Whatever your gender, your online profile should have a photo. If you don’t want to show your face, show your silhouette, show yourself in a mask, but you must absolutely have a photograph. Don’t put in a photo of a sunset or a kitten. Use a photo of you.
What you can put in your profile is somewhat site-specific, but I recommend that you include something about yourself outside of your interest in spanking. Tell something about your job, family, hobbies, or other interests. There is abundant information online about what makes an attractive personal ad and how to write an effective letter to a potential partner. Don’t guess—use the tips from the experts—available at all online personal sites as well as via the search engines.
Men may want to pay extra for premium membership on
sites that offer it, which will typically get you better search options (very
useful) as well as preferred listing when someone searches for partners
(probably totally useless). There is nothing wrong with women contacting men,
but the routine on these sites is as up to date as Elvis Presley's newest
song--the women make themselves available, the men ask them out.
Let's suppose you're a woman and you put a personal ad on bondage.com. Before you blink twice, there's the "email" icon flashing. You check your mail, and sure enough, it's a note from a dom who is close enough in geography and in age. The tone of his note is firm, very firm. He instructs you to send him a photo ASAP. If you ask him nicely, he says, he'll favor you with a list of the rules you would have to follow as his sub. Is this how it works, this new world of kinky personals?
No!
Manners are manners, and boors are boors, no matter whether they're talking about dinner for two or a flogging for one. You will be hit on by men in the most inappropriate ways, not once or twice but very possibly in staggering numbers. Be prepared for this. Your goal is to sift through these wannabes to find a man who's right for you.
The men you are interested know how to behave in any specific situation, and they act differently depending on whether they're on the job, relaxing with friends, or flirting with a potential partner. The fact that you're looking for someone to spank you, and perhaps to act as a dominant if you want to be a sub, is no license for boorishness. The first e-mail from him to you should be polite, it should show evidence that he has read your profile (by commenting on something that you said), and it should be appropriate in other ways. For any e-mail that does not meet these criteria, you can nicely say "no thanks" or you can just delete it, without responding. I recommend the latter. You don't have to feel guilty about not responding, this is not like a party, it's an electronic personals interchange and the rules are different. If you do say "no thanks," be prepared for the occasional loser who will train a stream of invective your way after you turn him down. If that happens, don't answer a second time; just block his e-mail.