Lick My App
Photograph by christian buehner
Somebody at some point in the distant past had a serious sexual hangup and they somehow managed to get a group of individuals to feel the way they did. Then, somehow, this group managed to get God involved which suddenly made sex problematical, creating perpetual anxiety in human sexual relations. I don’t think most people actually believed that God would punish them for certain sexual acts, but rather that their neighbors would. The fear that a friend or acquaintance might call the gendarme to your residence, claiming to have heard two men copulating, but upon arrival, the servants of the state find, instead, two men having tea, still choose to toss both men into a pit and feed them to starving, rabid dogs, despite their desperate pleas was very much a real thing once. It is almost inconceivable to think that these so-called “laws of God” would last centuries and become a part of the lives of nearly every human on the planet, suppressing sexual expression and criminalizing certain sexual proclivities. We’ve sent spacecraft out into the eternal vastness of space, we have quantum entanglement, and I’m composing this interview on a gorgeous 21’ iMac. Why does such superstition still exist?
During the 1960s and 1970s, we had a sexual revolution and it was heavenly! It exploded into our daily lives like the nocturnal emissions of a teenager hitting puberty. It was truly a glorious time to be alive! There is no better era than one in which streaking is not only a thing, but rampant. Women were snapping laundry pins onto their nipples and men were sticking their dicks into éclairs. We had swingers, rows of porn shops, and Studio 54. It was a grand time that had so much potential to change so much more than it already had. Eventually, however, it all petered out (no pun intended).
Of course, the movement may have died, but (obviously) sex did not. I don’t know about anybody else, but I feel as if we’re either in the midst of a new sexual revolution or at the beginning of one. Nevertheless, there are people such as Hedero app creator Stephen Quaderer leading the way. By far the most unique dating/hookup app, I suspect that not only will it continue to grow, but will radically contribute to the health of sexual socialization. Not the next big thing, but a thing of its own.
Headero Lips Logo
I don’t know why, but back when I used to “test drive” everybody’s app close to a decade ago, I didn’t think apps were going to last for much longer. I was obviously wrong. You wanted to make an app. What prompted you to want to do that?
There are two main reasons that we decided to create Headero in the form of an ‘app’ rather than going another route (like a web-only platform). First, is user experience. Without getting too technical, when it comes to mobile devices, apps give you the ability to deliver features (like disappearing picture messaging, fast load times on profiles) that people have come to expect when searching for a potential dating or hookup partner. You can’t (yet) deliver rich features like those on mobile devices using web-only platforms.
The second reason is around people’s expectations. Generally, when people are looking for a dating or hookup platform, they expect that they will find it in the app store. So, we wanted to be where people would naturally expect us to be.
Choosing to be in the app store does carry a cost – both economically in the form of the incredibly high fees that app stores charge developers, and in the form of app store censorship – particularly for sex-positive apps. But fundamentally, we wanted to create a space where we knew our community-to-be was already active and deliver them the best experience possible. So we chose to accept the cost of navigating the app stores in the service of our community.
Where did the idea for Headero come from?
The idea for Headero – a hookup app centered on oral pleasure – was profoundly influenced by my own journey with sex and sexuality. I identify as gay and pansexual, and through my experiences as an openly gay man in New York City, I’ve been fortunate to have shed a lot of the stigma-based framing that society places around sex – becoming what I consider to be fairly sexually liberated.
But as I explored sex and my sexuality, I found that there were still societal boundaries that I faced, particularly around sexual identity. Despite having an attraction to people of all gender identities, I felt that I only had the opportunity to explore sex in an open, joyful way within my ‘gay’ identity.
And I saw these societal boundaries around sexual identity reflected in hookup and dating spaces. Two parallel ecosystems had developed - a queer ecosystem (e.g., Grindr) and a straight ecosystem (e.g., Tinder). And within that queer vs. straight framing, dating and hookup apps have gone even further to differentiate based on every identity imaginable - by focusing on everything from ethnicity to facial hair, age, body type, and so on.
Ultimately, I found that these ever-increasingly specific and narrow identity-based framings limited our ability to connect with each other and explore our sex and sexuality.
So with Headero, we tried to flip that dynamic on its head. Rather than create a space that is based on identity, we centered our space on desire. Headero is for people of all identities – all sexualities, all gender identities – who share a common desire: oral pleasure.
Photograph by Cyrus Crossan
There are so many dating apps on the market, did it ever worry you that yours might get lost in the mix, being new and all?
Absolutely! That was a huge concern - the dating and hookup app space is quite competitive. But we felt that what we were doing with Headero, centering a space on desire rather than identity, was unique. And we did a lot of research to validate that people (of all sexualities and gender identities) would be interested in exploring themselves on a platform centered on oral pleasure. So we felt like it was worth a shot, and now nearing 20k active members, we feel validated in our decision to launch Headero!
Headero isn’t just an app; it’s a community and there’s an actual philosophy behind it. I’m curious to know the mind-frame you were in when you developed that philosophy.
