566 - More Than a Numbers Game: Dating Truths from Feeld's Data Team
Welcome, Sy and Alexandra!
We’re thrilled to welcome Sy Dusk and Alexandra Kilpatrick from Feeld for this episode! Sy is a data analyst and Alexandra is head of UX Research at Feeld, and they have joined us to talk about the data from OPEN’s non-monogamy research study that was sponsored by Feeld and Multiamory. The survey asked about everything from relationship structures and dating preferences to challenges, identity labels, and how people actually conduct their relationships, and the overwhelming majority of survey respondents–89%--have used or currently use dating apps, and 42% (the plurality) currently use Feeld. You can find the results of the survey here. Additionally, find Feeld’s data blog here if you’re curious about more of their data insights!
Sy uses data to shine a light on the nuances of desire, identity, and culture. They specialize in sexuality, relationships, and dating. Sy is currently a data analyst at Feeld working on creating an unparalleled experience for non-monogamous daters.
Alexandra is the Head of UXR at Feeld, where she has worked for the past year and a half. She has an academic background in Digital Anthropology, and prior to Feeld, researched identity information in virtual worlds such as the Metaverse. Often collaborating with academics, her work brings big-picture cultural insight into how people date, connect, and explore sexuality. She cares deeply about the duty of care for members and about conducting research ethically, responsibly, and with genuine respect for the communities Feeld serves.
Sy and Alexandra cover a broad range of questions and topics over this episode. Some are posed by Sy, some by Multiamory, and some by Multiamory listeners:
Why is Feeld interested in this kind of data at all? How does it change their approach to making a dating app?
What is the most important thing we have learned about non-monogamous folks from data?
Feeld Finding Summary:
CNM daters value independence - 70% use individual profiles vs shared/linked.
Solo poly folks 10x more likely to use individual profiles.
Swingers are the only group preferring shared/linked.
46.1% prioritize one partner despite non-hierarchical ideals.
People mostly looking for connections for themselves (24% sexual, 23% romantic) vs with a partner.
"When respondents were asked how many romantic and/or sexual partners they had, about 75% percent were in the 2-4 range, with 3 being the most common. It makes me wonder about how entangled each of those relationships are and if we have any data on that from other research? Anecdotally, it seems like 2 more entangled partners and 1 slightly more casual/sexual partner is a pretty common setup, but maybe my perception is biased by my own experiences."
In the study we saw a lot of interesting results about identity labels. What labels do NM people choose, and how do they relate to NM practice?
Feeld Finding Summary:
No universally agreed-upon umbrella terms.
When forced to choose one label, most pick "poly" (24%) or "ENM/CNM" (18%)
Some labels are "sticky" - swingers, RA, monogamish, solo poly folks stick with those labels.
100+ different identity write-ins including: Parallel Poly, rejection of "ethical" qualifier, Ambiamory, Mono-Poly, Ace/Aro spectrum, "Swolly/Swoly" (swingers with emotional connections).
Feeld has changed the way people specify their identities and what they are looking for quite a bit over the years. Can you give us a little background on that change and what has influenced the changes in terms?
How do you plan to update or improve queer labels to both better represent relationship and identity labels without overwhelming users with choices that could feel redundant and would increase the noisiness of the categorical data?
What have you learned about relationship networks? Are there a lot of polycules out there? How are they configured, what do they look like?
Feeld Finding Summary: 75% have 2-4 partners, with 3 being most common.
On a future episode I'm hoping to dive into some more analysis of dating trends from this study, but there is something interesting I noticed from the data: 66.9% of respondents said they had started a new romantic relationship within the past year, but only 50.3% said they had ended a romantic relationship in the same time frame. Looking at that on its own, it seems like everyone's number of partners will just continue to increase! Or, another way to look at it could be that the missing 16.6% had a break up and also stopped being non-mono? What comes to your mind when you look at those numbers?
Is there any data out there about attrition from CNM? I feel like anecdotally, we have all dated people who tried CNM for a while and eventually decided against it, but is there any real data on that?
What is the average number of partners in a constellation on the app? Does that change by gender/sexuality?
I'm curious about how the data looks after relationships end and how that affects other members of the constellation. I'm curious if one relationship ending tends to have a cascade effect which causes other relationships to end/ change and if that is shown.
How does in-app activity differ when controlling for the number of relationships? Are people with more linked partners more active on the app?
How does CNM practice look different at different stages of life?
Feeld Finding Summary:
86% have been CNM for 2+ years, 54% for 5+ years, 25% for 10+ years.
Average respondent age is 39.
Median age when starting CNM is 29 (wide range from late teens to 50s-60s).
RA folks start youngest (median 26), Swingers start oldest (median 38).
More-experienced respondents cite CNM awakenings happening once they found language and community.
What does the data say about the most pressing challenges for NM folks?
Feeld Finding Summary:
45% rate lack of community access as moderate/severe stressor - top stressor after fear of discrimination.
Dating app users slightly more likely to report this stress, possibly why they joined apps in the first place.
Anecdotally I've always heard/experienced that typically guys just aren't putting in the effort but I've never seen a good stat for it. I'm curious what proportion of male/masc profiles have 5 words or less? What about female/femme/nonbinary?
If I swipe left on someone now, I never see them again. In reality, our polycules could entirely change in 6 months, our capacity could shift, or our preferences could change. Is there a reason I can’t bring back a profile I may have rejected previously?
Transcript
If you find any transcription errors, please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Alexandra: For every study that we do, we have that Gen Z versus non-Gen Z perspective. And the differences are wild, and they just can't be underestimated. I mean, they range from everything from like different mental models of how people actually physically interact with the dating app. I think sober culture is another kind of rising trend that we really need to account for. But also anxiety, loneliness and kind of fears around monogamy, but this desire from monogamy and a lot of the anxiety that sits around that, but also this desire to explore elsewhere. There's lots of different data points. And then as we kind of came out of Gen Z, we kind of moved away from this desire for monogamy. So the differences range from everything from actual interaction in tech to lifestyle choices, to different anxieties, to kind of different yearnings and desires. You know, there's a myriad of things and we have to keep our eye on all of them.
Jase: Welcome to the Multiamory Podcast. I'm Jase.
Emily: I'm Emily.
Dedeker: And I'm Dedeker.
Emily: We believe in looking to the future of relationships, not maintaining the status quo of the past.
Dedeker: Whether you're monogamous, polyamorous, swinging, casually dating, or if you just do relationships differently, we see you and we're here for you.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're diving into data with our special guests from Feeld, Sy Dusk, who is a data analyst, and Alexandra Kilpatrick, who is head of UX research at Feeld. Sy and Alexandra helped to analyze some of the data from our co-sponsored research study on the consensual non-monogamy community. If you listened to last week's episode, you will have heard a lot more about that. And today we're going to explore what the data reveals about how consensually non-monogamous folks date, what labels mean and don't mean, how polycules are actually configured, and some of the biggest challenges and frustrations facing our community. So to give a quick recap for those of you who haven't listened to last week's episode, or maybe you have and you just want a quick reminder, there was a survey done by Open, that was actually a real peer reviewed study that was done by Dr. Amy Moors, and that was co-sponsored by Multiamory and Feeld, and we got responses from almost 6,000 people, the largest study of non-monogamous people to date, that are consensually non-monogamous. The overwhelming majority of respondents, around 89%, have used or currently use dating apps, and the plurality of those currently use Feeld, which is why we're so excited to be able to talk more about the data that we got from that. And then the survey was pretty in-depth. A lot of you you in the audience took it, so we're excited to be able to share that data back with you. And it covered everything from relationship structures and dating preferences to challenges, identities, labels, how people conduct their relationship. And if you want to read more about that and also get links to the full report, as well as there are some future updates and additions that Open is going to be putting out with Dr. Amy that you can find@multiamory.com/study. That will give you a link to that, and from there you can link off to the open page, and you can find all of the in-depth information there. So with that, Sy and Alexandra, thank you so much for joining us today.
