memories, part one

Somewhere, in a blog far away, I wrote about the responses I got to my first alt.com ad. In the name of sharing the love, here are a few of them.

First, a limerick!

Older man – libertine, not permissive -
Seeks a promising novice submissive.
As he trains her to serve
With passion and verve
He’ll be stern but seldom dismissive.

Another good one (less the response and more the ensuing hijinks) was from a 42 year-old college professor. The subject line was, “I CAN SPELL EMANCIPATION.” Perhaps he wanted a cookie. I’m not sure. Though, to be fair, I had mentioned in my profile that anyone who wrote to me really ought to be able to spell.

Anyway, he went on to tell me a little bit about himself, including the intersection he lives near, and that he has a pug. That intersection happens to be the one nearest my ex, who for the purposes of this post, will be called M. So one morning, around 8.30, I was standing outside M’s apartment smoking a cigarette, and what do I see? A man in his early 40s who matched this guy’s description, walking a pug.

Now, M and I work in the same office, so we used to walk to work together pretty regularly. And we started to see this guy all the time — turns out he lives right next door. One morning he was walking on the other side of the street, and M and I started arguing pretty loudly about the proper way to spell “emancipation.” I didn’t see the guy’s reaction, but M tells me it was pretty priceless.

We’ve been calling this guy Epantsimation Man, and I’ve been dreading the day that I need to use the word “emancipation” in casual conversation and instead I say “epantsimation.”

Anyway, Epantsimation Man has responded to my most recent ad as well, but he hasn’t discussed his spelling ability, or where he lives (though he did mention the pug). I’m not sure if he cottoned on the last time around, but I suppose it does seem likely. His response was otherwise unremarkable, although he didn’t spell anything wrong and was fairly polite and courteous. Still, though, I don’t know why he insists on writing to women who are looking for other women.

But moving on! Another guy sent me this: “hello, i just wanted to point out to You that for someone who wants a good speller, they too should be able to spell (or at least use the correct word), under Your ideal person, You used the word discreet, when infact i assume You should have used discrete… 2 different meanings for those words.”

I wrote back to tell him that “discrete” means “consisting of unconnected distinct parts” and is therefore exactly the opposite of what I might be trying to accomplish by placing an ad on what is essentially a sex site.

And needless to say, I got loads of porn, but I think I’ll write about that in a different post.

the other side of the coin

I haven’t been doing much with this blog for the past week or so, due to work and family and just general holiday insanity. So that’s the bad news. But the good news is that it’s provided me with a backlog of crazy.

Well, sort of. Femdomme!me has received a total of 23 responses. Three of them don’t count — two people sent me the exact same message twice, a few days apart, and Do Not Disappoint Me Man wrote to say that he’s sent several messages and does not understand why he hasn’t heard from me. His membership is expiring in a few days, and he’s anxious to hear from me because he would very much like to serve all my needs, and please e-mail him. Pushy motherfucker, even in submissive form.

Anyway. Femdomme!me is looking for a male, a female, or someone of ambiguous gender. My only other requirements, I believe, are age (+/- five years of however old the persona is) and distance (within 50 miles). Of the 21 people who’ve written, one has been a transperson, and the rest have been men. Twelve fail to meet the age/distance requirements (including Do Not Disappoint Me Man).

I’m getting a few things out of this. One, I’m wondering if there are even any women on this site. Two, I’m wondering if anyone pays a goddamn bit of attention to what they’re doing. Signs point to no on both counts.

But more than that, I think that responses to my femdomme ad are just not as interesting. True, they’re full of the same atrocious grammar and spelling that plague the rest of the Internet, and people do occasionally say some ridiculous shit — “do u wish me to becum fatter, uglier, or a sissy slut?” (why the fuck would I want that?) — but for the most part, these ads are from painfully earnest sub boys who’ve sent a picture and their phone number and a list of ways they would very much like to make my life easier. Bad spelling aside, that’s hard to mock. And it makes a little sad, because my dominant tendencies are completely nonexistent. Alas.

I really was not planning to turn this blog into some kind of personal soapbox about D/s relationships, but at this point, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to hold back. People are idiots.

