Alt.com is an adult dating and hookup website developed for people who are looking for alternative sexual relationships. It is why it is called Alt.com. The users can dive into sexual practices like fetish sex, bondage, and BDSM, including discipline, dominance, submission, sadomasochism, and other related consensual adult activities. The site can be used as a dating site to meet new people or only as a hookup site where you can spice up your sexual relationship. The users can also explore the original videos and articles which are available on the website. Most of the members join the site with a fake name. The website is very particular to ensure that all the members are above the age of 18. It is because the site is a hookup site and also offers explicit sexual content. The site ensures the correct use of language by its members and has banned words like ‘rape’ from making the members feel safe about choosing the website. You can sign up for the site if you are curious to see the different sexual activities people are into nowadays and even try to find someone for yourself.
Reputation and history of Alt.com
Alt.com was launched in 1995, so it is evident that it has been in the game for a long time. The website was launched by people at FriendFinder Networks to bring together an alternate sex community. Alt.com brings together those people who want to have casual sexual encounters and are into practices like BDSM, fetish sex, and bondage.
Website, App, interface, registration
The review will look into the Alt.com technicalities and bring you the usability of the website along with other essential aspects like registration, accessibility, etc.
You can sign up and become a member after following five steps of the registration process. You cannot make your profile unless and until you complete these steps. It is interesting to note that Alt.com is not restricted to singles, but even couples can register as users. While recording, you have to provide details like age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, etc. The registration process of Alt.com is smooth and light till here. It gets a bit tiring after this point, as you have to answer a few questions to improve your profile. These questions help others to know whether you are the type of person they want to engage with. In case you are clueless about these questions, there is an option where the website can assist you in answering the questions. You can also click on prefer not to say option in case you feel shy. However, this reduces your chances of getting paired as people won’t get clarity regarding your other sexual preferences.
The site claims to have more than 2 million users signed up in Alt.com. The site has a lot of engagement, but there are many fake profiles. It is said that the active users on the website are only half a million compared to the total user base of 2 million. The age composition of the members usually oscillates around 25-34 years. Male users dominate the site with four males against one female user. This ratio is inferior if you compare it against their peers. The site takes special care to ensure that the members are above the legal age of 18. The users have an ordinary mind who are either curious or are into other sexual practices. Alt.com is open to all kinds of a relationship like Straight, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Couple, and Group. There have also been complaints of fraud users. Members have complained that overseas members have tried to extort money from them in personal chats.
Alt.com is not available in the form of an app. People who want to avail of the services need to access the website itself. It is a negative aspect as this limits the accessibility of the website. The design of the website Is not anything extraordinary. The site has a black background with the text written in white or yellow. The design of the website is not very pleasing to the users and looks complicated. The site has a lot of pop-ups, which is very irritating to any user.
Alt.com has some unique features that help the site to differentiate itself from its peers. These unique features are;
It is similar to the right and left swipe feature. You will see many profiles, and you have to rate whether they are hot or not instead of swiping it right or left.
There are certain beliefs regarding zodiac signs where it is ideal for a person with a zodiac sign to date others from sure specific zodiac signs. Alt.com puts this belief into use and tries to match your Chinese zodiac with other members to know the compatibility.
It is a feature where other members can write about you and mention about your qualities that attract them. Even you can use this feature to write testimonials about others.
Blings are small icons that you can use to make your profile or posts more interesting. You can either create them or take them from the ones who make it.
It is the space where you can mention the kinks you are into. It will help you to find matches that are into the same kinks.
Purity Test is a fun test that reveals how pure or wild you are in your sex life. The score is marked on a scale of 0 to 100. You can share these scores with your friends on Alt.com and know who is pure and who is not.
Partner search
Searching a partner is the most crucial aspect of any dating site. In Alt.com, you can search your partners from the top menu. The primary filters will be already set for you based on what you selected while creating your profile. You can consider changing the age filter as it is set to maximum by default. You can also change the Last Login Date filter as it is set to any by default. It is better to change it to online users, or else you may find users in your search results who have not logged in for months or years.
Alt.com tries to bring you with profiles the parameters you set while searching for a partner. The parameters include age preference, gender preference, Last Login, etc. However, you cannot message anyone or see the messages received until you upgrade your account to premium membership.
