While most of these ads are the same male fantasy over and over, a lot of the lurkers and a lot of the ads are from women seeking something specific and involved. They aren't looking for hookups or sex or dating, they are looking for a relationship that has roles and rules that make them feel comfortable and safe. The dynamic and kink require a level of involved communication that done right builds a level of intimacy most partners in most relationships are quietly jealous of. It's a dating moonshot for people who refuse to settle. It's BDSM as a sexy trust fall.

Several times in my dating life, I've had a woman tell me something like this:

"So we've been dating for a while, I really want you to know that I'm a sub. I want a DDlg relationship. I want to call you Daddy or Sir, while you take some pretty rough control. I want you to set rules for me, and discipline me when I break them. I want to actually submit, to give over real control to someone I trust. I'm pretty sure you're naturally very dominant, but I want to get it out there."

They're not wrong. I get it why I attract it, I'm attracted to it, but I've always wound up turning them down. I'd get too hung up on the power-exchange, doubting whether they really wanted what they were describing, but telling what they thought I wanted to hear. I had a pretty rigid, misguided picture of what it means to be equals in a relationship.

I've realized how wrong I was, people are just more complicated than that. Equal in a relationship doesn't mean same, it means complementary. Those women would go on to find "doms" who really just wanted to try out some kinky stuff their wives wouldn't go for and have pretty bad experiences, and I dated women who were very wrong for me. Women that ultimately wanted a sitcom dad who is generally pretty helpless without his super smart wife. I'm just not that guy. At all. I do still need someone though, I am much better with someone else around, someone to take care of. It's time to seek out a relationship where that's a positive.

I'm not particularly about satisfying some specific kink. I don't want to put a list of BDSM jargon here. Maybe you think of yourself as a middle, or a service sub, or whatever, I think most people who do get the vibe I'm going for just fine. The point is, if you want to date someone who can really be that guy you want, you want to go into it knowing when you have that conversation I talked about earlier they'll say yes and really put the effort in, send me a message. If you want to stand out, tell me how that conversation might go. I mean what comes after "So we've been dating for a while . . . "