I haven’t been cruising the gay online dating scene recently, so I don’t know if OKCupid is the only site out there doing this, but it seems like a novel idea: don’t let straight users see your gay dating profile. In an email blast to its homosexual customers, OKCupid is letting you know about a “quick site improvement” that allows you to “hide your OkCupid profile from straight users. This means straight people can’t find you in match results (even if they search for gay men), and they can’t load your profile page.” Why use it? The site lists helpful reasons like “maybe you’re not out to everyone yet, maybe you don’t want straight women hitting on you, maybe you enjoy clicking checkboxes on web pages.” Or this: You stupidly told your mother about your online dating profile and she went and signed up for an account herself. Which would be weird, unless you’re Peter Brant II.
sneaking around
OKCupid Lets Gay Daters Hide From Hetero Users
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RM
Actually, I got a few unwelcome and harassing emails from heteros on my OKCupid account. Mostly crazy Jared Laughner types who had bizarre theories on homosexuality they needed to share.
So I think OK Cupid’s move is welcome.
Corvidae
Or maybe they wanted bi people to be able to find gay one night stands? Actually, I wonder if I can have a “hide from gays” on my account…
Ian
I think this would be a great idea for Match.com for those of us living in “square-states” aka homophobia central. All it would take would be for one ignorant ass at work to start spreading my orientation to everyone and then my employment could be in jeopardy, as I live in a state with no protections for sexual orientation discrimination.
G
I’m on OKkCupid and I’ve been pestering them about a similar problem: they have this feature “Quiver Match” where it suggests people for you – except there’s no way to specify your preference for orientation and about 90% of the women they suggest for me are straight. This new thing is cool but I wish they’d fix that too.
Matthew
I am a bi man and out. I received a harassing email from a gay man, then later a series of harassing emails from a straight woman. They were both people I did not message. I reported the second batch of emails, and they told me “you can always hide from straight women”. The problem is of course I was mainly seeking straight and bi women, and I really don’t want to hide from anyone. But largely it has been only bi women that responded anyway and generally got messages from feme gay men looking for a top. So the results are in I am dating a biwoman and a feme gay man – which is novel for me because I usually only dated monogomously. But being that everyone involved is cool with it and has met each other -I Am in bliss. And not to be sour grapes but a lot of straight chics seem to be way uptight about bi men.
Stephanie
As of a week ago, this option has disappeared on OKCupid. I’ve emailed customer service asking them to bring it back, and hope others will as well.
With the new Locals feature, OKC seems to be catering to straight men (broadcasting the whereabouts of available women, no longer allowing bi or gay women to hide profiles from straight men, etc). Because clearly, what they need are more straight men on the site….
jason
OK Cupid seems to be run by sleazy straight guys and their stupid female enablers. Maybe it’s time to boycott OK Cupid.
Interesting
The only harrasment that I received from the site in looking for friends was that there was guys who said they were straight who were looking for me to have sex with them because their girlfriends were out of town, which was weird that they would come to a gay man for sex if they were so straight.