I think my next experiment is to vary the locations of my alter-egos. Will a submissive woman in New York get the same crazy-ass responses as one in Atlanta? Los Angeles? Cleveland? Who knows! I think I’m going to need to start keeping spreadsheets and databases. Excellent.

the plot thickens!!

Okay, so last night I made yet another profile on alt.com. This one is a femdom, a little older, and she doesn’t look like me. I had a minor crisis of conscience when the replies started coming in — it’s one thing to make a legitimate profile and realize that the responses are so completely absurd as to warrant mockery, but it’s another to make up fake profiles with the sole purpose of mocking the responses.

But I am so over that. Because! Because Do Not Disappoint Me Man wrote to my femdom persona. He used almost the exact same language as he did before — “my profile says I’m a switch, but I have since realized that my true calling is to be a sub.” Which is funny, because two days ago he was saying that his true calling is to be dominate. (He’s another one who’s confused by dominate vs. dominant.)

It becomes clear from reading this response, though, that he doesn’t have nearly as much experience as he was telling submissive me that he had. He told dominant me that he’d only had a little bit, but that he thinks about it a lot. He was polite and respectful and asked some pertinent questions, and also wants permission to tell me about some of his “fitishes.” I don’t know what those are, but I don’t think I want to know. But it pisses me off on many levels that he feels only those calling themselves doms are deserving of courtesy.

I’m thinking I should write back and tell him to get off his lazy ass and buy a leather miniskirt.

second roundup

The first time I posted about my alt.com responses, I had ten of them. Now I have 20, so it seems like a good time to make another roundup post. I’m not sure this one’s as good as the last, though. Anyway.

Guy #1 is actually a couple with a “dungeon,” by which they mean, “living room.” Pictures were sent. I mean, it’s kind of a kinky living room, I guess, what with all the floggers on the wall, but it still has terrible beige carpeting and a brick fireplace and some dark wood paneling. Anyway, I’m not particularly looking to get involved with a married couple, so. No!

Guy #2 makes me wish I were handing out identifiable information, because his username is full of awesome. (And by awesome, I mean ridiculous.) He’s old enough to be my father and lives 119 miles away. He also seems to think I’m new to the whole kinky sex thing, which he would know is not the case if he’d bothered to read the three sentences I wrote. Seriously, when did asking people to read THREE SENTENCES become too much? Anyway, he also makes no sense: “If a master is more than just a physical dominate the relationship is like wildfire in the grassland.” Maybe it would make sense if he knew the difference between ‘dominate’ and ‘dominant,’ but no one on this site seems to. Again, a big no for this guy.

Guy #3 sent me a message with the subject line, “lets see if this will make you cum.” He’s already losing. I was totally expecting him to have sent me porn, but I opened the message against my better judgment. Turns out he would like to get to know me, and then use all my holes. What is it with these guys and all my holes? I’ve got ears, yo. And kind of a problem with the continual referencing of anyone’s “holes.” It’s kind of one thing when you’re in the moment, when it’s dirty talk because you’re actually being dirty, but when you’re sending e-mail to someone you don’t know? Stay away from my holes! Anyway, he goes on to make a pretty sorry attempt at writing porn. “First I will tie you up. Then I will suck on your clit. You will get so hot. Then I will fuck you. It will be great.” THEN he goes on to tell a story of the hottest thing he ever did, which involved tying his girlfriend to a bench with her head hanging off one end, with a ring gag in, and then coming a little down her throat and some in her nose. The pleasure of this, apparently, was that “she could not swallow any of the cum in her mouth because of the ring gag, and if she tried to breath in using her nose she would have sucked in more cum. It was great.” It sounds it! But sorry, no.

Guy #4 is the same guy as Guy #3 from last time, the one who fortunately understands the needs and dark cravings of fucksluts. Maybe I’m supposed to be extra-grateful to this guy for making his understanding so very clear? No.

Guy #5 seems to be not an asshole. His response was polite, courteous, and free of spelling errors. He did not mention any of my holes (let alone all of them), did not tell me go to buy some clothes, did not send me pictures of his cock, and did not write me any bad porn. He would like to meet for a glass of wine and talk and see if we click. I was about to brag about getting a real response out of someone, but then I remembered my ad does say I’m looking for a woman, preferably between the ages of 25 and 35, and this guy is a 47-year-old man. I like that the responses have been so completely over-the-top crazy that this guy looks good despite not meeting my most basic criteria.

