{"id":300879,"date":"2026-02-16T12:42:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T12:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/300879\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T12:42:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T12:42:16","slug":"inside-the-app-where-queer-gooners-run-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/300879\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the App Where Queer Gooners Run Free"},"content":{"rendered":"

One night not long ago, Jaxon Roman sat naked in front of his laptop wearing only a pup hood<\/a> as he masturbated<\/a> with single-minded zeal to the attention of eight other men watching onscreen.<\/p>\n

It was a typical weekday for the 33-year-old Arlington, Virginia, program analyst. \u201cWhen bros praise me and say they\u2019re enjoying [me], I get to that edge point so fast,\u201d Roman says. His favorite instances are \u201cwhen they all come to what I\u2019m doing.\u201d Sometimes, when he\u2019s feeling especially kinky, Roman, who is bisexual, likes to ask for permission before climaxing. When granted, he releases and his body, he says, shakes for 10 seconds. \u201cPure bliss,\u201d he calls it.<\/p>\n

At least a few times a month on Batemates<\/a>, a social app<\/a> for men who like to masturbate with other men, Roman will spend an hour online with his bros. Masturbating\u2014or \u201cbating\u201d as it\u2019s known online\u2014has always helped him relieve stress and find his center.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not the only one. Pitched as an \u201call-in-one platform designed to embrace bating as a lifestyle, together,\u201d Batemates is the newest haven of queer pleasure. \u201cIt\u2019s a community of like-minded people who are just trying to be porn for others, virtually, while watching others pleasure themselves,\u201d Roman says. \u201cGroup play with hotties around the world. What\u2019s not to like?\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Batemates technically launched in October 2024, it wasn\u2019t until last year that it really started to catch on as a viable\u2014and safe\u2014alternative to other online bator platforms.<\/p>\n

Nearly all of the bators WIRED spoke to said they were introduced to the lifestyle in 2020, during Covid, because, as one of them put it, \u201cthere was nothing else to do.\u201d Gone were the days of the discreet sauna circle jerk. Instead, men flocked to private video channels on Skype and Zoom for digital jam sessions where they communally bated with other men from around the world via the portal of their laptop screens. During this period, virtual sessions got so popular that they would occasionally max out with more than 100 people in a single room.<\/p>\n

Everything changed last year. Skype was shut down in May. Zoom sessions started getting reported more often. (\u201cSensitive content,\u201d including porn, nudity, and \u201cother content intended to cause sexual arousal\u201d is prohibited according to the company\u2019s acceptable use guidelines<\/a>; Zoom did not respond to a request for comment.) Some queer bators have since decamped to Teams, Microsoft\u2019s chat and video-conferencing app; others rely on chat forums like BateWorld\u2014a Reddit-style platform for all things male masturbation that is arguably the most popular destination for bators\u2014as well as Discord, Telegram, and Reddit to find bros to bond with.<\/p>\n

Batemates emerged as an exciting replacement. \u201cAll the corporate tools were just banning us,\u201d says Batemates founder Johan Guams. \u201cAs members of the LGBTQ+ community, we had no space. I was really upset about the hypocrisy of the situation, especially when this is something everybody does.\u201d<\/p>\n

Batemates wants to put an end to the corporate sanctimony around adult content. It\u2019s an ethos the company has even woven into its branding. A recent ad posted on X<\/a> makes clear: \u201cYour friends. Your boss. Your coach. Your colleague. Everyone bates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Microsoft declined to comment, but according to both its digital safety policy<\/a> and its terms of use<\/a>, \u201cany images, videos, audio, text, or links that depict or imply nudity, sexual acts, sexual arousal, or sexual violence\u201d are prohibited on Teams.<\/p>\n

Though Guams, who is 31 and from Paris, was also a regular in various Zoom bating sessions during the pandemic, he often left them wanting more. \u201cI was like, OK, I masturbate on Zoom, but I don\u2019t know who these people are. There\u2019s no control. I can\u2019t keep in touch with them. Sometimes you find crazy people. The experience just felt complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One night not long ago, Jaxon Roman sat naked in front of his laptop wearing only a pup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2078,61,60,410,1071,6005,6007,58,80,36084],"class_list":{"0":"post-300879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-apps","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-microsoft","13":"tag-porn","14":"tag-sex","15":"tag-social-media","16":"tag-technology","17":"tag-zoom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}