Your teenage daughter is much too smart to think, after viewing Plumper Peggy’s Pictorium of Poon, that becoming a porn star would be a good career choice, but I’ll bet she does want to learn how to date. And what can she learn from an Internet dating site like Passion.com? Well for one thing, women try to get more attention with pictures focusing on their bare chest and they tend to choose user names like Suckologist, Cum2Me, and HornyAsHell82. (I am not making those up.) Then she could discover how common a request like “seeking discrete sex with men, women, or couples” is on these sites; so common that some sites actually organize by those categories. I could go on. So which do you think will have a more lasting effect on kids - seeing a nipple or a taking an online “whore 101” course?
What about MySpace?
I’m so glad you asked. MySpace isn’t strictly a dating site. It’s more of an online metropolis for any kind of self-promotion your heart fancies, whether it’s getting your music heard, your films viewed, or your ass laid. The reason I’m glad you bring it up is because MySpace’ gross popularity and loose regulations make it the perfect example for another internet issue: anonymity. See, no matter how lengthy and thorough you make your MySpace profile, it isn’t you. It’s your online interpretation of you. For most people, that interpretation is their honest attempt at expressing who they really are, but when people aren’t being honest:
The guy who looks like this online:
can turn out to be this guy:
This is actually one area where intimate dating sites score okay, because those who would use anonymity to lure people into a trap (i.e. pedophiles) don’t really have a target at these sites. The only other way to take advantage of such anonymity would be to lie about one’s looks, age, or sex, which would only work for people who planned on keeping their relationships online (i.e. cyber-sex) and in that case, it really wouldn’t matter if the hot 22-year-old model you have been jerking it to is Jabba the Hut in real life. What you don’t know won’t hurt you.
Article comments
1 - Andy Marsh
Porn is set in fantasy? Thanks for bursting THAT bubble!
Very entertaining...I'll take two pizzas to go...
2 - Bennett
Yeah, quite funny. The pizza example was choice!
3 - chichi
i believe that you should not use dating sites becuase you can end up getting severly hurt on these sites, lets say you meet this"dreamboy" you met online, he ends up being a cerial killer.ythen the next thing you know is you dead ina ditch ass naked in utah..
4 - chichi
actuelly...ithink i might light dating skeletor, he's a pretty sexy man,eh?
5 - DaRtH MaUl
u are absoultly right in saying the things you did above i being 13 know what u r saying. i was only looking 4 free online game (which i found at Crazymonkey.com) and this poped up. was bord and i read it and i also have a myspace. on myspace i can express my self unlike i can in school because my schoool has a bunch of snoby prisses(e.a. the girls) and fagity jocks(e.a. boys) peace out
6 - MIchelle
There are many ways these sites hurt people, but infidelity is rife through the internet and just makes it easier for would be cheats to do this. Especially dating sites and myspace, you never know if your Mr right is infact married or in a relationship and looking for fun on the side. An the anonnimity of it makes it possible
7 - Brad Carody
Several points:
1) I agree on the banners and pop up ads - REGARDLESS of the content, they are ALL annoying!
2) If we tag sites responsibly, I do hope that they will not pop up within normal (filtered) search engine results, be it porn or intimate dating sites
3) I disagree on the lessons to the youth. First, there are the standard warnings, just as you'll find on porn sites. Second, The sites I've visited do not bill themselves as a traditional dating/matchmaking site - its pretty obvious what the focus is. third - I cant imagine anyone of dating age who might be looking for a partner via the internet being naieve enough to believe that the ads posted are the 'normal' way to lure a mate.
And lastly, having just launched an intimate dating site this month (can I do a shameless plug here for bedtreasures.com?), I do hope that I can address at least some of the concerns here!
For example, I have tagged the site as adult content, with standard age warnings. I have also made it very clear in various pages/text that the intent of the site is sexual relationships, and I encourage people looking for love to utilize other websites that are geared for those types of searches and relationships! In fact, Im building a page of links to other sites to make that even easier. And finally, I am offering all the basic tools to find a partner for free, because Im really sick of all the (hundreds? thousands?) of websites out there trying to lure people in under false pretenses!
