Dr. Alison Moss Drake

The scholar behind the popsicles.

Dr. Alison Moss Drake is a sociologist (PhD, University of Illinois Chicago) who spent her career studying how relationships actually work — sex, gender, sexuality, and family systems — and then did something unusual with it: she built an app.

CouplePOP is what happens when relationship theory gets translated into product architecture: every feature starts from research, every interaction is consent-first, and the whole thing is designed to give couples more agency, more safety, and more community — not more screen time.

She still teaches sociology, because the classroom keeps her honest. The app is the lab.

Research foundation.

Four ideas from the literature, baked into the product:

• Sexual Scripts

  Behavior is socially learned — so the app teaches better scripts instead of assuming bad ones.

• Family Systems

  The couple is the unit — profiles, scores, and streaks all belong to the pair, never the individual.

• Social Networks

  Community shapes outcomes — Couple Crews and events build the village around the relationship.

• Consent Research

  Boundaries stay mutual and revocable — the Consent Wizard makes that a feature, not a footnote.

The intellectual moat.

• Score

  PopScore

  Couple-level compatibility — Social Compatibility + Relationship Compatibility + Boundary Alignment. Built for pairs, not individuals.

• Yes

  Consent Wizard

  Affirmative, ongoing, informed, revocable, mutual consent — engineered into the product, not bolted on.

• Map

  Comfort Zones

  Negotiated boundaries, mapped visually — couples decide together what yes looks like.

• Doors

  Two Door UX

  Social first, intimacy by choice. Door 1 for friendship and fun; Door 2 for grown-up exploration — always opt-in, always separate.