The Growth of Gay Online Dating

THE INDEPENDENT ONLINE -- Feb 19 -- Gaydar has 3.5 million members globally. The UK is by far its biggest market, with a total of almost one million members. Most are in big towns and cities, especially London, Manchester and Brighton. Most members are between 25 and 34. There are leather queens in LA, sugar daddies in Shanghai, and, at every point of the compass, married men seeking "discreet meets". When Freud talked about "polymorphous perversity" he foresaw Gaydar. The site caters for any and every preference. Specialised chatrooms include chastity, chubbychasers, Eurovision, hypnosis, kilts and scallies. There is plenty to amuse and arouse, much to disgust, but absolutely nothing illegal. Gaydar membership is £60 a year. This year, Europeans will spend £157m on online dating. They will spend £291m on "adult content." Go figure. Sex is what's really getting us online in such record numbers. "Most of the big dating sites claim to be about actual dating aiming at actual relationships," says Nate Elliott of Jupiter Research. "Sites like Match.com and Datingdirect say they want people to meet and fall in love. Users say that friendship is their main goal, not physical intimacy." The current advertising campaign for Match.com is the UK's biggest online dating promotion. Slogan: "We guarantee you'll find someone special within six months." Gaydar's homepage features pictures of semi-naked men beckoning you to log on. Slogan: "What you want, when you want it." "People definitely lie about what they're looking for," says Dr Monica Whitty, social psychologist at Queen's University and co-author of Cyberspace Romance: the Psychology of Online Dating. "Often women will try to attract more men by claiming they're only after a casual relationship. Men will do the opposite. Both sexes are playing a game." Gaydar makes ~£1 million a year in the UK alone. Q Soft Consulting, currently employs a total of 40 people and owns, among other products, Gaydarradio and Gaydartravel. Today Gaydar has more than three million members, while Match.com has just 500,000 gay members. Gaydargirls.com launches next month. Already 140,000 gay women have signed up. In December 2005, Gaydar accounted for more than half of all gay website visits.

The full article was originally published at The Independent, but is no longer available.

Mark Brooks: Fascinating insight on the gay and casual dating market. Sexsearch and Adult Friend Finder are the leading adult dating sites in the USA. They fly under the wire because the personals rankings don't include them because of their adult content. I never see them mentioned in the press. The press don't want to talk about them, the analysts don't include them...but the people are voting for them in droves. We're in the business of love, which means we're also in the sex business. Better matches > more love > more sex, and the freedom to express one's sexual preferences are paramount for the success of prosperity of this industry.