Finally, Tinder Brings Us A Casual Sex App For Minors

In good news for creepers everywhere, it looks like Tinder, commonly referred to as “the hook-up app” is popular among a surprising demographic: 13-17 year-olds. Preferring to get my anonymous casual sex the old fashioned-way, I really didn’t know anything about the app, so I went ahead and downloaded it, which should make for some fun dinner conversation later when my husband gets home.

Basically, the app works like this: You hook up your facebook account to the Tinder app, which then accesses your location to provide you with nearby potential matches. You can either swipe left to reject them or swipe right to accept them, and if they swipe right on you, too, you get a notification and then the two of you can message each other, and maybe go grab a soda-pop later or meet up at youth group or something.

Just kidding. Ostensibly, Tinder is for ‘doin it. Tinder founder Justin Mateen maintains that the app wasn’t developed as a hook-up app, just a way to meet new people, but just in case, the app is rated for users 12 and up for “Infrequent/Mild Sexual Content and Nudity” So that’s a relief. I mean, frequent nudity is one thing, but an occasional nip slip or scrote shot? What twelve year old hasn’t seen a stranger’s pube or two in their lifetime, amirite?

Maybe this all a lot of pearl-clutching. I mean, kids are gonna want to put their bits places, and there’s something less skeevy about two 17 year olds swiping each other right, but it also seems like this is a great opportunity for pervoids to scope out where kids live. Also, it’s not like it’s terribly difficult to make a fake profile on facebook and link it with Tinder for the sole purpose of creeping on tweens and teens.

Like a lot of dating apps and sites, there’s already a fair share of trolls and borderline Lester-the-molester types, as evidenced by the Tinder Creeps facebook page. Personally, I try not to get too paranoid about every little thing, but online predators are no joke, so I’d be lying if I said this didn’t make me wary.

Since my child is already more technologically inclined than I am, having locked me out of my own iPad twice and invited most of my friends to play Candy Crush, I’m just going to have to hope that this whole internet fad passes soon, preferably in the next five to seven years.

(Image: PathDoc/Shutterstock)