8 reasons to post a profile on AFF (especially if you’re a good girl)
So why, I've been asked (more than once), would a "good girl" like myself post a profile on a site whose tagline is "meet real sex partners tonight"?
Actually, plenty of reasons. Here are 8 of them.
1) You get to practice boundary-setting
A lot of us good girls are so nice to everyone that we need some practice saying "no," as well as in basic boundary-setting. Dating in general will provide you with tons of opportunities to practice, but sometimes it's handy to have a venue where it's really, really easy to say no.
When you put up a profile on a site like AFF (especially if you include some [tasteful and artistic] nude shots, you'll likely be inundated with emails. Yes, the vast majority of those emails will be from guys you will never have any interest in responding to (as shown in my Great Age Experiment), but that's precisely the point!
When you get practice saying no (or simply ignoring) under very easy circumstances, it strengthens your limit-setting muscles for use in more challenging situations. This is a good thing.
2) You get to be very clear about what you want
This one is interesting, and came as a surprise to me. The very act of composing my profile for AFF was wonderfully liberating.
Because you get to talk about things that would be censored out of a profile on a "legit" dating site, it gives you an amazing sense of freedom to talk about, well, you know, stuff you can't talk about on a "legit" dating site.
In other words, you get to really lay out on the table everything you're looking for behind the bedroom door. You don't have to wait until an "appropriate" time in the dating process to make your kinks preferences known.
Try it. You may find that you even discover things about yourself you didn't know before!
Yes, it's a little weird, granted, to be so upfront about this stuff, but it's also kind of cool. The conversations I had with the men I met on AFF – in emails and on dates – were a lot more matter-of-fact about... well, stuff.
Let's face it, we live in a pretty uptight society, and I personally find it a relief to let some of that uptightness go.
3) You get an ego boost
Okay, a shallow ego boost, granted, and frequently illiterate and/or somewhat (or entirely) disgusting, but what girl can't use an ego boost once in awhile?
If you're not having much luck on the "legit" sites, try putting up a profile on AFF. If you're female and you have a body, you'll likely get a response. You'll feel pretty popular for at least a few seconds.
4) You get a fascinating insight into the nature of men
Um, yeah. In other words, they're very much driven by the little head.
Not always what you want to know, but information is power, you know?
5) You get confirmation of your value on the marketplace
Should you ever decide to turn pro. Just sayin'.
6) You get to see a wider range of penises than you ever thought possible
Yes, it's true. Men are obsessed with them. If you ever prayed to God for a place where you could see hundreds of teeny-tiny pics of cocks, all in one place, here's your paydirt.
7) You get a sense of power
Again, limited, but still. Especially if you feel like men have all the power in the dating world, like you're up on the auction block, waiting passively for someone, anyone, to bid on you, putting a profile up on AFF may help you get back to the place where we women belong: we are the selectors; they are the selectees.
(Which takes us back to numbers 1 & 2. You're in charge here, sister.)
8) You never know, but something really good may even come out of it
Hey, I know this is unlikely, but seriously, you never know!
I personally met some awesome guys, real gentlemen, if you can believe it. Think about it: you're on the site, right? And you're a "good girl" and a really cool person. So it makes sense that some (granted few, but some) guys on the site are also really cool people.
I met a number of guys who also had profiles on "legit" sites, and were (like me) looking for the Real Thing, not just a hookup. It happens.
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Give it a try – I dare you! Then let me know what happens.
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
The Great Age Experiment: Week 4
Part of an ongoing series, in which your intrepid correspondent offers herself as a guinea pig in an admittedly not-very scientific online dating experiment to determine, once and for all, whether a younger age on her profile will result in greater response to said profile.
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Week 4 Update
(Click here to read parts one, two, three and four in this series.)
For four weeks now your correspondent has braved the match.com trenches with a false age on her profile and posted the results. She'll admit, it was kind of fun at first, but honestly, it's getting rather boring.