Sy: Thanks for having us.
Jase: So to start off, let's just cover why we're even doing this. So why was Feeld interested in data? Why does Feeld care about data? I guess let's start there.
Sy: Well, we say at Feeld that data is the voice of our members at scale. And so there's a lot you can understand about people's individual experiences, and Alexandra can speak more to that. But what I love about working with data at Feeld is that you're really taking the multitude of experiences that so many different people have on the app, and you're crafting it into a story and a mental model and a picture that can be really, really useful for research, for design, and ultimately for, you know, building a product that comes back and serves the rest of the community.
Alexandra: From a qualitative research perspective, data is like the, it's our radar. It gives us an early warning signal so we can see kind of peaks of activity behaviors that are happening at scale. And it gives us directionality in terms of understanding the why. So it highlights trends that we wanna dig into and understand what was the behavior, the motivation behind the fluctuations in the data that we're seeing. So we work hand in glove. And UX research really takes its cue from data and kind of points us in the right direction. And we kind of really hit that sweet spot when quant and qual are working together in harmony. That's when we get our best results. So we work together on a lot of large projects.
Dedeker: So to start to dive into this, I imagine it might be hard to pick out like what is the most important thing that you feel like you've learned from looking at this particular data set that we collected. But like where would you start is like at the top of that list?
Sy: I think the most important thing that I personally learned was that there are as many ways of practicing non-monogamy as there are people. And there was just such a huge variety of responses that we got. The community is not a monolith, not even close. And then within the context of dating as well, I think the biggest thing that stood out to me is that most of our respondents are interested in dating as individuals, actually. Maybe contrary to popular stereotypes about non monogamous folk, actually 70% of our respondents in the survey who are on dating apps use individual profiles and are looking as individuals.
Emily: I wanted to speak on that because when I saw that, I was really surprised because back in the day, gosh, almost 12 years ago when I was using OkCupid, I remember linking to Jase's profile and I remember Dedeker linking to her partner's profile.
Dedeker: Okay, but hold on. If you recall, if you recall back in the day, like, oh, Okay, Cupid back then didn't have an official linking mechanism built into their app. You had to do this workaround where you sort of hyperlinked to somebody else's profile within your own profile.
Jase: This was way back in the day.
Dedeker: Yeah, you had to do all this hacky stuff.
Emily: But to me, that was kind of a way in which to show, okay, I am non-monogamous and here's a partner if you want to check them out. But this really shocked me because I was like, oh, okay, I guess that's not cool anymore. People aren't doing that. They're deciding, I'm just be my own individual entity, and therefore you have to look at me first before, you know, I even show you my partners or before they become part of the discussion as well.
Jase: Actually, I'm curious to ask a little clarification on that. So that, you know, there's the option of making one profile that's for both or multiple people. Usually it's two people, right? You can have two people on one profile in the app, which is the thing that we're seeing less of. And I do think that's, you know, A little bit moved out of fashion. I feel like there used to be.
Emily: A lot more of that.
Jase: Just anecdotally for me. But I'm curious, from Feeld, if you have this data of, does that also mean that people aren't even linking to indicate that I have a partner or partners?
Emily: 'Cause mine is linked to my partner. But I guess it's not the cool.
Sy: Thing to do anymore.
Dedeker: Emily, you're so hung up on whether it's cool or not.
Emily: Yeah, no, I don't know. I was really shocked at 70%. I'm like, Whoa, I am so behind the times.
Sy: You know, I don't think it's a matter of like how cool or not cool it is. What we see on Feeld is that the people who tend to share a profile tend to be looking together. And so like swingers, for example, are disproportionately more likely to share a single profile. That being said, being able to link individual profiles together on Feeld, we call it a constellation, that is three to four times more popular than sharing an individual profile.
Jase: Got it. That makes sense. That tracks with my experience.
Dedeker: Yeah, so to understand, like, so people who have, like, a shared profile, they're more likely to be swingers. And then the constellation feature where we can kind of, like, link to multiple individual profiles is, like, second most popular. And then most popular is people still just having an individual solo profile.
Sy: Yeah, so it really depends on your flavor of non-monogamy. And we saw that in this study as well. So respondents who labeled themselves as solo poly were ten times more likely to use an individual profile than a linked or a shared profile compared to other flavors of non-monogamy only really being, you know, two to three times more likely to use an individual profile. The only group that really is more likely to use a shared profile than an individual one is swingers.
Alexandra: I think having the kind of nuance in the data that Sy talked about has been really exciting for us because it allows us to take a step back and look at the features and affordances that we've built based on kind of less information a while ago. So now we've got this nuance, we've got a new lens to actually assess what we've been doing for a while and see where maybe we've been hitting the mark and missing the mark and understanding kind of what is cool, what is common parlance, how are people actually behaving? And it allows us to take a bit more of a forensic view. On what we're creating for people. So it's going to stimulate a lot of new thinking about how we support this segment on the app.
Dedeker: Well, I want to ask about the constellations feature and what you found. So you publish a fantastic data science blog that's all about this. And so I want to direct people to go check out Feeld's data science blog about this. But once you added this feature of being able to let people link to each other, I'm really curious about what were like the polycule trends that emerged from what you saw?
Sy: Oh, it's a great question. The data blog is called Uncharted Territory, and the piece that I did is called Polymath.
Sy: We're big fans of nerdy math puns.
Jase: We're big fans of puns and portmanteau on this show. So yeah, you're in good company.
Sy: Love it. When this Constellations feature launched, I had this opportunity to do this deep dive on a data set that frankly no one else has. Like I love working on data at Feeld because we have the most interesting and unique data set on non-monogamy of anyone in the entire world. And it's at scale too. And so I took a kind of network analysis approach to understanding the kind of shapes and topology of relationship networks that people form on Feeld. And on Feeld you can sort of set up your constellation where you pair your individual profile with up to five other profiles, and you can add a little relationship label to that pairing as well. And it can be a partner label, it can be dating, it can also be a friend label or a metamour as well. So there's a lot of flexibility there. And what I really learned from looking at the topology of the way people kind of structure these constellations is that first of all are many, many different shapes and configurations and ways of connecting. But also there's one style of polycule or relationship network that is really the most common. So if you take an example of three people who are connected together in relationship in some way, there's sort of two ways that that can look. One is like a triad or a throuple. Where every single person in the group, all three of them, are connected with everyone else in the group. And then there's also a sort of chain structure where there's one person who's connected to two other people, but those two people themselves are not connected. Maybe they're metamorphs, they're not directly in relationship with each other. And what we found is that when you look at three-person groups, four-person groups, five-person groups even and above, the most common type of structure, 82% of them, are these chain structures rather than fully connected dense networks where everyone is dating everyone or there's a kind of high amount of saturation to those linkages. And so what this says is that the majority of people in constellations on Feeld are, you know, maxing out at like one, maybe two connected partners on the app, and maybe because they're on Feeld, probably are looking to date or add in a third. And this was kind of the first, to my knowledge, quantitative empirical sense of poly saturation, the idea of like how many partners you can kind of sustainably keep in your life and want to have. And that number seems to kind of float around, you know, between one and three. And that's the kind of stuff that we can learn from looking at these, you know, really interesting network patterns that aren't really visible necessarily maybe to an individual, but when you kind of zoom out and look at the data and its totality, you can see those patterns and those connections emerge.
