Alise Morales just I happened to be on the dating app Felt the night a man was arrested by ICE Agents a mile from his apartment in Brooklyn, New York.
Newly divorced, Morales, a 35-year-old comedian, was looking for something strictly casual. It was then that she came across Paul’s profile. “I did a few swipes and it took me a second to get what I was seeing,” she says. He was 32, straight and, like Morales, looking for “casual fun.” It was also 1 mile away. Then she noticed his bio: “Hey, my name is Paul! ICE agent from out of town and looking for some fun :)”
Initially, Morales thought it was a bad joke, “but there was nothing else on the profile that indicated that was the case, or even what the joke would be,” she says. News alerts on its social networks mentioned an asset ICE operation in the region. “I wonder: Is this guy actively kidnapping one of my neighbors right now? »
Of all dating and dating appsMorales felt least overwhelmed by Feeld when she joined it in the summer of 2025. She “loved the radical honesty” of the people on the platform. But it was a first. “Obviously, I don’t expect everyone here to have the same progressive political beliefs as me, but Feeld seems to me to be the kind of place – because of its sex-positive nature and what it encompasses – where it’s shocking to see someone like that there.”
While its experience is unique, it represents a larger shift felt by some experienced Feeld users: the app, once primarily a space for nontraditional, friendly encounters, is now for everyone.
Launched in 2014 under the name 3nder, Feeld made a name for itself by welcoming people who didn’t fit into the boxes of all the other dating apps. (His original pitch: Tinder but for people who like threesomes.) Are you looking for a two-spirit but not non-binary play partner? Interested in finding a kid who enjoys bondage and ethical non-monogamy? Feeld was for monsters.
This is changing. According to the company, between 2021 and 2025, the number of members increased by 368%, with a nearly 200% increase in new users during the same period. In data shared with WIRED, “community search” became the fastest growing mode of connection, with a 257% increase among new users between December 2025 and mid-January 2026.
“We are able to do something really big and important for people,” says Ana Kirova, CEO of Feeld. “And that a lot of what we stand for can resonate with more people, not because we implemented it, but because we find a way to reflect what people want and then make it happen.” »
But many longtime users describe Feeld as a place that has evolved from a bespoke platform to “desperate” “normie hell” invaded by vanilla daters who are “use the app as your new Tinder.” It’s above the “scammers”, “matches peddling their OnlyFans”, and robots. The biggest complaint, said a user on Reddit last year, “that’s the number of people currently on the app who aren’t sexually open-minded.” Added another: Feeld “took the biggest and what appears to be the fastest dive into a dating app I’ve ever seen.”
At the heart of the application’s evolution, a question persists and grows: who exactly is the platform these days?
Tuesday, Feeld will launch a new “self-discovery experience” called Thoughts. Developed by Apryl Williams, an associate professor at the University of Michigan, Reflections is a 30-minute guided survey, available for free in the app or online to non-members, that measures your capacity in three areas: desires, boundaries, and relationship preferences. Out of a total of 165 prompts, the questions range from “What would stop a connection from moving forward?” to “Would you use large toys or objects on someone?” » – Reflections tests users on things like their kinky affinity, awareness of red flags, libido, exploration potential, and self-expression. (Users receive a percentage score in each area as well as a personalized results summary.)
“One of the challenges we have with people who may not be familiar with different communities and languages is that it’s so obvious on the platform,” says Kirova. “Feeld has always been a melting pot of people who are very active in a certain lifestyle or lifestyle and people who aren’t. That’s been the case since day one. I think the scale of it now is just different.”
As Feeld has reached a broader audience during Kirova’s tenure (she became CEO in 2021 after serving as head of product), she has had to juggle her priorities. Power users say the problems started after the 2024 relaunch. According to a press release From this month of January, Feeld wanted to “reimagine the application from top to bottom and make it evolve”. [its] design the system and technology to enable greater scale and flexibility. With Kirova at the helm, the application was growing faster than ever. But the update was accompanied by hiccups. There were chronic issues: a looping redirect during the signup process, slow loading speeds for photos, videos, and messages, a flickering effect in dark mode for Android users, a bug that caused the app to crash randomly, the inability to upload profile photos, to name a few. In less than four months, the application has undergone seven major updates.
“It was horrible,” says Marcus, a 55-year-old school teacher from upstate New York who joined Feeld in 2014 to find women “to engage in power exchanges with, or couples to engage in threesomes with.” (Citing professional concerns, he asked to be identified by his first name only.) He says the update has changed the company’s DNA and its priorities. “The number of vanilla people flocking continues. I don’t know where they market this app, but they don’t just target people with an alternative lifestyle. Recently someone from work found me on there, which was embarrassing.”
Feeld’s rebound has been its biggest mystery. The numbers tell one story: Revenue grew 26% in 2024 to $65 million, according to a Companies House filing, with Japan, France and Mexico becoming the app’s fastest-growing regions, but some users tell a different story.
Phoenix-based makeup artist Yaz Roque joined the company in 2023 after her five-year relationship ended. A self-proclaimed “man-hating lesbian for a decade,” she was finally ready to explore her sexuality with men. At first, everyone was “genuine, open and had a similar wavelength of perversity and weirdness” compared to Hingeshe said. On Feeld, she found a constant play partner and was able to explore her submissive side like she never had before, engaging in role-playing and BDSM. But she has noticed a drastic change in recent years. “It instantly bothers me that they are speaking to a wider audience of people.”
In February, tired of the direction the app was going, Roque deactivated her paid account, feeling like she kept meeting “effortless” guys who weren’t intentional about the type of relationship they wanted to create with her. Feeld offers a free tier, with limited features, and a “Majestic” subscription – which can range from $30 per month or $125 per year, but varies by location – which lets you see who likes your profile, send daily pings, and more. “I have hope that this can still be a space where people can be queer and have open relationships and be very intentionally poly. I just don’t know if that’s where it’s going. It’s not.”
As the company works to rehabilitate its image, Kirova hopes Reflections can be a real step in the right direction, serving the needs of veteran users, what it calls “torchbearers” and new converts. “I want to find a way to hold both truths at the same time,” she says. “It’s a constant balancing act.”
Marcus has seen this story unfold before: such rapid evolution over a short period of time ultimately never benefits the user. “I’m worried that Feeld will be sold to a large conglomerate and all user data will be sold and exploited. I mean, isn’t that practically inevitable?”
According to the company, information from Reflections is used internally to improve the tool and user experience on Feeld. The company Privacy Policy maintains that it does not sell user data, which Kirova says it takes seriously. “I feel too responsible for this kind of information that people share: their sexuality, their expression. It’s so private and sacred.”
For now, Feeld remains one of the most progressive applications on the market. Heteroflexibility – heterosexuals who sometimes participate in same-sex sexual experiences – is the fastest growing sexuality, with an increase among cis men (up 200% among users in 2025). Women over 40 are the second fastest growing demographic group. By Feeld’s 2026 Report on the state of reflection71 percent of members also consider alternative relationship styles normal, and 68 percent of members actively practice kink.
But Feeld’s meteoric growth is what continues to trouble Marcus.
“If you just want a relationship, don’t sign up. If you want a traditional monogamous marriage, white picket fence, 2.5 kids, don’t sign up. Honestly, if you’ve never been to a local swingers event or party, you’re probably not ready to be on Feeld. Come back after you’ve first been involved in your local scene.”
