The CFNM Village Survey
Purpose of Survey: When compared to all other forms of erotic engagement, CFNM is very young. As it has evolved, women and men have defined it based solely upon their own anecdotal experience and/or what interests them personally. This has resulted in an incongruous application of the concept between not only women and men, but different subcultures and businesses that want to own and propagate the concept for their own interests. We have attempted to address this conundrum within our FAQs page, which provides the history of CFNM while seeking to resolve how it is defined and its true purpose.
Rather than follow the dictates of certain minority self-interests, CFNM deserves the right to grow organically by the wants and needs of society in general, which raises bigger questions. As CFNM gains in popularity, how will society, in general, embrace it, and what would the greater population want it to be? If CFNM parties are held, what would attract the most women and men, what would they expect from them, and, what would dissuade them from attending?
In 2010, the CFNM Village founders launched a six-month national survey that sought to provide answers to these questions.
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Survey Process: To best accomplish this task, we purchased a professional account with surveymonkey.com. This web source is the most utilized online survey system providing a myriad of resources and benefits, including:
- Respondents cannot alter the results, nor can they retake the survey by assuming different aliases. Surveymonkey.com has built-in algorithms that detect when the same respondent is accessing the survey using the same computer, or, the same IP range. This maintains the integrity of the responses.
- The survey has features that allows different questions to be asked respondents based upon a previous response. This was critical when attempting to pose different questions to the respective genders. Once the respondent indicated their gender, the respondent was given certain questions while being blind to the questions asked of the other gender.
- The plan we purchased provided professional advice on the survey design and implementation, and, allowed cross-tabulation and filtering. This allowed us to isolate the responses by gender, or, any other parameter such as age, marital status or sexual orientation. For instance, we could ascertain the statistical responses for, say, all bisexual men over the age of 30 that were single (that specific example is, of course, silly, but you get the point).
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Soliciting Responses: Our goal was to get unbiased responses from a cross section of society as opposed to responses from groups with specific orientation. We intentionally veered away from advertising the survey in any online community that was dedicated to a fetish or orientation, otherwise, the survey would show bias. For instance, we did not advertise on Fetlife.com, as that is an online social network for people primarily involved in BDSM fetishes, and thus, the responses would have leaned heavily towards CFNM as a form of female domination. We also avoided advertising the survey in any forum dominated by men interested in CFNM as that would have skewed the responses to CFNM that caters to "flashing" or male-oriented pornography. Further, we did not use social network boards dedicated to nudists, swingers or any erotic orientation as those too would have resulted in biased, skewed results.
Instead, we advertised the survey on sites dedicated to the overall population without any erotic or fetish orientation such as community events boards, news magazines and classified advertisement sites such as Craigslist. In fact, the very first orchestrated CFNM gatherings were advertised using these same typeof media sources, which provides an explanation as to why CFNM initially evolved without an orientation to the BDSM or pornographic themes whereby some are now taking it.
The survey ads characterized the intended gatherings as a "risque and different" form of gathering opened to all women and men of an adult age while emphasizing that such gatherings do not allow sex nor any female nudity. We did not want to use term "CFNM" in the ads, as a Google search would show pornography links, which is a false association. The ad provided a link to the home page of the survey, which featured an explanation of CFNM consistent with the definition on our FAQs page, and that the purpose of the survey was to gauge what level of interest people, in general, might have in CFNM gatherings, and if so, what would they want and expect. Thus, the process of getting folks to respond started with piquing their interest enough to click on the survey's link, then the survey link laid out exactly what the survey was about while assuring them it was not a profit-oriented venture, not about soliciting actors for porn, nor anything relating to sexual parties or orgies.
Given the general nature of the websites where we advertised the survey, we of course had conservative moralists and those that believe they can dictate what others pursue intercede and complain to the site owners thus having our survey ads removed numerous times. But we were undaunted, and persisted with re-posting the ads. Eventually over 2,000 women and men in the general population completed the survey with about 21% being female and 79% being male. Those interested in learning more or even actually attending a CFNM event submitted their emails in a field provided at the end of the survey.
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Verification of Results: One challenge is verify the authenticity of the respondents, particularly as it pertains to gender. We accomplished authentication by putting the gender question near the front of the survey, which once answered, could not be altered. As discussed above, the survey also had built-in safeguards against the same person taking the survey again under different aliases. Lastly, the emails provided were often contacted when I or certain females were planning to host an actual CFNM event. Many of the emails submitted by females received emails from this author, which lead to correspondences, phone conversations, in-person meetings and actual CFNM experiences. These non-virtual encounters served as a sort of audit on the veracity of responses. Although it may have occurred, I never discovered a single respondent had submitted under a false gender identification.
Because of this, with little margin for error, we had the supported needed to concluded that the vast majority of respondents correctly identified their gender, and, that their responses were, for the most post, honest in their interests and concerns regarding CFNM gatherings.
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Interpreting the Results: The statistics showing the responses of the survey are fairly self-evident. It is important to note that these responses should not be construed as representative of women and men in the general population because the survey was only taken by those intrigued enough by the concept of CFNM to take it. As with many erotic interests, CFNM will most probably never attain the status as a mainstream activity, but instead will remain a desirable pursuit by a minority group with the size of that group when compared to society in general remaining unknown.
But when applied to that subgroup of women and men in the general population that are interested in CFNM, this survey is very reflective of the demographic makeup of that subgroup, what they like about the concept, and if given the opportunity, what they would hope to experience if they attended a CFNM party.