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Discover your shared sexual desires...
Melt your inhibitions by comfortably turning your sexual fantasies into your sexual reality.
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Receive free access to Melting Vanilla for life by signing up for an anonymous account and matching at least one sexual fantasy card with your partner. See the Terms for additional details.
The Melting Vanilla Story
We were sitting on the couch when my girlfriend of two years asked me to tell her my sexual fantasies. The words were measured, but the small fracture in her voice told me she'd been building the courage to ask. Her eyes became a pendulum as they tick-tocked between mine, waiting for a response that never arrived. Instead, I simultaneously panicked and froze as my body flooded with a cocktail of emotions whose primary ingredients included fear and shame.
Overwhelmed by the charge of the moment, I failed to recognize her plea. She was softly opening the door and inviting me to be vulnerable so that we could connect on a deeper level. In return, I slammed the door shut despite desperately wanting what was waiting on the other side.
The regrettable truth is there were many sexual fantasies I had wanted to pursue together with her. So why was I so activated by this question? After years of reflection, three main reasons emerged:
- Fear of Judgment and Rejection - I deeply feared that sharing my desires would lead to judgment, rejection, and a shift in the identities my partner and I had established within our relationship.
- Shame-based Conditioning - I grew up believing sex was a taboo subject. This message was reinforced again and again by my family, school, church, and community. This shame-based conditioning distorted my understanding of my own sexual needs and created a mental barrier that made discussing sex feel inappropriate and uncomfortable.
- Lack of Language - Sex was so awkward to talk about in my family that my parents abdicated that responsibility to the public school system. When I was growing up, Sex Ed programs completely avoided the topic of why most people have sex in the first place: Because it feels good. We learned about what it looked like to say 'No!' but never about what it looked like to say 'Yes!'
This combination of reasons created an environment where talking about sex felt so loaded with potential consequences that I took the easy way out and avoided these conversations altogether. Avoiding the problem did nothing to help solve it, and my lack of courage prevented me from becoming the emotionally available partner I needed to become to support a healthy, intimate relationship. The stage had been set for an otherwise love-filled relationship to slowly start to fall apart.
The years after that relationship ended were filled with turmoil as I continued to fumble through others, repeating the same mistakes over and over again. But each relationship and each mistake taught me something new. Over time, and through a dedicated process of self-exploration and learning, I've become more comfortable having intimate sexual conversations and understanding that challenges to my identity are a necessary and healthy part of personal growth.
This journey also taught me that I wasn't alone. I learned that having sexual fantasies and desires is completely normal and, as indicated by the almost half-million members of the "Dead Bedrooms" subreddit, something that a lot of people struggle with.
This is why I created Melting Vanilla. Intimacy shouldn't be one more thing we are afraid of. It should be something that brings us closer together. I built this app to help sexual and romantic partners facilitate intimate conversations around sexual desires and ultimately bring relationships closer together.
Insights on Sexuality from The Scoop
Frequently Asked Questions
Melting Vanilla is an app that helps you comfortably communicate sexual needs, wants, desires, and boundaries with your romantic partners.
Talking about sex and communicating sexual needs can be awkward and uncomfortable, even with a long-term partner. Because of this, many couples avoid these conversations, and as a result, experience the frustration that comes along with not having their needs and desires met.
Melting Vanilla was created to help solve this problem and prioritize the pleasure of sex by reducing the awkwardness and hesitance around sexual conversations.
Melting Vanilla helps couples navigate the conversation around their sexual desires by drastically reducing the awkwardness and discomfort that surrounds these conversations.
It does this by showing each partner in a relationship "cards" with various sexual acts, fantasies, scenarios, etc. Each partner can answer 'Yes,' 'No,' or 'Maybe' to the card.
Whenever both partners answer 'Yes' to the same card pair, the couple is shown that match within the app as a green card pair (illustrated by this icon: ).
If either partner answers 'No' to a card, the card is not shown, and that partner's privacy regarding a given card's content is protected.
When partners answer a card pair with any combination of 'Yes' and 'Maybe', that card pair is shown as a match but is highlighted within the app as a yellow card pair (illustrated by this icon: ). This indicates that there is a curious affirmation of the card's content. When couples reveal a 'Maybe' match, they should explore what excites them about this card pair and what reservations or boundaries they may want to communicate before engaging in this card's content.
Melting Vanilla is only meant to be used by consenting adults who are over the age of 18.
Yes. We understand that information about sexuality is sensitive and private and we fully respect that. We only collect information about you that is required to support the platform's functionality and to enable basic reporting capabilities.
