Women catching up to men in promiscuity, and that’s just the forty-somethings

While online dating websites may not correlate exactly with wider society, an interesting study from free dating site PlentyOfFish.com has concluded that women’s promiscuity — or at least their intentions of — has doubled in the last four years.

In 2004, around 9% stated that they were looking for sex via the “intimate encounter” option. That figure is now around 18%.

With some ten million members, the male-female ratio of those looking for long-term relationships or traditional dates has remained consistent at 55:45, but three years ago, men looking primarily for sex outnumbered women by ten to one. That’s now down to 5:1, with a prediction that in ten years’ time, there’ll be equality in promiscuity.

Suggesting that the female lifestyles portrayed in “Sex In the City” and the like may have something to do with a shifting societal attitude, Markus Frind, CEO of Plentyoffish.com, says, “Our average user, among males and females, is between 38 and 42 years old. Yet, the data shows that the behaviour exhibited is more of what you would expect from those in their early 20s. Plentyoffish.com statistics may be indicative of a fundamental shift in society and behavioural norms.”

Longer term, of course, this continued shift will have a marked effect on what society considers “family” to be.

Video dating embraced by young men and no-one else, study suggests

In less than surprising news given the stereotypes, young men (under 25) were the most likely people to be in favour of introducing webcams into online dating and video dating web sites.

On the other hand, nearly three-quarters of women said it was a definite no-no, particularly on dating sites.

That’s according to several studies by MakeFriendsOnline.com.

Last year, a survey of their members discovered that men wanted it, but over half of women didn’t.

As online dating which includes the use of videos is still rising in popularity, the site decided to run the survey again. This time they found that nearly three-quarters of male respondents liked webcams and wanted to use them on dating sites, but 63% of female respondents didn’t.

This suggest that men on cams might be increasingly talking to themselves, and also illustrates a marked trend with the percentage of women unwilling to use webcams increasing at a convincing rate.

The increased availability of Webcam Sites was reflected in the overall results which show an additional 12% of women have tried Webcam Dating since the last survey, but of those, a massive two thirds didn’t like it and wouldn’t do it again. By comparison, the male figures remain fairly static, the majority being as willing and eager to use a webcam this year as they were last.

The MD of MakeFriendsOnline, Martin Bysh, said, “In a market where it is notoriously difficult to attract and retain female users, MakeFriendsOnline is very proud and protective of it’s female membership, which at 51% is probably the best male/female ratio you’ll find anywhere. We would not want to alienate our female members by offering a feature that makes them uncomfortable and certainly not one which would actively put them off joining our site. We will therefore not be adding webcams to MFO.”

What do you think? If you’re open to the idea of online dating, would you be put off by the concept of using a web cam?