Sex Niches
Sex
firms mine riches in Web niches
Exotic and erotic thrive in shadow of mainstream
sites
By Mike Brunker
Writer msnbc
Sept. 29, 2002 -
While Internet dating has revolutionized courtship for the young, hetero
online majority, it has had an even greater impact for those whose sexual
proclivities overflow the banks of the mainstream. And businesses big and
small are working hard to turn each and every one of these matchmaking
tributaries — no matter how small — into rushing rivers of revenue.
Though still no
match for the top general dating Web sites, the alternative or adult
sector — the “naughty niches,” in the quaint words of one market
researcher — has become a major matchmaking market. And like its
straight-arrow sibling, it is a very profitable one.
Users say the
reason for the success is simple: The sites are more important to them because
their tastes are harder to match.
“I’m in a
female dominated profession, I live in a bucolic setting and … running into
a tall, smart, well-endowed man at my local Home Depot isn’t a reality for
me,” said Marsha, a 45-year-old-plus divorcee who has met dozens of men
through ads placed on adult personals sites since her decree was issued four
years ago.
The problem of
meeting like-minded partners is even greater if your tastes run toward leather
and instruments of torture.
“It’s not
like you can just go out and meet someone at a bar who’s into BDSM (bondage
and sadomasochism),” said Dianna Vesta, Web mistress of Femsupreme.com and
Fetishnetwork.com.
That explains
why, unlike the mainstream dating sites where attracting vast numbers of
eyeballs is the goal, the alternative sites aim to thrive by narrowing their
focus to create like-minded “communities” devoted to an individual sexual
practice or a certain demographic.
The sites run
the gamut from those that might make grandma shudder — sites devoted to
previously unimagined fetishes or porn-personals, for instance — to
communities who might number granny among their members — such as a dating
service devoted to senior citizens or a geographically based community.
Fragmentation on
the fringes
The fragmentation that led to the tightly focused communities of today
began early in the online personals explosion.
“When we
started Friendfinder early in 1996, we found a lot of guys were posting
profiles that were more risqué than we wanted on the site,” recalls Andrew
Conru, a pioneer of online personals who created what is believed to be the
first dating site, WebPersonals.com, in 1993. “We started out deleting them,
but then we recognized the opportunity and started Adultfriendfinder.”
Do
you need an adult friend ?
Friends to party.
Today
Adultfriendfinder bills itself as “the world’s largest sex personals”
site, a claim apparently borne out by a spot check of alternative ad sites by
ComScore Media Metrix, which said the site drew 2,321,000 unique visitors in
July 2002. That dwarfs the 788,000 that the generalized Friendfinder attracted
that month, as well as the numbers of other alternative sites examined at the
request of MSNBC.com.
Conru, whose
Palo Alto, Calif., based company has about 150 employees, also runs Alt.com, a
site he describes as “adult personals for the whips and chains crowd” that
gives users the ability to search for aficionados of 70 fetishes, as well as
sites aimed at gays, Hispanics, Asians and seniors.
In what appears
to be the most common business model in the online personals space,
Adultfriendfinder allows users to register for free, which enables them to
view three profiles every 24 hours. Expanded access and the ability to contact
those placing ads comes at a price: $19.95 a month for a silver membership
that grants access to most of the site’s features, or a “gold”
membership at $29.95 that adds searching capabilities and an automated
notification feature for new ads that match the user’s search criteria.
Though Conru
said that Adultfriendfinder is not “a porn site with personals,” the
overtly sexual tone of many of the site’s ads has made the company a target
of competitors who say that alternative doesn’t have to equate with raunchy.
“I have a
feeling he makes a lot of money every month … but there is no difference in
my mind between what he does and what any other porno company does,” said
Joe Shapira, CEO of Matchnet.com, a Beverly Hills, Calif., company that is
publicly traded on the Frankfurt stock exchange.
“We stay away
from nudity, lewdity and foul language simply because we want to attract
people who are looking for quality, not a fast thrill,” he said of
Matchnet’s eight niche dating sites, which include the leading Jewish
singles site, Jdate.com, and Gay11.com, which the company says is for
“relationship-minded gay men and women.”
While Shapira
said the company’s conservative approach reflects “personal values” —
“I’ve been in business for 25 years and I’ve never done anything that I
couldn’t show my children” — he acknowledged that it is a strategy that
is dictated by the company’s public ownership.
“Our business
is to create value for the company, and I don’t think the financial markets
would give value to a company that dabbles in pornography,” he said.
That may also
explain why the leader in the online personals market, Yahoo!, attempts to
steer well clear of the alternatives sector.
“We see our
charge as helping to legitimize the category,” Katie Mitic, general manager
of Yahoo! Personals, said in a statement in response to a query from MSNBC.com.
