Comments

1
"I didn't feel like I could be myself, and I didn't believe anybody else's self-portraits either."

Shocker that your app failed. Then again, trying to attract investors to an app which went out of its way to prevent you from meeting someone in the name of art may have had something to do with it.
2
While I'm not sure how much their app actually influenced any other, I am still disappointed to read that it's being shut down. That said, I never got around to actually signing up for it, and opted to reactivate my OKCupid profile instead.
3
@2

Well, you have three days left to check it out.
4
@1 I don't think the issue was "prevent[ing] you from meeting someone in the name of art".

The basic idea of Siren was great, and for me it worked really well.

I think a big part of what sunk them was their poor, buggy, app. Their iOS app was, until a couple of months ago, awful. Even more recently it was still not great, but definitely better. A friend of mine said the Android version was even worse: unusable, was how she phrased it.
5
These women have consistently conflated the very valuable properties of their app such as respectful, safe, and woman-friendly with thinly-veiled casual-sex-negativity like "relationship-friendly" and "genuine conversations". Tinder isn't a safe place for women compared to Siren, but that isn't because Tinder isn't "relationship-friendly", it's because men are assholes and get away with it. There are surely women that sometimes have abuse-free casual sex experiences on Tinder and there are surely women who avoid things like Tinder at all costs who end up in abusive relationships, "genuine conversations" or not. This terrible conflation plays right into the anti-feminist idea that sexual abuse and harassment by men has to do with the specious men want sex, and particularly casual sex more than women do; while women want serious relationships more than men do.
6
@5 I don't think relationship-friendly and genuine conversations are sex negative at all. Good relationships and genuine interest in the other person enhance sex in my experience. They know at least a bit of what you want, and you know what they want, and you want to give each other lots of pleasure because you like them, and are invested, and you have trust to totally be yourself, and maybe try some risky things. It doesn't even have to be a romantic relationship, just one you place some value in. There are lots of times when my friends and I want to have just casual no-strings-sex, when we don't have the time or interest to start and maintain a good relationship. When our lives are utterly cluttered with work and research, a relationship is just one more demand when we're already feeling: "Everyone makes demands, it's very EXHAUSTING!" We prefer FWBs, because it is safer. Tinder might offer variety and excitement, but you really have to be careful since you don't know who you're hooking up with, and having to take caution is another demand to deal with!

Often when women, especially those who've just ended a LTR, will want to be free and unattached for at least a while, but not give up sex, so Tinder is a good option, if they don't have a FWB. And after divorces, it seems that the men will get remarried or start a serious relationship sooner than the women - more women than men in hetero relationships opt to never remarry, and in the whole they seem less bitter about their failed relationships. Of course this is only my experience, based on the divorced men and women I know and have talked to, and all the ugly crap I see online with the self-proclaimed-perpetual-victims MRAs. I guess some will claim that this is because women have a harder time getting men interested in marriage. I don't know if this is true in general or not. Our experience is that marriage and serious relationships tend to be more work and more restrictive than being single - the unending mutual decision making, the guilt when you have to go on field work for several months, the expectations that you spend more time with the other person than with all your other friends and family. I'm not saying it's not worthwhile, but you have to really love the other person, and it is hard to give up that freedom of just doing what you want. Many hetero men don't feel the same pressure to give up at least a little of what they do once they're in a serious relationship - like their workaholic tendencies, their high ambitions, or their bros! Yet they have expectations that their partners do.

I don't know anything about Siren, but I think these women were some of the organizers of a Women's Conference I was at . They did a good job, the workshops were interesting and informative, and afterwards we had a flash-mob dance, and ALL the women attendees joined in to dance. It was great fun. I've attended many MANY conferences, this was the only women's conference I've been to, and it was the first time I've seen that happen. I don't think they're uptight or sex negative. Those people don't seem to have much fun - it's a sin, or something.

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