Guy #6 wrote to let me know that he prefers action to words, and that it is possible to be strong without being a jerk. He ruined it with his apostrophe abuse, but still. Not terrible. Again, though, with the disregard of basic criteria.

Guy #7 sent a one-liner saying I should check out his profile. Kind of boring, but there it is. No.

Guy #8 is one of the guys from last time — the one that had been “deriously involved” in the lifestyle for a while. He was writing to thank me for checking out his profile. Apparently alt.com keeps track of who views your info, and then you can look at it. Kind of creepy, actually, but it reminds me that I should check out who’s viewing me and how many of those people are writing. Might be another interesting number.

Guy #9 wants to know about my experience, so he gets points for figuring out that I have some. I know it’s difficult, what with it right there in my profile and all. I feel like a broken record. LOOKING FOR A WOMAN. I’m beginning to understand why all the ads on Craigslist that are posted in the women-for-women section say NO MEN NO MEN NO MEN FOR THE LOVE OF GOD NO MEN.

Guy #10 is Do Not Disappoint Me Man from last time. He was writing to say that I had not responded within the set 24-hour time limit, and therefore I am clearly stupid, slow, and disrespectful. He goes on to say that the point I make in my profile about how I’m going to have to trust and respect anyone attempting to dominate me is a good one, but that I have to meet him halfway. He has to trust me, too. And how can he do that if I don’t immediately go buy a leather miniskirt upon receiving an e-mail from a complete stranger who meets none of my stated criteria? WTF. I’m really torn between ripping this guy a new one, and just not bothering. Do not engage! It’s not like it would do any good, but I feel it would be satisfying.

Then he stops making any sense at all: “Do not take my last letter to hart. I guess I needed to prove something to myself. I hope you find what you are looking for. Please remember that you are on alt. and not E-Harmony.” I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean. First. A hart is a deer. I will not be taking any letters to any deers any time soon. And what was he trying to prove? That he sucks? Mission accomplished. And yes, I’m well aware that I am not on eHarmony. Maybe my problem is that I feel people should be reasonable and decent and not assholes and not idiots. And they should be that way all the time. Clearly I am too idealistic to be hanging out on alt.com.

I guess he’s got something of a point, in that a very large portion of the membership seems to be looking for kinky sex. But what if you want MORE than kinky sex? What if you want an actual relationship with one person who doesn’t completely suck, and you would like that relationship to include kinky sex? Are you just SOL? Do you have to find some kid and corrupt the hell out of him? As amusing as this all is, it’s also really rather depressing.

let the games begin

First: breaking news! Remember the guy looking for a pillow queen? He responded to my Craigslist ad. Well, there’s currently a post up with the subject line, “LADIES THIS GUY IS A QUEER ASSHOLE – BEWARE.” It lists the e-mail address that response came from, along with the response in its entirety. It also says that he bombards every single ad with that same response. Unsurprising!

Anyway. On to alt.com. Last night I set up another profile, only a little bit fake. The woman I made up is a lot like me; she’s a little older and has blonde hair, but that’s it. She’s looking for a female dominant. The profile is literally three sentences long. Less than 24 hours later, I have ten responses. All ten are men, five included pictures, none included cock, and one included a porny story. Mostly, though, I learned the very important lesson that I really cannot log into alt.com at work, lest my hysterical laughter blow my cover.

The first response was fairly standard, if annoying. “Liked your profile, interested in learning more,” etc. But he wanted to know how much experience I have, and what my hard limits are, and all of those things are clearly stated in the “about me” section of my profile. I just want to know if anyone even READS the damn things anymore, or if they see “submissive female” and lose all higher brain function.

