‘Hookup Culture’ Sees a Call for More Female-Friendly Hookup Apps

It’s difficult for women to get terribly excited by a photograph of a nude stranger on their phone. It’s just not how women are built. Yet the electronic transfer of one’s genitals to another person’s cellular device is more common today than ever.

And that is a problem, according to Hook Up Dating, an aptly-named dating app that most of its three million users identify by the acronym, HUD. “Here at HUD, we appreciate the idea of building sexual tension and chemistry ahead of the first date; after all, we are a hookup dating app, but some of these pics turn off our female users,” said Darren Shuster, an official spokesperson for the company. “We like to give women a choice of whether or not they want to see the nude pics. We’re all adults here.”

For the Sake of Women Everywhere

“It’s getting pretty ridiculous out there,” Shuster said. “In the old days, they would call people sharing their genitals ‘perverts’ and ‘flashers,’ and I’m pretty darn sure it remains illegal. Women just don’t like pics of strange men’s junk on their phones.”

According to Elite Daily, some guys are even Airdropping their nude pics to unsuspecting subway riders in New York City: “If you have an iPhone and your AirDrop setting is on ‘Everyone’ instead of ‘Contacts Only’ or ‘Receiving Off,’ you could become a target of the AirDrop Dick Pic,” Shuster warned.

The Solution: The Nude Pic Auto-Blur

Looking to address the issue, HUD is deploying artificial intelligence developed by Google to identify nudity. Boasting more than 3.1 million users, Shuster says, the company simply could not hire enough human reviewers to manually identify male reproductive organs, so HUD turned to Google’s Cloud Vision artificial intelligence software to detect explicit adult content.

“I’m happy he’s excited and proud to share his private parts,” one female member of HUD said. “But I’m not thrilled with the idea of him sharing it with the world on a dating app.”

It’s important for all parties, especially within the hookup culture, to feel safe and in control of what’s put in front of them.

“It’s true that some women may welcome nude pics,” Shuster said. “And we want to give our female users a choice: To accept the adult content or not. But no more random, private part surprises.”

HUD boasts 3 million+ users and was named “One of the Best Hookup Dating Apps” by Refinery29.

By Katie Ruth Davies