Male contraceptives are difficult to approve to begin with, specifically because there’s no political will to expedite anything that benefits males as a sex. They don’t need to go after this sort of thing until something actually gets approved.
The FDA also requires tighter standards regarding side effects because they do not prevent or treat a condition that the patient has (because pregnancy is not a concern for male persons). If you ever hear someone talking about a male pill and implying that the guys in the study couldn’t deal with relatively minor side effects, it wasn’t the patients that ended the study and it wasn’t because patients were unwilling to continue using it.
There was also a pill derived from cotton plants, but it had two major issues: The first was that the difference between a contraceptive dose and a toxic dose was too small to be comfortable. The second was that sometimes (but not always) the effect was permanent.
There’s also a technology developed in India for a sort of reversible vasectomy that requires an injection of a polymer in each vas. It started out as an attempt at an artificial heart design, in the 70s was used as the basis for a water pump, and still later became the basis for the contraceptive. US IP rights to it were bought by a US company in 2011, and a slightly different formulation of it was in testing until 2023 under the name Vasalgel (which proved less reversible than the original). The rights were bought by a different company in 2023 who are looking to try to bring it to market under the name Plan A For Men.
It’s fascinating that profits hinge on providing a slightly below par experience on most forms of social media, dating apps included. Facebook et al require it for rage interactions while dating apps need it to maintain a userbase to populate and pay for the service.
To be honest I don’t think it does need to keep the users who succeed to stay profitable. It’s just they can’t handle the numbers not growing every year. There are always new people trying to find a date, and I think a service that wasn’t greedy could make something that works for the users and the company both.
In this case, you’re talking about a chicken turning back into an egg. The chicken has already grown large thanks to massive venture capital loans, server costs, and the board that appeared upon its explosion guiding it toward further engorgement. Dating apps don’t, by definition, have to partake of ultracapitalism, but every single major example unequivocally does.
Most of them were acquired by match.com, to even avoid the chance of any competition. How regulators allow this monopoly should be a question for criminal court (similar to many other industries, like letting facebook purchase instagram and whatsapp many years ago)
The chicken to egg metaphore is perfect, though they could be forced to change with strong regulation. Monopolies should be either broken up to allow true competition, or should only be allowed to operate as thightly regulated utilities (like electricity distribution networks).
People still totally meet and have success on dating sites. A friend of mine and his wife separated about a year ago, a few months ago he got on Bumble, went on some dates, and met someone he’s now getting serious with.
What an absolute joke. Its basically instagram, and almost everyone on it is completely braindead in discussion threads… and almost all the image posts are either I’m so pretty! or cats or landscapes, or Why are people so hard to find?
Kippo is even more hilarious. Nearly every profile is just trying to recruit you to watch their E girl twitch stream or onlyfans and is not interested in dating.
Boo is the best dating app I’ve used outside of Facebook Dating. It’s still pretty shitty though, and I wholly agree with your criticism about the discussion threads.
Actually gamifying the use of their app as a social media platform to gain further privileges on the dating side of the app is a genius idea though, but it’s executed so poorly. If it had the high quality discussions of Lemmy/Reddit, or the plethora of edgy memes you find on 9GAG, Facebook, iFunny, etc, then it could be a game changer.
I could go on a massive rant about how Tinder is dogshit and every other dating app has been bought out and transformed into yet another Tinder clone by greedy monopolistic cunts who the Federal Trade Commission should have shut down years ago, but I’ve already wasted a lot of my energy ranting about my shitty experiences before.
Maybe we wouldn’t have an incel epidemic if the modern dating experience wasn’t so awful for men.
As I’ve said before, Facebook Dating is the best experience I’ve had, and that’s primarily because Mark Zuckerberg is more motivated by harvesting all your personal information, not by suckering you into paying 4 times the price of a WoW subscription just to see who liked your profile.
Kippo is even more hilarious. Nearly every profile is just trying to recruit you to watch their E girl twitch stream or onlyfans and is not interested in dating.
Sounds like Okcupid to me. I get a lot of matches on there, but they’re all either:
Scammers trying to lull me into a crypto investment scheme.
E-girls using the platform to plug their OnlyFans
African and South-East Asian ladies who discovered GPS spoofing and are on the prowl for a Western husband and the means to a green card.
I think that dating apps and social media in general are part of why there are so many incels, and now femcels.
Its literally just as simple as ‘Everyone seems so pretty, rich and happy’ and then that devolves into a whole bunch of self reinforcing stereotypes that become world views.
We have basically made being a fake idea of a person into something seemingly obtainable to anyone, even though it almost never is, and to actually maintain that after you’ve basically lucked into having a following, you almost have to become an insane / shitty person.
Also, I used to have good luck with OkCupid, but yeah it enshittified not long after MatchGroup, or whatever huge conglomerate that owns basically every US dating app, purchased it.
And that large conglomerate itself is now owned by Facebook/Meta, if I am not mistaken.
So… yeah. Corporate monopolies ruin everything.
Maybe we should all try that insane 4chan dating app and then have our identities stolen rofl, at least it isn’t sold out hahah.
