Adult Dating Sites – An Historically Significant Phenomena Maybe?

Author: Jayde Johannsen, August 29th, 2009

Adult dating sites are ridiculously popular these days! I visited one recently and it boasted over 34 million members. How does that happen? I’ve never seen such numbers at normal dating sites. Why are they so popular? These numbers make adult dating sites look mainstream, while normal dating site with their relatively paltry numbers look positively “niche”.

This popularity confounds me because adult dating sites are based on a concept of promiscuity. This behavior does not reflect the real world. Society is much more conservative than the concept of “Adult Dating” So how did this part of the industry become so popular?

Clearly the dating site “profile” plays a big part in this. It gives us anonymity from the people we are communicating with, and the rest of the world, till we build a level of trust. As such, the exposure to rejection and pain associated with such rejection is much less on the internet than in real life. Ie. There is very little opportunity for public humiliation. But does this allow people to be more direct, courageous and honest about chasing their sexual desires? Is “under the cloak of darkness” a very real factor here?

But the question that sits in my mind is whether this new honesty will spill over from these websites and change society itself? Will people start being more honest about their wishes in the “Adult Dating” sense, upon meeting people in society as well as online? Or will that always be too difficult without the cover of an internet profile?

Could this have bad consequences too. For example, could a shift to directness start a break down of social niceties, manners and flirting?

Or is it possible that the internet will make us more socially reclusive. That is, given we have the “cover” of an internet alias on dating sites, will we decide there is no reason to risk the public rejection which comes hand in hand, with asking people out on a date?

Sometimes I spend quite sometime thinking about such things. For now though, I’ll put those thoughts aside. There are over 30 million people at this new website I just joined, thats a lot of people to meet, I am going to be busy.

Categories: Relationships Tags: Relationships