KinkD : A review of a dating app for kinky folks

Dating and looking for someone with kinks? This recently released app may be for right you. KinkD is focused on the kinky and practitioners of BDSM and seems to be a cross between a hook up app and a more serious ‘find love’ website. It claims to stand out from the others.

KinkD has the swipe left/right technology of rapid match apps and the detailed profile and messaging systems of costly relationship websites. This is both a good and a bad thing. Let me explain.

On set up you’ll be asked to do the usual things like set up a profile with a bit about you and add a picture. You’re also asked to set your preferences for you match, on distance, age and gender, it then seems to throw that out the window, except for the gender information. This makes ‘Spark’, the swipe function a somewhat dull exercise, when most of the options are interstate or just somewhere in Australia. You can swipe in blocks of eight, six times, before you’re told to take a rest for 30 minutes, like you’re a pervert, or something, for wanting to actually find someone local and need more than 48 attempts. The ‘Search’ option brings up those closer to home in a scroll function, but it’s harder to let them know you’re interested unless you want to send a message, or you’re happy to just send a wink out the blue that sends them an auto message that says, ‘Great profile, let’s talk’. Sadly, most that wink at you have failed to read you profile and therefore have no idea you don’t wish to talk, much less waste time composing a reply, that get’s you called a stuck up c*nt.

It is kind of handy to know if the person you’re about to swipe right on has already liked you and that a match is guaranteed.

This lack of boundaries also means you can be contacted by anyone, and by this I also mean, anywhere. In the first week of having this app installed 98% of messages received were from overseas, despite my profile clearly stating I wasn’t interested in hearing from anyone further than a three hour drive of Canberra, let alone outside of Australia. Of course, you can write a wonderfully informative profile, but you can’t expect anyone, anywhere to read it.

A blessing and the curse of this app is the ability to send and receive pictures. This does allow for unsolicited cock shots within a few messages, and in fact the first message without even an introduction, of course this also meant I was able to test out the extremely efficient block and report functions within two days of download.

Photos can be uploaded to two separate albums, public, which anyone (anywhere) can see and private, which you have to request access too. All photos go through an approval process before being viewable by others, but you never really know if they can be seen or not, because you aren’t told when images have been approved or denied, they just disappear, eventually. Denying access is a simple swipe left function. Very easy to weed out those you don;t want seeing a picture of your…face.

Another feature which is useful and to keep yourself front and centre, is ‘Moments’. This allows you to share a brief status that anyone can see (think Instagram with saucy comment), regardless of whether they’ve liked you or not, you even get to see what your competition is up too (I really have no interest in the cleavage of ‘BignBouncy’ of Cleveland). Of all the features, I found this to be the most useless.

The best feature by far, is the pattern swipe before you even see any of the profiles. It’s an optional feature, but offers a layer of security to the app not seen in any of the others. If you exit the app or sleep your device, you will be asked to swipe. This is great when you’re out with friends having a giggle and need to pop to the loo. It stops those ‘likes’ in jest and spying eyes.

Sadly, It has done nothing to address the non-consent issues that plague dating apps of all sorts, not just this one. May I suggest a variety of reminder messages, such as:

“It’s not polite to call the other person a c*nt.”

“Would you flash a stranger in the street? Sending Cock Shots without being asked is the same!”

“If they ignore you, maybe it’s because you clearly didn’t read their profile’

These messages could be required reading during your 30 minutes of time out.

Overall, this app is fairly easy to use, has plenty of users from around the world and has some things to differentiate it from the other apps and sites out there, namely the kink angle and security swipe. The main issues aren’t with the app, but with the behaviour of users on the other end of the app.

KinkD: Available for Apple and Android.