We've gotten literally hundreds of replies, and all but two of them were from men, and I'm not sure that those two were actually women, and not just some dude getting off pretending to be one, as those exchanges never got past an exchange of a few emails.

Unless you've done this sort of thing before, you'd be amazed at how boring, crass, and stoopid most of the men that reply to these ads are. After the first dozen or so responses we received after posting an ad for the first time, she delegated the screening process to me.

All of our ads specifically ask for a pic - it's the very rare ad that we'll answer without one. (We learned early.) About half of the males send a picture of their erection, or somebody's erection, anyway. No face, no nothing, just a big overexposed jpg of their woody. At first, We used to reply with a comment like, "Nice dick - you gotta face?" but after a dozen times or so, that wore thin, so now they just get deleted without further comment.

Other guys send some of the most poorly spelled and composed crapass messages I've ever seen. Now, while I admit to being a bit pickier than most on this issue, I'll forgive a typo or two. But some of this stuff is so bad I gotta wonder how they ever got out of elementary school. If they can't even buy enough of a clue to find the spellchecker, off to the reject pile with them.

Worse are the guys that write long, graphic, messages about exactly, in painstaking detail, what they'd like to do in the event they ever got their hands on her. Hint, fellas - unless you're sure that you're writing professional quality erotica, (and this is a lot harder than most realize, I've tried) this probably ain't gonna work.

I considered posting a few short samples for y'all here, but I didn't want to torture you poor people so. Let me tell you, it's bad. They typically read like the script to the most hackneyed, wooden XXX movie you've ever been so unlucky to have been forced to watch. Only worse.

On the other end of the spectrum are the fellows of few words, who often overlap with the dunces that can't write. Their responses are something like, "Yur purty. I wood lahk to suck them big titties. Call me quick." That bit I just composed there is actually a bit longer than a few we've gotten.

Closely related are what I call the Hard Dick Spammers, who can't be bothered to write a personal reply, or even look at every ad, evidently. They just broadcast the same generic message to every female or couple they can find. I know this because I've posted our ad under different names on the same site, and gotten identical messages from the same guy within the same day, often only minutes apart. A hot tip for picking those guys out - they never use your name in their reply, much less mention anything unique about you, such as what about you atttracted them in the first place. They get killfiled, too.

After reading a few batches of junk like this, you start to understand why these guys are having such a tough time finding a steady sex partner. The replies that we get from couples, a much smaller fraction, by the way, are almost always at least interesting enough to get a reply. I think there is some degree of natural selection operating here.

The whole experience has truly made me feel sorry for all the single women out there. It seems that all the good ones are taken, if our experience is representative.

To take all this How Not To Do It advice, and turn it around to something positive, here are your tips:

1. Include a clear pic, with your freakin' face showing. Smile. If you can't find the courage to put your face in an ad on a site catering to people that are into kinky stuff, then go find yourself some vanilla folk at one of the zillion vanilla matchmaking sites.
2. Tell us something about yourself. We already know that you wanna join our little circle of FuckBuddies, so you can leave that out. Hopefully it will be something interesting. If you can't find something interesting about yourself, you can damn sure bet we won't.
3. It never hurts to include something about the person/people you're writing that attracted you. A canned reply smells like the dumpster behind a seafood market. Flattery is OK, but sincere, enthusiastic, appreciation will go a lot farther. In our particular case, Cookoff already knows she has big tits, so you can leave that out. You get a lot farther talking about her pretty smile or her eyes, or something like that. I would wager Big Moolah most other women are the same.
4. Pretend like it's a resume. Spell and grammar check it as if your life depended on it. This applies to your ad, too, along with any responses you'd like to send. Get a friend to help you write it, if you don't have the knack. Or pay somebody to do it. For a reasonable fee, I'll write one for you. If you don't have a friend, and don't want to pay somebody, you're a loser anyway, so give it up and get used to whacking off as a hobby. There's lots of free porn in the newsgroups to help inspire you. Ask nice and I might even send you one of CG. :-)
5. Finally, the best passport into the world of multiple sex partners, the poly lifestyle, whatever you want to call it, is to be a couple. It's much tougher for a single person, especially a single man, to break in. It's a buyer's market out there. I know that's a chicken or the egg thing, but I can't help that - I don't make the rules, I just report on them.

So, there you have it. My best advice on how to find True Love, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof, in the world of personal ads. All for free. And worth every nickel you paid for it. :-)