CraigsList is an American website which also operates in Europe and the UK, especially London. Initially just a classified adverts website for buying and selling items and services CraigsList soon added a ‘Casual Encounters’ section which was one of the Internet’s original online sex dating and hookup services.
Men and women looking for casual sex could create an advert and find other local people looking for a random hookup. CraigsList had an extremely varied user base so adverts featured all types of kinks and unusual requests/likes from the gentleman who was turned on by mold, to a horny lady looking for a ‘Robb Stark‘ lookalike, to the person looking for someone to join him and his realdoll for a threesome!
Unfortunately, while CraigsList is still around it’s Casual Encounters section is no longer with us. It was shutdown in 2018 to a new sex trafficking law in the US.
The CraigsList Personals section consisted of:
- Casual Encounters – basically random hookups and casual sex
- Misc. Romance – more traditional dating and relationships
- Men Seeking Women
- Women Seeking Men
- Strictly Platonic – friendship and contacts
- Missed Connections – for those who’s eyes met across a busy tube
- Rants & Raves
Missed Connections and Rants & Raves survived and are still part of the website but Casual Encounters in much missed. Websites like Real British Sex grew in popularity after the closure as people sought out a new way to find casual sex.
As fun and compelling as the Casual Encounters section was, it wasn’t without it’s faults. Apart from the risk of it being exploited for sex trafficking it was often infiltrated by scammers and fraudsters. As it was fairly open system and it was free it was always going to be open to abuse.
Websites like Real British Sex and British Mature Sex understood from the start that personal safety of it’s members, secure messaging and total anonymity were crucial and necessary features of any online dating service.