Whiplr is Tinder for the fetish-driven

Mainstream dating services like Tinder, Grindr or OK Cupid don't make it too easy to admit if your tastes are "very singular." That's why Whiplr has been created as a hookup app for people who prefer to get off with more than just a special cuddle. Simply offer up a picture of your face, a nickname and a list of extra-curricular interests and you'll instantly be pointed to members in the local vicinity, arranged by distance.

The type of information you'll be asked to provide ranges from height, weight and age through to your sexuality on a sliding scale ("I'm 75% into women" or "I'm 80% into Men" for instance). The kink options are, weirdly, grouped into 10 categories that include "Behavior," "Fashion," "Objects" or "Materials" -- with no way to drill down to specify if you're into wild and varied treats like breathplay, pegging or other things you'll be fired for if you google them while at work. You can then send a limited number of text, picture or video messages each day to your future play partners. On the surface, it appears as Whiplr is the mobile app that Fetlife should have built a few years ago and, for some reason, never did.

You can connect your account to services like Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest, but if you'd prefer to keep your sexuality a secret, you can also hook Whiplr up to Google Plus. Of course, the app can't run on charity alone, and users are severely limited unless they subscribe to Dekadom, a service that opens up unlimited messages, profile views and other functionality. If you just want to pay for a month at a time, then you'll be asked to pay the eye-watering sum of $19.99 / £14.99, but annual subscriptions work out to $9.99 / £7.50 a month. That makes it slightly more than a basic Netflix subscription but, depending on your point of view, a whole lot more fun.