: bi Tinder/Grindr. Bindr!
I am also biased against the app because, omg, I loathe swipe apps, I think they are a plague on dating, just the absolute worst, so “it’s a Tinder clone but for bisexuals” just doesn’t really win me over. I tried to hold my nose and download it anyway and, uh… sorry but I was not impressed. Like, number one, I listed as a woman interested in women only and after about ten swipes I had run out of options (and none of the options presented were appealing, sorry!). And number two: the onboarding is… not great? You’re given the option to list as man, woman, trans, or non-binary which… are we still at a place where queer people are making queer apps that treat “trans” as a gender? Where man/woman is assumed to be cis man/cis woman? Not great, bob.
It also gives you the option to list as a couple or say you’re looking for couples (cool) but the couples can only be m/f, m/m, or f/f… apparently trans and non-binary people don’t couple up.
So. Oof. Needless to say, this app is flawed and probably not gonna be the way I find my Future Wife™️. But it does feel worth asking whether the very concept of “bisexual dating” is a worthwhile one: do we want to just date our own? Do we want a bi-focused app? Is this quote from the article linked above a #BisexualGoal?
“We want it to be Tinder for straight people, Grindr for gay people, and Bindr for bisexuals,” Richardson said. “One single app can change public perception, just like Grindr did for the gay community — it makes people more accepting. That’s what we want to do with bisexuals.”
(I’m going to come back to that quote in a second because… what.)
So, okay. Part of the Bindr pitch is that bi people keep getting kicked off of apps like Tinder when they list as seeking men and women. This has never happened to me, like, ever, but I’m willing to believe that it happens and is a problem. But is that a reason to create a whole ass app for bisexuals? Shouldn’t we just, like, be petitioning Tinder to … not do that? Or maybe just move to Bumble or #Open or Feeld or the many existing apps that are probably fine with people looking for potential partners of multiple genders?
Because, friends: my dating pool is small enough. I don’t know that making it smaller by limiting it to bi people is really an actual solution for me. Like I said, I went through all my potential Bindr matches in under a minute. And I live in New York City. And while I will admit that I’m often more drawn to bi women than lesbians (though not exclusively), I’m not really exclusively or even predominantly interested in bi men (when I am interested in dating men, which I’m mostly not lately) so… a bi-focused dating app just… doesn’t sound like a solution to me.
(I feel like I should also note that this app just sounds like catnip for people who want to exploit and abuse bi women, but that’s probably just me being paranoid. Probably.)
Anyway. One of the big things I always come back to, again and again, is that even as I believe that bi people need to come together and work together to achieve our political ends, even as I believe that we have strength in numbers, I fundamentally don’t believe in bi separatism. The entire beauty of being bi for me is that we can be intimate with straight people and queer people, that we can partners with a whole host of people across the gender spectrum. A bi-specific dating app doesn't feel like it uplifts us. It feels like it limits us. And honestly? No thank you. And especially no thank you to swipe apps, swipe apps are garbage, boo swipe apps.
Finally, though:
I promised I was gonna come back to that passage I quoted from the article and, my goodness friends, what a passage. “Tinder for straight people, Grindr for gay people, and Bindr for bisexuals”? Do lesbians not deserve an app? Are these people not aware that there are queer people of all stripes happily using Tinder? What is going on with this trisection of apps?
Also did Grindr change the perception of the gay community? Is… is that what did it? Because I thought it was, at the very least, like… Ellen and Will and Grace and the many, many activist movements that came before Grindr made it possible to order up casual sex like a pizza. But that’s just me!
In conclusion:
The app, it’s so bad, I’m sorry. Feel free to download it, maybe you’ll like it better than I did. But please don’t think for two seconds that it’s going to be the leading light in bisexual liberation.
The B+ Squad might be the leading light in bisexual liberation though!
Like you, I am confused by the notion that Grindr, an app that seems specifically designed for anonymous and semi-anonymous hookups, is what led mainstream society to finally accept gayness.
Literally my first thought when I saw this was "oh, it's an app for unicorn hunters," so if you're paranoid...me, too.