A few months ago, on the recommendation of a friend, I created an account on the dating website okcupid. It offers some cool features not available on other social networking and hookup websites. For example, in addition to writing an autobiographical profile, okcupid users also answer an array of multiple choice personality questions. The cupid "robot" in turn suggests possible matches based on these responses.

The website has, on the whole, been unfulfilling for me since I created my profile in July. I think this is because okcupid's personality test questions don't care enough about my sex life. What I like about Manhunt is that it lets users advertise nearly any erotic proclivity through a list of check boxes (my favorites, of course, being "dad/son" and "nipple play"). These preferences then become search terms through which users can find each other.

It's difficult to overstate how nice it is to have a space online in which I can connect with people who want the same things as me. Because my sexual desires tend to be marginalized in most other social spaces, when I go online, I want to be able to include these as a primary component of my self-presentation. And okcupid just isn't reactive enough to this part of my personality. If it were, it would stop trying to make me a match with twinks in their twenties.

The website is probably a great resource for people to find each other in non-sexual ways. But at bottom (haha), it's a dating website! Okcupid needs to develop a greater sensitivity to erotic diversity, and incorporate this into its quiz questions, in order to serve in a meaningful way users who are interested in sexual pleasure.