Dedeker: So you're saying we have a scientifically validated set point for polysaturation, like it's official.
Sy: I think this is probably the first indicator that we've seen in the numbers that's probably not self-reported, which is really cool.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Jase: Yeah. And I also feel vindicated that this tracks with our experience just from talking with our audience and doing this for so many years that we've kind of always said that, but we didn't have the data to back it up. So I love that you were able to share that. 82% number where we've often said, yeah, it's not these group relationships, despite the fact that any media coverage at all is pretty much exclusively those sorts of three or four person all together configurations. And so, you know, we've always said, no, it's actually much more interlocking dyads, and it's great to have that backed up with research. So we were right all along.
Sy: Yes. That being said, there are some configurations where I kind of call them almost like a hub and spoke sort of model where there is one person in the network who is really central and kind of keeps the whole network together. And those hub members are far more likely to be sexually flexible. So for example, bisexual, pansexual or queer, and they're far more likely to be women as well. It's really, yes, up to 300% more likely actually to be bisexual women. And so, yeah, in the community of really is flexible bisexual, pansexual women who are the kind of glue holding these constellations and these relationship networks together.
Jase: Wow.
Emily: I feel like that's very different than the narrative as well that a lot of people in the media might think of like, sort of a male cult leader type person that all of these different women are glommed on to, but that's not the case at all. I love it.
Dedeker: It's actually lady cult leaders.
Emily: There you go. That's the reality that's happening here.
Jase: Yeah, that's interesting because at first when you started talking about that, it made me think about some data that came out years ago about social media in general and also, I think even not on social media, but just general social connections that there tend to be certain people who function as hubs that have more friends than other people and tend to be the connectors between others. And so I thought it was just going to go that direction in general that there's just naturally certain people who tend to be those hubs, but then to put it in that romantic and sexual context and to kind of see, oh, no, it's specifically bisexual women or pansexual women that function as that glue. That's really interesting. That's a different take than I was expecting.
Sy: We have to give them their flowers.
Dedeker: Well, it also connects to like the friendship paradox, right? Like this idea that like on average your friends have more friends than you do, right? Because it's like the people who are like big popular extroverts who have a lot of friends are more likely to be in more people's friend groups. And so it's more likely that like you know someone who does know more friends than you do. And so it's like one of those things.
Jase: That's the one I was thinking of.
Dedeker: Yeah, there's like this parallel that like on average your partner probably has more partners than you do. Which seems like it would be impossible, but.
Sy: One of the beautiful things that really emerged also from this same piece on constellations is that you yourself as an individual, you have partners, and those partners may also have other partners who are your metamours that you may or may not know. And they're sort of like first-degree metamours. But if you continue that logic out and think about the partners of partners of partners of partners, you can have sort of second and third degree metamores and even further out. And what we saw on Feeld is that actually some of these relationship chains and networks extend so far that you yourself might have a 10th degree metamore who's a partner of a partner of a partner that you might not even know. And in some really beautiful examples, we saw that this can actually bridge and transcend all types of relationship structures, including like marriages and also sexualities. And so I saw one example of a relationship network where, you know, on one end of the network, you have gay men who are in relationship together, and that sort of moves through a bisexual man, which moves into women, and moves into more like gender queer folks. And so you have gender queer people, non-binary people, trans folk, women, gay men, straight people, bisexual people, all in the same network, just removed by, you know, one or two or maybe three degrees of separation.
Jase: Fascinating.
Dedeker: Yeah, that's so interesting to think about it in that way. I'm curious, Alexandra, you mentioned something earlier about how it's so valuable to look at these insights and try to figure out, okay, where are we already hitting the mark and where are we not hitting the mark? And so just looking at this particular corner of all the ways that people connect with each other and the constellations, are you able to share a little bit of at least high profile, the sense of where you feel like Feeld has been hitting the mark with serving this particular population versus where you think things might need to be shifted or adjusted?
Alexandra: Yeah, I think if we take a step back historically, I think we were the first app that was serving this population in a meaningful way, full stop. So I think we started to really speak to the needs of an audience that was being ignored by other dating apps. So that that in itself was a really strong beginning point. Obviously, Constellations was born out of that. And I think, just listening to Sy talking through the data again and the layers of complexity, I think the features and offering itself offers a lot of promise, but we now need to kind of revisit that and think about layering in this nuance and how we can make that deliver to this degree of complexity that Sy's talking about. And I want to be really clear, I think we've done some things kind of spectacularly well. I think we deeply cherish this audience, you know, people who are exploring non-traditional relationship structures are our torchbearers. They made Feeld what it is, and they kind of ease the path for other people. But we really are at the beginning of this journey of deeper understanding. And like I said, we've got this kind of radar signal that actually we haven't been speaking to the degrees of complexity. And now Sy's kind of teed us up. I'll be working with my team to actually walk in the shoes of these people, do really detailed research with them, and actually listen to their kind of lived embodied experience. And that's everything from kind of one-to-one interviews and more kind of longitudinal studies where we actually get to sit on the shoulder of new users and kind of watch people navigate through the app and kind of explore it and tell us what's good and bad about the experience. So, you know, I think big picture, the deep care and respect for this member base is there, but we're, you know, we're really at this really great inflection point where we can lean in and start doing a lot more. So, you know, we're extremely excited about the kind of follow-up research that will come from Sy's work. So we're at the beginning of another journey. One of the other kind of really big challenges that we have is kind of this dual track audience that we have. Obviously, there are people, you know, that have been exploring alternative relationship structures, you know, other aspects of sexuality that are deemed to be for a really long time. They're quite confident. They used to be, tackling some of the kind of the scrutiny that they may be under from general society. So we've got this circle, we call them the torch bearers, this audience that are kind of leading the way. Because of societal shifts, we've got so many people that are just dipping their toe in the water for the very first time. And they're deeply curious about what's on offer. They're really starting to question the status quo and they want to try new things. So we have to design features and affordances with this kind of dual track in mind. So how do we keep delivering for the people that made us what we are whilst also creating this very safe space for people to go on journeys of discovery? And what we see is that the kind of learners, the kind of needs they are using the broader community and more experienced people as a kind of mirror to learn from all the time. And we're trying to kind of help them get there a little bit faster because quite often they'll spend months and months in the community and suddenly have these insights about themselves. And we want to give them the support structure to get there faster. So yeah, it's the beginnings of a huge amount of new research for us.
Dedeker: No, that makes a lot of sense. And yeah, that also reflects, I know the challenges that we run into in producing this show over the years is the same thing, right? Is that by the time that we started the show in 2014, there were already the torchbearers that existed, people who had been doing this and living this way, even at a very particular, different social time and cultural time, But then it is kind of funny that, yeah, as we make content, that it's always trying to find a way how to serve those people who are the torchbearers while also not completely alienating the people who are coming in to explore and are trying to figure things out about themselves and then how to care for those people without totally boring the people who are like super experienced. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, can raise that.
Alexandra: Very similar set of challenges for us.
Dedeker: Yeah.
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Emily: So I want to shift gears just a little bit and go back to talking about labels, because Sy, you were talking about this a bit before that there are so many different labels that people use for their non monogamy in general. So can you talk about what some of those were and kind of how those labels specifically relate to the practices of non monogamy that people are choosing to do?
