Grindr Hitting the Wrong Sort of News

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fountainhall

Grindr Hitting the Wrong Sort of News

Post by fountainhall »

Grindr seems to be gaining a reputation as the main gay hook-up site for nefarious deeds.

On Tuesday, a pharmacist in the English town of Middlesborough was convicted of murdering his wife. The reason? He was a regular on Grindr where he met quite a number of men for sex. Secretly he was in love with one, his “soulmate” a doctor who had emigrated to Sydney. So he decided to strangle his wife with a supermarket plastic bag (when will these finally be banned??) after injecting her with insulin. He then planned to emigrate to Australia with the couple’s daughter. But only after collecting on a £2 million life insurance payout.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tees-46445580

Early in 2017 Grindr again hit the headlines after one of the world’s most famed opera singers used the app to improperly solicit sex. 52-year old David Daniels is a countertenor, gay and married to his partner. It is a measure of Daniel’s stature in the music world that he and his partner were married in 2014 by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Daniels is also on the faculty of the University of Michigan. The UM’s own policy states that sexual contact between faculty and students is “a basic violation of professional ethics and responsibility when the faculty member has any professional responsibility for the student’s academic performance or professional future.”

Daniels was a regular on Grindr. At his home in March that year Daniels met Andrew Lipian, an emerging countertenor and then a master’s degree student from the singing faculty, allegedly to discuss his career. The student was raped. He initially claimed he was in fear of destroying his career and did not report the incident. He has now filed suit against Daniels. The case became public in October this year.

Two months before this case became public, a recent graduate from Rice University, Samuel Schultz, accused Daniels and his husband-to-be of drugging him and raping him at a party after a performance at the Houston Grand Opera back in 2010. He was 19 at the time. In a post on his website where he first spoke about his experience, Schultz said that he now has the strength to own his story and “to take back the power” it has had over him to try to bring an end to rape.
“I have been terrified to talk about this publicly because, as many know, people in positions of power… have not been held accountable in the past.

“There was a legitimate danger of destroying my career by reporting someone else’s assault against me. Because of this, I have lived with the fear of exclusion and being silenced which means that my story has not been told.

“I did not know that the word ‘rape’ applied to what happened to me until I lethargically went to tell a friend, and told her through tears and emptiness, what happened to me.
Now another UM 19-year old student, Samuel Kidd, claims that Daniels solicited sex with him using Grindr. The student reported this to the University authorities and the matter has been referred to the police. Attempted solicitation is a misdemeanour in the state. The Michigan Daily after reviewing posts suggests this was the conversation between the two -
He was messaged on Grindr . . . by someone with the username #GoBlue on March 26, 2018. #GoBlue offered him money to come over to his house and engage in sexual activity. After some initial conversation, #GoBlue let him know he was a faculty member at the University about to get tenure in May, and said because of this, they would have to be discreet.

The student told #GoBlue he thought he was messing around with him, and so #GoBlue revealed he was David Daniels. To confirm this, the student asked him to send a picture of himself touching his nose in real time.

The student provided The Daily with some of the text of this Grindr conversation, as well as the picture of Daniels touching his nose.

Daniels: Looking to make a hot dad/son fantasy to happen!$$$$$$ Does that interest you?

Student: Face? depends if I’m into you lol

Daniels: You come to my west side hotel , sit back to some porn, let daddy suck you off! You leave each time with $200 bucks. Very discreet here. U ofM affiliated so need to private (sic) and discreet about this.
The Michigan Daily link below has details of other encounters. As the Courts are working on their cases against Daniels and his husband, opera companies are understandably distancing themselves from him by cancelling his engagements.

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/08/23/d ... ultz-rape/
https://www.michigandaily.com/section/c ... mous-voice
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Re: Grindr Hitting the Wrong Sort of News

Post by Gaybutton »

I'm sorry things like that happen, but I don't see how Grindr can be blamed. It's not Grindr's fault. It could happen on any hook-up app. It's the people who do these things, not the app.

I also don't understand the Samuel Kidd incident. If he didn't want to be solicited for sex, what was he doing on Grindr in the first place? It seems unconscionable to me that someone would register on Grindr, or any other app for that matter, and when someone who apparently doesn't appeal to him wants to meet, instead of simply saying "Sorry, no thanks," he ruins a man's career and possibly his life.
fountainhall

Re: Grindr Hitting the Wrong Sort of News

Post by fountainhall »

Gaybutton wrote:It seems unconscionable to me that someone would register on Grindr, or any other app for that matter, and when someone who apparently doesn't appeal to him wants to meet, instead of simply saying "Sorry, no thanks," he ruins a man's career and possibly his life.
Not sure I agree with that part. How many times have us older guys started a chat on one of the apps only to find out after a briefest conversation that the other does not want to meet? I suspect quite a lot. I'm also sure not many 52 year olds are especially attractive to a 19 year old unless he is perhaps a money boy. So at least that has to be established. In Asia on the other hand I'm sure it's a lot more common than in the middle of Michigan.