Thanks for letting me rant! I enjoyed the article, the humor and I think you have some very valid points!
- Brad
8 - j
Im actually writitng an article on internet dating sites. i agree with some of the points made in the article however the internet is just as potenially dangerous as meeting someone in a club/ pub. sure you see how old they are straight up but the same potenial risks can happen just as not being smart about meeting someone off the interent. who hasnt gone out and hooked up with someone drunk they dont even know. just cos you meet them in person at a club/pub doesnt make you at lesser risk then meeting a stranger on the net. everyone needs to do their background research & trust instinnt but i think there is too much foucuss on the how bad meeting someone off the ineternet is to really see that it doesnt really matter where you meet someone the risk of something bad happening is everywhere. there should be more awareness taking place and even on these internet dating sites somewhere you can click for safe advice. instead of trashing the idea of inetrnet dating why dont we start taking action and adressing it more maturally. there are good and bad points to everything. people are going to do these ineternet dating sites regardless same as go home with random strangers in a club/pub, so wouldnt it be more benefical to have better advice about this sort of controversal topic.
9 - NIck B
Hey J,
I think an important distinction between meetnig people at a club and meeting them online is the total anonymoty it is possible for people to have online. Child molesters would never be able to earn the trust of their targets in real life the way they can online because they would have to find a way around all the ways you can profile a child molester. A lot of times you can just tell when a guy is "off" but online he can post any pic of a boy and say its him. Not saying there aren't risks in real life, but I don't think its the same, as you say.
10 - Elvira Black
Very funny, albeit slightly scary stuff, Nicholas. I did a bit of internet dating in between relationships about 8 years ago on Yahoo personals. Back then, the tech wasn't readily available to post pictures, which made for a very different dynamic. You'd usually wind up getting to know someone better than their own mother did in a frenzied round of e-mails, but the first date was always the moment of truth, and the real deal-breaker.
Basically, if it didn't "click" then, that was that, which was sometimes a shame because if your horniness didn't get in the way of your good sense, you could actually make some decent friends this way. But hey, it got me outta the house and I've never been one to turn down an after work drink or three.
I met some interesting people...and a few messed up ones, of course. But it was fun going on real "dates," since back when I was away in college a "date" meant dropping by a guy's dorm room for a bong hit.
I wound up meeting Prince Charming in a bar I used to frequent in between dates, partly to recover from the weirdness and meet some people in the flesh. We clicked right away, so I fixed up my current internet "beau" (we'd actually survived the first date and were onto the second or third) with a co-worker of mine. She's probably still mad at me for that--he kinda broke her heart and her wallet--but of course she married someone else she met offline not long afterwards.
Is there a moral to this? Well, as you alluded to in your article, I'd have to say:
Best case scenario: a photo of your flawless, gorgeous face, photoshopped if necessary.
An avatar--but maybe one of those really cute cartoon ones, like a Betty or Veronica type thing. But maybe not Skeletor so much.
But I'd say a fake "humanoid" photo is much worse than no photo at all. Hey. if looks really aren't everything, why should you limit yourself before you even know what the person is about? What ever happened to using your imagination anyway? And some people are just more photogenic than others.
But yeah, I tend if you're a woman going for the boob shot it probably means you ARE a boob, and the guys who fall for that and expect more than a quick lay are probably dicks. Caveat emptor and all that rot...
Anyway, thanks for the giggles!
