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Reminiscing about the early days of Affairlook
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Posted:May 9, 2006 4:38 pm
Last Updated:Nov 25, 2006 5:15 pm
4925 Views
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When this site was started ten years ago, it was geared towards those in the swinger/nudist lifestyle, the type of people who have no issues with nudity. I know this because I was checking out this site when it first started. There were no bloggers pontificating on this issue back then, either, just people who at least seemed much more open-minded than some of the opinions that I'm seeing these days.
If some people on this site are so squeamish or uncomfortable about nudity - particularly full frontal male or female nudity and exposed genitalia - perhaps they should consider leaving this site and going to one intended for "conventional" dating.
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Affairlook & The Wall Street Journal
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Posted:Mar 14, 2006 3:39 pm
Last Updated:Jan 27, 2007 6:13 am
5385 Views
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Earlier this month, an interesting article about Affairlook appeared in the Wall Street Journal. It confirmed some of the things that I have believed for a long time about this site. For those of you who missed it, I have copied and pasted it below in its entirety. So read on!
'Adult' Dating Sites Flourish As People Seek Sex Over Love
By DAVID KESMODEL
March 1, 2006
Amid sluggish growth for dating Web sites, a different kind of matchmaking service is thriving online: so-called adult dating sites that dispense with courtship and urge members to head straight for the bedroom.
With names like Affairlook.com and Affairlook.com adult dating sites purport to help users find one-night stands, swinger parties and other sexual escapades. Affairlook, the most popular of the sites, draws 10.1 million unique visitors a month, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.
Adult dating sites work in much the same way as more traditional sites. Users create profiles by filling out questionnaires. While many dating sites ask users about things like their views on religion and favorite books, adult sites focus more on appearance and measurements. Users are encouraged to post sexually explicit photos. The sites match members of similar locations and interests.
"We enable someone to express themselves sexually in a place that doesn't make them feel dirty," said Andrew Conru, the 38-year-old founder of Affairlook. He estimated that about half of his site's members are "actively seeking a sexual partner." Others take advantage of features such as chat rooms and blogs. Some visitors, he said, are merely interested in being a "voyeur into other people's lifestyles," and use the site to see the racy profiles and nude photos posted by members.
Affairlook's traffic rose 67% in January from a year earlier, according to Nielsen. Affairlook.com the second-most visited adult dating site, tripled its traffic to 3.2 million unique visitors in January while running online advertisements that promise "real people, real sex." Nielsen said traffic to InterActiveCorp.'s Affairlook.com the most popular of the traditional dating sites it tracks, grew 7% to 4.5 million unique visitors over the same period.
Pursuing Fantasies
Members of adult dating sites say that while many members do find sexual partners, there is often a wide divide between what the sites promise in marketing materials and what they actually deliver. Anastasia Sidorowich, a 45-year-old member of Affairlook, said young men, in particular, "come in and act like it's a sexual fast-food service … They think they can just walk in, and order up the women of their choice at two or three a.m., and say, 'Can you pick up a pizza and six-pack of beer on the way, too?'"
Ms. Sidorowich said she joined the site eight years ago to find "a steady lover," and isn't particularly interested in marriage. She has become involved in long-term relationships with several men on the site. However, she said, success tends to come in waves, much like in traditional dating.
She has also noticed that some of the pitfalls of traditional dating sites are also present on sites like Affairlook: Users sometimes embellish when it comes to their age, weight, height and other physical attributes. "I know one woman who has been 46 for the last five years," said Ms. Sidorowich.
The allure of the adult dating sites is "the fantasy," said Kirk Brooks, 51, a former member of Affairlook who said he had mixed success finding partners. "We all walk around believing that there actually are unfettered sexual liaisons to be had, just for the asking. It's a con, but it's an alluring con." Mr. Brooks, who lives in San Carlos, Calif., said it's more difficult for men on the site to find women than vice versa. Among U.S. members of the site, "men seeking women" outnumber "women seeking men" by more than 11 to 1.
The interest in adult dating sites comes as traditional matchmaking services grapple with slow growth. Jupiter Research analyst Nate Elliott said the percentage of online users who pay to join traditional dating sites has remained stagnant at about 5% from 2003 through this year, while the percentage who browse online personals has slipped to 16% from 21%. The trends reflect price increases, as well as dating sites' decision to offer fewer features to nonpaying members, he said.
