It’s hard to keep a forum going without members posting

Off Topic
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Hey we need your help.

Yes you, all the registered members of this fine forum. We need you to do more than read and like. A forum thrives on creating topics, on the members reacting and sharing their views.

It’s not that we don’t have enough members. It’s that we have too many passive members. Maybe some of you think you’ve nothing interesting to say. I beg to differ. Everyone has an insight which can help others.

I understand some people rather talk on Reddit, but I plead you not to do that. Reddit can delete the whole subsection at will, all content will be lost it happened before
So why not invite the people on Reddit to join us here, write topics here that won’t dissapear randomly.

Our forum needs actvity. Not by the 4 same members, but by as many members as possible

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Appreciate you bringing this up. Since it can be hard to know what to post, maybe we can start a few simple discussion threads where everyone can jump in without needing a big topic.

Maybe something like “What have you learnt this week?” etc… It would be great to hear what people are currently reading / watching / discovering related to AOL, short posts would be totally fine.

What do you think?

If anyone has ideas for small recurring topics or questions they’d like to see on the forum, please share them here. Let’s see if we can get a bit more momentum going.

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Which is better: a new topic of an old subject discussed months/years ago, or a new reply in an old topic?

I’m about to write a thought about “too much lube”, but I started wondering which would be better to stir up the forum.

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Personally I’m more for creating a new topic.

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I can be a bit of a bookworm. I’ve been trying to share books or articles that I’ve been reading that are related to anal. A weekly or monthly recommendation post for things we’ve read related to anal could be fun.

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I enjoy engagement in situations where I can answer someone’s questions regarding anal or other subjects I have passion about. That happens less frequently here, especially since most of us regulars are anal pros.

Much of my activity on Reddit is in groups including sex after 60 (I’ll be 70 soon), married sex, Trimix, and the anal sex subreddit. I preach the gospel of anal in the over 60 and married sex subreddits. I’m a bit of an anal evangelist because of our personal experience.

Because of the nature of my work, I’m necessarily detailed and lengthy in many of my posts. This is contrary to the majority of posts on social media that are one or two sentences long. I don’t know of anyone in this group appreciates War and Peace length posts, but that’s who I am. Brevity is NOT my strong suit and, believe it or not, all of my posts are from my phone. I have a work computer I can’t use for stuff like this. I also enjoy relaxing in a chair instead of sitting at a desk when engaging in social media.

I’ve promoted this group to others as an excellent source of help and information. As others in our group have mentioned before, I just want to avoid the “we just had great anal sex and my wife had seventeen convulsive anal orgasms. Most of my life has been dedicated to learning and passing that information along to others. You can count on me to participate when those opportunities surface. My two cents.

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I rarely engage in discussions on sensitive topics for fear of offending someone with my opinion, but I’ve seen the issue raised here time and again about the forum’s lack of activity from new members. And this question remains unanswered, with only the moderators offering their comments.

I’ve decided to share my perspective on this issue. This is just my personal opinion, and it may well not reflect the true state of affairs.

So, let’s ask ourselves, why do members come to this forum and how did they find it? It’s unlikely that most of us have searched the internet for a Wikipedia entry on anal sex. I’m sure most of us new members found this forum either through a recommendation in a Reddit comment or simply by searching Google for videos, stories, games, and the like on anal sex. That’s how I found the link to the old version of the forum, analonlylifestyle.com and analonlylifestyle.blog.

People come here because the topic of anal sex and anal-only sex is a huge turn-on for them. For example, I really enjoy searching and reading erotic literature about anal sex online. Searching for such stories, I found the old version of the forum.

As Kolt1911 said, most of the members are already quite experienced in anal sex. My wife and I have our favorite rituals, favorite toys, and we know how to prepare for anal sex and what to do afterward. And 99% of the information on the forum is devoted to technical issues, like reading a manual.

In defense against the abundance of spam that caused people to flee the old forum, the moderators tightened the rules so much that the new forum has lost its edge. Too many restrictions.

Why immediately attack a new member who says they’d like to find a partner here? Yes, this is not a dating site. And if a member starts aggressively harassing others, you can warn them, and if they don’t understand the warning, you can delete them. But why so categorically ban dating if it doesn’t bother anyone?