Sy: Yeah. We did something really interesting in this survey, which is that we asked people to multi-select whatever non-monogamy label they identified with, and they could select as many as they want. And then in a follow-up question, we asked them to choose just one. And in the first question, most people actually responded with like four or even more choices. Yeah, it's a big, you know, it's a big ask to boil that down into just one.
Dedeker: Yes, non-monogamous people don't want to have to pick just one ever in any situation.
Sy: And so what we learned from that in the first instance is that there obviously are a lot of label choices that people identify with and that overlap in some degree. And what we learned from asking people to narrow it down to just one umbrella term is how those multiple labels get folded into just a single one. And it turns out that As you might expect, you know, labels like poly, ENM, CNM, even relationship anarchy are the most popular umbrella or single choice labels that people make. However, what was surprising to me is that not all flavors of non monogamous folks pick those labels equally as their umbrella term. So what we saw in the survey is that there's a bit of a divided preference for poly, versus ENM or CNM as umbrella labels. We had variations of poly folks such as like kitchen table, garden party, and then also kink and fetish respondents and triads or throuples were most likely to choose the poly umbrella. But swingers, monogamish, open respondents were more likely to choose ENM or CNM as their umbrella label of choice rather than poly.
Jase: Right, and that makes sense. That tracks, and I think It's interesting to me though that if you think about in terms of nesting umbrella terms, right, that there's a lot of things that fall underneath polyamory, right? Like you mentioned, all the different sort of kitchen table, parallel, garden party, all that sort of thing. But then all of that's underneath ENM, CNM in terms of just how we use these umbrella terms. So it's interesting that for certain categories, they're more likely to go for the larger umbrella, And then there's these other things that kind of pick the smaller umbrella of polyamory underneath that. Even though I would say if polyamory weren't a choice, those people would probably end up picking CNM or ENM as theirs. So it's kind of interesting to see, like, you're trying to find the smallest umbrella that still feels like it covers all of what you do is kind of how people might be approaching that type of label selection.
Sy: Absolutely. And some flavors of non-monogamous folks prefer to hold on to more niche labels as well, even in a single select response, rather than going for a more generic, you know, sort of like poly kind of thing. And like, for example, we saw swingers do that quite a bit, really standing by the swinger label rather than switching over to poly, ENM, CNM as an umbrella term. Right, makes sense. One interesting thing about labels too, and I want to reference a prior study that we did at Feeld about relationship anarchy is that although a lot of folks don't necessarily choose that label for themselves, when you actually ask them about how they build their relationships and what principles that they have, it turns out that they really are following relationship anarchist principles.
Dedeker: Oh, interesting.
Sy: And yeah, so we did a previous study where we asked folks, hey, you know, do you use the relationship anarchy label? And of the people who said, no, we don't, we then gave them the definition of relationship anarchy, which is bucking with societal expectations of how relationships should be structured. It's about kind of defying the relationship escalator. It's about creating relationships on a kind of personal one-to-one basis based on, you know, the needs that you and your partner have. And we asked them, do you do those things? And they said, oh yeah, actually we do do those things. And we've actually been doing those things. 50% of people who said they don't practice relationship anarchy did say, that they do have those practices in their relationships. And so even, you know, just asking a simple question like a, you know, checkbox, do you identify with this label or not, doesn't always capture really the full nuance of the practices that people in the community already have and are living with.
Dedeker: We got a lot of listener questions around labeling, right? Because I think there's been a history of this among like multiple dating apps over the course of the past what I'd say like 15 years or so that like when we go back in the day, like the available not only relationship labels, but also like sexuality, gender identity labels that are available are like pretty light on the ground, right? And then eventually like more and more dating apps start to get with the times and start to add like more options or voice for their, for their users to identify and to self categorize and things like that. And we got a couple of listener questions around How do you resolve the tension between wanting to continue to improve labeling, right? Improve the options for your users, whether that's about sexuality, gender, relationship, preferred relationship style, things like that. The tension between wanting to improve that and add more versus not wanting to overwhelm and end up with a list of 55, 100 different labels because we're trying to be so granular and appeal to absolutely everybody. Like, what's the thought process on that?
Alexandra: This really speaks to another huge project that we're running at the moment, which is revisiting the wording behind our desire tags. So one of the things that makes us unique is obviously we offer up tags that allow people to signal relationship types they're interested in or different kinks. And it is a really, really big challenge for us and it is a cross-functional challenge. So we'll have UX writers, we'll have data analysts, we'll have designers at scale. Where then do qualitative research. But the project that we've just done actually went out to 5,000 members and non-members and used like a generative approach to get them to share the tags that they thought should be in the app. And then we have to put that through another analysis to try and boil down so we capture the nuance and meaning, but that we don't have this absolutely exhaustive list that kind of makes matching and connecting people through those tags impossible. I think it's one of the nuttiest design challenges that we have. And I think as well, if we get it wrong, we risk making people invisible. We risk alienating people, certain practices. You know, one of the big things that came up was like how we speak to different power dynamics using our tags. That's a challenge we're going to be working on for the next few months, and it's not simple, and it's a big one for us. But, Si, I don't know if you, Yeah, I had anything to add to that, but it's a big one for us.
Sy: When we look at Feeld profiles, we see that a lot of people use the free text space of their bio to really elaborate on all of the details of their non-monogamous situation. And one thing I've noticed is that it tends to not be as label driven as practice driven. And so there's almost like a nuts and bolts aspect to, you know, when you're looking for new connections to kind of describe what sort of rules you have in place, for yourself and for partners, like, you know, what sort of contract you're looking for with someone else. Are you dating together with a partner? Are you dating separately? That kind of information tends to come through as more important even than just throwing a label down by itself.
Dedeker: Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask about, like, 'cause what you shared about what you found with the relationship anarchy label is that there's almost like this, maybe this is overstating it, but like this, quote unquote, like invisible population, let's say, where it's like, if I'm very hung up on like, I identify as relationship anarchists and I only want to connect with other people who also identify as relationship anarchist, and so I'm dependent on any other profile that I want to match with, also using that particular label when there's actually this whole population that's maybe invisible to me of people who would align with my values and my relationship practice, but because they haven't necessarily attached that label, then it's like ships passing in the night on a population level.
Jase: Yeah, like an over reliance on labels can lead us to miss people who might actually have more aligned values than we realize.
Sy: I think there's one interesting thing that I think about too, which is that labels are really circumscribed by your identity in other areas as well. So one interesting example from the Constellations network research that I did is that I looked at the symmetry of labels between people and how they label their profiles. So if I connect my profile in a constellation with someone else on Feeld, I put a label onto that relationship, and then they independently put a label onto that relationship too. And it turns out that, you know, in 90% of cases, actually 90%, that's not a made up number, 90% of cases, the labels are symmetrical, which is great. But I did look at cases where they weren't symmetrical as well. And there was one case that kind of stood out to me that I thought was really interesting, where we had a larger network, and within that, there were two men connected to each other. One was a heteroflexible man and a bisexual man. And the heteroflexible man had put the label friend on their relationship. And the bisexual man had put the label friends with benefits on their relationship. And I think that's a good example of how sexuality and gender can really circumscribe and determine the labels that we choose for ourselves and for our relationships.
Jase: Absolutely. I think that too. I mean, going back to the early days of this podcast, I remember at the time there were a lot of people who, for whatever reason, I think having to do with some press that had been around recently, were kind of feeling less attracted to the label polyamorous or poly. Like that kind of had a negative vibe for a little while. And so a lot of people were moving to relationship anarchy or the other way of saying, oh, just I'm non-monogamous or I'm poly. Ethically non-monogamous, which was kind of more popular back then. And then we saw this shift a few years later where now, I'll put this bluntly, a lot of kind of irresponsible fuckboys started using the label relationship anarchist to just mean, I don't want to care about anyone or like have any responsibility for anyone that I'm trying to have sex with. And so then that label became tainted, or it became something that people didn't want to use. And so there was this move away from that. To using polyamory again. And so it's just been interesting to see how those trends change. And also that really varies by your community, by how deep in this community you are, how sensitive you are to those articles coming out, and also varies a lot by country or geography of where you live too.
