Pure Review

Editor’s Summary

Pure is a mobile hookup app that seriously challenges the status quo when it comes to using your phone to instantly and anonymously find casual sex partners. It’s crafted for individuals to find and experience “instant sexy adventures” and has one simple premise: provide “Dates On-Demand” -- and for once, quite refreshingly, this hookup app does exactly what its tagline promises.

Pure is the online dating child you would get if you mated Uber with Snapchat, extracting the most dominant online dating-related features from each. Like Uber, Pure operates by sending out geo-located requests (for casual sex rather than cars, in this case) to others on the app within a certain proximity. Like Snapchat, all information you put out in your request, including photo uploads and any communication with others while your request is live, self-destruct (although unlike Snapchat on Pure, information self-destructs every 60 minutes regardless of whether others see it or not). It’s an app where you simply have to be at the right place at the right time. You have a total of 60 minutes to connect with a potential partner, get his or her information and get off the app before your casual sex request expires. You also never know when someone else’s request will expire, so the hookup app seriously pressures you to find someone and go get it on.

Taking a no-nonsense approach to arranging casual sex encounters, the app is essentially a time-regulated online personals service. The only matchmaking feature integrated in the app is the concept of matching users based on proximity to each other, and the only additional information you can submit about yourself in your “request” for an immediate casual sex partner is a single selfie, although the documentation surrounding the app hints at the idea that your selfie can be a picture that contains written language.

Launched in October 2014, Pure has been viewed by some as a Tinder-killer, as it (debatably) helps you find casual sex partners quicker and more easily. The idea for Pure began in 2012 and the project launched on a fairly limited budget, attracting over 100,000 users to sign up for its waiting list before launching in the U.S. on iOS in October 2014, and later in the Google Play Store in June 2015.

Although it’s pretty shamelessly an app that simply helps you get laid, there’s actually some interesting research behind it. Pure was built around concepts developed by an American author, editor, sociologist, and sexologist active in the sex-positive feminism movement, Carol Queen. Queen is known for many sexual movements including her popularization of the neologism "absexual" (a form of sexuality where someone is stimulated by moving away from sexuality or is moralistically opposed to sex), which was originally coined by her partner, as well as for her many sex tutorials and her written erotica. Some of this slightly controversial yet informed insight can be seen in Pure’s online sexual art digest and email subscription program, SexIsPure.com, which simply takes content marketing to a whole new level.

Currently, the top 5 cities where Pure is most used (and thus you have the best chances of hookup success) are Moscow, New York, London, Los Angeles, and Mexico City. The casual hookup app holds a 4 out of 5 star rating in the Apple App Store based on 5,674 votes and a 3.1 out of 5 star rating out of 11,393 votes in the Google Play store, where it is ranked No. 33 in the dating site category.

Pure brings new meaning to the idea of instant online hookups, and does so with pride. The app isn’t designed for any specific demographic and doesn’t market any groundbreaking matching algorithm. Rather, it provides everything you need, with the bonus of a time incentive, and nothing you don’t, to set up immediate casual hookups. To really evaluate this app, you have to be honest with yourself: Are 100% no-strings-attached random and anonymous sexual encounters what you’re really looking for? If so, Pure is quite literally the perfect app to feed your sexual appetite.

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IN-DEPTH

Sign-Up Process

Signing up for Pure is straightforward and seamless, allowing you to submit your profile for date requests within minutes. Upon opening Pure for the first time on your mobile phone you’re immediately prompted to allow or disallow push notifications and geolocation, the latter of which you’ll want to allow. Before registering you must agree to the terms of service which include acknowledging you will allow other members to see your relative distance (a subject matter that has caused massive media outcry from even the best hookup apps when not explained or done properly), and that you will not post adult/sexual photos, text in photos, or language. After accepting the Terms of Service, Pure provides a brief overview of the platform explaining its ‘Dates on-demand’. To begin push the start button and you’ll go through a screen-by-screen sign-up process, during which you identify your sexual orientation (man or woman), upload and submit a selfie by taking a photo in the app or allowing the app to access your stored photos, and are prompted to begin a free 7-day trial. The trail is necessary to move forward and requires you place a credit card, easily done through your mobile app-store wallet, on file, which will automatically place you on a monthly subscription plan after the free trial expires -- but of course you can cancel at any time. Upon activating your free trial, Pure submits your selfie to its member base and you are taken to the home screen.

