Grindr says Australia and New Zealand are among the countries in the world with the highest percentage of its users who are “sides”.
The gay app recently released Grindr Unwrapped, its own version of Spotify’s popular Wrapped end-of-year recaps. Grindr unveiled a whole lot of anonymous user data from 2022, including some interesting stats.
Grindr’s data on gay sex ranks the countries with the highest percentages of users of each sexual position in 2022.
The countries with the highest percentage of tops are Bolivia, the USA, South Korea, Greece, and India. Denmark, Japan, Serbia, South Africa, and Peru are the countries with the highest percentage of bottoms, Grindr reports.
Also, Russia, Finland, Croatia, Germany, and Taiwan have the highest percentage of versatile users.
In 2022, China, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Australia, and Singapore were the five countries with the highest percentage of “sides”.
Grindr only recently added the label as a profile option, in May 2022, alongside top, bottom, or versatile.
For those unfamiliar with the term, “side” describes a person who’s into sexual acts that aren’t into giving or receiving anal penetration.
‘It’s time for sides to come out’
The “side” label has risen in prominence in recent years but US sex and relationship therapist Joe Kort originally coined it in 2013.
He said the term was needed to counter the idea that anal penetration is the be all and end all of gay sex.
“Sides prefer to kiss, hug and engage in oral sex, rimming, mutual masturbation and rubbing up and down on each other, to name just a few,” he wrote in HuffPost.
“These men enjoy practically every sexual practice aside from anal penetration of any kind.
“They may have tried it, and even performed it for some time, before they became aware that for them, it was simply not erotic and wasn’t getting any more so.”
Sides are often judged and shamed for not wanting anal sex
Kort said sides “typically struggle with tremendous feelings of shame” and often worry “they should be engaging in and enjoying anal sex, and that something must be wrong with them if they are not.”
“A lot of tops and bottoms call sides boring, virgins, trauma survivors, ‘you haven’t met the right guy,’ give me 10 minutes inside you and you’ll be speaking a different tune, et cetera,” he wrote.
“Often [sides] won’t publicly admit to not engaging in anal sex, because of the judgments that other gay men might (and most likely will) make about them.
“I have heard gay men (and even straight people) say that if they aren’t penetrating or being penetrated, they aren’t having “real” sex.
“It’s high time for sides to come out and feel proud and secure about their sexuality.
“Not being a top or a bottom doesn’t mean that one is less gay or less masculine. It doesn’t make anyone any less of a sexual human being.”
#grindr @grindr is adding “side” to its positions. I created a this term in 2013. I’m so proud!! pic.twitter.com/JyZy8uPXPo
— DrJoeKort (@drjoekort) May 4, 2022
Loads more fascinating Grindr hookup stats
You can read all the interesting hookup stats on the Grindr Unwrapped page here.
In 2022, users most searched for the tags “hung”, “trans”, “feet”, “bb” and “dom”. The most displayed profile tags were “fwb”, “anon”, “kissing”, “bi” and “discreet”.
Grindr said users in Washington DC are the most active on the app. Further, the most popular time to open up the app for a quick peak was 9pm.
But the company points out the data “only represents a subsection of our users (not all Grindr users include this information on their profiles)”.
“Grindr itself only represents a subsection of the global queer community,” Grindr says.
Further, Grindr also surveyed 10,000 users for their Unwrapped drop of the most popular queer pop culture moments of 2022.
Euphoria and Heartstopper topped users lists for Best TV shows. Additionally, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Everything Everywhere All At Once tops the movie list.
Unholy by Sam Smith and Kim Petras topped the Best Song list according to users. Also, Beyoncé’s Renaissance was Top Album.
For the latest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) news in Australia, visit qnews.com.au. Check out our latest magazines or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
FFS!! I find there is sooo much discrimination within the LGBTQI + community.
We see it in relation to trans individuals particularly among lesbians directed towards trans women; between gay male “tribes”; gay men who judge others on the basis of physique and looks as well as those who even question whether bi, trans, intersex or asexual people should even be entitled to membership of the community.
Racism and xenophobia are also rife.
Spend an hour on Grindr or any other app and the full gamut of discrimination is blatantly obvious.