Here's the scoop: 7 years' age difference did not increase the number of responses (contrary to the prelimary hypothesis), and in fact, the number of profile views is at this point exactly half the number of views of the actual-age match.com profile during the same time span.
The number of match.com emails from guys who might possibly be worthy of a meeting was exactly the same: 2. So in fact, the ratio of quality men to responses did improve, though the actual number of responses dropped in half.
Granted, the "fresh meat" factor may have contributed to the higher response rate in the previous month, when your correspondent's profile first went up (with her actual age). (Online daters tend to flock to new profiles like flies to honey, whereas they avoid older ones as if they were milk cartons past their pull date.) A new experiment would be required to test if the "fresh meat" theory actually made a difference in this case, but your correspondent is frankly sick and tired of this particular experiment, and is looking forward to being her actual age again.
(In other words, if you want to test the theory yourself, run your own damn experiment.)
The not-so scientific summary of the data
Totally unscientific lessons learned from this experiment:
- If you're interested in quantity of profile views, winks, hotlists and emails, a tasteful black and white nude art photo on AFF will net dramatically better results than an attractive face pic on match.com
- If you're interested in the quality of responses, match.com will return a higher ratio than AFF (duh)
- If you're interested in pure (though admittedly raunchy) entertainment value, and you don't mind unsolicited pee-pee pics and tasteless, frequently illiterate replies, AFF is the way to go
- For all intents and purposes, it sure as hell looks like 7 years doesn't make a damn bit of positive difference in terms of response rate. (At age 43, at least.)
In other words, ladies, stop whining that it's your age, and get up on AFF if you want a flood of email in your box.
Now if you'll excuse me, it's time to take down this stale profile, make some edits, and put it back up in a few weeks to take advantage of the "fresh meat" factor once again.
Over and out.
| Results (Age posted on profile) Time period of data collection |
match.com (43) 30 days |
match.com (36) 4 weeks |
aff.com (43) 4 weeks |
| emails received | 8-10(?) | 6 (plus 1 more from a winker who was then sent a "thanks for the wink" email) |
84 |
| emails from guys who might possibly be worthy of a meeting | 2 (One of which was from a guy who'd gone out with your correspondent a few years ago) |
2 | 1** **(Your correspondent did receive 2 additional emails that warranted replies for the sole purpose of lively, intellectual conversation. Seriously.) |
| winks/flirts received | 8-10(?) | 7 | 126 |
| favorited/hotlisted | unknown | 5 (hotlisted by a new guy, unhotlisted by another, for a total change of 0 this past week) |
99 |
| views | 418 | 209 | 5,329 (1,826 in the past week) (18,599 total views since 7/29/2008, though the profile has only been active less than 7 months during that time) |
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
Self-Growth from a Sex Site-Who Knew? (Part 2)
In which your correspondent ponders the relative safety of being a woman on a sex site.
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It's said that a man's biggest fear is that a woman will laugh at him, and a woman's biggest fear is that a man will kill her.
If the first part of this statement is true (gentlemen? anyone want to chime in?), it does make one wonder what their thought process is when posting a pee-pee pic on their profile and (even more to the point) sending initial emails with graphic, "rough sex" scenarios they'd like to do to you.
Yes, on Adult Friendfinder this happened to your correspondent more times than she cares to count.
Needless to say, these men never received a response.
If they only knew how much your correspondent and her girlfriends laughed at them (and yes, it was definitely at them, not with them), would they alter their behavior?
And if more men were savvy to the second part of the above statement, surely they'd be more sensitive about how they approach a woman.
(I hate to admit this, but years ago when I broke it off with a guy I'd been seeing, he asked to come over one last time to talk, and part of my brain actually formed the thought "Oh, my god, maybe he's coming over with a gun."
Now, this was a really good guy, one who has probably never had a violent moment in his life. The fact that my thoughts jumped there had nothing to do with him, and everything to do with the terror that we women walk around with at the back of our minds.
Guys just don't get it.