“… We have policies in place to ensure that our service is being used by
singles who are seeking a serious, meaningful relationship or dating
experience.”
Such talk
irritates Keith Griffith, owner of cruisingforsex.com, a hard-core personals
site for gay men in search of sex without strings.
“Many sites
really try hard to not make it appear that they are setting people up for
sexual encounters,” he said. “America Online is essentially a meeting
service for gay men who want to get off, but you’d have a hard time getting
them to admit it.”
Griffith said
his free site draws between 30,000 and 60,000 visitors a day even though he
has “never spent a penny on advertising” since launching it in December
1995.
He said the
in-your-face attitude that the site projects directly reflects his approach to
sex.
“When I want
to get off, I want to get off and I don’t want to play games and I don’t
want to be around people who are playing those games,” he said. “I knew
there were many, many people who shared that view.”
On the other
hand, he said, “I’m sure there are men who use my site who are looking for
long-term relationships or partners. It’s not discouraged, it’s just not
our focal point.”
Labors of a
lifestyle
Sites like Griffith’s and those of Vesta, the dominatrix in chief of
Femsupreme.com and Fetishnetwork.com, typify those that are labors of
lifestyle.
Vesta said she
started Fetishnetwork as a BBS in the pre-Internet days to provide
“information, resources and education” to fetishists, then began adding
porn after moving to the Web.
She also set up
FemSupreme, a bondage/sadomasochism porn retailer that also offers free
personals and discussion forums.
Though Vesta
sells subscriptions to FemSupreme, which gain access to adult material, she
said she doesn’t begrudge those who come to look and post.
“The way I
look at it is that it creates an interactivity that keeps the site
interesting,” she said. “The ones that don’t (subscribe) still make up
part of the community, they’re just not interested in stories, pictures and
all that.”
Even without a
huge audience, Vesta said her one woman operation is financially successful
thanks to subscriptions, advertising and the twice-monthly “femdom”
parties she hosts at Club Kink in Pompano, Fla.
That kind of
bottom line has attracted the attention of numerous refugees from failed
“dot coms” and fueled a new wave of expansion in the alternative personals
market.
Typical of
these newcomers is sexhookup.com, which has only been online for four months
but already is attracting 300,000 unique users a month, according to Bill
Wolcott.
Wolcott, who
lost his job when his previous employer - the GoNorCal search engine - went
down in flames, decided to try his hand at porn, opening a Net directory site.
But after adding a personals component and watching traffic take off, he
decided to “put the porn in the closet” and concentrate on matchmaking.
“Nobody wants
to see the porn anymore,” he said with a chuckle.
Wolcott, who
also operates the adultfreeway.com adult site, is gambling that he can become
a player in the industry with video personals, though he admits that the
innovation has so far been plagued by technical problems and encountered a
lukewarm reception from the site’s clientele.
“They’re
happy with it, but they’re having a hard time figuring out how to make a
video,” he said.
From
messaging to meeting
Users of the sites say the expansion has greatly expanded their
opportunities to meet people who live in their area and are compatible.
“I think
it’s much easier to get to know the real person (online), as opposed to a
dance where maybe the person has pounded down 10 drinks,” said Mary, a
34-year-old swinger in Nova Scotia, referring to a local partner-swapping
shindig that she and her “significant other” once attended.
“For Gary and
I, it’s more quality than quantity,” she said. “We like to meet people
through the Internet, then get together for coffee a few times before deciding
whether to go forward. We’re into long-term things with people that we’re
comfortable with.”
Marsha, who
places personal ads on “vanilla” - or mainstream - sites as well as adult
sites, said she has had greater success with the latter.
“I’ve met
much more interesting men,” she said, numbering a college professor from
Spain, a Swiss banker and a New York Times author among them.
Marsha, who
said she has a background in psychology, said she gives her phone number to
about one out of every 50 men who respond to her ads, which indicate she is
interested in swinging as well as one-on-one encounters. Of those, she said,
maybe one in 10 conversations results in a “meet and greet.”
Though she said
many of her friends express fears of meeting a personals pal in person, Marsha
said she has never had a bad experience, unless you count the “Italian guy
from New York who turned out to be shorter and probably 30 pounds heavier than
he had said.
Part of the
reason for that is that the Web personals make her initial screening process
much more efficient.
“After doing
this for three years, I don’t waste time sharing my history and life
story,” she said. “I have a copy-and-paste for the basic three paragraphs,
but after that I find that moving to phoning is much better.”
The process has
an added benefit in helping her screen out men who don’t fulfill her
desires, she added.
“When a guy
writes to me and says I’m well endowed,’ I say ‘OK, well prove it,’”
she said. “Asking a man to send a frontal nude shot has been a very
effective screening tool for me.”
© 2006 MSNBC
Interactive found at URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3078722/
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