11 - j
funny how so many young girls loose there self awareness when out having fun on the piss and the whole instinct feeling if a guy is suss or not disappears. I’ve saved a few gfs from crazy people trying to take advantage of my drunk friends. sure, they'd usually know beter in a sober state of mind but a few drinks and before you know it they are not watching their drink, its spiked and they think they made a new best friend. Sure I’m ok, I’ve been talking to him for ages, we met at the bar, I know him. Lol and if you are smart if you are going to get on the piss and meet "new friends" you should always have a "sober old friend" because meeting someone sober off the internet & (I’m mainly targeting young girls here not children, i don’t believe they should even know what a website internet dating site is lol) meeting someone drunk in person is almost but not the same but lies the same potential risks. In both cases you don’t know who each of them really is but at least meeting someone off the interne,t you can arrange to meet in the day in a very public area where people are likely to take notice of you then meeting someone drunk in a busy club where its just assumed as normal drunk behavior if things start getting a bit off. hey heres a really crazy scenario, meeting someone off the net, drunk in a club? call that crazy but it happens. i'm not arguing with what you are saying however like I’ve said trashing the idea isn’t fixing it. Its funny how many 13 year old girls these days are able to dress up and sneak themselves into clubs/pubs etc. I’ve seen it myself. Really really sad actually, who’s to blame the parents or the bouncers? Who knows anyway but these girls are naive and it wouldn’t surprise me the slightest if the perfect meeting place for them was in a club meeting their older internet bf who they in turn may think the chic is older themselves. You said it yourself in one of your examples which I thought by the way was something that actually isn’t addressed enough. Its an excellent point. Yes there is plenty of predators out their but what about the “innocent” victims that get tricked. I knew a young 14 year old girl that looked about 19/20 that was playing the same game. I told her about the risks and she didn’t know. She hadn’t been educated and thought it was a funny joke. I'm not completely disagreeing with your argument, I somewhat agree however i am simply saying that instead of trashing the whole idea of internet dating it needs to be properly addressed to solve it or start fixing it. This my space crap should be well addressed. It is getting out of hand and is way to scary and I can see its appeal but anyone can go and read private conversations about anyones business and the my space creator gets so caught up in the whole fascination of it all details are let out that just shouldn’t be. At least with these internet dating sites the conversations are emailed to your private address and you choose who you add etc and bloke and you have control over who sees what. I was reading one of my friend’s conversations and they were having a party and the details of where it was, was on their space page. I couldn’t believe it. This whole internet personal profiles and dating is going to happen so why are we not improving the whole situation. Sure bad things happen but naïve uneducated people are the ones that are at the most risk. This is only because no ones actually tried to make it safer by maybe a safe advice website for internet dating or even security day time events for these online daters. If there were websites you could report to the police even of dodgy behavior, address in school lessons about internet behavior etc and just basically make it really aware in time the more security that "seems" to be there will scare off not all but some potent ional child molesters. In the meantime we can’t stop the predators and we cant stop internet dating websites and my space but we should stop dangling the fish and making it easy for these sickos.
Basically I agree with your arguments I just like having this debate :)
12 - steve
Okay there buddy. Gotcha. But-and this is a huge BIG but.....was there a conclusive region you were shooting for because, believe it or nut-I n'ver herd about the legitmacy of the site in question perfesser. I herd, fat ones, meat market, ovens and that u sir....bake.....every.....nite. (ahem!) scuze me..........(yeah rite...!)
Okay, sorry 'bout that. So this was an exercise in journalistic descriptive writing that was clever usage between image conjuring words with hidden double meaning between the ghetto phrasing that reveals a moralistic philisophical statement that tells the world your a person with a high amount of integrity and principal and are hoping to allow more honesty on self examination. But you think there is some good and bad that should be considered.
Well...thanks. Next time I think about this, I will try hard to turn down the impulse to use the sites in question. Besides, with this economy, the population of the females of this city are patroling the streets in LARGE sizes, and numbers too...! So I guess it's not even worth second guessing this, they read yer article and are seeking to give to the new femal patrolees. Rather than go to these sites. Every one is taking your advice. Taking it to the streets so to speak.
But I still wonder where I can go to find a decent person-female-for romance....(sigh!) Bye now.
Seems they charge tp the passersby for this unique undertaking they involve themselves with. It's commendable. I feel safer already.