"Looking for a Married Hookup": An Examination of Personal Ads Posted by Men Seeking Sex with Married Men

Abstract

Bulletin board websites and the Internet have created new ways for individuals to find partners for casual sexual encounters through personal ads. This paper examines men who are seeking sexual encounters with married men through placement of a “men seeking men” personal ad found on a free, non-sexual, large mainstream bulletin board classified website. Three thousand advertisements were analyzed to reveal themes among advertisements including items such as marital status, sexual act desired, sexual roles desired, whether or not individuals were seeking safe sex encounters, race and age. The results (based on descriptive statistics) reveal that men who are seeking sexual encounters with married men are more likely to be married themselves, open to a variety of types of sexual encounters, are most often looking for safe sex and are more likely to report that they are drug and disease free.

DDFSeeks same

“…Healthrelated language has been found to be more prevalent in ads posted by HIV-positive MSM [22], giving evidence of serosorting ("preferentially selecting sex partners with concordant HIV status and … using condoms with partners of discordant status" [4:2497]), a method shown to reduce risk of HIV transmission [4]. One risk indicator is the volume of ads posted by any individual MSM, which predicted more likeliness to engage in unsafe sexual practices [29], while the marital status of MSM can also correlate with perceived safety [8,32]. These studies show how content of personal ads correlates with the sexual risk behaviors of those posting and replying to these ads.…”

“…Several studies have examined the content of personal ads on Craigslist and how it relates to sexual health and risk of HIV and other STIs in MSM [8,18,22,29,32]. Healthrelated language has been found to be more prevalent in ads posted by HIV-positive MSM [22], giving evidence of serosorting ("preferentially selecting sex partners with concordant HIV status and … using condoms with partners of discordant status" [4:2497]), a method shown to reduce risk of HIV transmission [4].…”

Self-presentation, desired partner characteristics, and sexual behavior preferences in online personal advertisements of men seeking non-gay-identified men.

“…Evidence that MSM believe they bring (non-financial) assets to the sexual marketplace in bargaining for potential partners exists in the personal ads men place in gay-oriented publications (Bailey, Kim, Hills, & Linsenmeier, 1997; Gonzales & Meyers, 1993) and telephone personals (Bartholome, Tewksbury, & Bruzzone, 2000), and more recently, in personal ads or profiles on Internet websites designed to meet casual sexual partners (Cheeseman et al, 2012; Ward, 2008). As Bartholome et al (2000) suggest, “By conducting their search on paper, online, or via telephone sources, advertisers can stress the qualities that are most valued by them.…”

“…Such assets might include youthfulness or maturity (Slevin & Linneman, 2010; Sowell & Phillips, 2010; Steinman, 1990), masculinity (Bailey et al, 1997; Connell, 2005; Drummond, 2005; Filiault & Drummond, 2007), fitness or muscularity (Brennan, Craig, & Thompson, 2012; Drummond, 2010; Martins, Tiggemann, & Churchett, 2008), physical endowment (Chiasson et al, 2006; Drummond & Filiault, 2007; Grov, Parsons, & Bimbi, 2010; Ward, 2008), sexual role preferences (Chiasson et al, 2006; Wei & Raymond, 2011), a specific HIV serostatus (Grov & Parsons, 2006; Moskowitz & Roloff, 2007), as well as preferences for risky or safer sexual encounters (Chiasson et al, 2006; Downing, 2011; Grov, 2010; Klein, 2012). To date, however, limited research has examined (Cheeseman et al, 2012; Ward, 2008) the use of a heterosexual or bisexual identity, heterosexual marriage, or ‘down low’ image as potential assets in the sexual marketplace.…”

“…There is reason to suspect (Cheeseman, Goodlin- Fahncke, & Tewksbury, 2012; Ward, 2008) that there exists a subgroup of men who have sex with men (MSM) who actively seek out NGI men for sexual encounters, either because they themselves do not identify as gay (and want a similar partner who will be motivated to be discreet and non-disclosing about their same-sex encounters) or because NGI men are perceived by some gay men to have other desirable qualities (e.g., they are masculine, dominant, “straight - acting”).…”