The Hookup App: Does 'Bang With Friends' Deserve A Shot?

Ever find yourself flipping through your friends' (or friends' friends) Facebook photos fantasizing about what it would be like to have sex with them? If so, you're in luck. No longer do you have to keep your perversions to yourself.

Bang With Friends is a Facebook and mobile app that allows you to anonymously pick and choose which of your friends you would like to get it on with. Once you sign up, the app pulls your Facebook contacts together separated by men and women. Simply click who you would like to hook up with. If the object of your desire has the app and clicks on your picture too, both of you will receive a message notifying you of your mutual interests. If they don't have the app or you're not sure if they do, you can always send out an anonymous email through the app with a link to sign up. In other words, your friend will never know about your true feelings unless they're interested too.

Unsurprisingly, the app was invented by three guys in their twenties while drunk one night. "Like most brilliant ideas in history, there was some booze involved and lots of liberated thinking," says Colin Hodge, one of the three founders. "We looked at how dishonest the dating market was. We wanted to cut through the BS. You should be able to break the ice in a safe way and find out which of your friends are down for the night. We're all in our twenties and it just fits much better with how we view dating, and how dating has evolved instead of how the traditional big sites kind of approach it."

Unfortunately the folks at Apple didn't see it that way. Ten days after approving the app for iTunes, Apple pulled it from the market citing clause16.1; "apps that present excessively objectionable or crude content will be rejected."

But where does that leave apps like Grindr, Tinder, and Let's Date? They're apps that are supposedly just for meeting people but what we all know are really for one thing (unlike a Match or OK Cupid app); having sex. The difference is the aforementioned apps don't explicitly mention sex or in this case, banging.

Hodge takes the high road. "We want people to be able to just be straightforward and honest about their intentions and know what to expect." He insists Bang with Friends is a much better alternative to conventional dating sites because you're much more likely to meet up with a person you already know than a stranger. He explains it's about honest and meaningful communication ... at least when it comes to hooking up.

In the meantime, the boys behind Bang with Friends are working with Apple to get the app reinstated. And for all you horny Android users, Bang with Friends is still available.

So is Bang with Friends really worth banning? I find it bizarre and somewhat disturbing that an app about banging your friends could be considered a new form of dating. Traditional dating sites approach it differently, because the goal (creepsters and players aside) is to date — not bang. However, I'm all for sexual freedom in all its forms. If two people need an app to figure out they want to have sex, so be it.

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"We're all for getting drunk with your friends and putting the moves on them if you can, but for us it's about having the ability to break the ice in a safe manner so that you don't compromise that friendship," Hodge explains. "It also allows women to make the first move instead of waiting until both parties are drunk and hoping the guy makes the move."

Perhaps there is something to be said for not ruining friendships that could be forever awkward after a misguided attempt to get laid. But with the help of an app, the mystique, the intrigue, the flirtatious cat and mouse game is completely gone. Instead having sex feels like a business transaction.

But the founders think anonymously telling your friends you want them can even lead you to happily ever after. "I've heard from couples forming committed relationships and being very happy because who makes a better mate than somebody you're already friends with?" Hodge says.

Maybe so. As for me? I'll stick to my retro ways of getting drunk at the bar with the object of my affection over the contrived entanglements of a Facebook or mobile app. If you can't tell me to my face you want to have hook up, then we probably shouldn't be hooking up at all.

Where do you stand on BWF? Tell us in the comments below.