As for ruining a career, that is way off the truth. When you look at the quoted articles it is obvious that Daniels (who I think has an amazing voice and whom I have seen in performance) is a regular on Grindr and perhaps other apps. The three cases that have been filed are obviously the tip of a hook-up iceberg. I have nothing against anyone hooking up with anyone else provided it is within the law and both parties are OK with it. In just the three mentioned cases, Daniel's violated an MU regulation as well as a Michigan law - and perhaps even a Texas law re unconsensual rape. It is also very clear in the quotes that, as a very public figure, he knew exactly what he was doing and what the penalties would be if caught. How that can be said to be ruining his career beats me!
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Re: Grindr Hitting the Wrong Sort of News

Post by Gaybutton »

fountainhall wrote:How that can be said to be ruining his career beats me!
You seriously don't see that? It's perfectly obvious to me.
fountainhall

Re: Grindr Hitting the Wrong Sort of News

Post by fountainhall »

I think you misunderstand. Of course, I think his career is being ruined. But it is not "it" that has caused that. It is his own utter foolishness and stupidity. I don't know if the 2010 incident was a result of a Grindr contact or not. But the others were. He was perfectly well aware he was just a couple of months away from tenure. He himself put that in jeopardy. No one else did. He knew the university regulations. Could he not have kept off Grindr till tenure was confirmed? He knew he was breaking Michigan law by offering money for sex. Yet he decided it was OK.

He knows, too, that he is one of the world's finest countertenors and extremely well known at the University. Yet he posted his own photo and gave his real name to his Grindr contact. He knew too that he has other cases already being prepared against him. As a regular at New York's Metropolitan Opera he knows perfectly well that its Music Director for four decades was fired last year for a string of gay sexual scandals going back decades - scandals many knew about but kept their mouths shut until recently. Even with all that knowledge, he went totally public on Grindr. If his career is ruined, sad to say only Daniels ruined it.
Jun

Re: Grindr Hitting the Wrong Sort of News

Post by Jun »

I thought Grindr is for hookups, so also don't entirely understand why anyone would complain about an approach. All they have to do is say no or use the block function.

Thankfully some of us are not celebrities & can approach people with out fear of being in the newspapers.

More importantly I think we should support the other apps as much as possible, as Grindr offers hardly any functionality without a paid subscription. We cannot even filter out people who are not on line, so right now in Bangkok, only 3 out of the 40 nearest people are on line.
In the UK, a paid sub costs £54 a year. I'm not paying that considering the only time it gets significant use is on holiday & even then, Planet Romeo is where I get more results.
fountainhall

Re: Grindr Hitting the Wrong Sort of News

Post by fountainhall »

Jun wrote:More importantly I think we should support the other apps as much as possible, as Grindr offers hardly any functionality without a paid subscription.
Rather odd, I think, that Grindr is majority owned by a Chinese company. And Blued, which i consider vastly better in terms of the number of profiles you can see within your own neighbourhood and without any subscription (and the same when travelling), is 100% Chinese-owned with Chinese investors including a state-run company. And with Blued expanding rapidly in the west, it seems odd that Grindr does not compete more aggressively.
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Re: Grindr Hitting the Wrong Sort of News

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Jun wrote:don't entirely understand why anyone would complain about an approach. All they have to do is say no or use the block function.
Exactly. Somebody on Grindr complains to the police instead of doing that? I thought someone advertising himself on a gay hook-up app is doing so because he wants to be approached. If he doesn't like the person approaching, just cut off the chat. Why go complaining to the police?

What am I missing?
fountainhall

Re: Grindr Hitting the Wrong Sort of News

Post by fountainhall »

Gaybutton wrote:What am I missing?
Before we can really judge, I guess we have to see more of the Grindr dialogue. This makes the situation much clearer. Before, though, I ask again: how many 19 year olds in the US or most places in the west are looking for hook-ups with a 52 year old? Not many, I suggest. Then again, we do not know if Daniels posted his real age on Grindr. I suspect he did not. Like most of us he certainly did not use his real name.

So let's look more closely at the much longer Grindr conversation detailed in the Michigan Daily which I linked. It's very clear that the younger man did have his own photo on his page - because Daniels had recognised him! At one point he writes,

"I think you're a crazy talented singer! I want to help you in any way I can in this crazy business." Later he adds, "I'm just kinda in adoration of your talent and want to help you out." This after asking him to come for a blow job for which he'd illegally be paid US$200!

Quickly being aware of who was talking, what teenage aspiring professional singer would not have at least a degree of interest in seeing where that help might go even without a sexual tryst? He would definitely have known that Daniels, with a word here and a word there, could certainly help his career. But then in the dialogue he is 100% clear. He says, "Professor. This is not OK." Daniels tries to keep the conversation going. The student then says, "I reiterate, this is not OK."

At that point Daniels finishes by saying, "Can I trust we can move on without any issues?"

I cannot believe that an offer made to help a career on such a site basically in return for sexual favours is anything but an invitation to ruining your own career if it got out? And with other cases "getting out", only a fool would think it could be kept secret.
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