As I write this I have only been online three months. It has been a steep learning curve indeed. I don't know near enough about computers, the internet, and cyber sex. But I want to know more and have learned how to know more about all these things.
I caved in to the cyber sex invitation about ten weeks ago, fascinated as much by the marketing as the product. Marketers just kept knocking on my door and continue to do so nearly every day. Persistence pays. In the past ten weeks I posted personal profiles on five dating and hook - up websites. None had my photo until last week, when a friend Emailed me a dozen she had taken a while back.
The first site I posted on drew three responses to my profile within two days. A good sign. Two more the next three days. I could not tell much from the posted photos but the profiles were intriguing and I wanted to talk to each of the five women. But to do so, I had to pay. I scraped up the money for a six month subscription, mailed it off to headquarters and the company claims they never received it. I pulled my profile and never went back. Money down the drain. But I was not ready to quit.
Another website on which I posted a profile yielded over twenty responses in just three weeks. But unpaid members on this site can't even view the profiles of those who contact them, let alone respond. So my quest became to find which service offered the most contact benefits to non paying members. One allowed the viewing of all member profiles but only pre written flirt contacts. No personal messages without paid upgrade.
Another allowed very limited profile views and limited contact, including on site E mails in a few conditions. It took a few weeks just to become vaguely familiar with Adult Friend Finders' many features, rules and conditions but I am now quite passionate about this site. It offers tons of interactivity to its unpaid or standard members. This sets it apart from the others in its marketing strategy and member benefits.
They have a magazine for members to read and contribute articles, if they choose. They have a database of over 35,000 erotic articles contributed by mostly amateur member writers. I expected the stories to be very different depending whether the author was male or female and instead, from early reading, have found more similarity than difference. What began for me as a concession to lust has become both an education and a personal growth process.
They also have a member driven advice column (in fact the entire site is member driven) in which all subjects are fair game and most relate to sex. One member poses a question. Other members can vote on the question itself, and/or post a response. Members can also vote on every response. It's like reading Sex Dear Abby and the members are Abby. If you aren't entertained by the reading alone, there might be something wrong with you.
The education and personal growth aspects begin when you feel a strong affinity with the people who are exposing their selves, desires and fantasies to judgement and criticizm and decide to join them by filling out a personal profile. The questions vary from site to site but all offer both mandatory responses and optional. This is where the personal growth process begins. Honestly completing the profile helps you to see who you really are. Far too many of us really don't want to know and remain strangers even to those we love. The optional questions are harder. Now we find out how much of who we are we will reveal to those who might want to know. Is this question too personal to answer? If so, I will pass and the profile reader will know what I consider too personal to answer publicly.
The great challenge for most is two essay questions: basically, who do I think I am and what do I think I want in a friend, date, sex buddy, lover, life partner. All sites I posted on allow you to think this over and change your profile after your initial post because they know you will soon wish you said this instead of that. To answer these two questions for one's self is liberating and growth promoting. For instance; what do I wish I could honestly say about myself? What would it take to make it true? So we enter a virtual meat market, hot to trot and soon see there is an emotional, mental and spiritual component below the surface appearance of things. This too is liberating.
Because we use made up names, we have some anonymity if our photos do not show our faces and I would say about eighty or ninety percent do not. That very anonymity helps us to be more honest because we expect we will eventually meet people who will compare what they know of us prior to meeting, with what they know after the meeting. If you are not reaonably close to what you claim, you tell the other person you are not to be trusted and there can be no foundation to any kind of relationship at all, including a one night stand for those so inclined. All the sites show due concern for personal safety and self protection that goes well beyond safe sex. This truly matters. One is exposed to weirdos and con artists of every stripe, perhaps more so with the under thirty crowd of the inexperienced, but age is no guarantee. Us dirty old men will turn up too. I had a pleasant conversation with a young female fellow club member this morning, who has had a dozen positive meetings. But one dirty old man from a hundred miles away wished to purchase a long term and devoted companion. He harrassed her by phone and Email for a few weeks after their meeting and gave up.
To do this thing, it is useful to have better than average intuition. I am convinced an overwhelming majority of the members do or they would not be advertising their desires and fantasies to the world. Hence, there is a group or collective consciousness within this virtual community quite apart from that of Joe Six Pack America and Joe has no desire to be there. At least, not for long. It requires time. It requires patience. Though many personal ads proclaim: "this is what I want and I want it now", the reality is; how badly do you really want anything? Can you shift from the fear based society of the past to the love based society of the future? Because this is what is happening in the cyber sex community, even if most of the community does not quite see it. I do. It's real.
In fact, on line hook up is dirt cheap in the dollar costs of the possible benefits, but if time is money, members are spending fortunes. I have now spent hundreds of hours just familiarizing myself with a few web sites and participating on one.
The time situation struck me hard in my imagination on my first hook up site. I have lots of free time in which I usually write and publish to share the things I learn with others who do not have the time but to read an article now and then. It is a personal act of giving I have fully committed to. But what if I wound up dating or visiting all five of the women who first responded to my profile? Add the time I would spend on them to the time I would spend to replace them if desired and I would do very little writing.
So before you decide to dip your toe in the great cyber sex ocean, ask yourself how much time can you devote to meeting people, corresponding, chatting, making friends, choosing sex buddies, lovers, playmates and partners - and just learning how it all works. How fast do you want any of this to happen? It's your time (I hope) but I have yet to regret any hour I have so far spent. I am unabashedly excited. Cyber sex is the greatest thing since the internet! It is truly transformational whether you are just an observer or a participant.
Ed Howes sought and found, knocked and entered. Now he sees things differently. To see more of what he sees, please visit http://www.justanotherview.com or do an author search here at Ezine Articles.