I remember one member wanted to share her photos. She was also denied. Why? Who does this bother?

Why are some people allowed private messages and others not?

I thought for a long time about writing this paragraph, since it would contain criticism of one of the moderators, but then I finally decided I had to write it. Backdoorlover’s manner of communication often puts me off participating in the correspondence. Sorry, but you are often harsh in your judgments, categorical, and uncompromising. More than once, conflicts have arisen in discussions that were only smoothed over thanks to other members. If Backdoorlover is involved in the correspondence and my opinion does not coincide with his, I’d rather remain silent.

To summarize, my conclusion is this: the forum has become too technical; there’s almost nothing exciting or interesting left. Topics about types of butt plugs and lubricants, cleansing methods, stretching and training programs have already been discussed a couple dozen times.

I liked it when we discussed random pictures from the internet that hinted at anal sex. I liked it when we discussed body stickers. I’m interested in discussing the conversations and games we have in bed. What erotic literature has been published on the topic of anal sex? Which porn stars prefer anal sex? Perhaps any of the participants have had any unusual experiences or conversations related to our favorite topic?

But for some reason, I feel like if I started such threads, I’d be shut down pretty quickly.

Sorry if there are any mistakes in the text - I am writing through a translator.

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Hey I feel that my reply is due now.

AOL wrote me a message with the same comment. About how I come over and scare people off. I am quite confrontational as a person, in person too.

The “like him or dislike him” character that doesn’t operate in the greyzone. My life is black and white. It’s never an issue of wanting to offend anyone, it’s really how I communicate and in real life it also Causes the same issues.

So after AOL told me, I try keeping a lower profile. But on the other hand the lack of activity gives me the feeling I need to respond as much as possible to at least create action.

I urge everyone not to feel put off by any opinion I have. It’s opinion. My opinion, not everyone’s truth. I know that. :grin:

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Thank you for such a thoughtful response; I was afraid to offend you. I understand—it’s very difficult to change yourself and your behavior. In my previous post, I wrote a negative comment about you, but now I want to dilute it with a little flattery: my judgments and opinions are very similar to yours, and I like many of your comments. I also really appreciate how sincerely you admire your wife. I’m also a family man, and I adore my wife and the way she embraced my obsession with anal sex and made it our daily routine.

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Thanks for taking the time to write your thoughts. Feedback about how the forum works is always welcome, and nobody should hesitate to bring up concerns about rules, culture, or direction.

We didn’t make the rules because we dislike photos, meeting people, or more social interaction. The main goal was to avoid the pattern that drives a lot of women and quieter members away: unsolicited sexual messages, pressure for photos, and the forum turning into a dating hunt rather than a place for discussion. When the community is small and unbalanced, that shift happens very quickly and is hard to undo.

The restrictions (like asking before PMs, no direct “looking for partner” posts, etc.) were mainly to prevent the place from becoming exactly that. You can see this on Reddit, where women often add “no DMs” or “please do not DM me” to their posts, if they even post at all. Or on FetLife, where most topics are men looking for partners for their kinks, or OnlyFans models doing marketing.

That said, nothing here is set in stone. Also, nobody should be afraid to point out problems they see on the forum. We’re a community here, not two sides where one makes rules and the other just follows. Discussion and feedback are always welcome.

If you have ideas for making things more open without turning the forum into a swamp of unsolicited advances, we’d love to hear them. For example, in your view, what changes would make the space more enjoyable, and how would we prevent the usual problems from coming back if we loosen certain rules?

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Thank you for your understanding and kind words. I really didn’t want to offend anyone, I just shared my view of the situation.

Since you asked for my opinion on what changes I would make to the rules, I will try to write down what I would change.

You write that restrictions on posting photos and a ban on private messages were introduced to protect women from annoying men. But as far as I remember, it was a woman who wanted to post her photos. And it was also a woman who asked for permission to send private messages. One of the participants and I found out in one of the threads that we live in neighboring countries not far from each other, and we both speak Russian. We wanted to communicate in private messages so as not to disturb other participants with messages in Russian. I wrote her a private message, she replied, and we started corresponding. As it turned out, the private message block is limited to 500 messages. When, unexpectedly for us, we lost the ability to send messages because we had used up all 500, the girl tried to open a new message block and write to me to continue the correspondence, but it turned out that she could not start a conversation with me herself; only I could do that. She asked the moderators to give her access to the ability to send messages, but they refused. It seems strange. You are trying to protect women, but you are the ones who are prohibiting them from sending photos and messages.

