(Copied in entirety with permission from “Broken Cupid: A dating blog for gay singles”, dated 4 May 2008. Thanks, Mike!)
The class action lawsuit against eHarmony for discrimination is a load of crap. For the benefit of the readers I will summarize that people in California have sued the site because they do not provide services to gay people seeking same sex relationships. eHarmony’s defense is that they don’t have enough data to apply their compatibility algorithms to gays. The plaintiffs do not see this as a valid defense.
Chemistry is all over this with their ad campaign that they accept gays and lesbians. Their official stance is that gays and straights are the same in terms of their relationship choices. I appreciate that Chemistry wants gay money but—as a reality check this is totally untrue. Patrick Perrine, founder of MyPartner, published a study on the age preferences of gay men in mate selection. The results were different than straights. And age is just one dimension.
Chemistry also doesn’t account for sexual position—another obstacle unique to gay men. Whether you’re top, bottom, versatile, intercrural or neither can have a significant impact on relationship chances. My experience with the site was that I was given matches based on my personality type and I rejected them based on looks—obviously they didn’t do a very good job predicting my “chemistry”.
As a gay man my dating needs are different, but I feel that the current climate would like me to say otherwise. Why? Because any intimation of difference in dating casts aspersions on the validity of gay relationships. And that jeopardizes marriage.
I respect that eHarmony at least acknowledges a difference in gay and straight relationships even if they don’t specifically define it. Now they could have easily remedied that by funding research. Clearly they aren’t gay friendly or they’d have gotten that data by now. Still I feel a business should be free to cater to who they like—I mean is anyone suing manhunt because they ignore the lesbian community? But most importantly, do we really want eHarmony?
I can only hope that there are political or legal implications to this lawsuit beyond the world of online dating. Are we SERIOUSLY suing for the right to be charged seventy bucks a month for a marketing driven personality test? This is only a slightly more refined version of astrology. Although… There are a great number of people who derive a meaningful experience from common sun sign astrology even though it has no relation to the actual position of the planets.
I love eHarmony lab’s blog. But even if they did offer a service for gays there’s no way I’d pay for it. Most dating sites are nonsense anyway. I think some people in the industry have good intentions, but it’s a ridiculously profit-driven system that primarily exploits long-term singles. It does so with pseudo scientific gimmicks and the heavy handed reinforcement of the passionate romantic relationship paradigm.
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