Sy: I really want to shout out the survey respondents because looking through some of the free responses, just the amount of care and consideration and nuance and thought that you all are giving to these questions. How to relate to your partners, how to ensure that there's fairness, how to ensure that there's equity in all the different relationships that you have really, really came through in those comments. We got a lot of comments that were like, you know, the different relationships in my life are just different, but I try to commit to mutual care as much as possible. Even though relationships look really different for different people. So our survey respondents really have these questions about how to do relationship anarchy, how to do non-monogamy well. And they're really thinking through these issues very deeply in a lot of cases.
Dedeker: Right.
Jase: Yeah, absolutely.
Dedeker: Now, in mining through the data, what were the trends that you noticed as far as what non-traditional relationship practice looks like at different stages of life? Both the journey, right? So as in the people who kind of have their awakening versus the people who, you know, like you call them the torch bearers who are very experienced and also curious about just different stages of life as well, right? Of kind of what we're seeing as far as average ages when people get into this or things like that. Like what are the trends that you noticed?
Sy: It's a great question. So on Feeld, one thing that we noticed is that non-monogamous daters, are on average about five years older than the general dating pool. And what that, yeah, it is interesting because, you know, what it tells me is that a non-monogamous dating practice might be something that you tend to grow into that you experience while you're already on a dating journey. It's not that you enter the dating world already with a sort of pre-formed practice or stance or kind of ideology about non-monogamy. It's something that you actually might come to over time. And that's also sort of related to the labels that people choose as well. We saw in the survey data that certain labels are more popular with certain age groups. So for example, Swinger as a label choice was associated with some of the oldest age groups in the study, whereas Poly, Kitchen Table, Garden Party were more intermediate. And relationship anarchy was one of the kind of youngest labels that people chose. And that might say something about stage of life or age. It might also say something about generational shifts too. And we'd love to be able to do kind of more longitudinal studies to be able to understand that and tease apart that distinction more clearly.
Jase: Yeah, absolutely. That's something that I'm particularly proud of on our multiamory.com/study page where I did my own analysis of some of the data that we had where I looked at, because people in the survey put down their age, and then they also put down how long they had been practicing non-monogamy. And so by looking at that, I was able to get kind of an estimate of when they started their non-monogamy journey. And, you know, it's not perfect because maybe they started and stopped and there's a lot of other factors, but at least gives us kind of a proxy for when they may have started that. And looking at that starting age was really interesting because the median age for starting a non-monogamy journey was 29. So it kind of backs up what you're saying, Sy. It's not something you jump into right from when you're, you know, 15, 16 starting your dating life, but that it's actually later in life. And you can see a lot of people, it's around this kind of 25, 26-ish age. But then I broke it down by primary label that people chose. And yeah, relationship anarchy by a pretty good margin is very much the youngest starting age. Versus Swinger, which is by far the oldest starting age on average, even though all of them had a big spread across from quite young, as young as I stopped looking younger than 16, 15, but there are some even that reported longer than that or earlier than that, up to people in their 50s and 60s. But it's just interesting seeing that average, at least how that changed so much based on identity.
Alexandra: I think it's really interesting to think about the societal pressure as well that might slow people down who have their training wheels on in terms of taking the first steps to thinking about different choices in terms of relationships as well. And I think that's something really interesting that's come back from the data. It's like, how can we make it easier and safe and more permissible for maybe some younger people that are less confident to, you know, begin to think about these things and also give them the lex, you know, the lexicon that they need? But the conversation around terminology is really interesting. And I think sometimes knowing a word and a meaning gives you kind of space to explore that and go into that and see if it's for you. So I think that kind of age data points really an interesting one for us to explore a bit further.
Jase: Yeah.
Alexandra: Well, yeah.
Dedeker: Because what I'm realizing is, I think that there was an era where, at least my anecdotal experience of it, is it felt like different dating apps slash dating sites appeal to different generations, right? So it's like we always knew that like Match.com and eHarmony were a little bit more like Boomer focused or like maybe Gen X focused, right? And then like our generation, like, you know, OkCupid, Tinder was like our generation's dating apps. And then, you know, Gen Z tends to favor, you know, I know Hinge and Bumble like launched around the same time as like OkCupid and Tinder, but I feel like the trend I tend to see is like, yeah, yeah, I've never even been on Raya. I barely even heard of it.
Emily: You know, like, I heard about it on a TV show.
Dedeker: You know, and so, So it's like we still are a little bit in this era of like associating like, okay, yes, different apps appeal to different generations. But I'm curious about how Feeld approaches that because like, as you see in the data, it's like you have a pretty widespread as far as like who your youngest users, who your oldest users are. And then it also gets a little bit more complicated because of the fact that like older users might be drawn to Feeld for like a particular style of connection versus like your youngest users. So like, what are your thoughts on that?
Alexandra: I think not making assumptions about different segments is absolutely key for us. And just anecdotally from doing research with kind of Gen Z versus non-Gen Z, and that's quite a clumsy split, but the differences are so stark. And again, you know, just thinking about people that have also kind of lived through the pandemic in really formative years and kind of like had maybe the way that they interact and date really shaped by that experience and some of the different anxieties that Gen Z feel, and also completely different attitudes around how they socialize. You know, this kind of leaning into sober lifestyle and dating is just a different world. And it's kind of, you know, if we don't understand those differences, we really do it at our peril. So we have to make sure that we're keeping an eye on the trends in those bigger segments and then also kind of segmenting our qualitative research to make sure that for every study that we do, we have that Gen Z versus non-Gen Z perspective. And the differences are wild, and they just can't be underestimated.
Emily: Can you speak to some of those in terms of what the wild differences are?
Alexandra: I mean, they range from everything from like different mental models of how people actually physically interact with the dating app. You know, I think I may be the same generation of you all, maybe slightly older, but I didn't grow up, you know, using TikTok and social media. Social media, the way that I interact with this device is very different from a Gen Z. So there's kind of like behavioral patterns in terms of how they interact with tech. I think sober culture is another kind of rising trend that we really need to account for. But also kind of anxiety, loneliness, Sy did an amazing study around kind of what Gen Z fantasize about and kind of fears around monogamy, but this desire from monogamy and a lot of the anxiety that sits around that, but also this desire to explore elsewhere. Yeah, it was, you know, so there's lots of different data points. And then as we kind of came out of Gen Z, we kind of moved away from this desire for monogamy. So the differences range from everything from actual interaction in tech to lifestyle choices, to different anxieties, to kind of different yearnings and desires. And it's, you know, there's a myriad of things and we have to keep our eye on all of them. Sorry, I don't know if I've just done a horrible job of talking about your beautiful Kink-Z work, Feeld.
Sy: No, not at all. I think one finding that has surprised us in the past about Gen Z, and that's something that we've seen at Feeld and also external researchers not related to Feeld have found this to be true as well, is that Gen Z seems to be expressing a preference for monogamy, for monogamous relationships, more so than older generations. Yeah, it is a little bit surprising, isn't it? But I think one core question that hasn't really been answered yet is that desire for monogamous relationships, a generational shift, or is it more reflective of just where someone is at in their life in their early 20s, which is where Gen Z happens to be right now. And I think time will kind of tell, right? If you pair that with the data point that I shared earlier, which is that non-monogamous folks on Feeld tend to be older, by about five years than the average dating population. I think that does give us an inkling that monogamy might be more of a default preference for people when they're younger and entering the dating scene, and that there's room for that to evolve and change as people have non-monogamous awakenings when they're a little bit older.
