Gen Z is souring on dating apps. This very NSFW one is booming

Who says some Gen Zers aren’t interested in sex? The sex-positive Pure has more than doubled its U.S. revenue over the past year. The trick: Letting them get their kink on.

[Source Images: Paper Trident/Adobe Stock, Torontotokio/Adobe Stock]

Connie Collins, a 25-year-old sex educator, walked through the unlocked door of a stylish apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to find a man lying naked and face down on a bed. “I put on a strap and just started strapping away at him,” she says. “It was just super crazy. I’ve never done anything like that before.”

The pair didn’t know each other’s names, nor had they seen each other’s faces. Though they’d later develop a brief friendship, they had met only hours earlier, under pseudonyms, on an app named Pure, billed as “the open-minded dating app.”

Even as mainstream dating apps scramble to respond to dwindling subscribers and Gen Z skepticism, 12-year-old Pure—which presents itself as an alternative to traditional services like Hinge and Tinder, and as an even less inhibited version of kink-friendly Feeld—has been on a tear. In February, the company reported that it had reached $100 million in annual revenue. Pure tells Fast Company that it has now reached . . .

a $220 million run rate—and is forecasting to double that figure next year. Over the past year, Pure’s revenue has more than doubled in the U.S, its biggest market. 

The sex-forward dating app is free to download but men and nonbinary users must pay for a subscription ($13.99 a week, $648 a year) to initiate chats and maximize their visibility. Women have access to most features on the app for free, though the Pure Queens subscription (starting at $4.99 a week) gives them access to more controls. Pure says that its users are split 60-40 between men and women—and most are Gen Z and millennial. (Tinder, which appeals to the same demographic, has a ratio of roughly 75% male, 25% female.)

“People are getting a bit tired of all the traditional swipe-based dating apps and they’re looking for something different,” says Pure’s CEO, Luka Dremelj. He credits Pure’s success to its unique interface and user experience. Users on Pure don’t swipe through profiles, accepting and rejecting matches. Instead, they scroll through a feed of “personal ads” posted by other users, expressing interests, desires, or provocative come-ons. That feed is full of individuals who have identified similar turn-ons—everything from music and massage to one-night stands, foot fetishes, and dominant and submissive relationships. 

Though it facilitates in-person connections, Pure is just as much about chatting and sexting, allowing users to share explicit photos and videos, which disappear after viewing, and engage in video calls. As dating apps contend with Gen Z users who are either uninterested or too anxious to meet in person, Pure offers a different proposition: allowing them to explore their sexuality behind a screen, with limited human contact. 

The app’s unorthodox approach to privacy—all users are anonymous, even to the app itself, which doesn’t verify identity—is one of its biggest draws, reducing barriers to connections and letting people explore their turn-ons without inhibition. But, as a recent lawsuit in Texas indicates, it may leave some users exposed. 

A new design language

Pure’s approachability starts with its design language, which is filled with bright colors and playful, hand-drawn illustrations after a redesign earlier........

© Fast Company