LGBTQ Agenda: Sniffies podcast reports how AI may change cruising

Many queer people may know of Sniffies primarily as a geolocation-based hookup app. What’s less commonly known is that the company is also involved in producing an award-winning podcast.

Enter “Cruising Confessions.” Hosted by Gabe González, a gay man, and Chris Patterson-Rosso, who is queer and nonbinary, the podcast began its third season October 23, featuring nine episodes covering topics ranging from artificial intelligence to religion to fitness culture, and how they interact with cruising, which is the act of searching for casual sexual partners.

“Sniffies has always celebrated curiosity, connection, and exploration without judgment,” stated Sniffies’ Chief Marketing Officer Eli Martin. “This season of ‘Cruising Confessions’ takes that even further, tackling everything from AI and intimacy to body image and pleasure, all through the lens of our community’s real experiences.”

The hosts said that while cruising is a time-tested tradition, there was a dearth content available contextualizing it.

“My goal was to put out into the world something people of all ages could learn from, and use sexually, if that makes sense,” Patterson-Rosso said.

Added González, “I love yapping on a mic. Gays love to do that, and there’s plenty of places you can find where gays are yapping on a mic, but what made me excited was you could walk away entertained about a new topic, and also with a tool kit they can use for day-to-day life.” 

González uses historical examples in the podcast to remind LGBTQ people that “they are not the first queer people to experience what they’re experiencing today.”

González said that he hopes the podcast is helping people take an honest look at elements of the LGBTQ experience that still fill some people with shame or guilt.

“I grew up Catholic in the middle of central Florida – so good luck to young me,” he quipped. 

“That was rough, and I think combined with the fact we don’t see a lot of really honest representation when it comes to queer people in the 1990s and early 2000s, a lot of queer history becomes sanitized. We reference Stonewall but not first-hand accounts of how seedy it was. We’ll talk about [late trans rights activist] Sylvia Rivera, but are reticent to mention her sex work, and experience of homelessness. So, helping folks understand that is inviting them to understand they are part of a larger legacy, a tapestry,” González said, referring to the bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village where a 1969 riot sparked the modern LGBTQ rights movement.

To that point, one episode this season discusses fisting.

“A big thing we try to do is destigmatize these intense, or in some ways, extreme practices,” said Cameron Femino, a gay and queer man who is senior creative producer at Sniffies. “For instance, we have a fisting episode coming up this season. The goal is not to make everyone a fister – but even the most vanilla sex practitioner in the community could have a lot to gain from that conversation” because sex is “a tool to learn about yourself, and potentially self-actualize.” 

Hosts have connection
Patterson-Rosso joked they were the “personality hire” for the show and González was hired subsequently. The first season premiered starting in June 2024, and the second season in June 2025.

“The nerves were definitely high,” Patterson-Rosso said, recalling the show’s inception. “But Gabe and I got along famously. We really have a connection and were able to bounce off each other. At the end of the screen test, I wasn’t sure how I did, but I gave it my best effort because I am a storyteller and all of what we’re doing on this podcast is storytelling.”

The third season’s premiere, “AI: The Future of Cruising,” discusses how AI, synthetic companionship, and virtual intimacy are changing queer sex and connection and how that might impact the future of cruising. In it the hosts interview Leo Herrera, a queer Mexican artist whose science-fiction docuseries series “Fathers” envisions a world where HIV doesn’t exist.

Patterson-Rosso said it was an honor, “just being able to talk with him about what he’s observed the last few years – because he’s been diving into AI and porn and sex for some time … and where he thinks it’s going – I don’t want to give too much away. I want people to listen to the podcast.”

Added González, “The AI episode was great. We’ve had Herrera on before. He’s an amazing historian, but is also an expert about AI. He’s trying to put together all these different elements popping up today being monetized and put down our throats by the tech billionaires. Chris and I are both entertainers, and are very skeptical on AI, and I think that has to do a lot with the areas where we’re seeing it leveraged, like replacing individuals in entertainment. A lot of younger generations are spending more time with AI than with friends or family, so we talked about specific chatbots and generative AI and how it influences porn, relationships, and how we see those in the future.”

Herrera stated to the B.A.R., “It was my second time appearing on ‘Cruising Confessions;’ my first appearance we covered the ancient art of Analog Cruising for my new cruising manual. On this season I was able to talk about the pleasures and dangers of digital cruising and how AI may fit into the future of cruising.”

In the episode Herrera speculates about how generative AI is impacting, and will affect, people’s experiences of sex in the future.

“That’s what humans do, is we use technology for fucking,” Herrera said in the podcast episode. “It’s one of the first things we always do. … It’s interesting how a lot of things have changed in AI imagery, and where we’re at now, and how we’re still not talking about it.”

Herrera argued, "At some point we're going to have to figure out how we incorporate that technology into our own queerness, because otherwise these tech lords are going to be very excited to do it for us, and just give us an AI wingman. You're going to be logging into Grindr at some point and not know who's a real person anymore."

Some people are interfacing with AI chatbots sexually already, including prompting chatbots to create pornography based on composite images, which carries ethical implications, Herrera said, as well as questions of how future generations' sexual development will be affected.

"If people that are 10 years younger than us, if they grew up in a world where they went to high school and use nudify apps, which they're using now, since 2023 they have created huge problems for schools," he said, explaining that to use nudify apps, "You put in a photo of a girl, and it just takes her top off."

Last month, gay Open AI CEO Sam Altman said that the company’s ChatGPT chatbot will start to offer “erotica for verified adults” just as Missouri U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R) is circulating draft federal legislation to ban AI romantic companions for minors. 

Asked about the erotica comment at an event at San Francisco's Sydney Goldstein Theatre on November 3, Altman regretted the way he had made that announcement, calling it "one of my dumbest" moments of this year.

"We recently added age verification to ChatGPT, and one of our principles is we want to treat our adult users like adults," Altman said. "Most people can understand why when we don't differentiate well between kids and adults, we put a bunch of restrictions on ChatGPT, but then if you are a verified adult and you're trying to use the tool, then ... I believe that if adults use a service they should be able to do what they want."

He continued, "I wish I had used a different example" than pornography.

Sniffies was launched in 2018 and was briefly available on the Apple Store earlier this year. Those who downloaded it then can still access it, but it was removed subsequent to a dispute over "ongoing content restrictions" with the company, reminiscent of other recent issues of deplatforming of risqué (or allegedly risqué) LGBTQ content.  

Femino said that the LGBTQ community has often been on the cutting edge of using technology, citing the early days of public access to the internet as an example.

“Queer people adopt technology first, from the dial-up world until now,” Femino said. “We’re seeing it for a lot of interesting and sexy activities, and it’ll be important to see how that works going forward.”

Cruising Confessions is available on YouTube and on Sniffies’ website.  

LGBTQ Agenda is an online column that appears weekly. Got a tip on queer news? Contact John Ferrannini at [email protected].

The LGBTQ Agenda column is taking a brief hiatus and will return Tuesday, November 18.

Updated, 11/4/25: This article has been updated to include more context around Leo Herrera's comments and to add comments from Sam Altman, who appeared at an event in San Francisco late Tuesday.