Mr. Elliott said Affairlook is faster at converting visitors into paying members than traditional dating sites because "you've got a type of content people naturally want to come to." Affairlook charges users $20 or $30 a month for premium features. Users at the $30 level have their profiles displayed more prominently on the site. Affairlook's prices are similar to those of traditional dating sites.
The FriendFinder Network
Affairlook is the largest of about 20 dating sites belonging to closely held Various Inc.'s FriendFinder Network. Mr. Conru, who is majority owner of Palo Alto, Calif.-based Various, launched Affairlook in 1996 after discovering that some users of Affairlook.com a more traditional dating site, were interested in posting sexually explicit photos.
The FriendFinder Network also includes such wide-ranging dating sites as JewishFriendFinder, KoreanFriendFinder and OutPersonals. The network is profitable, Mr. Conru said, but he declined to provide any details beyond saying that it generates "more than $100 million" in annual revenue.
Affairlook calls itself "the world's largest sex and swinger personals site" and claims it has 22.3 million users, though it declines to say how many are paying customers. Users can sign up for free, but can contact only a limited number of members unless they pay a monthly fee.
Mr. Conru is careful to point out that, while the site helps people find others with similar interests, it is not in the business of brokering sex. "Our members themselves are making decisions on mutually agreed-upon relationships," he said. "Every dating site is dating first. Of course, at all sites, at some point relationships go into being a little more sexual."
A Joke Turns Serious
Some users have been pleasantly surprised by their experiences on the site. Holly Fabian, 40, who lives in Warren, Mich., said she joined Affairlook "as a joke" to browse the amusing content. After she signed up, she received 150 emails in 24 hours from men, nearly all including nude photos. Many cut right to the chase, asking her if she wanted to have sex. "It would be from everywhere," she said. "I have had emails from Germany, Spain, Switzerland, China … It's like, 'Dude, I'm not flying 8,000 miles to see you.'"
But amid the mountain of come-ons, Ms. Fabian discovered a man who seemed to share a lot of her interests -- and seemed to have less of a one-track mind than other users. After some flirtation over email, the two agreed to meet for dinner, and have been dating for the past two years.
"I really am a hermit," said Ms. Fabian, who was widowed in her 20's and works at home as a medical transcriptionist. "At 40 years old, where are you supposed to go meet somebody? I don't want to go to a bar."
So there you have it. I enjoyed reading this article altogether, but I would seriously have to question the figure it cites regarding the "men seeking women" outnumbering the "women seeking men" part. While the article claims a ratio of more than 11 to 1, I would place it much higher than that.
My estimate would be 20 to 1, at the least!
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This is Brilliant!
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Posted:Feb 27, 2006 7:40 am
Last Updated:Mar 19, 2006 4:29 am
4913 Views
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I just saw a profile on this site that I feel demonstrates a concept that I have always regarded as being very effective. Some refer to this as the concept of illustrating absurdity by being absurd. I've taken the the liberty of copying the text of a certain standard member profile I just saw today, which I'll repost below, so keep reading, please.
The profile name is FakeFemaleAd, which has the banner headline, I'm a guy posting this to prove how easy it is to make a fake profile. A picture of Paris Hilton, which I have posted to accompany my blog post here, serves as the profile photo. Here's the rest of this profile, verbatim:
25 year old Woman in Somerdale, New Jersey, United States
Looking For: Men for Discreet Relationship or 1-on-1 sex"
Profile for FakeFemaleAd
I've been on and off Affairlook for nearly six years now. There's always been fake female profiles posted on this site, but lately it's fucking ridiculous. When I browse at women currently online in my area, normally half the profiles or more are fakes. And they're easy to spot too. I've reported over 100 fake female profiles in my area (Delaware Valley) to Affairlook. I've told them how they all use similar type handles and mostly use the same three cities/towns as they are all the same distance in miles from my location. Here's the telltale signs of the new wave of fake female profiles on Affairlook:
they are mostly from one of these three locations:
Philadelphia, PA
Wilmington, DE
Somerdale, NJ
they all have similar type handles:
two words and a series of 3-5 numbers in any order, sometimes it includes a space and a good number of them will have the words chica, vixen, grl.
Affairlook does nothing to prevent companies and individuals from posting fake ads and leaves it to us paying members to do their fucking job and report the fake profiles. At least they could give us something for reporting a fake profile, like an extra day of membership for free, but that would mean less money for them. Why should they care that their paying members have to sift through hundreds of fake profiles to find a decent real one? We've already paid them, they already have their money so why should they do anything to make the site better for us?
