Over the past several weeks, I’ve been interviewed twice about location-based dating apps. These are mobile applications that connect people with others in their geographic proximity, often in real-time. Popular examples include Tinder, Grindr (and its counterpart, Blendr), and SinglesAroundMe.  The apps are largely photo based, and offer an opportunity for serendipitous meet-ups, in which users can potentially find love, sex, or general companionship.

The fact that I was invited to take part in these interviews is a bit odd, since none of my own empirical research pertains specifically to dating or dating technologies. I did, however, write a post for Cyborgology about race and online dating sites, which got some attention, and I do (obviously) maintain research interests and projects in new technologies more generally. So anyhow, I agreed to fumble my way through these two interviews, offering the interviewers caveats about my knowledge gaps. In the end, I’m glad that I did, as their questions—much of which overlapped—pushed me to think about what these applications afford, and how they intersect with the realities and politics of love, sex, and gender relations.

In both interviews, I was asked about the effects of these technologies, in a broad sense. I played my part as the Good Sociologist, and asked the interviewers to be more specific.  As it turns out, both of the interviewers were interested in how the apps affect women’s agency vs. objectification, “hookup culture,” and marriage trajectories.

I was most surprised by my thoughts on “hookup culture.” Of course, my surprise dissipated by the second interview. But during the first, having thoughtfully and carefully worked my way through the agency/objectification and marriage questions, I blurted out confidently, and with a concerned face “on-the-fly hookups seem really dangerous. For that matter, on-the-fly location based applications seem really dangerous. Especially for women and girls.” Wait, what?  When did I become my mother!?

To be clear, I’m all about a broad spectrum of sexual agency, and see no inherent moral failing through casual consensual sex. Many others see nothing wrong with it either, there is more than one hookup site that works and they have millions of suscribers. Moreover, I don’t think location-based technologies that afford said encounters are, by nature, dangerous technologies.

I do, however, think that the intersection of hook-up culture and location-based technologies set the stage for some tangibly unsafe interactions, in light of deeply problematic cultural meanings and assumptions surrounding sexual availability. The more I thought about this, the more I realized that hook-up culture is fine, but it ceases to be so in the context of rape culture.

Rape culture refers to a culture in which expressions of sexual desire are misread as sexual availability. It is a culture in which the desiring body is there for the taking. A culture which facilitates victim blaming and can make people, especially women, feel as though “no” is an illogical or unreasonable response to sexual advances, given the degree of sexual openness they expressed. Rape culture reflects blurred lines between patriarchal domination and a burgeoning sexual freedom.

The danger with location-based apps, then, is that by design, users express a willingness and desire to engage in sexual or romantic contact. This desire is documented, shared, and sent to those in the surrounding area as an invitation to engage.  The would-be rapist can all too easily read this as open availability—a body ripe and ready for the taking. A body in close proximity. The would-be rapist likely does not know s/he is/would be a rapist, as the language and logic of rape culture shields this reality. And that, the subtlety of it all, is perhaps the most insidious part.

I’d like now to conclude with a story one of the interviewers shared with me in response to my “this is dangerous because of rape culture” diatribe.  One of the other interviewees, a young woman, interacted with a young man on Tinder over the course of several months. When they met for the first time, he immediately kissed her. The woman pulled away. This was not okay, and she expressed her discomfort with his physical advances. The discomfort of the kiss stuck with her. And yet, that night, the newly joined couple had sex, during which, the man “roared like a lion.” The interviewee, apparently, laughed while recounting the event.

Follow Jenny on Twitter @Jenny_L_Davis