LGBTQ Dating Trends

Gay Dating Habits Are Evolving as More LGBTQ People Seek Out Online Encounters Exclusively

Conventional gay community search terms are evolving as people hunt for ways to meet exclusively online rather than seeking out partners to meet in the real world with the coronavirus pandemic influencing gay internet user behavior.

While June is the most celebrated Gay Pride month, at Dirtyroulette, we feel that every month should be a celebration of LGBTQ rights, equality, and lifestyle. So, we instructed our insights team to salute gay culture by digging into the latest online trends among the gay community.

We wanted to discover how online gay dating has evolved since the outbreak of the coronavirus in early 2020 and try to predict which trends will dominate the gay scene in the second half of 2021.

According to the Pew Research Centerⁱ, more than half of people who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual have used online dating platforms or apps, making the gay community almost twice as likely to seek out a partner online than their straight counterparts.

By the end of 2020, global figuresⁱⁱ indicated that 37% of LGBTQ+ internet users had accessed an online dating or hook-up website in the last month, once again outperforming their heterosexual counterparts by a 16-percentage-point margin.

At Dirtyroulette, the number of men filtering their connections to other men backs up these figures with roughly 37%ⁱⁱⁱ of men using the video chat platform seeking either other men or transgender users on cam. Similarly, 24% of women filtered their connections to only other women over the past 12 months.

With online gay dating seemingly as popular as ever, our research team wanted to find out how searches among the gay community seeking online interactions have evolved over the past 12 months. We discovered that terms related in general to dating such as “men seeking men”, “gay dating online”, and “gay dating” are surprisingly showing a downwards trend.

This seemingly contradicts statistics regarding an increase of gay users across online dating platforms and indicates that interest in gay dating online is dwindling. Ten of the most popular terms related to gay dating from May 2020 are all trending downwards in May 2021.

Global Trend of the Ten Most Popular Searches Related to Gay Online Dating (May 2020 – May 2021)

However, upon closer inspection, we found that the gay community is active as ever online but changed their search habits when seeking online interactions. Rather than seeking out connections related to dating, evidence shows that search terms related to webcam sex and kinky online encounters are on the rise.

Search terms such as “gay BDSM”, “gay edging”, and “live gay video chat” have exploded over the past year, as gay internet users seek different kinds of online encounters following the outbreak of COVID-19.

Global Trend of the Most Improved Searches Related to Gay Online Dating (May 2020 – May 2021)

These statistics display a definite trend throughout the gay community of moving away from traditional online dating to meet in person and an increase in virtual online dating where users can hook up online using their webcams.

It is little surprise to see “gay edging” – the act of watching another person jerk off – top the list as the most improved search term between May 2020 and May 2021. As the gay community, and everyone else, adjusts to life with COVID-19, watching someone else masturbate became the best option for sexual fulfillment for many.

On Dirtyroulette, interest-based search trends show a significant increase in searches for kink terms such as “edging”, “BDSM”, and “sex online” among users seeking connections with the same sex. However, search trends for terms such as “dating”, “local meet”, and “guys near me” are decreasing among the gay community.

Interest-Based Search Trends Among Gay Users of Dirtyroulette (May 2020 – May 2021)

The evolution of how members of the gay community use the internet to find partners has undoubtedly been affected by the coronavirus. However, over the past 12 months, people have also become more aware of issues such as anonymity, security, and safety-related to dating and meeting others. This awareness has also contributed to the surge in gay internet users seeking other ways to explore sexual fulfillment.

The most intriguing question raised by these trends is whether they are simply a fad brought on by circumstance or has the gay community entered a new era of hooking up behind a computer screen? The current outlook shows that edging is a more exciting option than in-person dating for many LGBT people.