Recently, however, several dating apps, including Grindr, Blued and BoyAhoy, have been blocked. Blocking the apps means that when people try to use them, empty profiles are loaded and no photos or links can be accessed. While the Police Criminal Investigation Agency Bareskrim asked the Ministry of Information to block these apps on the specific — but spurious — grounds that they were being used by paedophiles to pimp teenage boys out to men, it is important to recognise that such moves come on the back of the anti-LGBT crisis plaguing Indonesia since January Dating apps, however, are not just used by people wanting to hook up for casual sex.
Online dating apps are also used to meet like-minded people, to form communities, and to disseminate information about sexual and reproductive health. Blocking the apps thus deprives LGBT Indonesians of important opportunities to overcome the many difficulties they face as stigmatised sexual minorities. Dina Listiorini. Many people who use online dating apps in Indonesia choose their apps based on sexual preference. For instance, Wapa, Brenda and Line are the apps of choice for many lesbians while gay men often prefer Grindr, Scruff or Growlr.
Transgender Indonesians use a lot of different dating apps, sometimes concurrently and sometimes consecutively. Why not? It is common for people to have multiple apps downloaded on their phone. On the other hand, he also uses Badoo because its users have more mature personalities than the users of apps such as G-talk, WeChat or WeTalk. Tara, a year-old lesbian, likes using the app Line because a lot of Chinese-Indonesians use it. Tara also uses the app Her because, even though straight and gay men use it, most of the users are lesbians and bisexual women.
She likes using dating apps because it lets her test the waters to see if she likes someone before going on a date. Yet many gay men also reported downloading an app based on the specific type of sexual partner they are looking for. Daddy Hunt is a site to use if you are looking for a daddy-type partner. Choosing an appropriate app increases the chance of a hook-up or relationship. However, as with all things associated with sexuality, app choice and app use is fluid and not everyone on a particular app fulfills the criteria; moreover, people may use fake photos of themselves to construct an identity.
People often get introduced to dating apps through friends and acquaintances. Emilio was introduced to Badoo by a lesbian Filipino woman he met through the app Couchsurfing.
