2023 was a mild-to-wild year for me.

If I summarized my experience with hook-up apps in 2023, spotify-wrapped-style, my top artists would be … well let’s not overshare TOO much, but my playtime would be uhm… several dozens of hours. Seeking out fixes and fucks in the digital space takes a lot of time and energy, and the experience can be hit-and-miss. I’m not looking at it as a negative or positive, but rather a fact of my queer existence and my adventurous 2023.

Cruising is a gay man’s old reliable, but it’s looked a lot different in recent years. We’ve journeyed from using the hankey code in public parks and seedy bars (OK, some of us still do this); to Craigslist personals and OKCupid chats; to Grindr chirps and “into?” messages. If any of this progress can be considered an improvement, that’s anyone’s guess.

Grindr changed the game. It was 2008. No longer would I have to wait hours to solicit a grainy dick pic and address out of a man much older than me. Hundreds of headless torsos representing potential new friends and lovers were at my fingertips, their photos lovingly annotated with their relative distance from me.

Although Grindr still plays a role in my life whether I like it or not, the digital age and a growing, diversifying hookup culture has birthed a new platform: Sniffies.

In late 2022, Sniffies had us locked and loaded with no end in sight. The platform began swelling in popularity within Kentucky’s borders throughout 2023. The map-based meetup platform for gay, bi, and curious guys is leading the charge on bringing the idea of “cruising” to the digital sphere. Once you log into the blue map, you’ll see plenty of available nude profiles with the usual stats (age, weight, height, fetishes, etc.), but with a little something extra.

Sniffies provides popular cruising locations for guys to meet up, cruise, group up, play, and bounce. These locations include parks, airports, arcades and more.

Picture it, 1970s Louisville Cherokee Park… but brought to the digital playground. Gone are the days of knowing someone is 1,200 feet away, because now on Sniffies, you can find someone’s ass-up profile pic geo-located with precision (unless the user ops out of this feature).

Now, enough about the app, let’s dive into the slutty data that Sniffies is revealing about how their users spent their time hooking up and getting together in 2023.

The Sniffies DownLoad 2023 highlights Sniffies data and metrics over the course of the year to reveal how the platform was used and spotlights key trends exhibited by users in America and across the globe.

Key data highlights include Horniest City, Favorite Places to Cruise, Most Active Day on the Platform, Most Popular Position, MVK (Most Valuable Kinks) and many more.

After I saw that Sniffies was posting this data about some of the larger regions of the world, I couldn’t help but wonder, what all went down in the bluegrASS? I reached out to Sniffies’ CMO and Creative Director, Eli Martin and he and his team pulled some very fascinating data for me.

“Thrilled to witness our users constantly evolving. This year, we noticed a fascinating surge in activity from our straight-curious users and those diving deeper into their personal kinks. Sniffies is the go-to for the curious, and we’re eager to forge more connections within our vibrant cruising community in 2024,” shares Martin, unpacking the data from Sniffies Download 2023.

Below, you will see the top cruising spots in Kentucky (they are kept in categories so as not to compromise the safety of people), top kinks, top position, horniest city, biggest dick size, and a couple of other surprises.

Top Cruising spots

Airport
Department store
Arcade

Ok, this surprises me a little about the Airport. If we’re talking about SDF, there’s truly only one bathroom that has an insignificant amount of people in it at all times. Everywhere else is packed from urinal to urinal. Department store? I have heard of a store or two in Kentucky that have bathrooms with doors that go to the floor for the stall, but the divider still has that understall gap. Maybe you’ve seen them? And when it comes to “Arcades” I don’t think we’re talking about Z Bar in Louisville. We’re talking VIDEO arcades.

Top Kinks

Groups
Cum-play
Sex-toys
Porn
Edging

Boys will be boys? That’s all I’ve really got for top kinks. I guess the more the merrier.

Top Position

Vers
Bottom
Top
Vers-Bottom
Bottom-sub
Vers-top

At least we live in a state where the majority of cruisers want the best of both worlds. Who has time for strict tops and bottoms anymore?

Horniest Cities (Most sessions)

Louisville
La Grange
Lexington
Georgetown
Campbellsville

OK. Yes, Louisville is Kentucky’s most populated city, so this makes sense. La Grange, not to far outside of Louisville, but it’s a pretty sleepy place if you ask me — I guess very cruisey too. I’m very surprised Lexigonton wasn’t number two here. As the second largest city, and a MASSIVE college town, you’d think it’d be more horny than La Grange. And Georgetown? It is just an extension of Lexington. But, Campbellsville? I know some of my best friends are liiiiiving for this statistic. Campbellsville sits in Taylor County. This is a town that once thought about defunding its public library because a bunch of queer people came to talk on a panel during pride month (I am queer people). There are around 70 churches in this town of 11,426 and it is home to Campbellsville University, a private Christian University. Anyway, go off, Campbelsville.

Sexuality

Bi
Straight-curious
Gay
Bicurious
Straight

This one shockingly doesn’t surprise me. For one, the bi-sexual demographic is the largest in alphabet soup, so the checks out. This is your reminder that as badly as you want that bisexual bro to only be into male ass, you can’t always get what you want.

OK, straight-curious and bi-curious, I resent yall. Some of you stay curious for years. At what point have you tickled that curious tingle enough to know where you stand on the kinsey?

Gays, well yeah, this is “your territory”

I was fascinated by seeing “straight.” However, we need to be inclusive of those that are trans and nonbinary straights! And…whatever the cis-hets are doing I guess.

Rookie of the year