Tara
Fantasy Match, a new multi-use sexual wellness app launching today, promises to improve intimacy, and provide sex education for people with a range of different relationship statuses.
The beta version of Fantasy Match was downloaded more than 10,000 times since it was released in February 2020, with a 4.5-star rating on the App Store.
While we’re seeing many wellness-focused apps launched in what’s being described as the “second wave” of sextech by the founders behind Fantasy Match. The company claims it’s different from others as it has something for everyone: its Learn, Play and Flirt sections cater to the needs of single people, people in a friends-with-benefits arrangement and people in both monogamous and polyamorous relationships.
Gap in the market
The female-focused app is a combination of sex education and foreplay inspiration, while additionally offering similar opportunities for meeting others, as a hookup app does.
Founder and CEO Andrew Yaroshenko told SEXTECHGUIDE: “The product my partner [and co-founder] Juliya and I built comes from our passion, which is sex education. We wanted to help people deepen their knowledge of personal sexuality, as well as give tools to make lives more playful.
“We believe our app helps to fight one of the biggest problems that exists when it comes to sex: shame. It doesn’t allow people, and especially women, to build healthy intimate relationships and talk about their desires openly,” he said.
Zuckerberg-approved Mindful Guidelines
While tackling shame through sex-positive values is a strategy many business are now opting for, censorship has historically been an issue within sextech, often preventing creators from being able to monetise their platforms effectively and creating troublesome obstacles for those trying to get their product seen on social media.
The makers behind Fantasy Match have tried to find a solution to this by setting their own Mindful Guidelines that adhere to the small-print T&Cs set out by the App Store and Facebook: one notably being not creating content that is “overtly pornographic” or that is “just plain creepy”, and instead focusing on wellness and education.
Yaroshenko said: “We focus on education and mindfulness because that’s what we love and have been practising for a long time. I think that helps us in terms of avoiding Facebook and Apple censorship, but the fact is that it was never our intention. We initially decided to speak about the most intimate topic without being explicit and oversexual. That helps our users to feel at ease around the things they feel uncomfortable to discuss.
“I find that the majority of second-wave sextech companies address the discussion similarly, while Facebook and Apple censorship targets the first-wave companies [more pornographic-focused, ‘X-rated’ platforms] in the first place,” he added.
Learn, Play, Flirt
Fantasy Match is divided into three sections: learn, play and flirt. The Learn section consists of educational cards, arranged in decks, which provide tips and factual information about sexuality, sexual health and cultural attitudes towards sex.
One example of a Learn deck is the World’s Sexual Culture Deck, looking at how people relate to sex, love, and morality in different cultures.
“We believe it is a good conversation starter to release shame and awkwardness that sometimes exist around the topic of sex. I personally know several people who are not satisfied with their sex lives but don’t know how to say it out loud. So we thought about putting together a deck that would state: you could do it differently! Don’t be shy; look at how other people did it before!”
The Play section is a private ‘room’ where you can invite other Fantasy Match users to swipe through cards, suggesting different sexual scenarios or positions, via a direct link. Participants will only view mutual card matches, and you can even submit your own.
The Flirt section allows users to meet like-minded people by browsing through community members’ profiles. Users have to activate this section if they want to be seen publicly in the community, meaning it’s not compulsory, helping to create a “safe and transparent space”.
“Improving your sex life brings great joy,” added Yaroshenko. “Using a holistic approach helps couples open up to each other, have intimate conversations, realize their desires and become complete and mindful. [Sextech] takes the journey towards intimacy to the next level by coming up with the tools that didn’t exist before.”
Fantasy Match App: Membership and Payment
The app has two monetization models – a club membership subscription for premium features and in-app deck purchases.
Subscriptions start at £3.49 GBP per week and in-app decks can be purchased from £1.99 GBP. You can head to the iOS app store to download and get started for free.
There’s currently no Android version.
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