Grindr has just released its annual Unwrapped report, which draws insights from the anonymous, aggregated data of its users. While the company stresses that this is not intended to be a scientific or compressive study, I’m still going to make some broad, sweeping and pathologising generalisations based on its findings.

Much of the report is concerned with sex (you can read the whole thing if you want to know which country is most into feet and which has the highest rate of hung bottoms, along with other such vital pieces of information), but it’s also interesting in what tells us about the cultural interests of queer men. Are we still a priestly class of refined taste-makers, or have we been subsumed into a more basic mass-market culture? What, if anything, is left of the gay sensibility? And what does the report tell us about how we define ourselves in relation to sex? Some of what I found was encouraging, some of it depressing. Let’s dive in… 

FEM TOPS, GET BEHIND ME

One of the most cheering revelations of the Grindr report is that London is the fem top capital of the world. This is a mantle that Londoners should wear with pride, that should welcome visitors as they arrive at Heathrow Airport, that Sadiq Khan should have emblazoned across every official building in the capital.

While much of it takes the form of humour and online memes, there’s still a popular narrative among gay men that tops are effectively equivalent to straight guys and bottoms are equivalent to… straight women, I guess? When we take this dichotomy too far we end up recreating the most tedious and already old-fashioned norms of heterosexual relationships: I’ve seen people sincerely argue that tops should pay on the first date, that it’s weird for a bottom to ask a top out rather than the other way around, and even that that tops shouldn’t use emojis (OK, that one was me…).

Whatever next: it’s unbecoming for a top to invite a bottom to the county tea dance unless there’s a chaperone present? If a top sees a puddle on the street, should they lay their varsity jacket over it so that a bottom may step daintily across? I think it’s limiting and conservative to believe that how you like to have anal sex is inherently either masculinising or feminising; we don’t have to attach that kind of value to it. By disrupting the link between sexual preference and gender expression, the fem top community is doing important, ground-breaking work that might just free us all – and here at the Dazed office we salute them.

IT’S LONELY BEING A QUEER CINEPHILE

What I found most depressing about the survey, on the other hand, is the revelation that the most popular film among gay men was Deadpool and Wolverine. I didn’t actually see it myself, as I was busy reading Proust at the time, but I still feel confident in dismissing it as bad. Statistically, it’s not surprising that 2024’s most commercially successful films – Deadpool and Wolverine followed by Inside Out 2 – would be at the top of this list, but aren’t we supposed to be a subculture? At least Challengers and The Substance also made the grade, both of which feel more recognisably queer in their themes or aesthetics, but it’s still not good enough. Next year, I want to see everyone on Grindr ditching the Disney properties and exclusively watching experimental short films by Derek Jarman on MUBI. 

DIVA WORSHIP IS AS THRIVING AS EVER

Though our taste in cinema might not be recognisably queer, thankfully the same can’t be said for music. The most popular artists are all female pop stars, including Beyoncé, Chappell Roan, Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter, which has been the case since the very beginning of contemporary gay identity – by stanning these divas, we are continuing a proud tradition that stretches back through Madonna to Judy Garland. The popularity of Deadpool and Wolverine gave me a scare, but I’ll only really be concerned that the gay sensibility is disappearing when Jason Aldean, and not Charli xcx, is our favourite singer.

GAY HOOK-UPS ARE SURPRISINGLY ROMANTIC

Whoever would have thought that the chaste, humble kiss would win the award for most popular foreplay activity, beating out edgier young rivals like fellatio and rimming? When there’s so much talk of the coldness of hook-up culture, it’s nice to know that gay men still enjoy the intimacy of a good old-fashioned smooch (not to mention that missionary won out over backshots for most sought-after sexual position, suggesting there’s an appetite for gazing adoringly into a lover’s eyes). Maybe it’s time to swap out darkrooms and saunas for spin the bottle, “seven minutes in heaven” and no-peck-on-the-lips-refused sessions.