Guy #2 sent me… I’m not sure. A course outline? A syllabus? It’s a long explanation about what will be expected of me, “the candidate,” in my new training program. “The course itself,” he explains, “is a continuing program which one does not graduate from at any particular time or after the satisfactory completion of certain tasks.” The program has RULES (“A list of do’s and don’ts and required actions which the candidate will learn and promise to obey at all times. This list of rules may be amended or changed at any time if the MASTER believes it to be in the best interest of his slave. The slave may never suggest changes to these rules at any time, but as a slave has no input to the rules and is expected to at no time question them or fail to obey them. Failure to obey the rules will result in the punishment of the slave.”), TRAINING, ADVENTURES and ENCOUNTERS. Luckily for me, he goes to the trouble to illustrate the difference between ENCOUNTERS and ADVENTURES. See, sex in a car is an encounter. Being finger-fucked in a movie theatre, on the other hand, is an adventure. Good to know!

Guy #3 sent me the porn. Sigh. The thing is, I’ve read a lot of porn. Hell, I’ve written a lot of porn. And there words I cannot abide. Those words are “cum” and “pussy,” both of which featured greatly in this story. But even if this story featured coming instead of cumming and cunt instead of pussy,  it would still  be terrible; it’s so full of lame clichés and stilted language that I very possibly threw up a little while I was trying to read it. “I’ll fill your pussy overflowing with hot cum” is this guy’s idea of lyrical. He does score, like, half a point for open-mindedness, because straight men saying, “please, lick my ass,” are kind of few and far between.

Guys 4, 5 and 6 were similar to guy #1. The humor is largely to be found in their profiles (“I’ve been deriously involved in spanking and corporal punishment…”), and — surprise! — one of the men is actually a couple in search of a third.

Guy #7… wow. I am so lucky he responded. He assures me that he understands, “the needs and dark cravings fucksluts have.” Thank GOD. The rest of the e-mail is largely unreadable. He seems to have problems with basic sentence construction: “i do also greatly enjoy using a sub for a cum making you drink all masters cum as well as being covered in it and filling any and all holes with cum . this sir also trains sub for pussy and anal fucking and large toys and objects.” And if that weren’t enough, he’s a 42-year-old married businessman who’s in town once a week. Hello, double life!

Guy #8 is interested in trying to tame me. To do this, he has given me my first assignment: DO NOT KEEP HIM WAITING. He expects a response within 24 hours. Now, actually, let me back up. I’ve already mentioned my theory that many men who claim to be “doms” are only doing so because they think it will let them get away with being assholes. My profile says something to that effect. So, okay: “Should you think that I am a ASSHOLE (your words) and not worthy of your time just try me. We will find out how serious you really are about all of this.” What does that even mean? I can’t be serious about kink and also think he’s an asshole? What the fuck? So I boggled over that for a while, and then I got to the P.S., which says I will get bonus points for wearing leather when we meet. Preferably a mini-skirt. There just aren’t words.

Guy #9 is a guy I remember from last time. He’s married, but apparently his wife has been very ill for 15 years and can’t have sex. So he hangs out on alt.com.

Guy #10 sent some pictures and an e-mail address. Boring!

I’m just finding this whole thing really mind-boggling. Do these guys really think that the only reason I’m looking for a woman is because I just haven’t met the right man? On what planet is, “on your knees, bitch!” the proper response to “seeking dominant female”? What the hell do they do when someone says, “…no”? Find someone with less self-esteem, I guess. I don’t know. I have more to say on the subject, but not right this second. I’m still trying to figure out if I’m disgusted, creeped out, or hugely amused. Most likely I’m some combination of the three.

a somewhat promising start

Okay! Man, this project is a lot of work.

In addition to my alt.com profile, I have one up on the Salon.com personals section. That’s the actual, legitimate profile, for which I am holding out some hope. It’s all filled out and includes a picture and everything. In a somewhat bizarre turn of events, Salon’s personals engine (FastCupid, I believe) is the same one alt.com uses. So I kept expecting to be asked for my thoughts on anal play, and was dreading the four-page checklist. Fortunately, Salon doesn’t seem to have enabled that particular plugin.

Sadly, my ad on Salon has elicited only one response — predictably, from a man. Their e-mail engine dumps inappropriate e-mails (i.e., responses from people who don’t match your requirements) into a filtered folder, so I almost missed this one. It’s from a guy who feels there is a lot to digest in my profile, but he wanted to say hi while he did so. I don’t get what he’s digesting — perhaps the fact that I’m looking for a WOMAN? How difficult a concept is that to grasp?

