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Andrew Marantz has an interesting read in The New Yorker about Lulu, a mobile app already downloaded five million times that allows female users of Facebook to make positive and negative evaluations of male users on the basis of their romantic, personal, and sexual appeal. Lulu is rigidly heteronormative—only women can rate men—and women tend to use Lulu the way someone investigating a potential mate a generation ago might have sought out the town busybody.
“It’s one of these rare products that evokes only strong reactions,” says Sam Altman. “No one feels ambivalent about it.” To rate a man on Lulu, a woman selects from a battery of pre-written hashtags—some positive (#LifeOfTheParty, #DoesDishes), some negative (#Boring, #DeathBreath), and some ambiguous (#DrivesMeCrazy, #CharmedMyPantsOff, #PlaysDidgeridoo). Those responses are distilled into a harshly precise numerical score. Alexandra Chong calls her startup “a community where women can talk honestly about what matters to them.” Others have called it Yelp for men. “Of course people on Lulu talk about sex,” says Chong. “Sex is part of what women talk about.”
A man must grant his permission for a Lulu profile to be created on his behalf, and, perhaps surprisingly, most men consent, says Chong. “We try to tell men, ‘Women on Lulu are building men up, not just tearing them down.'” Many women use Lulu for caveat-emptor purposes, such as managing expectations before a date. “One guy I went out with had a lot of hashtags like #OneTrackMind," says Sarah Burns, "so I dressed conservatively, didn’t drink too much—I tried to send the message, I’m not going home with you tonight. Which I didn’t.”
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2015, @03:51PM
And there's that usual sexism, where women who enjoy sex are nothing but dirty, filthy whores who should be ridiculed and shamed, but left unsaid is the similar disgust for the men that are banging all of these women (if every woman has banged every man on the island, then every man has banged every woman on the island). A slut is a slut, regardless of gender. You do not get to condemn one gender of sluts alone, or condemn one while praising the other. If sluts disgust you, then all sluts must disgust you, otherwise you're just another dumbass misogynist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2015, @03:54PM
If you don't like it use a different hashtag like #SexuallyExperienced
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday April 29 2015, @07:38PM
every woman on the island
has a typo, by old people standards
every woman on the island that weekend
Its impossible to study the present without studying the past and in the 80s/90s that term almost exclusively (to males) meant she was doing multiple guys per day or per weekend at least. It had nothing to do with if she enjoyed it. So the problem isn't that she enjoyed it or she did it with you on your first date on Sunday afternoon, the problem is she also did some dude saturday night and yet another dude friday night. Thus the disgust makes sense, unless you enjoy disease and strange burning sensations when you pee. The chicks of that era used the same term to complain about fellow chicks that did things in bed they didn't like, such as swallow or "going to fast" on the first date or he talked her into wearing a harry potter costume while they did it or whatever. They also didn't care if she enjoyed it (although presumably she was at least not forced to participate?) or if she swallowed one guy or twenty that weekend, all they cared is someone is contaminating her carefully standardized (well, standardized by her standards) supply/demand marketplace. So if she doesn't like D+D cosplay but gossip is some other chick really likes it, then she's going to be pretty pissed off at that other chick for encouraging her boyfriend to pester her endlessly to wear the full chainmail and wizard hat outfit or whatever.
Today among young people it seems to mean something totally different, like it should have a completely different word attached. Meaning something like she enjoys it or is not passive. In the old days that would have meant she was "normal" or "not frigid" but apparently its a badge of shame to have fun in the 2010s which is really weird and a shame. And in an era of universal condom use and AIDS nobody seems to care one way or another if someone does it with two people per day or per weekend or twenty, I mean thats what condoms are for right?
So there's at least three separate and unrelated definitions of the same term, what us guys meant in the 80s, what other women meant in the 80s, and WTF people are trying to say in 2010, all using the same word.
So that is an interesting aspect of app design. MILF age chicks and young hotties are not going to be able to use the same app and same social media because they're just not going to be able to understand each other, two cultures separated by a common language, like US and UK.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2015, @10:10PM
Actually, I would care. Call me weird but, if she's doing 20 over the weekend (or even just two) I would be worried about more than just the STDs that I might get exposed to. If she's doing 2 to 20 guys over the weekend, she is not your girlfriend, she's your hooker. Of course, if that's what you are into...well to each his own, I guess. Personally, I want something more in my relationship with a woman than a connection that is exclusively below the waist. Yeah, I know; I'm probably an old-fashioned fossil.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @12:28AM
And if a man is doing 2 to 20 girls over the weekend, he's a playa! High five dawg! The only thing more important to guys than dick size is how many women that dick has been in. And this is somehow seen as a good thing?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @08:54AM
If you think that attitude is as universal as your comment suggests, then you need to get out and talk to some real people, and not just those in rap videos.