I’m glad that came across to you! We believe that empowering our community is essential to achieving our broader purpose of sexual liberation. So, we took steps to enable community from the outset – including connecting with other values-aligned communities and building transparency and accountability measures into the app design.
The philosophy itself was meant to be an articulation of why we’ve set about to achieve our purpose of sexual liberation as well as a foundation for how we intended to achieve that purpose.
Actually writing the ThotExperiment philosophy was a bit of a journey for me. I’ve been sex-positive and sex forward for some time, and am increasingly bothered by the way society stigmatizes sex and sexuality. But this was the first time I felt the need to capture those thoughts and feelings in a cohesive narrative. Ultimately the process involved a lot of drafting and redrafting, to find a message that I felt would guide ThotExperiment as it grew and evolved.
When I downloaded the app for the first time, it looked sparse (which is likely because I’m a tech-head and was more interested in your UX). But, I took another look at it recently and I see that the membership has grown. Have you started to hit your stride already?
Yes, we saw healthy growth really since launch, but in November 2021 Headero hit a new growth curve. And member growth has continued to accelerate since that time. It seems like people who use Headero tell their friends and lovers, as we’ve grown significantly more than our limited promotional spending to date would typically yield.
So yes, if you look at Headero now vs. a few months ago, we have a lot of new members to connect with.
How has the reception to your app been thus far?
We’ve got some incredibly positive feedback from Headero members. The fact that Headero is a space for people of all sexualities and gender identities seems to resonate. The word we’ve heard repeatedly is that people find the concept “refreshing”. And the fact that this was one of the reasons that Men’s Health rated us as one of the “Top 15 Hookup Apps” was incredibly gratifying.
We also hear praise (maybe not surprisingly!) from oral aficionados. For many people, oral sex is their preferred or only form of sex – so, for them, having a space that specifically centers on oral pleasure is really a game-changer. In other dating and hookup apps, finding out whether others share your interests and kinks (oral or otherwise) takes a lot of time and emotional labor. You have to put yourself “out there” in a way that is repetitive and time-consuming – and may not feel safe from stigma. Headero cuts through that and allows people to connect directly based on their desires in a sex-positive space.
Photograph by Tania Medina
I was young and a long way from being “legal” when the Sexual Revolution happened and though I had no idea it was happening, in retrospect, I could actually feel it. The world “felt” like sex! By the time I had become a young adult, however, I could feel it diminishing, then I didn’t feel it at all. The world didn’t feel sexy anymore, it felt rigid and sterile. On the upside, it feels as if we may well be in the midst of another sexual revolution. What would you say to that assessment?
Absolutely. I believe we are in the midst of a paradigm shift relating to sex, driven by a growing awareness that sex is properly understood through the lens of consent and safety rather than stigma. Fundamentally, society’s stigma-based treatment of sex is intended to maintain power and control. Whereas sex, regardless of how or with whom it is practiced – when grounded in consent and safety – is joyful, liberating, and uplifting.
I believe this paradigm shift will drive profound changes in our relationship to sex, and that yes, with that we have the potential to become a far more sexually liberated society.
I’ve lost count of how many people I’ve interviewed over the past few months who started businesses during the height of the pandemic. That any of them are successful seems nothing short of miraculous. Did you worry that the pandemic might affect what you were trying to accomplish?
Yes, the pandemic made the process of launching Headero more challenging. Given that we’re unable to advertise on almost all mainstream platforms (as their policies around sex are grounded in stigma), connecting with people at events was essential to get off the ground. The various variant waves made this challenging, as of course we wanted everyone to be safe first and foremost. So we had a few event cancellations that probably slowed our growth early on.
That being said, as Headero is a digital platform, we’re not nearly impacted as much as businesses with a physical or retail presence. So we count ourselves fortunate for that. And of course, Headero can also be a sexual outlet for people that may not feel comfortable meeting up in person, which is something we’ve certainly seen.
I try to avoid asking these kinds of personal questions of my subjects, but I’m a fan of Von and I see that you collaborated on an event with her as well as Bound and Uniiq3. What was that all about? How did it turn out?
I’m a huge fan of Von too! As part of our launch, Headero sponsored events with communities that shared our values around sex positivity, inclusivity, and enthusiastic consent. One of those events was the LadyLand festival, where Von and the team heard about Headero.
The concept and community seemed to resonate with them, so they asked us to sponsor “Bloody Mary KOs and Kink”. The event included live performances, DJ sets, a dark room, boxing. It was really incredible and a great opportunity for us to connect with a like-minded community to tell the Headero story.
We have events with other sex-positive communities lined up and we hope to partner with Von and team again!
Where do you see yourself and ThotExperiment in 2022?
I think 2022 is going to be a big year for ThotExperiment. We have some really exciting plans for Headero – from a concerted launch in a few new markets (next up: San Francisco) to new features, and potentially an exciting partnership with some sex-positive folks who’ve certainly made some waves.
And of course, we’ll be learning from our community about how we can better support their needs, and potentially start building another sex-positive platform under the ThotExperiment umbrella.
Follow this link to download the Headero app for both Android and iOS, and check out their events page. Follow their updates on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
