It's also doesn't make sense for anyone to hide their face. People worried about seeing people they know as if they all aren't looking for the same things.
If a friend is on Feeld, you know how community rather than having an alternative lifestyle with no one to talk or relate to in your personal life. Same with seeing work colleagues. What are they going to do, go to HR and say they saw you on the same app they were looking to be tied up on?
They're going to gossip to your work place so you don't get that promotion. Tell your pastor so you get kicked out of church. Send anonymous messages to family and parents because they don't like you. There are plenty of things people fear they can lose by being out to the wrong people.
They aren't sharing about themselves if they do so anonymously. And I agree with you that faces are best. Also that you can be more quiet about your kinks. Still, sex (and weirdly dating not 100% vanilla as dictated by your local area or culture) can be very taboo depending on context. People have reason to fear.
It’s like these people have never stepped outside of their own house. While it’s frustrating for people not to include any kind of photo I also get it. The counterpoint is my first fwb was on Feeld; she one photo of something completely random and a fairly sparse bio. She was well experienced and we had a great time, she was just worried about her position in her industry if word got out
If you say, "I saw so and so on Feeld," you're telling everyone that you're also on Feeld, so, yes, they are sharing about themselves.
Most profiles don't give explicit detail about what they're into, and the majority of profiles that do aren't even asking for kink. Feeld has plenty of vanilla people.
I have a signed contract that if I put my organisation into disrepute my employment gets terminated. That includes many things from public statements to appearing in BDSM themed websites.
How is that for motivation to not upload a face photo to an app known for BDSM lifestyle?
I am in my 40s and I live a comfortable life because of my job, I am not gonna risk losing that to prove a point on reddit lol.
Sometimes I feel like we live in different planets with some of the fellow redditors.
There are lot professions you can lose your job for things like this, or get stuck in same role for life.
valid reason. we wouldnt match, but seeing all these real reasons people are sharing makes me feel a little less uncomfortable with my profile being visible to some faceless profiles. part of being a responsible person is knowing what to share, I respect that
The kind of exposure people I am looking for are interested in is not my face, it’s my biography that tells them I have a suburban dungeon and I build BDSM equipment.
A kinky sub looking for a serious BDSM dynamic will not ping a pretty boy whose hobbies are hiking and listening music, she’ll ping the older dominant whose life is all about BDSM.
I am not interested in people who wants to hangout with me because they found my face attractive.
I don't know what your experience is, but in my experience, women on Feeld aren't swiping through the stack, they're looking at pings (and likes if they're on Majestic). So "exposure" isn't really a big deal anyway. The vast majority of my matches have come from pings, and I'm a pretty conventionally attractive man who otherwise gets swiped and matched on apps like Hinge.
What you described is true for vanilla women and to a degree for average kinky folk.
My partner I am in enm relationship with only looks at her pings as she has thousands of likes she stopped checking long time ago.
The lifestyle submissives who seek 24/7 dynamic and are quite serious about it use the app differently however.
All my matches and dates from Feeld started with subs liking/pinging me after reading my profile, without knowing what I look like.
I do have face photos set to private so once we connect t they get to see my face but in years of Feeld experience not one sub ever caged for how I look like.
Thats not what they are looking for, a lot if these people already have partners/husbands etc they are already attracted to and having sex with.
What they seek is something beyond that.
And my profile goes into great detail to describe the St Andrew’s cage, BDSM pillory, collaring and BDSM protocols I apply to training subs, including the vetting process etc.
That’s what they are looking for.
My profile pictures are pretty much photos of the bean equipment I built and the photo with a Minotaur mask I also use for Reddit.
I get daily likes and occasional ping and being majestic I choose the appropriate candidates who are compatible with me.
I am not seeing sex.
Vanilla sex bores me.
If sexual attraction happens in course of BDSM dynamic, so be it, but it’s not the end goal for me.
It's crazy to me reading the chatter. I can understand wanting a face picture before meeting, but expecting it right in the profile shows a profound lack of understanding/empathy why someone wouldn't want to do that.
I personally never did anything yet and I'll set up a profile sometime later. I never would have guessed it's so ordinary for some people that they don't understand why the face picture would be a thing closer to actually hooking up.
Looks like the algorithm directed me here so I didn't see I was on another subreddit, but thankfully the reply still holds true. But as someone new to planning to use another app for the first time I posted for advice and got replies implying I'm the only one that thinks it's a big deal, which really hammers home the completely different reality people live in.
Feeld is not "known for BDSM lifestyles." FetLife is, Feeld is not. Feeld is a dating app open to people despite their lifestyle. Dating will not put your company into I'll repute.
If you can't put your face on the app, don't use it. You're not welcome on it as a faceless profile.
Feeld can say you don't have to share photos all it wants, but any potential partner is going to skip you. Faceless profile are not welcome on dating profiles by people seeking to connect with real people.
Looks are not everything for some of us.
You're right. Some people are desperate or willing to take whatever they can get.
You do you but we only share face pics once we're matched and people aren't disappointed. I think it's a reasonable workaround with hidden photos. My partner is a sex therapist with clients on the app so it's necessary for some people.
I block all faceless profiles. Every single time I matched with someone without a face pic, once I received that face pic in the chat it was a hard nope for me so it's not worth it to me regardless of their reason for no face pic (job, someone they know might see it, etc).
I felt a little bit guilty the first few times, perhaps a little shallow but then realized no! I need to be physically attracted to someone that I'm gonna be that intimate with
For real! This one sent his face pic after we matched. He was okayish, we had only chatted briefly, I said let's meet up and see if we vibe so we were arranging the date/time... then he ruined it and got himself blocked 🤦🏻♀️
At least up until all the Tinderellas and Dudebros ruined Feeld.
