This week, dating app companies including Tinder are beginning to roll out new safety features following the recent national roundtable on dating app safety. The roundtable put dating apps on notice for not safeguarding their platforms against people who may perpetrate sexual violence.
On Tinder, users will now be able to have more control over their visibility on the app, block users, will be served ads pointing to sexual assault support services, and the platform is exploring healthy dating guides for users. These are important steps, and it’s promising to see the platform partnering with specialist agencies to make change.
But dating app companies can’t and shouldn’t be responsible for stopping sexual violence. That problem belongs to all of us.
A 2022 report found that three out of four dating app users experienced sexual violence in the last five years, either while talking to someone on an app or after they met in person.
The majority of victims were women or LGBTIQ+ people. These numbers may feel staggering, they are reflective of what we already know about sexual violence in this country.
Dating apps have added a new layer to our cultural landscape and the way we approach relationships, and the way we use them means that people who perpetrate sexual violence may find it easier to meet people.
But sexual violence isn’t driven by dating apps, it’s driven by a culture that allows it. The attitudes that drive sexual violence aren’t exclusive to dating app users, in the same way that they aren’t exclusive to someone who you might meet at the pub, at a party, or at work.
It’s easy to create a false common enemy as the ‘cause’ of sexual violence – like attributing it to the length of women’s skirts or the use of alcohol – rather than dealing with what we know actually causes it.
The reality is, sexual violence continues to happen because we allow it to, and because we’re scared or ashamed to talk about it. From stealthing and sending unsolicited nudes to extreme physical harm, it’s difficult to grapple with behaviours that are confronting yet incredibly common.
The Teach Us Consent campaign showed us that young people are facing confusing, outdated messaging about sex and consent, and recent data has shown us that adults aren’t faring any better.
Sexual violence is driven by the way that we do or don’t talk about sex and intimacy, both with kids and as adults. It’s driven by outdated but all-too-present ideas about power and gender, and who is or ‘should’ be in charge in our bedrooms, relationships, workplaces, and communities.
It’s the void that boys and young men are filling with men like Andrew Tate. It’s the rise of choking in pornography and in everyday relationships, and the fact that we don’t support young people or adults to think critically about the way they consume porn.
Preventing sexual violence starts with having open, honest conversations about sex and consent – not just in classrooms, but around the dinner table, at the pub, and in bedrooms.
It’s having conversations with your partner or a date before you sleep together to find out what you both want and need. It’s talking to your kids about sex, intimacy and consent, and creating space for them to ask uncomfortable questions or say the ‘wrong’ thing. It’s defying rigid attitudes about masculinity that tell men they have a right to sex, or that they should approach sex with women in controlling ways.
For men in particular, preventing sexual violence means calling out jokes or comments that your mates or colleagues might make about women – even when it’s coming from someone who you know is a ‘good guy,’ or the comment feels low-grade.
A comment that feels relatively harmless to you is unlikely to feel that way for a woman, and it tells men in your world who may perpetrate violence that it’s okay. Calling someone out doesn’t have to create shame or start with anger; it can look like quietly pulling your mate aside to chat to them about why their comment wasn’t okay.
Preventing sexual violence means acknowledging that we all grew up in a culture that condoned violence, trapped us in outdated attitudes about gender, and taught us to feel shame and fear about sex. It means choosing to defy those norms, and carving out a new future.