Bumble Celibacy Ad Controversy Explained

A sexual well being and consent educator weighs in on why the relationship app’s binary view of sexual and romantic relationships is so problematic.

Fashionable relationship is horrendous enough as it’s with out relationship apps shaming us for our romantic — and sexual — choices. However that’s the truth Bumble customers are dealing with because the fashionable relationship app launched a marketing campaign chastising individuals who select to be celibate. Earlier this month, billboards popped up all over the world, decked out in Bumble’s signature yellow hue and emblazoned with slogans like: “You Know Full Effectively A Vow of Celibacy Is Not The Reply”  and — the worst of all of them? — “Thou shalt not surrender on relationship and turn into a nun.”

(Excuse me Bumble, however have you ever *seen* The Sound of Music? It doesn’t seem like a nasty life-style in comparison with the present relationship panorama.)

@laurensalaun Enjoyable truth: Years in the past, I dated a literal sociopath… guess how I met him? 🥴 #bumble #dating #datingtips #datingadvice #4b #4bmovement #celibacy #womensempowerment #feminineenergy #divinefeminine #greenscreen ♬ original sound – Lauren Salaun

The aim was, seemingly, to encourage individuals to press pause on the romcoms, hearth up their iPhones and get again onto relationship apps (ideally, Bumble, naturally). However the response from the public was swift, with individuals on-line calling out the relationship juggernaut for shaming of us who select to not have intercourse for a plethora of causes.

On Might 13, Bumble responded to the criticisms, releasing a press release on social media stating that they’re eradicating the adverts and shall be making donations to the Nationwide Home Violence Hotline, together with different organizations. As well as, Bumble mentioned they’ll offer their now-blank billboard areas to companions doing work round supporting girls, marginalized communities and people impacted by abuse, to show any advert they need all through what would have been Bumble’s marketing campaign.

It’s a wise PR response from the corporate, but it surely additionally isn’t sufficient. If something, Bumble’s blunder has proved what we’ve identified all alongside: even firms which are purportedly for ladies, which Bumble says it’s, don’t actually care about them and what they need, even once they’re profiting off of them. And perhaps we shouldn’t be all that shocked.

Bumble’s celibacy adverts reinforce binary pondering

For sexual well being and consent educator samantha bitty (editor’s notice: bitty prefers that her title be displayed in all decrease case textual content, so we’re respecting that want all through this text), the adverts weren’t a lot of a shock, contemplating Bumble’s historical past since launching in 2014. Whereas lauded as a feminist app meant to “empower” feminine customers by letting them make the primary transfer, for bitty, Bumble has at all times been a bit of suspect. “My challenge with Bumble has at all times been their very binary assumption about gender and gender roles, and framing that as being one thing that’s empowering to girls,” bitty tells FASHION.  “Their conception of what’s occurring within the mainstream — reinforcing a heteronormative gender binary — has at all times been problematic.”

For bitty, the Bumble celibacy adverts fall completely into this formulation, making sweeping generalizations concerning the app’s customers and what they need from relationship — that’s, primarily intercourse. “It assumes that persons are on relationship apps sometimes for intercourse or that intercourse is inextricably linked to relationship or relationships,” bitty says. “Lots of people are there for intercourse, however that’s not essentially at all times true.” In actual fact, a 2023 Pew Analysis Centre report discovered that greater than 4 in 10 on-line daters within the U.S. are on the lookout for extra severe relationships.

Wanting on the firm’s public apology, which particularly acknowledged members of the asexual neighborhood who could select to be celibate, bitty says. “And it’s not simply people who find themselves asexual or on the A-spectrum who take part in relationships for quite a lot of causes apart from solely intercourse. [The ads] simply don’t learn the room in any respect.”

Relationship apps are shedding customers at a fast fee

To be honest, Bumble releasing a marketing campaign geared toward coaxing customers again onto the app is reflective of the state of relationship apps proper now, contemplating they’ve been hemorrhagging users in recent times. That is very true in the case of female users. As many on-line famous, the marketing campaign appears to be a direct response to a rise in voluntary celibacy amongst younger girls, a subject more and more talked about on TikTok.

And relationship apps are feeling the brunt of this. A latest AP report discovered Bumble’s shares have dropped 45 per cent since July 2023. Tinder, arguably the app that began all of it, has seen annual downloads down greater than a 3rd from their peak in 2014.

Persons are pursuing romantic and sexual relationships much less — for a lot of causes

It’s the shortage of nuance within the Bumble celibacy adverts that’s maybe most upsetting, and the truth that Bumble doesn’t care to discover, and even appear to care in any respect about, the explanations why individuals is likely to be selecting to not spend extra time on relationship apps. And there are a number of, from feeling emotionally and bodily unsafe on the apps, to Gen Z desirous to commit extra time to their buddies and family members than mediocre dates, to a rise in non-monogamous relationships and app burnout.

However extra broadly, evidently persons are uninterested in placing up with the transactional and disposable nature of recent relationship. (There’s a cause why ghosting has turn into a factor.) Whereas this isn’t solely the fault of relationship apps, it’s a actuality that apps like Hinge, Tinder and Bumble have contributed to and perpetuate. “All people is uninterested in feeling consumed,” bitty says.

There has additionally been a basic shift in how youthful individuals view romantic relationships — and the period of time they wish to dedicate to them, in line with bitty. “[Celibacy] has to do with shifting values across the ways in which we hierarchize and prioritize relationships,” bitty says. “What I discover with younger individuals is that there are extra queer-presenting of us residing in relationships that aren’t the normal, patriarchal type of fashions of ‘our friendships are secondary to our romantic partnerships.’”

And with work, college, all-consuming social media, psychological well being wants and the overall state of the world, in the case of younger individuals, “They’re additionally actually busy,” bitty says. “Persons are getting their wants met elsewhere, for positive.”

A safer on-line relationship area for ladies?

The choice to be obtuse concerning the causes that individuals is likely to be relationship or pursuing sexual relationships much less is made all of the extra irritating contemplating that Bumble constructed its model on the ethos of constructing girls really feel secure, revered, empowered and, most of all, heard. 

Inside the confines of a heteronormative relationship, these apps depend on girls as a commodity to convey different customers in and encourage them to spend extra on roses and super-likes, so that you’d assume they might be extra invested in making apps — and relationship tradition normally — extra of a welcoming and total much less horrible place to be. However the actuality is that they aren’t, as a result of sadly that is the state of recent relationship.

Even if apps like Tinder, Bumble and Hinge are seeing a lower in numbers of customers and downloads, the actual fact stays that if we wish to join romantically, apps are still the main way to do it. *Shudder* The excellent news? The web response to the celibacy marketing campaign and Bumble’s response to the controversy has highlighted that younger persons are demanding — and anticipating — change in the case of relationship apps. Whether or not we truly get there stays to be seen. Till then, there’s at all times matchmaking?

Bumble responded to FASHION’s request for remark. “Girls’s experiences are on the heart of what we do at Bumble. As a part of our latest advertising marketing campaign, we included an advert with language round celibacy as a response to the frustrations of relationship,” a consultant for the corporate mentioned through e-mail.

“We have now heard the issues shared concerning the advert’s language and perceive that fairly than highlighting a present sentiment in the direction of relationship, it could have had a damaging affect on a few of our neighborhood. This was not our intention and we’re within the strategy of eradicating it from our advertising marketing campaign, and can proceed to hearken to the suggestions from our members.”