Stella.
"I want to try a different person. I want to see a different dick."
I’ve only known Stella* for about a year and a half, but I’d been hearing about her for a lot longer. Stella, 45, is a mother and a very successful entertainment industry executive who is close with my friend Joanne. Like me, she’s also a woman of a certain age who got divorced and then embarked on what one friend calls a “slut phase.” Over the past year, Stella and I have traded dozens of stories about our exploits, and supported one another through some of our more challenging experiences. (She was never a fan of Nico.) Earlier this week, I talked to Stella about hookup apps, rough sex, and getting slapped without warning.
The following has been condensed and edited for clarity.
NAOMI: So, about two years ago, I went hiking with Joanne and I was regaling her with tales about my experiences on the sex app. She goes, “Oh, my friend's on Feeld.” I just perked up. The fact that Joanne knew someone who was on a sex app was delightful to me because it meant that I was not alone.
STELLA: And I think she did the same with me. And I was similarly intrigued.
NAOMI: So what year did you go on Feeld?
Stella: I think the first time was in 2021.
NAOMI: You were an early adopter.
STELLA: It was before it was getting written about in more mainstream media. When I went on it, I didn't know a lot of people who had even heard about it. And when I brought it up to guys on other dating apps, most people had never heard of it.
NAOMI: How did you hear about it?
STELLA: I heard about it from a man that I was seeing after I got divorced.
NAOMI: When you first went on it, were you at all scandalized or surprised?
STELLA: Yes, very much so. So, I got divorced in 2020 and I considered myself quite a prude at that time, although I definitely had something brewing beneath the surface that was very much not that, and that was wanting to come out, but was only starting to inch up towards the surface.
When I first heard about it though, it was very hard for me to imagine myself ever using it. [But] out of curiosity, I downloaded it to take a look and put a blank photo on or something just to create a profile. And I was pretty shocked by what I saw. So it was a real free for all, very in your face and yeah, quite shocking to someone who was a bit of a prude at the time.
NAOMI: When you say you were a bit of a prude, what does that mean? Does that mean that you hadn't had a lot of sex? Does it mean that you were vanilla? I guess I'm asking you to define what you mean by prude in the context of your life up until that point.
STELLA: I had only been in long relationships. My marriage...that relationship lasted 12 years, and I had not had a lot of sexual partners. I had not dated a lot, and I'd had one one night stand my whole life. So what Feeld represented was just something I had very little experience with. I had almost no experience with casual sex, and I was very intimidated by it. The guy who told me about [Feeld] mentioned that he connected with a girl. They started talking about porn, and then she sent him a link to something that she enjoyed, and then they FaceTimed and watched it together and masturbated together. And that just was the type of encounter that at that time in my life, I could never in a million years imagine myself doing.
It really shocked me to think not that he did it, but that a woman, this woman he was mentioning, who I think he said was in her twenties, that she would just be so open to doing something like that.