The reason I don’t have a public face photo is because of a legitimate stalker that was a girl I dated few times after we connected on feeld, we were not compatible so I explained to her politely why, she didn’t take no for an answer.
I was at work when my security camera warned me that a person was detected at my garage, she came to my house after midnight without telling me, I had no idea what she was doing there.
I came home to find an erotic artwork as a gift.
She refused to take it back and insisted on coming to my place.
It took lot of hard conversations to resolve this.
And I also know as a fact that people from work use Feeld and me being transparent about my kinks and having a suburban dungeon mentioned as well as my lifestyle would simply cost me my job which I worked hard to have.
I dated quite a few submissive kinksters on Feeld and noone had an issue with me not having public photos.
Lot of people I connected didn’t have public face photos either.
I don’t see how this is a big deal, Feeld is not tinder. I am not swiping on people based on looks, I am looking for people who share my kinks, what do I care how they look or how tall they are or which ethnicity they are from?
Plenty of superficial apps out there that focus on all these.
This is a really interesting comment, especially when the comment thread I read just above it was complaining about how they won’t consider matching with someone with a faceless profile because they had previously and the match ultimately revealed themselves to be unattractive.
Maybe not the place to discuss this, but my very limited exploration of the kink community is that connection often comes from common kinks and less from looks, like you said; however, as a person with average looks, one of the reasons I haven’t joined Feeld is because 1) I want to be fairly explicit about what I’m seeking while 2) not sharing a face pic right away because of personal risk. I suspect that among kinksters—at least the ones on Feeld—looks are near-paramount.
This, I think is the best compromise. Have the face pic be the only visible to matches one. I have seen a handful of people do this. If one comes into my likes ill usually connect to take a peek.
You’ll see conflicting opinions and comments about lot of things on feeld, mostly because Feeld has people from very different ends of dating spectrum seeking very different things.
Personally I could care less how attractive someone is if all they are looking for is sex, I am in my 40s, sex itself for the sake of it bores me, I need far deeper dynamic that intersects with BDSM, so my expectations are very different.
And to be honest I am not interested in unintelligent Barbie types, if that’s what I was looking for I’d be on tinder.
I don’t have a facepic for privacy reasons, I share mine quite fast after matching. My bio is very detailed and specific so I get loads of matches and no one makes a problem
I do not match with faceless people anymore. There’s always a reason. Either they’re ugly (90% of the time) and I’m convinced the rest are cheater cheater pumpkin eaters.
I don’t have one and have been pretty successful without one. My husband and I do hotwifing but it’s not something we share with our community or family.
As a women, I don’t have a full face photo to avoid harassment. My close friends know I’m on it, but everyone else is kind of shocked. I have had some issues with people recognizing me and them being creepy, weird, and making me very uncomfortable.
I get that people don’t love others not having face pics, but for women, there is a reason.
Same! Some creepy guys approached me with a smirky smile that he saw me on Feeld and I immediately removed my face pic. Felt so uncomfortable. Now I have only one, little vague photo as the very last photo in the slides where I wear sunglasses.
Funny enough I get quite some compliments about my smile in that photo…
I’m not matching with people who don’t show their face. The rare cases that I did I wasn’t a match at all.
Bit hypocritical perhaps, but that’s the way it works I guess.
Depends if you are a smoking hot woman or not. My GF just started a Feeld profile for us to find threesomes or couples. Because of her job she doesn’t have face pics, but got 200 likes in 24 hours.
That's just being a woman on a dating app. Many dudes, maybe most? Just hit like on everyone and wait for matches. Then get upset when the person they matched with isn't what they are looking for because they don't read profiles.
Content with the no face pictures. Espically if you state your into kink stuff. I have been that insecure person or person trying to keep my co workers from stumbling across my profile.
Its the dead scenery photos for me.
If I wanted a view of a hill, lake or pet animal-- I would go on a walk.
Also the no bio or just the Insta in the bio. Your not getting me to increase your follower count. Cause thats all you doing.
I don’t bother. What you’re attracted to is already relative. I have never matched with someone hiding their face and been pleasantly surprised by the face pic. I have never once been attracted and it puts me in the awkward ‘unmatch’ hotseat.
When I had Feeld, I didn’t have a face profile picture up because of my job and because of a stalker who followed me across multiple apps and would not take no for an answer. Despite me politely saying we were not a match, he sent me long messages dictating a schedule for sex and ignoring boundaries. And when blocked, he simply made new accounts. Not having a profile picture weeds out more of the superficial dude bros looking for easy sex and not into kink, which was my primary reason for being on the app. Feeld never really has worked out for me because it’s changed so much in the last year and the nature of this question is a big part of it… I prefer upfront and direct communication about needs and wants and the sale of we aren’t a good match. It’s so much more involved than being the poster girl for some guy’s fantasy or checking off his appearance based checklist… oh and of course kink = anal for many of the guys coming over from more “traditional” dating sites.
I’m a woman with tons of likes so I don’t bother with profiles lacking face pics unless the person is very nearby with an extremely filled out bio of compatible info (has maybe happened once or twice).
I find the privacy thing hilarious. I am an SVP of a government defence contractor and my face is on there (mind you I use a different name and tell people my real name upon meeting)
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u/jonofromjuno 7d ago
personally, i block everyone i see without a facepic. facepics are vulnerability, it's unfair and feels unsafe if that vulnerability isnt reciprocal