Personals Help Page

What does this help page cover?: This is about Informed Consent's free personal ads service for BDSM and fetish people in the UK and other countries.
What kinds of adverts are ok?: Like the rest of Informed Consent, it's for individuals interested in consensual BDSM (or fetish) activities.
What kinds of adverts are not ok?: Any adverts for non-consensual activities are not welcome, as are any adverts involving anyone under 18.
How do I respond to an advert?: Follow the link to the individual's profile page (eg Admin) and see if their email address is displayed. If you seem to be compatible, you can email them. If their email address is withheld, you will have to send them a Memo instead (you need to get a free profile on Informed Consent to do this.) Visit their profile page while you are signed in, and a button will appear on that page for your memo.
What is a Memo?: Memos provide a way for advertisers to receive messages even if they are withholding their email address. (There is an option in Your Settings to do this.) Memos are stored on the website and can be read next time the recipient visits IC.
Are there any special rules for supplicants to follow when applying to Dominants?: There are no generally accepted rules of etiquette governing the way submissives should write when first contacting a prospective Dominant as a supplicant. As far as Informed Consent is concerned, common courtesy is perfectly sufficient and we believe any credible Dominant will agree.
What about replies to subs' ads?: A minority of single, usually male, would-be dominants believe firing off many "Kneel bitch!" responses will bowl over subs and impress them of their dominance in some way. This doesn't work and offends enough subs for Informed Consent to receive complaints. Again, common courtesy is the best tone to use for an initial contact, unless the ad specifically says otherwise.
How can I put up an advert?: You need to get a free profile on Informed Consent to do this. There is a form for writing your personal ad in Your Settings.
What do all the interests terms mean?: IC's Encyclopervia is an excellent source of information about the terms we use and many other BDSM topics besides.
How long are adverts kept for?: To keep your ad in the listings, you must update your Personal Ad Settings page at least once per month (Clicking on the Update button on Personal Ad Settings once a month without changing anything else is enough though.) However, advert details are stored in the system indefinitely, so if your ad does expire, just go back to Personal Ad Settings, switch Show Advert below back to Yes and click on Update.
How can I remove my advert?: You need to go back to Your Settings and choose not to display your ad in the Personals Settings.
How can I display a photo on my profile page?: Your Settings has a Manage Pictures page which allows you to upload, comment and reorder your pictures.
How can I get more responses?: Now that Informed Consent has tens of thousands of profiles, some of the personal ad sections have a lot of active ads. What can you do to get more attention for your ad?
One thing is to think laterally, and participate in the rest of Informed Consent. Each time you write something on a web board, or add an entry in the UK BDSM Listings, the system adds a link to your profile page with your full personal ad.
So by making positive contributions to the boards, or adding accurate details of shops, events and event dates, you start to earn a reputation as a reliable and public spirited member of your local scene (where the people you're looking for probably live, after all ...) This will help differentiate you from all the other ads in the minds of your potential partners.
(However, please keep personal ads themselves to your profile page and the personal ads section itself only: putting ads in other sections harms your reputation and spoils the site for everyone else.)
What advice do you have for meeting people?: Caution. Be very aware that people may not be what they claim. They may be a different gender, orientation, marital status, financial status and exaggerating one's experience is painfully common, especially among Doms.
When you first meet someone, think about what could go wrong and try to prevent the possibility: some people worry about something clear cut like being kidnapped or robbed, but if something unpleasant does happen, it is far more likely that your limits will be exceeded rather than something conventionally criminal happening. If the other person does this, what comeback are you going to have? If, for example, they decide to force you into sex despite what you agreed beforehand, are they going to lose out at all? (What if it's your word against theirs about whether it was consensual and they only expected to meet you once anyway?) Avoid meetings where the other person has nothing to lose, in terms of reputation, your relationship with them, etc
What about adverts involving money?: Professional services may not be advertised in the personals, so if you respond to an ad and are asked for money, you should assume it is a scam. In general, we strongly advise against making any kind of payment up front: "don't stuff money into envelopes and send it to strangers" applies just as much on the net as to classified ads in newspapers. In particular, "Flat 51, 17 Holywell Hill, St Albans, AL1 1DT" is a mailbox address used by a persistent scam artist.
Separate from the personal ads listing, the page of professional mistress banners lists genuine professionals who help keep IC running by sponsoring pages.
What other precautions should I take?: Occasionally people gather email addresses from websites for the purposes of "spamming" (mass emailing of unsollicited advertising) and you may get some of this if you chose to display your email address on your profile page. Some large fraction of these adverts are fraudulent and services / products they offer should not be trusted.
Additionally, people sometimes send viruses / trojans using this method, which can infect your computer. These will appear as attachments when you open your mail and should be ignored and not opened unless you know and trust the sender.
You can avoid most of these problems by not displaying your email address publically, so that people replying to your ad have to use Informed Consent's memo system which doesn't allow attachments, and makes it harder to send mass emailings.
Using a memo, the only way for someone to damage your computer is by telling you to visit a URL / website and download a program from that site and run it. Don't do this: you cannot trust instructions received this way from strangers.
Finally, there are some telephone scams which involve visiting a website, downloading a "dialer" program to view the rest of the site, which then redials a premium rate phone number rather than your normal ISP. (This is a violation of the ICSTIS rules for premium rate services.)


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