Is Bumble Really a Hive of AntiFeminist Villainy?

I recently watched a video on an article about the article, Love, lust and digital dating: Men on the Bumble dating app aren’t ready for the Queen bee, by: Treena Orchard, a feminist who hopped on her commuter after 5 months on the dating app, Bumble, to complain (and, really, we could just stop there because what else would a feminist be doing?) about her bad luck on the only dating app available as a safe haven for feminists. It seems that Bumble just isn't feminist enough but, really, what is, to these rabid ideologues? 

Given that I've been on my own sexual journey and have had fabulous luck not being a man-hater, I decided to embark on a little experiment to call "Bull Shit" on Treena Orchard's predictable feministic fall-back: It can't be me, it must be the patriarchy.

I went to Bumble and created an account, placing, in my bio, my usual description:

"Nonmonogamously married, homeschooling mom of 3. On an exploration of sexuality and my concepts of love. I fucked my way through the Zodiac (that was a fun project) and have been dating a secondary lover for the last year.

Libra, ENTJ-A

hsv-1 positive, oral herpes/cold sores. Know the risk."

My Profile picture "occupation" reads as follows:

"Purveyor of Free Range Humans

Home Industries."

Bumble allows you to choose from a number of conversation prompts that, when answered, get added to your profile. I chose the prompts, "Two truths and a lie" and responded thusly:

"I'm an anarchist, a feminist, and a Christian"

I sat on this for a night after filling my queue with a number of matches. I'm certain you won't be surprised to find that, with a bio like mine, I wasn't on Bumble more than a few minutes before my first choices provided matches who had already chosen me.

The next two nights, I opened conversations with the matches in this way:

"Which was my lie?"

Now, I have a real conflict with misrepresenting myself. I'm still working through things with the Lover and am not looking for connections at this time so, the fact that I'm really running a sort of social experiment that I know is not going to result in anything, worth these men's time in response, doesn't sit well with me. Add to this the fact that, as a progressive, feminist site, each comment you make in private messages can be reported if it doesn't settle well with you, I had to be careful about how I conducted myself and that leaves this little experiment wanting in some significant ways, not the least of which is that my sample group was small.

Of the men who were willing to respond, none dared to pick "feminist" as my lie. Not a single one. Most chose "Christian", a few chose "Anarchist".

Now, there are a number of reasons that may have been the result. Maybe, for some, it was wishful thinking: "I hope she really isn't a Christian or an Anarchist". It may be that, since the site is billed as a feminist hive, the expectation would be "Of course, she must be a feminist." But, I'd wager a bet that a fair amount of fear was also involved in avoiding that option. Offending a feminist is far more contentious these days than offending a Christian or someone of a differing political view.

I can just imagine the thoughts running through the heads of the matches as they read their options: "If she is a feminist, and I chose that as her lie, I really don't want to get tangled in that conversation. For god sake, I'm just trying to get laid."

I suppose it's OK that my little 4-day experiment is lacking in any real thoroughness as Treena's article lacks something obvious, to any thinker, right from the get-go: Where are you located, dear? Because, your experience, with your local men, most certainly won't be everyone's and that seems an important detail since you're taking your experience and applying it universally to an app then, making suggestions for improvement. 

I'd like to look at another academic shortcoming in her analysis of her Bumble experience:

She made no effort to distinguish between the uniqueness of what she wanted to get from the experience versus what others may want. Her assertion is that it is just not feminist enough, even though, the criticism she lobbed is entirely born from her interactions with individual men. 

What does "dating" mean to you? Were you looking to acquire a friend with benefits? A romance? A partner? 

What're your criteria for a good match?

Well, we know one of them: "I chose Bumble because it was rumoured to have more professional men than other apps ..."

And, I don't know about what she found where she lives, but I found that Bumble, where I live, was teeming with middle-class, progressive "professional", "empathic", "mindful", and "socially and globally aware" eye-rolling pain. I thought, "This is Tinder for progressive snobs." And, consequently, I did a lot of left swiping because there was much that I just couldn't bring myself to stomach without acknowledging that there would be a fair amount of a certain devious mockery in my communication. Damnit. I really do wish I were more comfortable with deception.

Let me tell you just how much I despise snobbery. Before landing in an exclusive relationship with the Lover, who is a middle-class progressive professional, my journey through the zodiac - which took less time than what she gave Bumble to provide her with a match - led to wonderful encounters with men who labor in industrial arts, several medical professionals, a disabled photographer, men involved in technology, a few just working their minimum wage 9-to-5's, a guy who was into motorcycles and was helping his adult daughter, son-in-law and their baby - the lot living in a rural trailer, a couple of single fathers, an ex-con raising his two kids in the bad part of town because that's what he could afford - his kids he won custody of because they were in danger with their mom, a confirmed Nazi internet troll, a man working with those in drug and alcohol recovery, a high profile entrepreneur, a couple militery men, and a rich kid (and by "kid", I mean someone who was old enough for me to engage with no legal problem, but significantly younger than me) living off his old, family money. 

And, those were just the ones who won their way between my legs. I had several lovely dates and many, many more lovely conversations with lovely men from all over the socio-economic, political, religious, age, ability, and otherwise spectrum. While Ms Orchard wrote about the men who were just not good enough, I look back on my journey with pleasantly warm memories. The difference is in our attitudes.

So, maybe, dear Treena, if you'd like more "success" in the dating realm, you should try not being such a fucking elitist snob. That, you are, is not really Bumble's fault, now is it?

Now, on to her criticism of the app.

I almost died when I read this:

"In my five months on Bumble, I created 113 unique opening lines, each of which involved not just work but also a leap of faith. Will he respond? Will this one like me? Putting myself out there repeatedly made me feel vulnerable, not empowered. Sure, there was some short-lived excitement, but much of my time was spent wondering if they would respond. Only 60 percent of my opening lines were answered and I met just ten men in five months, which is a nine percent “success” rate."

The very first thought that should have entered the mind of an empathetic, reasonable, socially conscious, academic (something she makes sure to repeatedly assure us is a part of her persona), and self-examining (and that's really the problem with feminazi's isn't? A shocking lack of self-examination) individual is an awareness of and new appreciation for what a man goes through to get to us in every other available realm of dating.

My god, you feckless cunt, how is it that realization did not occur to you?

Did you feel vulnerable? Welcome to the male experience in finding a mate.

Did you feel a lack of empowerment having to make all the first moves and wait for a response? Welcome to the patriarchy, Bitch, where there's not so much privilege after all.

"The women-taking-charge-for-themselves model assumes that we live in a girl-power bubble. It ignores men’s feelings about adopting a more passive dating role. This creates tensions between users. I learned the hard way that despite our feminist advances, many men are still not comfortable waiting to be asked out."

And, you, by your own admission, were not comfortable being in their usual role as the pursuer.

Maybe, just maybe, gender is an actual thing.

Maybe, just maybe, it isn't a social construct.

Finally, she offers some solutions to fix the "problem" with her lack of success:

"One suggestion would be to remove the “she asks” and “he waits” design so both partners can access one another as soon as a match is made."

Bravo and slow clap for the academic brain trust ... That's the experience of the general public on almost every other dating site. They weren't enough of a feminist-friendly 'safe space' hence, "Bumble". And, she'd know that if she weren't such a pretentious snob stuck in her ideological bubble.

Maybe, just maybe, it wasn't Bumble's fault that you didn't end up with a match.