Ethical non-monogamy, switch, edging: you might expect these terms to be old hat for people on a non-traditional dating app – but increasingly they’re not.
Feeld, which describes itself as being for “the curious”, is being colonised by so-called “vanilla tourists” – people who are using the app for more conventional dating.
The result is that Feeld has been booming in recent years, at a time when other dating apps’ numbers are falling. Since 2022, its user base has grown by 30% year on year, helped by those looking to observe and perhaps dip their toe into experimental lifestyles.
The dating app’s chief executive, Ana Kirova, said reaching a wide audience has never been a goal, and she fears alienating longstanding members.
“I do think it’s a challenge that it’s becoming more mainstream in some ways,” she said. “How do we welcome people who’ve never heard of Feeld, who don’t understand the list of sexualities and genders[or] who don’t understand what ethical non-monogamy is?”
But she added: “Every time someone tells me about this vanilla people being on the app, I just ask: ‘What’s the problem with vanilla?’ Why are we so binary about it? There is vanilla, which is boring and whatever, and then there is the rest, which is dark and interesting.
“We don’t yuck anyone’s yum … and that does count for more traditional relationships and popular sexual experiences, too. I think there is space for that.”
Unlike other dating apps, users are able to browse profiles without gamified swiping “like” and “dislike”, and Feeld does not use AI or predictive algorithms to find matches, which Kirova likens to “shopping for granola”.
“That constrains the experience for the members. As soon as you join the app, you’re put on to a conveyor of what your experience should be. And the platform makes a lot of choices for you in order for an algorithm to match you and people, because there is a default assumption for everyone that you’re there to find X,” she added.
As a result, she believes there is less – although not no – bad behaviour such as ghosting and “benching” someone in the belief there is someone better a swipe away.
However, she added that safety is still a battle. “With toxic misogyny still a challenge in wider society, it inevitably finds its way into the dating app landscape,” she said.
There has also been a proliferation of sophisticated romance scams, for which Feeld uses AI to identify fake profiles. “There are big companies that are investing in scammers. It’s like there is Feeld and then there is the ‘dark Feeld’ somewhere, with a lot of people and resources invested into making fake accounts on dating apps … it’s a real difficult thing to tackle,” she said.
Feeld has benefited from changing cultural attitudes towards sex, relationships, sexuality and identity, and a shift away from the “linear journey from single to coupled to married to having children to having a house”, Kirova says.
She has observed a growing openness. “Older generations look at identity and sexual orientation as quite static. They’re starting to change slowly, but that’s their perception. Whereas younger people see them as ongoing, growing and changing parts of the self.”
Kirova said the app’s second fastest growing demographic is women over 40, with numbers rising by 16% last year, thanks to culture and media challenging “silly and offensive” perceptions of older women’s sexuality.
Feeld has also managed to hold on to gen Z users, who are turning away from other dating apps. “There is also space for people finding friends and space for people finding community. I think especially gen Z are not always looking for sex on the app,” she said.
For the curious: ethical non-monogamy involves having multiple relationships in a fully consensual away, a switch is someone happy to take on either a dominant or submissive role in BDSM, and edging involves delaying orgasm by giving or taking away pleasure.