Another time I got a call out of the blue from a guy who'd found my profile on Yahoo personals (which uses real first names, rather than made-up "user IDs"), Google searched my first name and a word from my profile that described something I did... and voilá, up popped my website.
Which had my phone number on it.
It's incredibly easy to stalk someone these days.
Needless to say, I immediately changed my Yahoo personals profile name.
Now, again, this guy turned out to be a really nice person who wasn't out to hurt me. But it's scary out there, and how the hell could I possibly know that from an out-of-the-blue phone call from someone who'd just cyber-stalked me?!)
Before even considering responding to a man, the reptilian part of a woman's brain is pondering:
- is he likely to try to kill me?
- is he likely to try to cause me bodily harm?
- is he likely to be in some other way psycho and/or try to mind fuck me?
If the answers to all of the above are "no," THEN she can get down to the business of deciding if the dang fool is good enough, smart enough, and cute enough to warrant a reply.
Granted, the reptilian processing is more than likely happening on a purely unconscious level (reptiles not being big on raised consciousness, naturally), but believe me, it's there.
Without a basic sense of safety, it ain't happening dude.
Of course, the entire premise of a site like Adult Friendfinder is completely different from your "legit" online dating site. Sure, there are women out there who really are looking for a hookup (a girlfriend of yr. correspondent's used it, with great success, when she decided it was high time she went through a "promiscuous phase", though the many men yr. correspondent corresponded with were more likely to find escorts and scams than "real women" just looking to get laid).
But even so, a girl's got to have a reasonable expectation that she's not going to end up dead at the end of a date.
Now, this is a bit extreme, granted. But still. Putting oneself out there on Adult Friendfinder does take an extra bit of courage that's not required on a site like match.com.
Your correspondent's mother would be horrified if she knew...
to be continued...
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
Self-Growth from a Sex Site – Who Knew? (Part 1)
It started rather inauspiciously. For research purposes (and okay, an admitted dose of curiosity), your correspondent posted a profile on Adult Friend Finder, a dating site better known for hook-ups than for marriage proposals.
Two friends had done it, with surprising results (one swore that the men she met were much more interesting than those she found on match.com), and your correspondent had been privy to some of the emails received. Suffice it to say, much hilarity ensued. Surely the entertainment value alone would make the experiment worth the effort. Plus, of course, there was simple curiosity: what kind of response would result?
(Much greater than from "legit" dating sites, as it happens. Apparently your correspondent's unclothed rear view is more appealing to more men than is her charming face.)
Yes, nude photos (tasteful art pics in black and white, shot by an award-winning professional photographer known to yr. corresp., as a birthday gift to herself) were part of the profile, cropped to make them anonymous. The profile itself, however, made it clear that this particular woman was looking for lifelong love, not a one-night stand.
Definitely not your average hook-up site profile, but composing it proved to be quite empowering and liberating – a highly recommended exercise in itself!
Let it be noted that your correspondent did not expect to actually meet any of the men from this site. Especially given the preponderance of cock shots. (If you ever find yourself wishing there were only a place where you could view thousands of tiny pictures of that most famous part of the mail anatomy in all its various shapes, colors and sizes, I've got just the site for you.) In fact, the mere presence of a cock shot, either in the profile itself or in the introductory email, was grounds for instant rejection. As a male friend put it, "Any guy who posts a photo of his dick is probably, well, a dick."
(Guys, if you're reading, trust me on this: no doubt there are exceptions, particularly if someone is really just looking for a roll in the hay, but most women who are out for more than that really don't want to become acquainted with your shlong until some time after they've gotten to know you. Yes, it's important, and yes, size does matter [though not necessarily in the way you think; it's really a Goldilocks and the Three Bears, "just right" kind of thing], but can we please have a conversation first? Ladies? Do you agree?)
Girls, if you're looking for a shallow ego boost, putting a profile up on a sex site has much to recommend it. Within minutes of posting the profile, the responses started flooding in.
to be continued...
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
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