A Man Raped His Tinder Date Violently And She Had To Work To Get His Account Deleted. Why Are Apps So Scary?
They say Mumbai is a very safe city and most people saying that are either guys who don’t know any better or women who compare it with Delhi, infamously known as the rape capital of India. But ask women who refuse to take secluded lanes while returning home at night. Ask women who cannot even take an Uber back home at night without sharing their ride with their emergency contact. Honestly, I used to be very comfortable with travelling alone at night. I wondered why my parents worried because “Mumbai is safe” as they say. But with time, I heard of rapes, assault, molestation and I didn’t want to be out alone. And now, with this where a man raped a Tinder date, it feels like there is no hope.
It takes two seconds for a guy to grope you as he speeds off on a bike. And yet, that feeling of disgust remains in you for long. Will you feel scared to walk alone after that? But here’s the thing. Often, we tend to think that rapists are essentially found in dark alleys, secluded corners, empty parking lots and are absolute strangers waiting to pounce on you. But more often, women get raped by men who they know or they thought they knew. Date rape or acquaintance rape is highly common.
Recently, a man (a firefighter, no less) raped a Tinder date three times in one morning. “It [sex] wasn’t something that I wanted. It wasn’t something that I said he could do. He just started to rape me,” she told a Four Corners investigation into Tinder. She said it was so violent that she bled for days after that.
She said she had her doubts about him when he had asked for her explicit images but he managed to make her believe him again. Emily also said that in the middle of the assault the firefighter pinned her down and took photos of her. “He kept his hand holding me down as I tried to squirm and get out of the camera lens,” she said.
When Emily reported his account on Tinder, it wasn’t deleted until several women came forward to do the same. There were more women he had harassed and I wonder why they never reported him. Or maybe they did, we don’t know.
There have been other cases in which a woman has been assaulted on a Tinder date and honestly, this app leaves your safety pretty much to yourself. Why don’t we have the KYC details of registered profiles? Even if you shut a profile down, they sign back in with a new number, a new account. “The police were able to find a few of these serial offenders, so I fucking doubt a billion dollar company can’t make the effort to put the damn protections in. These apps are not your friend. You are the product they are selling to men. Don’t get sucked in by these quick and fast apps,” a Reddit user expressed.
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Another user pointed out that the hookup culture is just not safe for women. “In no situation ever are hook ups or casual sex beneficial to women and the dangers of being raped, or everything you said, STDs and unwanted pregnancies for hook ups with men we barely know are not worth it. There is no reward as men who barely know us don’t even have motivation to give us pleasure in bed and most of them won’t even respect us after the act, they simply don’t care,” the user wrote.
So is that what it is? Are we, women the product that these apps are selling to men? Is it is a place where creeps go to find their next prey? Yes, not all men are like that. But please tell me how is a woman supposed to ever feel safe to go back home with a date? It’s so scary! And if a man can rape a Tinder date, there’s no telling what else he’s doing on the app.
Former employees of Match Group (parent company of Tinder) said they didn’t have enough resources to handle sexual assault complaints. “We will always work to improve our systems to make sure everyone on our apps feels respected and safe,” the company said in a statement.
Tinder also said they are planning updates that will enhance security, including a ‘photo verification’ feature. And why does anything ever happen after several crimes against women have already occurred? Tinder told Daily Mail Australia they have been rolling out improvements to their app to enhance user safety – including a ‘photo verification’ feature to ensure users are who they say they are.
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“In May 2019, New Zealander Glenn Antony Dylan Hartland was sentenced to 14 years and nine months in jail over three shocking rapes of women he met on the app. Hartland raped three women in their homes between 2014 and 2016 after they told him they no longer wanted to see him and indecently assaulted a fourth woman by ripping off her underwear after he followed her into a toilet cubicle at a Melbourne pub when she told him she wanted to go home,” reports DailyMail.
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Online dating is cool but really full of creeps and if a platform cannot filter them out then why should we be out there? Yet, it all comes down on women to be more careful, to stop doing things we want to. A woman should be able to go on a date with a guy she met online, without worrying if he is a serial killer or a rapist.
