village voice > screens > Click Me: The Biggest Bathhouse on the Internet? by Bonnie Ruberg

Last night, the population of Korea watched me have a threesome. I couldn’t see all those faces, but I knew they were there: quiet, probably wide-eyed. They sat and stared while my newfound playmates—two bisexual men—pressed me up against a bedroom dresser and gave it to me hard. When we moved our ménage à trois to the bed, where we wrapped around each other like sweaty circus performers, they barely even spoke. Every so often one of them would blurt out an incomprehensible cry—but who could tell if that was the garbled howl of voyeuristic pleasure, or just one of our spectators passing out on his keyboard?

Of course, when I say I was having a threesome, I mean I was role-playing sex with two (ostensible) men on the internet. And by Korea, I mean we were getting it on in front of all thirty-some members of the AdultFriendFinder.com chat room “Korea.”

With more than 20 million users from across the globe, sex site Adult Friend Finder lives up to its claim as “the world’s largest sex and swinger personals community.” Launched in 1996 and originally part of the FriendFinder.com dating network, these days the site is first and foremost a hook-up center: a place where people looking to have a no-strings-attached good time can check out erotic pictures of each other, exchange a few e-mails, and eventually reconnect for a romp. How else would users like MiracleTongue69 and Daddyslittlegrl—both from Madison, Wisconsin; both into casual sex—have found each other in the real world?

But also thanks to its components, Adult Friend Finder is also shaping up as a virtual orgy. The site offers numerous ways to fool around without ever leaving the comfort of the computer chair. For the visually inclined, it hosts live webcam shows and webcam chats. For those who prefer the old-fashioned telephonic method, the site sets up private, Skype-style calls: perfect for users who want to talk each other off without appearing on each other’s phone bills.

However, the text-based chat rooms are the real center of cybersex life on Adult Friend Finder. At any hour of the day, thousands of people can be found in hundreds of rooms, grouped together by themes that range from obvious (“What’s your cyber fantasy?”) to specific (“Girls who like to watch guys cum”) to geographic (“Korea”). There, users can fool around, or just kick back and watch others go at it.

Being a cybersex columnist, I receive a lot of letters from readers asking where beginners should go to have sex online. I’ll admit, I’m often at a loss for suggestions. All my regular haunts come with their beginner complications. Second Life takes a frustratingly long time to start up, build a character, and get comfortable with the user interface. The AOL chat rooms, while good for a quick fuck, paint a pretty base picture of sex on the internet. And even the sexiest spots on Internet Relay Chat are often empty when you need them most.

But with so many members and so many options, Adult Friend Finder may just be the biggest bathhouse on the internet. And joining in the cybersex action is relatively easy. All members—men, women, or swinging couples—set up profiles, where they can select the age, location, and sexual orientation of they’re looking for partners. They can also choose whether they’re interested in real-life sex, or just online fun. Once that profile gets approved by the Adult Friend Finder staff, they can wink at potential playmates, send them sexy, interal message, or meet up with them in chat rooms.

But like any other cybersex system, it has its problems. Readers who are impatient to jump into cybersex may find it annoying that it takes about twenty-four hours for the site team to approve a profile. There’s also the problem of gender ratios: the number of men on the site far outweighs the number of women—though, for female cyberers, having the pick of the litter may make things even more appealing. And don’t be fooled by all “gold and silver” packages Adult Friend Finder will try to sell you. Users should be able to squeeze out all the cybersex goodness the site has to offer without ever paying a penny.

Most importantly, the cybersex on this site is really good. Though it doesn’t bill itself as a cybersex site, Adult Friend Finder does a tremendous job of attracting people who’ve cut away the emotional baggage of sex—in the real world and online. With all that messy business out of the way, users can focus on the thing that really matters: the art of getting it on.

Previously: Cybersex Sounds Hot—But What If I Get Addicted?

Click Me runs on villagevoice.com on Mondays. Got a question about cybersex? Write to your friendly cyberhood sexpert Bonnie Ruberg to ask advice or share stories about sex and the internet: bonnie [at] heroine-sheik [dot] com.

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