Members/Interactions

Pure is all about connecting people in real time for on-demand casual sex by placing time-limits on accounts (yes their actual digital existence) and communication. In doing so, the app truly facilitates on-demand, or more like delivery style, casual sex encounters.

The dating app allows you to submit your profile, which is simply a selfie, to local members within a 50 kilometer (31 mile) distance for a notably short period of one hour. During this 60-minute period, your profile is submitted to "people nearby who are up for whatever" or local members, who may show interest by reacting Yes or No to your profile picture, while you do the same to theirs. If mutual interest is established, meaning she reacts Yes to your profile and you react yes to hers either upon seeing hers in your local matches and selecting yes or receiving a push notification that she liked your profile and reciprocating interest by selecting me too, communication may begin via a one-on-one in-app chat string that is created and stored in the chat section. Chats allow for text, photo, and location sharing, and each chat sessions is available for a one-hour period after mutual interest is established. To make casual hookups even easier, in each chat you can view the individual’s current location, including distance in miles, and time it would take to walk or drive to that location, as well as open Uber from within the app to get schedule your trip. Exactly 60 minutes after your profile is created it self-destructs, along with all interests, both interests you have received and shown, and communication or chats that resulted from it. To continue to use the app, you must submit a new profile (aka picture) again for another 60-minute time slot, although the app does conveniently store your recently used photos.

To get the most out of Pure, use it when you’re ready and available to hookup. Unlike other hookup apps that tend to keep you on their platform, Pure promotes cutting to the chase more or less as it encourages your chats with matches to revolve around exchanging information to continue communication outside of the app or arranging a time and place to meet on the spot. Considering all you know about a match at the time you start chatting is what she posted as a ‘selfie’ - which in testing can be just about anything that isn’t explicit, such as say a plant or a painting - and her location, you may choose to use the chat time to request a little more info or photos about her before moving forward. At any time you can delete your submission and/or view how much remaining time it has before it self-destructs, the latter which helps you navigate how quickly or slowly you should approach chats with matches. Also remember that you will never know how much time remains on her request so the sooner you exchange information the better.

Closing the app doesn’t delete your submission, but if you want to get the most use out of Pure you’ll want to stay on the app as much as possible and to react Yes to members you want a casual hookup with (or at least stay on it for a while and then enable push notifications) in order to increase your chances of finding connecting and planning a hookup with someone within the short 1 hour window.  Also worth noting is the requirement you link the Pure app to your mobile wallet, meaning you cannot change your original sign-up preferences pertaining to sexual identity and the app continues to run your profile through your 1-hour profile submission time slot even if you delete the app from your phone.

Key Features

- Quick and easy setup, complete with step-by-step instructions

- Fewer security concerns due to destructable profiles and chats

- 60-minute time-restriction leads to quicker hookups

- No spam and ultra-anonymous postings - Members must mutually match based on very little data about the other person before communicating

- My request timer displays a countdown of much time you have remaining before each submission expires

- Aesthetically pleasing, straightforward design

- Ability to take selfies through the up

- App stores recently used photos for quick re-submission

Safety & Security

In many ways, Pure can be seen as a safer version of Tinder from a privacy perspective as only hour after a match is created; the user’s profiles will vanish forever is not stored on the app’s server. Pure’s Privacy Policy notes that the company ‘Takes reasonable steps to protect the Personal Information provided via the Service from loss, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction, but also acknowledges that no Internet data is ever 100% secure, which users should keep mind when using the app.

Main Competitors

• Tinder
• Passion.com
• XMatch.com

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