I believe that strict restrictions hinder comfortable communication on the forum. Instead of banning messages, I would introduce the option to block messages sent to me in the account settings in case I do not wish to receive private messages. I would also add a “Report to moderator” feature. If one of the participants is too intrusive, it would be possible to write to the moderator with a request to deal with the aggressive participant, attaching screenshots of the correspondence with evidence of their inappropriate behavior. If the moderator sees that the participant is indeed violating the rules, they can issue a warning for the first time. And if they don’t stop, then ruthlessly remove that participant from the forum.

1 Like
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Thanks for explaining your view more. This kind of feedback is exactly the type of conversation we want to have openly. I completely understand your point. These restrictions affect people who would never break the rules, and I’m not happy about that either.

What you described about the photo and PM situations makes sense from your perspective, and I understand why it looks like women are being blocked instead of protected. To give you a brief example from the other side: there was a guy (I won’t name him, because this is not about him personally) who I believe was the first to ask why PMs were disabled. He barely posted publicly, seemed almost inactive, but he immediately noticed PMs no longer worked. I checked his stats and he had around 25 private message threads and only one public topic (his introduction, of course). It was clear he wasn’t here for community discussion, but just to send unsolicited messages. I’m not saying he wrote anything inappropriate in all those messages, I do not know, only that this pattern is very common. And it only takes a few users like that for a new woman to sign up, and suddenly her inbox is overflowing with unwanted attention. She gets constant notifications and ends up frustrated just for having an account here.

About the photos I already explained this in the thread, but to summarize, it’s again about preventing inappropriate attention from men.

You could see it just recently a guy just wrote:

“Speaking as a man, where were you many years ago when I was single? I wish you had many clones.”

My reaction was basically “omg, you really didn’t have to write that…” But I also felt it would be too much to give him a warning, because to him it was just an innocent joke for sure, and I don’t want this place to become a police state either. Then she responded:

“Umm idk why? I’m sorry but the first question made me feel very uncomfortable and I’m not seeking any hookups.”

Honestly, I appreciated that so much, because guys rarely get to hear how these comments actually feel from women themselves. But it’s not common for someone to speak up like that.

It’s extremely rare for bad behavior to get reported. Of course there are exceptions, but in general it almost never gets reported. Look at how rarely sexual harassment or even rape gets reported and that’s much more serious than just an inappropriate message.

Optional PM blocking instead of PM restrictions is a valid approach and is used on many platforms. The downside is that it relies on every woman/recipient to defend themselves from day one, instead of placing the responsibility on the sender.

The challenge with small communities is that by the time someone gets warned or removed, several women are already gone and won’t come back. That’s why the initial rules were stricter up front.

Anyway, this is not about telling you that you’re wrong. Quite the opposite, I mostly agree with you, but it’s not that simple. I would love to have no rules at all and trust everyone to behave. But the world is not perfect, and this inappropriate behavior is so common that the rules might end up being excessively protective, which hurts in the end.

Maybe the solution is adjusting where the line is for getting access to PMs or other features. Maybe the restrictive parameters shouldn’t apply equally to everyone, but then, who decides that on a case by case basis? And would that feel fair for everyone?

I’d also be interested to hear how others feel about this. If anyone has thoughts on the current rules or ideas for improving things without letting the forum slide into chaos, please share.

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Can I just say that I appreciate you all having these conversations and talking openly? This is the only forum online I participate in, let alone the only anal forum. I check over some of the other stuff (like Reddit), but mostly watch from the sidelines. This forum isn’t perfect, and some posts do make me a little uncomfortable, but that’s as much about me as other people I think. But I like that an open and welcoming community is at the front of people’s minds here, and that mods regularly communicate that. It’s why I participate here and no where else.

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Long time male members (double entendre) often speak out condemning comments and advances. It’s like a team looking out for each other. I’m sure the mod appreciates the support. I’m not shy and I’ll push back when appropriate.

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Wait, body stickers? What are body stickers?

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1 Like