Alt.com is intended to be a BDSM website, but also caters to swingers. There are many more men than women on the site, around a 10 to 1 ratio.
The interface is complex. There are many features: good. But it can be confusing: bad. Free users can post a profile, but not much more, and are limited to sending one email per 24-hour period.
The site includes regional chat boards and live pro video chats. A nice feature of a site that caters to poly folks and swingers is that they allow you to sign up as a couple and enter his and hers info (or his and his/hers and hers).
This site is more geared toward meeting people than Bondage.com, less towards porn and discussion boards. I have used Alt myself, and found just what I was looking for, but it took a while. I also acknowledge that being an attractive woman helped the odds considerably!
I interviewed D.C., a 30-something submissive bi woman in MA looking for a dominant man.
D.C. had problems with the 10:1 male-to-female ratio, and hated the interface, calling it a "pain in the butt to use." But she did acknowledge that, for paid members, at least, "This is a full-featured site. She had the free trial membership. "It is stingy about what you can and can't do, so there are lots of features I didn't have access to, and therefore can't rate. Over the time I was there they kept changing what free users could and couldn't do. At the start, women could do most things, men were limited, but people complained. Then they said that NO free users could view pictures or profiles. Now they have some 'point system' where you spend points to look at profiles, and free users get a small number of points. There is a one email per 24 hours (sending) limit, which is really annoying."
We also heard from G.E., a 24-year-old submissive hetero man in East Sussex, U.K. He says, "I have been a member of this site for five years now and I have sent literally millions of mesages to women I was interested in, and I have yet to recieve a reply. Upon browsing the profiles I realized to my horror that the VAST majority of the female Dommes were prostitutes in one form or another. If they were not a prostitute, it would usually be a con pretending that they are genuinely interested in a relationship, but then they will try and con you out of money or try and get you to subscribe to some crap site. This site is a total and utter waste of time and money. I beg you with all sincerity not to bother. This review is totally unbiased and has been written by a real customer."