Fuck Affairlook. I have met women from this site, but it's so bad now with all the fake female profiles that it's no longer worth my time and energy. They won't change unless a lot of us paying guys complain about their laziness.
My Ideal Person:
Ideally, I'd like to see Affairlook make it harder to post a fake profile. How about asking everyone for a credit card number to be able to post a profile. They don't even have to charge anything to the card unless you choose to become a paying member. They can just use it to verify that you're a real live fucking human being. That would significantly cut down the number of fake female profiles.
I have been meaning to blog about this issue for some time, but the guy who created this profile stole my thunder. He also did it in a more rebellious and daring way, which I really have to admire. Kudos to you, you maverick!
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Virtual Catfight
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Posted:Feb 3, 2006 7:00 am
Last Updated:Nov 25, 2006 5:15 pm
5180 Views
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When it comes to chat rooms on this site, it appears that the manner in which we interact with each other within this medium correlates to real life in a way that I never qutie expected.
I recently have become aware that I was a subject of contention among several women at some time in the past, with the high possibility that nobody in question, myself included, has ever actually met in real life. This is what I would call a virtual catfight.
So here is what apparently happened, as related to me by one of the women involved in this episode: Over the course of either just one or several times in the chat room I which frequent, I was chatting in there with one particular woman to some extent. It is worthy to note here that have never actually met in real life. Some other women were displeased by this, but did they tell me so?
No, they just sent hostile messages to this particular woman instead. Other women sent messages to her based on the assumption that we had actually met, so that they could query her about some type of intimate details regarding myself.
The torrent of messages this woman received was enough to upset or frustrate her, so much so that she decided to keep away from this site for a while. I find this whole episode rather distasteful. Is it too much for me to expect that we all should be just a bit more civil than this?
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Instant Messenger Headaches Update
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Posted:Jan 10, 2006 10:32 pm
Last Updated:Jan 17, 2007 6:10 pm
4547 Views
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So, as it turns out, I now know more about what happened to my.
I was definitely phished. I will likely not get my account back, either.
However, Mr. Phish, I know that your attack came from Amsterdam, Holland. I also know what your IP address was, so....
I will get you, Mr. Phish - just you wait!
Okay...now that I got that out, there might be some of you reading this and thinking, "What the hell is he talking about?"
"Phishing" is the act of tricking someone into revealing confidential information or tricking them into doing something that they normally wouldn’t do, or shouldn’t do. For example: sending an e-mail to a user which falsely claims to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for the purpose of stealing that user's identity or user account.
To be specific, my situation involved instant messaging instead of e-mail, and all I did was click on a link rather than surrender any information.
This apparently was enough for my password to be subsequently stolen and then changed, however. My challenge question, something established to aid me in the event of forgetting my own password, was also changed.
The only upside to this is that it's only my im and e-mail account that I've lost, nothing more than that, and I was not keeping anything of vital significance there anyway.
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Instant Messenger Headaches
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Posted:Jan 8, 2006 10:03 pm
Last Updated:Jan 17, 2007 6:11 pm
4466 Views
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Instant messenging is great, right? I have always thought so, until recently, that is.
While I like yahoo best, I have been locked out of my own account since last week from what I believe is a new type of phishing attack. Regrettably, I still have been unable to resolve the problem with yahoo.
My problem started when I got an IM from some screen name which I forget now, but it had some type of sexy connotation to it. I did not allow this screen name to be added to my list, that much I'm sure of, but I don't quite remember if I clicked on the "report as spam" button. I just closed the window instead. I was rather tired at the time; not exactly thinking so sharply it seems.
So, it was about a day after that when I discovered that I could no longer sign in to my e-mail account which shares the same user name and password as this instant messenger. Yes, I have reported this all to yahoo, but this tangled mess is still not yet resolved.
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Toronto part 2
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Posted:Dec 19, 2005 8:38 pm
Last Updated:Jan 9, 2007 2:49 pm
4603 Views
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The beaches area of Toronto is quite a lot of fun. I just now am wondering if anybody else here has noticed that so many of the women here have nose piercings.
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Toronto
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Posted:Dec 11, 2005 6:00 am
Last Updated:Mar 5, 2006 9:27 pm
4381 Views
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I drove up to Toronto last Friday. This city is truly beautiful. I never knew what I was missing until now.
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To link to this blog (vengeur) use [blog vengeur] in your messages.
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