I wouldn’t say it “worked” for me… When I state that they’re the best dating apps, it’s more like comparing the experience of eating a shit sandwich without any toppings to adding something like mayo or BBQ sauce in an attempt to drown out the taste of fecal matter. You can’t polish a turd.
No, actually. I’m really into hookup culture and it’s still shit.
It’s like, those of us who just want sex have all the “I want a monogamous life partner” people thrown at us, and those of us who want a beautiful relationship have all the “I just want to fuck around” people thrown at us. It’s the exact opposite of what anyone wants.
That gives me a brilliant idea though. I should team up with one of my friends who wants a long term relationship. We should refer people to each other.
People said that 10 years ago, and i always disagreed. Now a days it’s an absolute nightmare. Everything that used to be free is behind a paywall. Set the max distance to 30km? Fuck it, here’s people from thailand and china and kenya.
Just glad to be out of that field entirely. Married for almost 5 years, met 2 years before that on OkCupid. Apparently she was nervous about it and her friend told her it was just pizza, she didn’t have to marry me. Never been so happy her friend was wrong.
I was like ‘maybe I can help a guy out’ but I have a strict furry-only policy and I didn’t see anything from a quick glance of your profile suggesting you weren’t a normie. Sorry my man.
(I don’t fit the categories anyway but any is better than nothing :p)
The first guy I ‘dated’ (early in my life, closeted, neither one of us made it ‘official’) was a good first experience and stepping stone, and during that time I joined the furry fandom. I found the community very kind and welcoming, and except for fringe cases, it was what I wanted to submerge myself in, likely for life. I was (am) a massive geek, and because of that + other ‘weird’ factors, I had only a couple friends in grade+middle school, and a half-dozen in high school. But the fandom was so welcoming and non-judgemental, and compared to the hell that ‘normal’ people were to me, it was a no-brainer that I should start dating other furs. A few months into my second relationship, I made it a rule: furries only.
I lost a few (not) friends, a clan I was a member of booted me, and a few other negative events happened in that first year or so. But all those people are, frankly, shitstains - if you cut a person you’ve known for a year+ out of your life because of an interest in anthropomorphic animals, you are a narrow-minded dumbfuck. But it was for the best - I’ve met so many great furs in the 20 years I’ve been here, and I’ve been able to speak my mind about almost any topic without fear of judgment or retribution. The vast majority are well-educated and so I geek out easily, once I get comfortable with someone new.
While my perspective on the general public has shifted towards (but not to) the positive side of things over the last decade, I’m not really interesting in broadening my dating pool just to get attacked, harassed, belittled, or worse. Hell, I’m gay, furry, satanic, disabled - the target of many, just because of my beliefs, my body, my existing. But in the fandom, it’s not like that. It’s comfy and safe here.
For the right person, someone who at the very least understands who I am, what I like, and why… maybe. But if they were really the right person, they’d throw on a fursuit head and come be silly and happy with me. I’m not going to be less ‘weird’, so if they aren’t at my level, they must be willing to rise to the challenge :p
I’ve seen furs in their teens, with parents at conventions. I’ve seen grandparents and similar furs at cons, too. And of course, everywhere in between. Life is boring as fuck, and I’m far from the typical ‘normal’. So why should my dating and relationships be any different? Give me the ‘weird’, and skip the haters.
E: and ofc this all applies to flings, too - I tend to catch feelings, so the two go hand-in-hand
I saw you said you’re satanic? Judging by being on Lemmy, do you mean TST? If so, you should check this out: queersatanic.com
TLDR: TST is run by two guys who are suing 4 former members for criticism on Facebook. They’re also suing news sites for even reporting on this. The leaders of TST are big babies that keep refiling the lawsuit to drain the defendants of money.
Well that’s troubling. Yeah I’m a TST member (my username + .com gives some background, if interested) so I’ll have to keep checking on this and how it develops. Followed them on Twitter.
Yea, I’m not a member, but I saw a queer artist in Seattle handing out these zines and skimmed it. Super bummed about it because TST seems so good work otherwise.
Heyo yee. When I met my partner 14 years ago at a rave they were wearing a cat hat, and I had a fox hat and tail on. I got to know them better and realized…. They have proclivities. Then we went on a “date” that I said wasn’t a date, and they had their sketchbook in their bag. Some heady yerfing stuff… I instantly was in love. We’re married now. I wish the same experience for you.
I lack reading comprehension up to the point where I may be illiterate: it took me one fucking day to understand your message. You don’t want this. Hell, I don’t even want this, but I’m stuck with myself. Get out while you still can.
O hey. Idk if my first message didn’t show the right nuance of red on the flag, or maybe it didn’t completely send the “turn back now, I’m literally brain dead” idea. So anyway, here’s a second message.
Honestly would respond to that kind of self-deprecating humor. Unless I found out they were always putting themselves down, in which case it’s not really humor, just depressing and sad.
I’ve tried to figure out what’s with it having a forward-facing anus (was it a belly-button?) until my time ran out. So there it is, an irregularly placed cat anus. I believe your gods would torment you for accidentally starting my furry porn artist career.
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