Katrien Jacobs, a media professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, has revealed that she has been working “undercover” as “Lizzy Kinsey- scholarly sex machine,” to investigate the inside world of the Adult Friend Finder community.
In addition to providing personal details and a nude snapshot of herself, Jacobs spent two years of online investigating as her alter-ego. Although Hong Kong’s culture of workaholism, technological prowess, and conservative ideals is pervasive, the Adult Friend Finder community is quickly growing, claiming over 160,000 Hong Kong members.
Jacobs’ findings reveal a primarily male-based community across all professions. Explaining the differences between the Adult Friend Finder website and a dating website, Jacobs describes the former as having “no subtlety… it’s not poetic at all” as opposed to the more conservative form of courting found in a traditional dating site. Rather than finding common interests, Jacobs reports that the community encourages cliché pornographic identities; pictures with cropped-out heads and user names such as “Exotic Allure” that sexually objectify its members. Jacobs reveals that within the Adult Friend Finder community, “people like to imitate each other online; they like to have this collective identity.”
Professor Jacobs also found that a disproportionate number of users were male expatriates. (By Cori Lai, new Asia Media staffer and LMU student)
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