Dedeker: Fascinating.
Jase: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense too, looking at that median starting age that we talked about being around 29, where it's like, yeah, Gen Z is not there yet. It'd be interesting, I think, to if we were able to look at that data and kind of normalize it to people that are non-monogamous now, if you rewind them to the age that they were, if they had been a Gen Z person now, what age that is, like when they were that age, were they monogamous or non-monogamous? And I wonder if you twist the data that way, like if you analyze it differently, if that would still hold, or if you'd actually go, oh, wow, actually, Gen Z is way more non-monogamous just because that's more in the cultural zeitgeist now in a way that it wasn't even 10, 20 years ago.
Sy: It's a study I would absolutely love to run. Those are questions I would love to ask.
Jase: Yes, let's do it. Real quick, before this next section, did you know that you can get ad-free early releases of this show, as well as access to monthly video processing groups and exclusive private channels on our Discord server, all by becoming a subscriber? At a sliding scale pay-what-you-can price. If you go to multiamory.com/join, you can read more, get access to that. We would love to have you as part of our community. In the meantime, take a moment to check out the sponsors on this episode. If any of them seem interesting to you, use the promo codes or the links that we have in our episode description, because that also goes a long way to supporting this show.
Dedeker: I want to rewind. Alexandra, you mentioned how the rise of sober culture is something that you're considering. How is that relevant to designing a dating app?
Alexandra: I mean, it's kind of reflected, first of all, we see it reflected in bios. So when people are talking about themselves and what they want and kind of deal breakers and things they're looking for, we also see it reflected in kind of free type interest tags. I think it not only speaks to what's happening in the digital space, but we also run IRL events as well, so we have to think about the flavor of those and what types of experiences people might want. But I think generally there's a few things muddied in here. I think we've been misperceived as being, at times, just a hookup app, which is absolutely not what we are. We are so much more than that. And I feel there's also a misperception of that hookup culture being really just about sex. Hedonistic, sometimes very boozy, you know, and having a certain flavor. And what we're hearing from younger members is that they're really seeking to connect around interests, kind of like shared ideology, kind of common characteristics, rather than kind of dating of old. Again, I think this is a generational thing where it is kind of very much alcohol fueled, and that is the social kind of lubricant that gets you to kind of sexual interaction and discovery. They're looking for more structured experiences that kind of bubble to the surface, common interest, commonality. So I think things have just moved on so much. And it's fascinating for me as someone who probably skews older in terms of the Feeld team to kind of constantly keep my eye on what's going on, particularly in terms of that desire to hang out in sober spaces, because that definitely wasn't something that was happening when I started dating. It was quite rare.
Dedeker: Yeah. I know I feel very much a baked in part of dating culture for our generation is like, well, of course, like your first date, you go get cocktails, right?
Jase: Yeah, right.
Emily: Yeah.
Alexandra: If you times that by being English as well, then you have this kind of like perfect, this perfect sort of stereotypical storm of like binge drinking and dating.
Jase: Right.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Sy: I think what Alexandra is highlighting as well is just the power of, looking at quant and qual data together because it really keeps us honest in terms of our mental model of what the non-monogamous community wants, what needs that they have, and what challenges they face as well. And to keep our finger on the pulse of that and really respect not just the nuances and the kind of different subtleties of opinion, of lifestyle, of labels, but also stay current with it too.
Emily: So we discussed this a little bit in our previous episode with Dr. Amy Moors and Brett Chamberlain, but from the data that you all looked at, what does it say about the most pressing challenges for non-monogamous folks out there?
Sy: So the one thing that we really heard loud and clear in the survey is that non-monogamous folks do fear discrimination, particularly in healthcare settings, housing, legal matters like divorce and child custody. Over a third of our respondents also reported stigma in like social and familial settings as well within the last year. And that actually results in the majority of respondents not really being open about their non monogamous identity to landlords, to religious community, work supervisors, and even family, especially extended family. And actually when it comes to family in particular, whether people are open or not about their non monogamous identity, was very, very bimodally split. So we have a camp of people who are very in the closet about their non-monogamous identity and a camp who are very open about it with few in-betweens. And that's especially true with parents.
Jase: And so, yeah, makes sense.
Sy: Fear of discrimination is the biggest stressor that non-monogamous folks reported in the survey, but a very close second is actually lack of community. And lack of non-monogamous resources. And so about half of the respondents said that this was a stressor in their lives. And almost as many said that it was because of location actually, that there's a lack of access to communities and individuals in their specific area. And so that's kind of what Alexandra and I are trying to accomplish at Feeld, a solution that can bridge that location gap, that distance for a lot of non-monogamous folks. Because we know it's not just about dating, it's also about friendships, it's about community, it's about resources and education as well. And so, you know, at the end of the day, like that's why I do what I do. We're trying to build something that kind of closes those gaps and mitigates those top stressors.
Alexandra: We see that again and again. I was gonna say in the quality of kind of work that we do too, we see that kind of yearning for community and new opportunities to come through really strong. So it's come through in previous research before and we hear it anecdotally. You know, all the time. And I think thinking about building out affordances that speak to community and digital spaces beyond is, again, a very kind of nuanced challenge to think about how we might do that in ways that really meaningfully land for people and don't feel like some sort of kind of cynical grab, but, you know, experiences that really have meaning and kind of give people what they need. And I also think it's a really good question for all of you in terms of the types of community experiences that you see that are most valued and most delivering for people that are exploring non-traditional relationship structures, because we'd love to learn from that as well.
Dedeker: Yeah, again, anecdotally, I think what I see is it, and this is probably a broad oversimplification, but as far as access to community and community events, it's like I see two desires that emerge. And one of them is a desire for, I want to connect with the people who are very, very similar to me, right? So as in, like, I'm polyamorous with multiple partners, practicing non-hierarchy, and I want to connect with other people who are also practicing that in that particular way, not to try to date them, but to, you know, share our struggles, share our victories, right? So it's like there is this desire for, like, yes, I want to find the local poly group, the discussion group, or go to the workshop, or whatever it is. But then there's this other desire that I see from people, which is like, I don't want to go to the workshop. I don't want to go to the discussion group. I want to go shoot pool with a bunch of people who like won't think that I'm a weirdo. And where I don't care what their relationship configuration is necessarily, but I don't want it to be weird for me to bring both of my partners along, or I want to be able to openly acknowledge that that I had a wonderful weekend with my wife and she went on a date, right, when I'm at the hike or whatever. So it's sort of this, like, I think that people do want this very concentrated focus sense of community, connecting with people who are similar to them and kind of understand their struggles. But then I also see that people want what I would label as maybe the more quotidian experiences of it doesn't have to be about my relationship practice. It's just that I want my relationship practice to be welcome in this space.
Alexandra: That's a really interesting and useful distinction. One is just to exist peacefully and socialize without kind of scrutiny and questions. I think those are really, I think those are two very interesting and different threads that I'm sure that we will seek to pull on some more.
Dedeker: And again, it's like easier for people to, well, I say easy, it's not necessarily easy, but maybe relatively easy for people to, again, filter by, okay, I'll find the local polyamory meetup group, right? And that can deliver on that very concentrated community experience, but just having a particular relationship practice in common doesn't necessarily mean you're going to gel with that group of people or that you're going to love hanging out with them at a potluck or that these are the people you're going to want to go hiking with necessarily, right? So yeah, I think that is a little bit of the, the challenge that people run into.
