India’s LGBT community deserves better apps

Photo credit: Julien B.

After drinks on a Saturday night, Akash* opens gay meetup app Grindr to continue an earlier conversation. They’ve agreed to meet at the large ICICI Bank at the corner. After a few nervous minutes of waiting, he recognizes a face coming up the street. Their walk home is careful, avoiding the juice shop where policemen usually stand. “Grindr life,” Akash laughs.

Fast forward a few encounters to a Sunday afternoon. Akash opens the app again, this time to a charming stranger who asks to meet in a posh neighborhood. A short walk and a winding staircase later, he’s confronted by a man who looks nothing like the well-positioned photos he’s sent. He runs, reminded of other stories – urban tales of a man lured into a Grindr date in Delhi and beat up, or one in which blackmail and public shaming is used as revenge.

Akash is still using Grindr. “It’s the only place to meet other gay men,” he says. “It’s not like I can go to a bar and mingle with folks in the hope that someone’s interested. People here are afraid to be open about their sexuality.”

Would he migrate to another app? “I definitely would,” he says after thinking about it. He pays a monthly INR400 (~US$6) subscription fee to access Grindr’s premium features. “Something with better chat capabilities and an easier, more fun and safe way to meet people as a community. An app like that can play a major role in India.”

Not enough interest from the tech community

Are there options? Barely. Tinder preferences can be adjusted, but the app connects directly with Facebook to display mutual connections. That makes things more transparent but also merges a network that often includes family and friends, terrifying for many in anti-anything-but-straight India.

There’s Germany’s PlanetRomeo, with features that connect men who go to the same gym, or like the same movies. Its Indian user base started out strong but has petered out in recent years, perhaps because its UX is clunky and unable to keep up with the world of fast, smooth apps.

Meanwhile, Chinese dating app Blued has raised over US$30 million.

There are also a few shoddy options that serve women seeking women – Brenda, for example, which many complain has been reduced to a platform for disguised men looking for women interested in threesomes.

A few people direct me to an Indian site that’s been gaining popularity, Amour. It’s an online dating project that lets people create profiles and meet like-minded individuals across the gender spectrum. It’s available in five languages, including English, Hindi, and Kannada.

Online profiles are linked to in-person meetups and events, and Amour’s userbase is growing. The problem is – it’s still just a database, and definitely doesn’t have the investor interest or tech background to match the likes of Grindr.

It’s clear about that. “We still DO NOT RULE OUT data leakage to external persons,” Amour writes on its site.

India-specific

Photo credit: http://underclassrising.net.

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