The only information we collect from you directly is:
- Whether or not you are over 18
- Your gender
- Your content preference level
- Agreement to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
- Your answers to card swipes
Indirectly, we collect:
- The state you are using the app in based on your IP address.
- Analytics tracking associated with different actions taken throughout the app (i.e., button clicks, page views, etc.).
Collectively, this information is not sufficient to identify you or your partners as individuals.
You are welcome to provide additional information to personalize and enhance the app experience for you and your partner. Entering this information may reveal your identity to your linked partners, but doing so will be completely optional based on your comfort level with sharing this information.
Finally, Melting Vanilla follows well-known security best practices to keep your data safe. This includes, but is not limited to, encrypting all data in transit and at rest.
See our Privacy Policy for additional details about how we collect and use your information.
To keep Melting Vanilla anonymous, you do not need to provide any identity-revealing information at sign up — no email address, username, password, etc.
Instead, you are provided with a unique and secure sign-in URL after signing up. This URL is the only way you can return to the app to answer cards and see your matches.
This private sign-in URL is the only way you can access the app. Treat this sign-in URL like a password and be sure to store it securely and do not share it with anyone.
To keep your Melting Vanilla account private and anonymous, you can only access the app using your private and secure sign-in URL. If you lose this URL, you will not be able to see any of your previously answered cards or partner matches. However, you can sign up for the app again by creating a new account, re-answering the cards, and repairing with your partner.
You can pair with your partners by clicking on the Matches icon () in the app's menu and then clicking on the + Invite Partner button.
Once completed, you will be given a secure and unique partner pairing URL to be shared with your partner. When your partner clicks on this link, they will be able to sign up for the app and can start answering cards and viewing your mutual card matches.
Be mindful not to confuse your partner pairing URL with your own personal sign-in URL.
Definitely! While Melting Vanilla is meant to help facilitate partnership conversations, a great first step in sexual exploration is discovering your own needs, wants, desires, and boundaries. This information is a great starting point for facilitating discussions with your partner once you're ready to pair with them.
Not yet, but we're working on it!
Yes! Using Melting Vanilla is a great way to communicate your desires and boundaries with any sexual partner, regardless of whether you've just met them or if you've known them your entire life.
Sexual preferences exist on an infinitely wide spectrum and therefore the card content in Melting Vanilla ranges from flirty and romantic to overtly sexual and erotic. To help ease into using the app, you will have the ability to set your own preference "Level" within the app, ranging from 1 (flirty and romantic) to 5 (overtly sexual and erotic).
You can always change your preference later if you decide that you'd like the content to be more or less sexually explicit.
Yes. Sexual preferences and tastes evolve. If you want to change an answer you've given to one of the cards, follow these steps.
- Click on the Settings icon () to open the menu
- Click "Change Answers"
- Select the 'Yes,' 'No', or 'Maybe' tab of the answer you want to change
- Scroll to find the answer you want to change and click on it
- Click the 'Yes,' 'No,' or 'Maybe' button to reflect your updated preference
Keep in mind that changing your answer to any given card may match or unmatch this card with your partner.
Melting Vanilla is being developed by an individual person who can only dedicate a finite amount of time to this project each week. Ultimately, I want to build an app to serve all genders and sexual orientations, but for now, the app is generally geared towards cis-gendered, heteronormative couples. I'm working as fast as I can to change this!
Not yet. We'd love to expand to support all countries across the globe and to support as many languages as possible. However, for the time being, Melting Vanilla only works in the United States and is only available in English.
Absolutely not.
Matched card pairs let you and your partners know you are both into the same thing. From there, it is essential to have a conversation about the specifics of how you and your partners would like to participate in any given sexual activity. Enthusiastic consent should be provided by anyone involved.
The card content is a mix of self-generated desires and fantasies and user submissions. If you'd like to submit your own desire or fantasy for consideration, please use this form.
Sure thing! You can submit your own desires and fantasies for consideration by filling out this form. Note that no sexual activities involving minors or non-consensual behavior will be considered for approval.
Yes, please! You can submit feedback or request new features within Melting Vanilla by filling out this form.
"Vanilla" is a slang term that refers to conventional or basic sex. Melting Vanilla is an app that aims to "melt" these vanilla tendencies away by helping couples have more exciting, engaging, and explorative sexual experiences with one another.
That said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with vanilla sex, and the name Melting Vanilla is meant to be playful and light-hearted. The best sex is the sex that feels the best to you, vanilla or otherwise.
Melting Vanilla is under active development by a small software team in partnership with the sex therapist and sex educator communities.