Apparently the answer is very, particularly on alt.com. My profile’s been up for three days now, and I have not received any pictures of anyone’s cock. So I guess that’s a step up from the last time I tried this. I did, however, get a message from a guy who attempted to lure me over the fence with the following line: “i know i got the wrong part you like to lick but i like your hair stile to much and the glasses too.”

Out of morbid curiosity, I checked out his profile, but it seriously was not readable. Trying gave me a headache (“im looking for some one to shear pleaser with both hers and mine”). His tagline is, “will you obay or will you get spanked,” which, I don’t know — is “obay” like ebay for bdsm gear?

My plan when I started this was not necessarily to post snippets people could use to identify others, me, or themselves (you know, if my blog becomes super-famous), but my own words just couldn’t convey the horror. And I think I’m still reasonably safe.

Anyway. I have also received one soft-core porn story that involves me kneeling at someone’s feet and getting fed chocolate. The guy chickened out, though, and it fades to black. Which, man, if you’re going to do it, do it. And somehow it took him 700 words before he even got to the fading. There’s a lot of, “we kiss deeply. Then we kiss even more deeply. Then I run my hands down your arms, kissing you deeply.” I get it, okay? You’re into kissing deeply. Great.

So I added a line in my profile saying that under no circumstances should anyone send me bad porn or pictures of cock (which, I suppose, could be the same thing). I realize that defeats the purpose of the mocking, but part of this experiment is seeing if anyone will actually pay attention. I plan to put up a few more profiles on alt.com to see what happens. I expect comedy gold. One of the things I’m really curious about is — these guys who send stories? Do they send the same one to everyone who remotely matches their interests? Or do they tailor them to individual profiles? I’m not sure which option I find more terrifying.

Other stuff going on in my ULIL world includes dealing with posts on Craigslist (actual response: “I know you said you were looking for a woman, but would you consider a man? Perhaps with a double-ended dildo?”), which could easily be a full-time job in itself. I also have had a profile on okcupid for ages, but it’s gotten very little traffic; I get maybe one e-mail a month. I added a picture last night, and have got 10 e-mails in the last 24 hours. So I guess they’re not lying about the fact that profiles with pictures get more hits. None of the responses, however, have been remotely interesting (either in a legitimate-response sort of way, or a good-for-mocking sort of way).

Stay tuned! Tomorrow I will be delving into the CL stuff.

welcome to the machine

The site that started this all was alt.com, which is a huge personals site for people into kink and otherwise alternative lifestyles. While it’s true that I fit into that category, that place is a little much; it seems overrun with men who think that if they call themselves, “Master,” no one will notice that they’re really raging assholes. It’s also overrun with people who seem to think everyone needs to see pictures of their cocks, their tits, or their naked, pasty asses. Sometimes all three.

Setting up a profile at alt.com can be a long and brutal process. There are the normal questions about whether you want children and how much you drink, and then you get to the four-page fetish checklist. Everything under the sun is listed (learn some vocab: asphyxiphilia is old hat, but how about klismaphilia? dacryphilia? retifism?), and each activity has several pull-down menus: whether you’re experienced or interested in giving, receiving, or watching. Four. Pages.

And I don’t know what’s going on with the experience levels; the options are basically “none,” “beginner,” “intermediate,” and “expert.” Now. I may have had more than my share of anal sex, but at what point do I get to say I’m an expert? I’m no Alisha Klass. Other things I can be an expert in are, “receiving candle wax” (nobody lies on a table like I do!), “watching nipples” (but really, who isn’t?), and “others wearing lingerie” (I’m certainly more expert at others wearing lingerie than I am at wearing it myself).

Anyway, the first profile I put up was an actual, real profile, though it’s certainly more suited to a regular matchmaking site than it is to alt.com. It’s actually about, you know, me, and not a laundry list of my favorite sexual positions or things I like to be beaten with. And not once do I call myself a dirty name! I even posted a picture of myself, though I probably lose points for being fully clothed.

Again, the profile specified that I’m looking for a female dominant within 30 miles of me. Those are my only requirements. Now we wait and see if anyone pays any attention to them whatsoever. I’m guessing the answer is no.