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Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009
How did America Online become the bathhouse of the Internet? Size matters.
Oct 12, 1999 | Men and women alike are using America Online to pick up, peel off and put out with a kind of glee unseen since the summer of love. But for heterosexuals, AOL is merely a swinger's lounge. For gay men, it's more like a 1970s bathhouse.
"I can have dick delivered to my door faster than a pizza," says Steve, an Atlanta P.R. executive who cruises for men in America Online's chat rooms. (Like many of the men in this story, he asked that his real name not be used.) Within minutes of entering one of six AOL chat rooms designated for gay men in Atlanta, he exchanges naked photos with other men -- some with their faces cropped out -- and arranges a sex date.
What AOL lacks in steam rooms and towel-wrapped men it makes up for in steamy chat and naked pictures zooming across its servers. "GayOL," as many gay men have christened it, is home to hundreds of thousands of men "window-shopping" in the M4M (men for men) chat rooms.
There are, of course, several Web sites devoted specifically to the gay community -- like gay.com and Planet Out. But none of these has the reputation among gays that AOL does as the go-to place to get laid.
Why are so many gay men flocking to AOL?
"It offers an easier means to an end," says Paul, a health-care analyst in Atlanta who says he visits AOL's chat rooms nearly every day. "I don't have to get dressed up and go to a bar, drink, get my clothes full of smoke and wonder if anybody's interested." But avoiding the bar scene is only part of it. At 18 million members, AOL is so big you can find just about everything -- or anyone -- you're looking for. It turns out size does matter, and AOL has become the de facto online meet market largely because of its big member base.
"There are a lot of other gay Web sites that have chat rooms, but they came after the fact, after AOL," says Ron, a San Francisco marketing consultant who maintains two AOL accounts -- one for cruising and one for everything else. "They have millions of subscribers, which would keep even the most active gay man busy."
The popularity of the gay penis prowl on AOL has more to do with the company's technology than any gay-friendly stance on AOL's part. Instant messaging, for example, allows private conversation in public rooms. And then there's the system's legendary ease of use. "I've tried other sites like Gay.com," says Paul. "It's just not that easy to exchange pictures. Nothing beats AOL for the immediacy of naked pictures popping up on your screen almost instantly."
Rory O'Neill, president of Cybersite, which specializes in building online communities, says Paul isn't just imagining AOL's speed and ease of use. "AOL uses a local client software resident on the user's hard drive," he says. "Which makes it more robust than other sites which use HTML or Java. Self-contained systems like AOL's always run better, faster and with fewer problems."
Paul doesn't care about AOL's technology but he likes the effect: "With AOL it's simpler to evaluate the merchandise."