Emily: If I heard you correctly, you said that people are also looking for resources out there on non-monogamy or starting their non-monogamous journey. That, I guess, surprises me a little bit, considering I feel as though there are so many resources out there, especially now that we are in the era that we are in of social media and everything is kind of at your fingertips, because when we started our journey back in, you know, 2012, 13, 14, and then started this podcast, we were one of very few resources out there, period. But I'm surprised that people are still, and that makes me wonder, what is it exactly that people are looking for that isn't out there necessarily? And how can we tap into those communities or populations in order to sort of give them what it is that they need and want?
Alexandra: I think it's very overwhelming for people. And I think you've, you know, you've just spoken to the exact problem. We've gone from kind of zero to hero in terms of the amount of information that's out there, and people just don't know where to start. And we ran a survey over a year ago now, forgive me, I can't remember the exact data points around that, but it was asking around, asking members around sort of feature favorability and what they wanted to see. And there was this desire to see more resources. I don't think that there's a lack of information out there, but they want it to be curated by trusted voices, you know, and if you have that affinity with Feeld already and you see it as a safe space, there's kind of championing your wants and needs. We have this opportunity to kind of funnel, to aggregate information from across the board to kind of vet it and deliver it in a way that really speaks to our members. So yeah, I suppose, clumsily, but we've got an opportunity to be an aggregator here if we have that trust with our members. Just as you do in terms of the podcast and what you're doing. And it's definitely not about one voice. It's about a pulling together of multiple voices and telling a story and kind of like making it digestible in ways that don't feel overwhelming.
Dedeker: Well, but I think that challenge speaks to what you're talking about of like how do we all, you know, appeal and serve the needs of both the people who are at the beginning of their journey, the people who are like maybe a few years into their journey, and the people who have been doing this for 10, 15, 20 years. And that's the same thing with resources is that, again, from what I see is I think that there's a lot of 101 content out there. And again, it can still be an issue if that feels overwhelming or people don't know where do I turn to first or there's all these kind of competing resources or contradictory resources or things like that. The recurring question or ask that I think we constantly get from people is there's definitely a big chunk of this population that wants the 201 content, the 301 content, but then the trickiness comes down to figuring out what is the 201 content and the 301 content because some sometimes when we press people on that or ask follow up questions about that, something that happens quite often is people will say things like, well, I just really wish that you had an episode about like what to do when you're in the situation where like your brother in law has like outed you to the rest of your in laws, but then you realize like one of your in laws is like actually dating someone who's like your metamore. And then like that also happens to be your boss. And I'm just like really wish that there was a resource that spoke to that situation where I'm just like, okay, that's like a 601 very particular.
Alexandra: Situation.
Dedeker: And so, yeah, it is like this challenge of, I think, massaging out what lives in that level where it's not quite 101, but it's also not like just like personally helping each individual person sort out their, their individual non-monogamy.
Alexandra: We have that. We have that resource. And that resource is the community. So when it, when it comes down to those kind of really personal lived experience that are like my, my brother's neighbors, Etc. You know, whatever that story may be. We're creating a community where people can interact and share experiences and learn from one another. And that's where I think that learning happens. We just need to kind of ensure that that is a safe and stigma-free place so the right people are there having those conversations. Again, coming back to this torchbearer idea that there is so much to be learned from people that are further along in their journey. So I think that resource is there. It's just in a slightly, it's in human form on mass, and it's about finding the right people to connect with and talk to. Getting people to understand that is the challenge for us, because it can take them a little while to start having those conversations and seeing things in people's profiles and learning. But what we have seen is if we take people, talking of longitudinal studies, we kind of put people through diary studies of like five days, seven days, and we find people that have a little interest that's peaked, Feeld and they might be like, okay, I'm questioning things in how I'm relating or my sexuality. And I have a little interest here, but they're quite intimidated by it as a concept in the first instance. And we kind of make them stay for seven days and we make them hang out in the air, we make them talk to people and have these interactions. And, you know, the first couple of days these people are saying, okay, I may have left by now. If you weren't making me stay, I may have gone. This is intimidating. There's a lot going on. By day seven, The transformations that we see in these people are wild. You know, someone that's gone from never ever considering anything beyond a traditional relationship is like, I really want to have a threesome. I want to introduce a third. I want to open up my relationship. People that are really, you know, have been really bound by traditional sexuality and what is seen as normative in their bedroom is saying, okay, I really want to broaden my horizons and try something new. So we see that, you know, the tool being the community instead of a set of static resources. If people stay and have those conversations, it can be transformative at a rate of knots. And I think that's the thing that we've been really surprised when we've seen. It's like it happens so fast. If there's a spark of interest and you put people in the right environment, like wild things bloom, and it's really beautiful to watch.
Jase: That's really cool. That's a great insight that you're able to see that. I wanted to go back briefly, just this question occurred to me earlier about when it comes to stigma and concerns like that, is there any chance that you've done any analysis or have any data about the occurrence of headless profiles on Feeld and how that has changed over time? Because I feel like that comes from a fear of stigma, right? Or a fear of some kind of negative repercussion. To you if people can identify you. So I'm curious if you've noticed that changing or seen any trends with that.
Sy: On Feeld, we know that there are a subset of people who don't want to show their face. Common things that we hear from people is that they're professional, which means that they maybe fear retribution at work or socially in other parts of their life. So professional can sometimes be a code for discreet, essentially. That being said, though, I am not prepared to share any data about the number of headless profiles or that kind of information right now. But it is something that we, you know, care about deeply. And, you know, it matters because there's a trust signal there to other people as well. You know, you want to know that the people that you're potentially connecting with are real people, right? And, you know, something about a face photo is just like so important to that, right? Yeah. And fortunately, you know, we have developed some tools on Feeld, like photo verification that allow people to kind of confirm their identity. But yeah, it's a thing that we think about a lot.
Alexandra: Anecdotally, we know it's the biggest in terms of the biggest deal breakers for people with a looking at profiles. No face photo can be like a hard stop for people.
Jase: It is for me. Yeah, I just swipe past those. No, sorry, I can't do that.
Alexandra: Yeah, so we have this challenge of trying, you know, because of the nature of Feeld and they're being slightly different, you know, having a slightly different spin to it. It's like, how do we balance anonymity with this need to actually see if there's that initial spark? If you're looking at someone you could potentially fill an attraction to, and then again, it's another really interesting tension for us. But we really do, again, this is a turn, listeners, we really do encourage people to include pictures of yourself because it will have a dramatic difference in terms of how people interact with you.
Sy: We want to preserve people's privacy and anonymity if that's what they need in their lives, but at the same time, there is a certain amount of vulnerability that we require, and that is actually beneficial, as Alexandra was saying earlier, to the rest of the community, because that's how we learn from each other, right? How we need to see examples of other people in order to feel like we can reflect that back from ourselves.
Alexandra: It takes a bit of bravery, I think, as well, you know, and we really want to encourage that bravery. And that is the beginning, you know, the continuation of breaking down stigma. It's like, okay, we want to give you a space where you can put your head, literally put your head above the parapet and say, I stand by these values. I stand by these lifestyle choices and make it safe for people. But we know it's more complex than that. Than that in terms of people's working context, how this is effective.
