Having sponsored the Pit Crew in the sixth season of Rupaul’s Drag Race, Scruff secured its position in the psyches of gay men everywhere, and it’s worth checking it out for this alone. However, if you see the word Scruff and don’t immediately shout ‘Oh Scruff Pit Crew’ in your best Mama Ru voice, then why are we even doing this? Scruff is hookup oriented, but does have a ‘match’ function if you’re looking for dates.īeing slightly more niche appeal than Grindr, Scruff doesn’t have the same critical mass of users, nor the cultural clout. If masculinity isn’t high on your list of priorities, I wouldn’t necessarily look here. As with Grindr, the amount of users has diluted its USP, so it’s not exclusively ‘scruffy’ guys on there, just mainly, and still overwhelmingly masc. Scruff has been on the scene almost as long as Grindr, so it’s also amassed a large user base. The age range of users skews a little older than its main rival, and they are more uniformly of the muscular persuasion. Scruff, as the name suggests, is the hairier, bearier alternative to Grindr. Basically, it isn’t going away anytime soon. Since a change at the top in 2016, Grindr has been on a one-app mission to be the centre of gay universe, with big events, an online magazine and a gay emoji keyboard. People are also pretty trigger happy with pics, if you’re into that sort of thing. You can also be as anonymous as you want or as open as you’d like with your gender, preferred pronouns and status.
A lot of this stems from the fact that users have license to be incredibly specific about their wants and desires, which apparently for some people means being specifically terrible.Īwful behaviour aside, there are a lot of pros to Grindr.
If you’re using the free version, be willing to suppress your rage at the incessant ads.Īs is also the case with large gatherings of people, there’s a lot of bigotry and generally unacceptable behaviour on Grindr. All you need to do to get started is sign up, set your preferences and scroll through guys close by.
That being said, if you’re looking for a brief encounter, Grindr will do the job, as it’s more of a free-for-all than some other apps with little restriction on who you can talk to. As is the case anywhere a lot of people gather, there’s something on Grindr for everyone – from one night stands and fuckbuddies to long term relationships.
They receive this sort of abuse more often and in worse forms than me.The general consensus is that Grindr is only for hookups, but this isn’t necessarily true. "What frustrates me the most is that there are vulnerable people out there who have more typical presentations of their heritage than I do and they can't hide from that. But when I changed it back there wasn't as much interest. "I wondered if people would notice such subtle changes in my profile and they did," he said. As an experiment he recently removed all references to his heritage for one month and described himself as "white" instead of "other". Mr McGregor's profile, which he has now deleted, said he was "Aboriginal/Greek/Caucasian (mixed Euro)".
"The Asian guys want to be seen with the white guys, which is really sad," he said. He said there was a "ranking order" that placed Asian men at the bottom. Every time I'm asked that I'm jolted into thinking 'I don't belong'."ĭinesh said he personally knows Asian men who discriminate against other Asians on gay dating websites. "The biggest thing for me is being asked where I'm from. Some also use emojis of turbans to indicate they are not interested in Indian men. Grindr users who spoke to Fairfax Media said most men who made the offensive comments on gay dating apps were white and that profiles commonly said "Euros only", "Aussies only", "GWM only" and "No Asians". They include slurs about traditional land ownership and petrol sniffing, as well as being asked if he speaks English because he "looks Chinese" and questioned about "bush techniques". Mr McGregor, 23, said he had been sent racist messages frequently since he joined the dating app five years ago. It's all good and well to have preferences but don't throw that around in a derogatory way." "'No rice or spice' is one of the most common things I've seen on Grindr. The further you are away from that ethnicity or body image the more you're shunned in the gay community. "The white attractive male with the European background is at the top of the pyramid. Medical student Dustin Mangatjay McGregor.