Something to Sneeze at: Adultfriendfinder
Posted By jss on January 1, 2009
Now that we’ve got the dreaded First Post Jitters behind us, I need to ask: If “sneezing can be a sign of arousal,” as a couple of Brit scientists suggest — what does it mean that I invariably sneeze three times while my girlfriend, whom I’ll refer to for now as the SMC *, always has just one, mindblowing sneeze? Wouldn’t you sort of expect it to be the other way around? It would be nice to have an interpretive guide to sneezing as it relates to sexual arousal and/or style, wouldn’t it.
Anyway, on my other, other monitor, I’m on Adultfriendfinder.com, usually called AFF by those who know it well. Those who do NOT know it well think that AFF is a porn site, if they have heard of it at all. And it is, but it’s so much more. Think match.com, with XXX photos and videos, and substitute every dirty thought you ever had for “long walks on the beach” and “glass of wine in front of a crackling fireplace.” (Or just think sex on the beach, or in front of the fireplace, or anywhere else.)
Now you have the feel for it.
While I typed the above, two men messaged me because they want to fuck the SMC. All they said was “Hi” but I know, from experience, where they were going with that. Two couples instant messaged me/us. Thirty-seven people are looking at my webcam, which isn’t even showing me live — it’s a slideshow, snapshots with varying degrees of … candor.
There is a lot of porn and erotica on AFF, almost all of it generated by its 20 million-plus members worldwide. Are your neighbors there? Could be. AFF is the largest sexual network on the planet and I’ve kept tabs on it as an observer, and sometimes member, since it began, more than a decade ago.
It is far from being the only sexual network, but it’s … well, AFF, in some ways, is to adult social networking what AOL once was to the Internet as a whole. Its founders sold the parent company to Penthouse Media Group a year ago for about half a billion dollars. Billion with a “B.” A week ago the company, now known as FriendFinder Network (FFN) announced plans to try to raise $460 million in an IPO.
People do not spend, or invest, that kind of money for naked pictures. They do spend that kind of money on social networks and profitable businesses. MySpace. FaceBook.
Adultfriendfinder.
There’s plenty of competition, of course. And every chance that the AFF behemoth will stumble, fall, come to grief. Look what happened to AOL. Remember AOL?
But the rise of sexual networking has been a mostly under-the-radar phenomenon for squeamish mainstream media for a long time now. “Into Temptation” will bring it front and center.
Fifty seven people looking at the webcam now. Six women, 11 couples, 40 single guys. Sounds about right, for AFF on New Year’s Day, out of a total of 106,000-plus total online, looking at each other.
***
* SMC is an acronym for “Stunning Mystery Companion.” Thank you, Jackson Browne.
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"Into Temptation" is a usually-but-not-always safe-for-work forum about evolving social-sexual networks and how they have changed and are changing lives. It will also loosely chronicle the research, writing and publication, I hope in 2010, of a book by the same name.
I can’t stand AFF! That site is so much like… the internet. And I even met a couple of quality dudes on there – talk about wading through a ton of shit to get to a couple gems:
http://www.thebeautifulkind.com/2007/02/23/the-energizer-brother/
http://www.thebeautifulkind.com/2007/01/17/a-taste-of-persia/
Damn, from this post sampling, it appears as though I have an interracial fetish! Just one of many…
I love to hate to love AFF … I remember back when it was small.
Then again, I also remember when AOL was small, before it was big … and watched how sex chat rooms fueled its growth.
[...] the hottest sexual networking platform online, frankly. The adult social networking companies, AFF and the rest, should be [...]