"Rating Men on Lulu Isn't Empowering. It's Creepy."

Article here. Excerpt:

'Last week, I put out a call for more hook-up apps that are actually designed by, and for, women. Social media pro Alexandra Chong answered my call. Enter Lulu, an app so female-friendly that it doesn’t even require men to create their own profiles—women do that for them.

Lulu, Chong says, is “the first database of men, built by women, for women.” It is “the smart girls' app for private recommendations and reviews on guys.” It is “Yelp for boys.” Cosmopolitan calls it “Sex and the City marries Facebook.” As you might imagine, the combination is insufferable.
...
Here’s how it actually goes down. When I logged on this morning, Lulu prompted me to rate an alphabetized list of my hundreds of male Facebook friends—including my married, middle-aged uncle. Lulu has prepared for this uncomfortable scenario by inviting women to assess men from the perspective of partners, exes, crushes, friends, or relatives. When I clicked the "relative" box, the app asked me to rate how hot I think my uncle is. It describes the highest point category this way: “When it comes to his looks, I wish we weren’t related.” Presumably, so I would be able to legally have sex with him. Gross.

Unfortunately, the creepiness of Lulu doesn’t end at the bloodline. This app asks women to publicly sexualize (#KinkyInTheRightWays) and shame (#BabbyDaddy) the men in their lives without their consent. It’s the textual equivalent of leaking your ex’s naked pics to the Internet—it’s not wrong because it’s sexual, it’s wrong because it’s nonconsensual. ...'