No-strings sex site is a hit

As office workers and shoppers bustled past each other on a busy street in west London at lunchtime, I stood waiting outside a pub for a man, a complete stranger, whom I had met on an internet site. As far as he was concerned, our sole intention of meeting was to see if we were attracted to each other enough to have casual, nostringsattached sex.

What was I expecting, I wondered, as I looked at every man who passed? If I were to go by cliché, he would have been a seedy-looking middle-aged man in a cheap suit, slipping off his wedding ring as he turned the corner. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised. Dave, who works for an events company, was 30 and wearing a casual jacket, black shirt, jeans and trainers, looked unthreatening and certainly didn't have a psychopathic glint in his eye. He had attractive blue eyes and seemed nervous.

"This is the first time I've met anyone from the website," he said, referring to the Casual Encounters page of Craigslist.org, an online meeting place for people looking for sex with strangers. "I was in a longterm relationship for five years and I'm really busy at work, so I'm not looking for anything serious but, you know, people have needs. I would be happy to take you out, have a few drinks and see where it leads." He saw the site publicised in a Sunday newspaper and thought it offered exactly what he was looking for - uncomplicated sex with a likeminded woman who wouldn't be upset when he leaves her house before breakfast and doesn't take her number.

According to the advert I posted, which Dave answered, I was that woman. Claiming to be a "curvy 24-year-old blonde, in a long-term relationship but looking for nostrings sex", I was looking for a man aged between 20 and 45. The process took less than five minutes - I wrote my advert, then gave my email address to activate the message. The message is anonymous and the only way the person replying would get your email address is if you repied to them. Less than 10 minutes later I received my first reply. Within two hours I had more than 100 emails from men wanting sex. "A woman looking for a man on here is as rare as rockinghorse dung," replied one man.

Craiglist is an American website that was set up as an on-line marketplace to sell anything from property to bicycles but, while the Casual Encounters section is relatively under-used in the States, in London the site is proving incredibly popular. Since it was launched here six months ago, the Casual Encounters page has had 280,000 hits - some 42,000 of them from women.

It confirms the view held by many women that some men would jump at the chance to have anonymous, casual sex knowing their wives or girlfriends would never find out. What appears to be a new phenomenon is that a growing number of women are behaving in the same way. In the post-Sex and the City era, many of these women are discovering that the stigma of casual sex, provided it is safe, is diminishing. If their existing relationships are lacking sexually, they will look for sex elsewhere.

One woman, who will only give her name as M, is 29, lives in west London and has been married for four years. A professional with a financially rewarding job - she works in the City at management level - she has used Craigslist before. "My marriage quickly became a sexless relationship," she says. "I started looking on the internet for men a couple years ago. It quickly became clear that, despite lots of idiots, there were men out there whom I felt I could meet and would fulfil my sexual needs. I have always had fantasies about a strong black man forcefully making love to me - he has to be tall, athletic and extremely well endowed.

"As a married white woman I find it difficult to meet black guys - my circle of friends is almost exclusively made up of white middle-class professionals. The internet provides a levelling ground for all kinds of people to meet. I know exactly what I want, so it is fairly easy for me to get it."

She has already met one man with whom she made contact through Craigslist. "It was a midweek meeting and I met him in a hotel at lunchtime near where I work. He was young and willing and I made the nature of our meeting clear - sex and nothing else. It was for my satisfaction and he understood. Before I met him I spent time chatting via email, then on the phone and then I met him in a bar. I trust my instincts and I would have walked away if I had thought it was dangerous. The sex is fantastic, purely for the reason that I know that's all it is. Perhaps, unusually for a woman, I can tell the difference between the need for sexual gratification and the need for love, which are totally different in my book. My husband doesn't know about my secret sex life, of course."

Another woman who posted an advert is a well-spoken 47-yearold architect who lives in Kent with her three children and husband. She has been married for 12 years. "My husband isn't really interested in sex. What am I supposed to do - just lie down and die?" she says. "I already have a lover but he lives in Denmark so I only get to see him a few times a year. It's very difficult for a woman to go out and meet a man for sex unless she goes to a bar or a club and I'm not interested in doing that.

"I'm looking for an intelligent, attractive man. I've had more than 30 replies in one hour and I'll meet two or three." Some of the replies she describes are ones I've had from the same men. "I'm in the process of narrowing them down now. I delete any with spelling mistakes - I'm very particular about that - and I can't meet anyone who is younger than my eldest son, who is 24. I received a nice reply from a professor but he's 50 and looks a bit dumpy. I couldn't have a passionate encounter with someone like that. I'm looking for someone who looks nice and will treat me with respect. They need to already be in a relationship - I don't want someone single who might become clingy.

"A lot of women aren't that interested in sex - all they seem to care about are their no-carb diets. I adore sex, it's very important to me. Even if nothing comes of this, I get a thrill knowing that all these men want to have sex with me. I'm still available to my husband when he wants to have sex with me but that's rare these days. I would never tell him about what I do, it would kill him."

But who are these men who are eager and willing to meet up with a complete stranger for anonymous sex? Most of those who replied to my advert were in their twenties and thirties, but I got a couple of replies from men in their fifties. Professions ranged from students and builders to a director of a design company. Many work in nondescript offices at various management levels and a significant proportion emailed me from their company's email address, meaning they spent office hours browsing the internet for casual sex. One man from Ireland was prepared to come to London for sex, another was willing to travel from Bristol. Several were men staying in London on business. One offered his "swanky" Park Lane hotel room as a possible rendezvous. "I am a travelling business person sick and tired of eating alone when not with clients," he wrote. Others emailed from Germany and Italy with dates of when they would be in London on business, asking to meet up. Some sent pictures, a sad gallery of paunchy men with a desperate look in their eye. One even sent me a picture of his naked body from the waist down, as if he thought that would tempt me.

Some were fairly polite - "Mr Malcontent", who is married, wrote: "I feel a little odd doing this as it's not something I have ever done before. I don't want to get divorced but I would love to have some nostrings fun ... I am serious, if a little shy (which is odd under the circumstances)." Others were not so polite. Neil, also married, wrote: "I like my sluts to be summissive." (sic)

"I'm well-endowed and very skilled," boasted Andy F. Some were so explicit they made me blush and had my female colleagues in hysterics. More than two-thirds of the men who replied to my post admitted to being married or in a long-term relationship.

One reply came from a correspondent at the BBC who is "lovingly married" with children. "I like sex of all kinds, but fantasies of power games are what really get me going ... vulnerability, using and being used, power and powerlessness, sexual humiliation." His wife, he writes, is "completely straight, won't try anything remotely adventurous. Which is why I'm looking for one-off sexual adventures, no strings attached, to get that gut-churning feeling again before I'm just too decrepit."

Less than five years ago, online dating agencies were considered a little pathetic; now they carry little or no stigma. Websites such as Craigslist are a progression to something where all pretence of romance is stripped away. Are professional Londoners, people you would probably consider to be "normal" in your office - men like Dave, whom I met yesterday - becoming more sexually liberated, or have they always had the desire, but not the facility, to meet people for sex with no consequences?

"I adore my wife but there are things I want sexually that I just can't ask her to do," says one of the men who contacted me when I asked why he would want to stray. "She's the mother of my children and I can't imagine degrading her in the ways I want to. I want to do things that would make her disgusted with me. If I have casual sex with someone, I can fulfil all those urges, then go home and make love to my wife."