You can search for members using standard search options. You can alter the advanced filters to get a more refined version of members in your search results. Alt.com takes into consideration the alternate sex practices preferred by the users, their age preference, distance, and Last Login of users for finding the ideal match for you. The search results will show members who are into the same alternate sex practices. You can also add members to your Hotlist or make them your friends if you find the member interesting. You cannot flirt or send messages with a free profile. The hot or not feature and testimonial feature are other methods with which you can connect to users on Alt.com. Free users can use the basic search. Silver and Gold users can also use the advanced search. There are interesting search options like Kink search and search by location. You can also search the users with their username.
You can communicate with people you like through the usual chatting system. However, there is a condition here. You can’t message any of the users until you upgrade your account to premium membership. You can neither view the messages that you receive from users who are interested in you. It is a real bummer as Alt.com is not free to its users in the true sense.
Alt.com Alternatives
Other websites/apps that give way to alternative sexual practices are Ashley Madison and Adult Friend Finder. Ashley Madison doesn’t have as many members as Alt.com, thanks to its experience in this field. However, Adult Friend Finder has a huge base of users because of the brutal premium membership policy of Alt.com. It is a positive thing that Alt.com has a larger number of active members compared to Adult Friend Finder.
Membership Price and Payment Method
There are two kinds of a premium membership in Alt.com. One is Silver membership, and the other is Gold membership. It is very clear from the name that Gold membership is an improvement of Silver membership, and Silver membership is an improvement of free membership. The rates for both of these types differ and are further classified as per the period. For one month, the silver membership comes at 22.94USD, while the gold membership costs you 34.44USD. The silver membership comes at 41.37USD and 123.51USD for three months and twelve months, respectively—the price increases to 68.97USD and 185.26USD for the same periods in a gold membership. Alt.com accepts payment through credit and also through cheque for the payment for the premium membership. If you are desperate for alternate sex, you will end up paying for premium membership as it is not much you can do if you are a free user.
The features of the premium membership in Alt.com differ as per Silver and Gold membership.
Silver Membership
Gold Membership
You can understand the pricing system of premium membership from the following table:
Silver
Gold
The prices vary when the site comes up with special offers.
Is Alt.com Really Safe?
Alt.com is serious when it comes to its member’s safety and privacy. They don’t entertain any kind of harassment, spam, etc. They are very particular and strict about verifying the age of the member and don’t allow people below the age of 18 due to its explicit content. Certain words like ‘rape’ are strictly prohibited for any kind of use.
It is a matter of concern that there are a lot of fake profiles in Alt.com. On top of this, there are many scammers on the site, which is not a good aspect. All this can slow the website to a great extent. It is ironic and scary that even though the word rape is prohibited from use in posts or messages, there are users that have the word as a part of their username. It shows that the technical department of Alt.com is not equipped or not serious about this matter. It can be said that Alt.com tries to make the members feel safe, but they are not trying enough and are failing at this point.
All members are free to contact the customer care of Alt.com in case any member has any kind of problem during their time of using the website. There is no such discrimination between free and premium members regarding customer support and reporting harassment.
Popular user questions:
Due to its overgrowing popularity, there are tons of questions that arise in the minds of the users. The writer has listed and answered a few of such queries below:
There is no such procedure as photo verification in Alt.com. You are free to upload your photos, even if you are a free user. The photos must not have any nudity; the site can block your profile or take down your picture.
You can delete your account by going to the ‘My Account’ section. There you will find the Delete Account option. Click on the option to delete your account permanently. You will have to make a new account in case you feel like going back to Alt.com.
You cannot view the profile of other members until and unless you upgrade your account to premium membership.
There is no such option of blocking profiles if you are a free user. You can block someone’s account if you are a premium user. You just have to visit the profile of that user and then block the profile.
You can find about everything related to payment and subscription when you open the ‘My Account’ section and go to billing history.
Conclusion
Alt.com is one of the best sites for alternate sexual practices and will help the ones who are bored with their regular sex life. It is a good platform to bring together like-minded people in terms of aggressive sexual methods into BDSM and fetish sex. There are still some concerns regarding the safety of the site in the technical aspect. The site has got very limited use if it is a free account. It limits the site from expanding as there is nothing much to do in a free account. The features of Alt.com set it aside from its competitors. There are again problems regarding fake profiles and spammers, and the site must decide upon tackling these issues if they want to stay in the game for the long run. The site is very good for the purpose with which it has been set up, but the number of fake and fraud profiles risk its position. These problems are followed by the problem of security and safety, which the site has not been able to provide to its users. Alt.com can be the leader in this area of dating if they take their shortcomings seriously.
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