BeNaughty
Sending messages
BeNaughty, or translated to Dutch: “Be naughty”. And when we talk about “naughty” behavior, we all know what we’re talking about. Not looking for a love affair? Not in the mood for hours of conversations about all kinds of philosophical topics? Or even worse: chatting for weeks on end just to find no one who has the same preferences as you? Fortunately, that’s exactly what BeNaughty doesn’t focus on. The dating site is for you if you long for exciting contacts and casual dating.
BeNaughty was launched in 2007 and in all these years it has grown into a fairly well-known, international dating site for sex contacts. For those interested in getting into a sex relationship, BeNaughty seems like a legitimate site, but whether it really is? That remains to be seen.
While BeNaughty was known for many years as a reliable dating site for intimate chats and contacts, that’s not so sure anymore. Although the dating site explicitly states that they do not use fictitious profiles, users seem to disagree.
Who is it for?
BeNaughty is not for prudish singles who want nothing more than the home-away-from-home thing. Nor is it for singles who want to meet someone for a love affair. What it is meant for, though? Singles and non-singles who want to discover their naughty side. The creators of BeNaughty are pretty clear about this: “Within a few minutes of creating your account, you can start chatting with singles who are looking for hot hookups.” In addition, it is obviously important that you are over 18 years of age given the sexual nature of the website.
From a basic standpoint, a dating site like BeNaughty is suitable for both men and women. However, in BeNaughty’s promotions one notices that they mainly focus on men. For them, that is apparently the target group they want to appeal to with the promotions. The majority of the members of this dating site are from English-speaking countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe. Since BeNaughty is an international dating site, its users come from almost every country in the world.
How it works.
As easy as it is to be able to chat without logging in, that obviously has the disadvantage of not being able to maintain your own profile. That’s why at websites like BeNaughty it starts with creating your profile, which by the way is a quick and easy job. You indicate whether you are a man or a woman, what you are looking for and fill in your email, password and location. This is initially enough to create a profile on the BeNaughty dating site.
Given the sexual nature of the dating site, you don’t need to fill in much additional data after that. Your real name? Not necessary. Your wish list for what you’re looking for in a partner? Also not necessary. Since BeNaughty is primarily for casual dating, they really only ask for the basic characteristics of yourself. It is only required to enter your age, body type and location. Photos are optional. Although your chances of making contact increase significantly if you do add some (sexy) photos, because other members use those photos to judge which profiles they view, it is not required.
In addition to the basic information in your BeNaughty profile, it is possible to share more of yourself. This is not required either, but it does increase the authenticity of your profile. Because let’s be honest: the more information someone shares about himself, the better it is for forming an image of this person. As you judge others, so they judge you.
Searches?
Once your profile is ready to be shown to other users, you can start searching for other users. Thanks to the international reach of the website and the relatively small number of Dutch users, it is wise to do this properly from the start. Because if you don’t search by location, you will only see profiles that are far away from you. So unless you never want to meet up or are just sexually interested in people from other countries, it is wise to search locally – in the Netherlands, or possibly in Belgium.
BeNaughty has turned the search page into the start dashboard so that you can actually search directly after logging in using a number of standard search filters. At the top you can indicate whether you are looking for a man or a woman, the age category (for example 18 to 35 years old) and location. If you want to filter even more, you can also search on sexual preference, ethnicity, body type, hair color and eye color. But experience shows that with that you exclude a lot of users – something nobody should want.
Once the filters are set, the search can begin. The results are then displayed in a photo gallery with only the most important details of the user added. Does a profile catch your eye?
A dating site cannot exist without communication between its members. Otherwise it would just be a weird experience and not much more than a digital scrapbook. BeNaughty has a fairly simple system that allows you to exchange messages with other users. With this messaging system it is possible to chat 1-on-1, where photos and videos can be sent as well. It is even possible to have live 1-on-1 video conversations.
What is especially useful to know is that BeNaughty uses the “Promote my account” feature by default. This is a feature that allows the dating site to automatically promote your profile to other (new) members who meet your search criteria. This feature is mainly intended to get conversations going faster and to stimulate activity on the website. However, it is optional: disabling it is possible from the account settings.
Additional features
Where many dating apps choose to swipe, BeNaughty does not. Instead, this dating site does have a swipe-like feature that does more or less the same thing. When you visit a profile of a user, you can like the profile by tapping on the heart. By doing so, you indicate that you like this person, much like the swipe to the right on Tinder. If you only want to do this feature, then you go to the Like Gallery where you can rate members one by one with a Like or Pass. If you like a user and the other person also gives you a Like, then it’s a Match.
Another feature that enriches the use of the dating site is the extensive notification system. Those who use the dating site via a laptop or computer get a notification every time something happens that deserves your attention. Be it a new message, a visitor on your profile or a Like on your profile. It’s convenient, but it can also be hugely distracting if you’re popular on the site. Of course, should you want to, these notifications can be turned off in the account settings.
While it’s not even possible on many newer dating apps, BeNaughty has had a security feature built in for many years that allows people to verify themselves. It’s called “Verified Member”: a feature that allows you to verify your profile using SMS or chat. This way others know you are an existing person and vice versa you know when someone has this batch.
Free or paid
Everyone who becomes a member of BeNaughty starts as a free member. Creating a profile, adding photos and searching among other users can all be done for free. As a free member, you have access to most of the dating site’s features, but it is limited. For example, you cannot view other users’ entire profiles, full photos, nor can you send unlimited messages. As a free member, you can only send messages to 5 different members per day. And that’s usually not very many.
Those who want to make use of all possible options of the dating site can buy a subscription. BeNaughty subscriptions are available in different forms, with the cheapest subscription costing only a little over 15 euros. These subscriptions are available for periods of 1 and 3 months. Keep in mind that the subscriptions are automatically renewed. Since BeNaughty has regular promotions it might pay off to wait until there is another promotion. In some cases you can save up to 40% of the total price of the subscription. In addition, BeNaughty regularly runs a 3-day free trial or a 1-week free trial promotion.
About BeNaughty
Dating site BeNaughty is a so-called ‘old hand in the business’. In fact, it has been around since 2005, when two entrepreneurs under the name Cupid plc realized that there was a market for casual dating. Not long after, in 2006, BeNaughty was added to a larger network of dating sites that focused on the same target group. The following year, this network already had over 1 million subscribers, at a time when smartphone apps did not exist. That same year, BeNaughty was launched and the entire network grew to a whopping 13 million subscribers in the following years.
In February 2013, the listed Cupid plc was the subject of the BBC Radio 5live Investigates program. Free users of the sex dating website told the BBC that they had received many messages from potential dates, but that the number of messages dropped dramatically when they paid for a membership to reply to the messages. The company denied that it itself sent the messages to entice users to take out a membership.