Any account of love and dating in the 2020s is incomplete without addressing an uncomfortable topic: are our encounters with technology shaping who we are and how we desire?
Dating apps such as Tinder, Bumble and Feeld allow users to choose from dozens of genders, sexualities, desires and relationship types. Commonplace descriptors such as “straight”, “gay” and “bisexual” are now joined by labels including “polysexual” (an attraction to multiple, but not all, genders), “skoliosexual” (an attraction predominantly to people who don’t conform to traditional gender norms) and “heteroflexible” (an attraction that is mostly heterosexual with some exceptions).
