[quietlisten]

There are a lot of valid complaints here, and I empathize with the pain and frustration I’m hearing so clearly. I was ‘looking’ for a long time, and it was a soul-crushing experience. Eventually, though, I realized that — the legions of scammers aside — people hiding behind anonymity can be worse than just unkind. They often let their baser instincts run riot, doing and saying things that they would never consider if their real-world identity was attached. This is not gender or role based. It’s not restricted to role-specific dating or dating at all… it’s people being people. Mistress VIP’s experience with the sissy from Atlanta is an excellent example of this. When you’re anonymous, being a jerk is “free” while being empathetic, kind, and considerate takes restraint, thought, and consideration.

This is why I moved away from unpaid and unmoderated sites: they are simply scam-enablement engines and breeding grounds for learning bad behavior. It’s structural, not personal. Yes, there can be very, very good people hidden in the wasteland of lies and terrible behavior, but the effort to find, vet, and connect is so high that it’s far “cheaper” just to find other resources. It’s simply not worth developing anger and resentment over people who should have no impact on our lives or feelings or outlook at all. That just gives them power. Why would anyone with agency invest in this once they understand it?

If we value honesty and integrity, then we should not give time and attention to those who do not. Everyone here understands the problem with “free” dating sites, and are justifiably angry at the results such sites bring. So change your approach. Learn what works. Go where the good people are and stop feeding scammers and anonymous trolls. Complaints won’t change the structure of free and anonymous resources, nor will they change human nature. Don’t let the jerks drive the tonal quality of your world. In fact, piss them off by being happy and successful.

QL

[quietlisten]

I have not posted in this site’s current incarnation, though I was more active a while back when I was single and looking. Some observations from years of scanning the online and offline worlds:

1. Submissive men VASTLY outnumber dominant women. My guess is that the ratio is above 10:1, maybe 20:1. This means that actual dominant women looking for a match live in a sea of submissive male desperation with highly variable desirability.

2. Most actual dominant women don’t put up with the desperation and scamming of The Interwebs because they don’t have to. This raises the percentage of Dommes to subs even higher, and we haven’t even gotten to the “fakes” yet.

3. Any “free” resource is inundated with scammers. This means you pay with your time and personal risk instead of paying money for a service that will sort out the scum from the desirable. A scammer’s time is worth very little because they are leveraging assets for greatest reach and profit. Fetlife can be great if you can get introductions from people you know, but it suffers some of the same problems as open dating forums.

4. Even when an actual Domme connects with an actual sub, there is chemistry, life circumstance, preferences/needs, and other barriers to overcome. That’s not easy… in fact it may be even harder than building a vanilla relationship. Compounding this is that so many men are actually in a committed relationship, so if they get any attention they are like a dog that actually caught the car… “now what?”

This site is better than most (stopped by collarme/collarspace lately?), and I enjoy the frameworks and articles that the original author created. But the dating section is still a “free” resource, so one must treat it as what it is. I contribute to a Domme-friendly site — not listing it here out of respect for this site, but DM if you want to know the URL — that is well moderated, but those are rare.

To Mistress VIP’s point, we all have to be careful with whom we connect and how we go about that. I actually have met some amazing people on line — relationships that involved in-person meetups and long-term mutual support — but the key is to slow down, take a deep breath, and observe each other for a bit. As long as a sub’s little head is doing the thinking, the scammers have him already.

Be careful, but keep looking.

QL

[quietlisten]

It’s an interesting survey (NOT CLOSE to being scientific), but I don’t think the discussion or conclusion gets close to the real issue: men tend to have intrinsic sources of confidence and power (often to the annoyance of women, also often resting on an ego that is more brittle than he wants to believe), and women tend to have more extrinsic sources. (Disclaimer: these are generalities and NOT intended to be “true of everyone” statements.)

Women are far more attentive to social cues and are more influenced by what they think others think of them than men are. (There are whole genres of humor built on this fact.) If a woman is subordinate in a relationship, she wants a pretty constant stream of supportive feedback from her partner but is not very likely to get as much as she would like. If a man is subordinate, he’s more likely to “be fine” unless he gets negative feedback. I find this to be a simpler and more satisfying conclusion than what the article speculates.

Society is far more approving of male leadership in a relationship than female, thus sites like this where the lovely outcast few can gather and discuss. I’ll speculate that the women who choose to lead are less likely to be as buffeted by what others think as those who choose not to. It takes attention AND intention to create a successful FLR (particularly levels 3+) in a society that assumes male leadership. How can fighting together against norms NOT create a stronger and more confident partnership?

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