Feeld App Expands Beyond Kink Community, Facing Mixed Reactions from Users

Feeld, a dating app originally launched in 2014 as 3nder, was created to cater to people with nontraditional sexual preferences and alternative relationship styles, including kink and polyamory. Over the years, it developed a reputation as a space for radical honesty and sexual openness. However, since 2021, the app has experienced rapid growth, expanding its user base by 368 percent and appealing to more mainstream daters, leading some veteran users to describe it as ‘normie hell.’ CEO Ana Kirova emphasizes that this growth allows the platform to offer tools that help users better understand their desires and boundaries, including a new self-discovery survey called Reflections, designed to assess users’ sexual preferences, openness, and relationship styles. While the app has seen revenue growth and a wider global reach, some longtime users express frustration that the influx of ‘vanilla’ daters has diluted Feeld’s original purpose. Despite this, Feeld continues to remain one of the more progressive dating apps, with growing interest in heteroflexibility, pegging, and kink practices, and women over 40 representing a rapidly increasing demographic. The app’s challenge remains balancing its original mission with the needs of a broader audience.