Shopping in the Online Meat Market

Adult FriendFinder may have 30 million users, but that doesn't mean it's easy to find partners for sex, love, or anything else with a few clicks. The site claims to have an even split of men and women, but from posts and chat rooms, it looks more like 30:1. Posing as a comely young woman, Teddy Wayne writes in Radar, he was barraged with “ungrammatical” notes from male suitors eager for casual sex, illustrated with photos of the wooers at "full mast."

Advertising himself similarly as a well-endowed male, he found his outreach to women mostly spurned without reply. Women who do use the site say they like the ease of “screening potential mates,” and others are “eager to explore their sexuality” after sexless relationships. But with many of the photos, and many of the profiles, obviously fake and the raunch so numbing—webcams offering "men, invariably, masturbating in their desk chairs"—Wayne wonders why anyone would think it suitable for searching for a friend, "lubricated or not.” (More online dating stories.)