The one type of relationship that all women definitely aren't swiping for
In the Tinder generation, casual sex is a mere swipe away. But fast-swiping hasn't killed the romance of dating, nor has it replaced it with a casual hookup culture.
Turns out that friends-with-benefits relationships and one-night hookups are actually the least desired types of relationship sought on dating apps, according to the largest ever international sex and tech survey.
The study -- conducted by female health app Clue and the Kinsey Institute -- surveyed 140,000 women from a broad spectrum of sexual identities in 198 countries about the impact of technology in their sex lives, dating habits and sexual education.
AdultFriendFinder — readers’ pick for casual connections
Hinge — popular choice for regular meetups
30 percent of respondents said they used apps to find some form of sexual partner.
Rather surprisingly, the results show that people seem to be more interested in finding love than finding lust. Out of a possible of five different types of relationships, more people wanted to find steady relationships over a fleeting fling.
The survey showed that a friends-with-benefits arrangement is the least sought-after relationship for dating app users. Only 8.1 percent of respondents said they'd used an app to find a friends-with-benefits relationship, where there's "no romantic connection, but regular/frequent sex". And, 10 percent said they'd been swiping for one-night stands or hookups.
Meanwhile, 15 percent of those surveyed said they used apps for long-term relationships and 14.9 percent said they'd been looking for short-term relationships, like a string of meetings or dates. And 11.5 percent have used dating apps for chatting and sexting with no real plan to meet up in person. Sounds a bit like breadcrumbing.
But is this study indicative of what most daters are looking for? Publicist and online dater Holly Forrest says she's used dating apps to find friends-with-benefits in the past. "I've had a few successful friends with benefits situations come through Bumble which was fun," says Forrest. She says in those situations it was all outlined before the first date and felt "contractual".
She feels there's a pretty dominant hookup culture on apps. "On dating apps it seems to be a sea full of one-night-wonders, rather than someone who is interested to get to know you as a person," says Forrest.
PR manager Diana Villegas says it "really depends on where someone is in life". "When I started using tinder I wasn't looking for anything long-term. Afterwards that changed," says Villegas. She has a point.
Online daters should take heart, nonetheless. Dating apps aren't all about hookups and casual sex, and it looks like people are still out there looking for love.
There's hope for all of us yet.
Topics Tinder
Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.
A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.
Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.