Jase: This has been super fascinating so far, and I know that we're all data nerds, and so we would love to just keep going and prying you for all these questions. So maybe we'll have to do a future episode, but we have asked our audience for questions for the two of you, and some of those we actually got to organically, some we've already addressed, but I wanted to get a few more in. So if we could do a quick little bonus round, a little lightning round, if you will, of some of the questions that we got from our audience for Sy and Alexandra to answer. So first we have, quote, anecdotally, I've always heard slash experience that typically guys aren't putting in the effort, but I've never seen a good stat for it. I'm curious what proportion of male slash masculine profiles have five words or less. And then what about that compared to female/fem/nb profiles?
Sy: It's a great question. And your perception is the reality. Although what I will say is that it's not as dramatic of a difference as you think. And actually the overwhelming majority of men on Feeld at least put a great deal of effort into their profiles. And the one statistic that I will share is that the overwhelming majority of Feeld profiles are not empty. So people are filling them out and I can I guess, you know what, since it's a bonus lightning round, I'll share a second statistic, which is that the average number of characters in a Feeld bio is over 100.
Jase: Okay. All right. That's helpful. So it's like there's some truth to it, but maybe not as universal as we think.
Sy: The difference between genders is not as dramatic as you think.
Jase: Nice.
Sy: Nice.
Emily: So maybe kind of a follow-up question to that would be, is there a profile length sweet So how much is too much information versus too little? Is that 100 characters you said the right amount, or is it more or less?
Jase: Yeah, great question.
Sy: This sounds like a question from a listener who maybe writes a lot in their bio and thinks really, really deeply about what to cut and what to keep. And I think the main thing to keep in mind is that the most important indicator of dating success on an app like Feeld is to not leave it empty, not leave your bio empty, have at least one face photo, and so on. Because you get marginally less return, you get decreasing returns from adding more and more and more, more photos, more words to your bio, et cetera. So just focus on having something in there and keeping it concise is totally fine. It's not a downside at all.
Dedeker: Good to know.
Jase: Next one is, Is there a gender difference between how frequently users swipe that can be interpreted into useful strategies of any kind? So it seems like men are more likely to hit yes and play the numbers, and women might expect to instantly match if they're just going through the queue. Any data you can share about that?
Sy: I think a lot of people can sort of feel that there's a gender difference on dating apps in general, and that is true on Feeld as well. So I think the stereotype is that men have to like work very, very, very hard to make connections with women in particular. And women sort of just get to sit back and like receive a flood of attention and can kind of make their make their pick and just easily be able to make connections with people. And while that is true somewhat, there are counterfactuals to those two. So we have a lot of women on field who who do just receive a lot of attention and just get to make those picks, but we actually have an almost equal number who are working very, very hard to make connections and spending a lot of time sifting through profiles and sending out likes and not having them instantly reciprocated. And so the statistic I will tell you about that is that those are actually equal groups of women, equal size groups.
Dedeker: Ooh, interesting.
Jase: Fascinating.
Dedeker: Fascinating.
Alexandra: Okay.
Dedeker: So I'm paraphrasing because this question came up multiple times in different forms from multiple people, but the gist would essentially be if I'm on Feeld and I swipe left or like I reject somebody's profile, then I'm never gonna see that profile again. When in reality, maybe our polycules could entirely change in six months. Maybe our capacity for taking on new partners could shift, or maybe even our preferences could change. Is there a reason that I can't bring back a profile that I you may have rejected previously.
Alexandra: This is a challenge that we've been thinking about a lot, and we've been hearing this feedback from our members consistently in lots of different contexts. And Feeld is all about self-reflection, transformation. We know that people's preferences can kind of flip on a dime through one serendipitous meeting with someone, one formative experience. You can go from thinking, I want to meet these kind of people, so I'm absolutely open to very different things. So we're really aware of that. So as well as kind of, you know, the polycule shifting and changing, we have people that go from completely monogamous to, okay, I want to see profiles at E and M over night. We will have a feature that enables people to see past likes and dislikes so they can almost go to the kind of top of the tray again and see people that they previously passed over to kind of speak to this need. And it comes up in so many different contexts. So we We hear you, we're listening, we feel you, we know it's really important. And we want to create that space for people to completely evolve and change. So yeah, it's coming. It should be there.
Dedeker: Excellent.
Jase: That's great, because that one was actually a big discussion in our Discord of people talking about how often do they delete and recreate their whole profile to try to get back to that and stuff. So that's awesome.
Alexandra: I need to hang out in your Discord, Jase, as well, because I'm sure I'm not the only one. It sounds like a fun, really useful information.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Jase: Yeah. Well, thank you both so much for joining us today. Like I said, we love nerding out about data, so this has been awesome to get your insights and to get to share in this together. So thank you both for joining us. And in closing, could you both share with us one, is there anything that you want to point people to, any cool resources or things you want to share? And what are you excited about at Feeld right now? Let's start with Sy.
Sy: I would love to point you nerds to the Feeld data blog called Uncharted Territory, where we really explore these kind of deeper questions about the community and about desire and identity formation and really cool topics like that. From a data perspective, you'll find work there that you just can't find anywhere else. We have such a unique and special data set at Feeld, and I'm just I'm just personally really passionate about working with that data and doing research, and I love sharing it back with you all. So check out feeld.co/uncharted-territory.
Jase: Nice. Awesome. Yeah, it's definitely second that recommendation. It's really cool. And Alexandra, how about you?
Alexandra: So I had one for the nerds. Speaking of the people that have got their training wheels on, taking the first steps, I have something for them. Please, please try out Reflections, our self-discovery tool. Feeld, it's a really interesting take on the sort of questionnaires you see in traditional dating apps that are all about kind of getting you to a life partner. This isn't about kind of matching necessarily. It's about self-reflection, self-discovery, thinking about what you want and need in terms of relationship structures and desires. And it's a completely different take on that kind of questionnaire format that you see in dating apps.
Jase: So this is a new thing? Because I haven't seen this before.
Alexandra: It is a new thing that will be in the app at a time of this airing. It's rooted in social science. We work with a really amazing team of social scientists at University of Michigan to kind of borrow from existing scales around sexuality, kink, relationship structures. We weave all of that together into this really amazing tool that allows people to just stop, take a beat, think about what they want. So they can then take those insights into the community. And we know that it doesn't stop with the insights. They kind of come to life when they're enacted with other people in the community, when they kind of stimulate conversations and different ways of behaving together. So reflections plus taking what you learn forth and actually speaking to people on Feeld, we think it's a really kind of sweet spot that's gonna change a lot of people's lives actually.
Jase: That's so cool.
Alexandra: And help people have fun and connect.
Dedeker: Wonderful. Well, thank you two so much for joining us. Thank you for sharing so much insight. I think we'll have to have you back for sure, 'cause I know that our listener is gonna have many, many more questions for you. But in the meantime, we have questions for you listening. We actually are gonna have two questions for you, this week, if you go to our Instagram stories. So one question that we're asking, the first one is how have your identity labels changed over time? And then the other question we're asking is what's the one feature that your ideal dating app would have? Again, go check out our Instagram stories to respond to that this week. Also, the best place to share your thoughts with other listeners is in the episode discussion channel in our Discord server, or you can post in our private Facebook group. You can get access to these groups and join our exclusive community by going to multiamory.com/join. In addition, you can share with us publicly on our Instagram @multiamorypodcast.
Dedeker: Multiamory is created and produced by Jase Lindgren, Emily Matlack, and me, Dedeker Winston. Our production assistants are Rachel Schenewerk and Carson Collins. Our theme song is Forms I Know I Did by Josh and Anand from the Fractal Cave EP. The full transcript is available on this episode's page on multiamory.com.