On the grinder you are an object, like choosing online clothes

For Lewis, hook-up apps like Grindra introduced a way to detect gay culture, which was missing in their upbringing in the rural Damfrishire.

First, he loved the excitement of accidental sexual encounters available in a phone swipe, but soon it became addictive.

“You get the recognition that dopamine hit when people give you the message and hit you, it is pleasant, but it is the problem,” they say.

Lewis says that it began to harm their self -esteem and found himself chasing the verification – equal to their values with their body.

He says that the low mood took them back to the loop of the app of quick sexual encounters, which often felt them “dirty and gross”, leading to their anxiety and depression.

“On the grinder you are an object for them, such as choosing clothes on ASOS,” they say.

GBTQ is a social networking app for the community Grindr, the largest app of its kind and now has about 15 million active monthly users.

Many people also use other apps for gay and heterosexual, hook-up.

Some people enjoy it and do not think twice, while others feel that there is a deep issue and it has become a fast-track for immediate satisfaction and has normalized easy access to sex.

For Lewis, it has been challenging to establish more meaningful connections beyond sexual hook-up in a world where many young gay men focus on one thing.

“When you just don’t want that, you feel a strange way,” they say.

Jacob Alone is an up-a-end singer who played the role of Glastonbury in this summer and compared to the 70s folk legend Nick Drake.

Alon’s songs are often tender, but they also deal with topics such as casual sex with strangers on gay hook-up apps.

One of the most popular songs of 25 years ends with Liquid Gold 25 – Avoiding: “This is where Love Die to Die.”

“I wrote the song after a series of hook-ups on Grindra that felt quite empty and humiliated to me,” Alon told that Should we hook the BBC disclosure documentary?,

“It can be very fun,” says Scottish singer.

“But there is definitely a culture that can be quite toxic.”

Alon, who uses them/uses pronouns to them, says that in the past he put himself in risky conditions with random strangers in a park in the middle of the night.

“They could hurt me very easily and no one would know,” they say.

“People have done the works that I did not want to do so and when I did not tell them, I did not listen to me.”

The gay community has deep roots of hook-up culture, dating back at a time when equal sex relations between men were to be hidden.

In 1967, gay work became legal only in England and Wales and it was more than a decade later that Scotland followed the suit.

Today, hook -up culture means sex 24/7 is available – and with a swipe of the phone in your pocket.

At one time in Glasgow, Finton, Kip and James say that Grinder is for hook-up and there was no pretense that it is for anything other than sex.

“It’s very superficial,” says 23 -year -old Finton.

“Everyone got three pictures or perhaps just one picture. 10 times 10 people are shirtless.”

The 30-year-old Kip says that there is no intention of having a real relationship with anyone on his hook-up.

“It has never been ‘alcohol and gossip’,” they say. “This ‘take your knees down, let’s get it’.”

But Kip says that this is not always a great experience.

“Sometimes I have left and I thought: ‘It was very hot, I am very amazing’.

“But there are other times when you leave and it’s 07:00 and people are going to work and you are trembling there, feeling dirty and humiliated.”

In response to the BBC documentary, a spokesperson of a grindr said: “We seriously take the responsibility seriously that comes with a platform used by millions of LGBTQ+ people every day, and we are committed to supporting their well -being in all our forms.”