Before my eyes were opened to this hobby, I tried Ashley Madison to find a fck buddy.  It was exciting at first and I made a contact but did not pursue.  It just seemed like a lot of effort with high risk.  You would need to meet casually a few times to get to know each other then if there was a connection, line up the sex part of it- hotel, scheduling, cover up, money.   I still have an account but the number of hits is almost nothing.

I did not try AM, but a similar service xxxmatch.com.  I got a few hits, but in the end decided it was as you say just way too much risk and effort to meet some random female that way, with unknown hangups, motivations and schemes.

If I were looking for a long term relationship I might consider one of those services just to find someone equally into sex, but for someone looking for occasional truly no-strings sex, providers are the way to go (or rather come as the case may be).

Also I felt like there was some games being played by the site itself.  It seemed like just after canceling, I got a number of messages expressing interest from abnormally hot looking women.  I even re-subscribed once to respond to one, but after writing a response I basically get back a one liner "tell me more", the hallmark of someone just stringing you along.  On top of that, one contact I was interested in had a profile picture that showed up in some new user that had totally different details about her interests and what she did.  I ran straight to TER and did not look back.

How many real-world women use those sites anyway?  It seems like it's so easy for a woman to find sex if she likes it would be unlikely they would bother signing up.  I could see married women looking for an affair actually using it out of curiosity, but I'm not interested in that kind of peril.

Ashley Madison, SugarDaddyForMe.com, AdultFriendFinder, and the like are all largely scams. Not entirely, but mostly.

They make money by selling premium memberships to men, who are enticed by contacts from "house" accounts. You have to buy a premium membership to exchange emails on their systems, so when you join with a free membership, you'll get all sorts of contacts from "house" accounts. I met somebody from one, and after getting her shit-faced on vodka, kids these days just can't keep it together , she admitted she got paid a commission on accounts she "perpetuated", plus free drinks or a gift (!) every so often from some hopeful guy. She brought a "driver", likely her bf, who she introduced to me, just in case I tried to get too friendly. She said she made about $1,000/month in NYC, she didn't say how much time she devoted to the work. No, I would not have, she was a 7 at best.

They also siphon users to pay-video sites (for example, AdultFriendFinder bought the Vegas-based cams.com several years ago).

Some escorts use these sites to troll for clients.

I've heard some guys say they've found success, but have yet to hear the same from a woman.

The only reason these sites are still up is because the FBI would catch all sorts of crap for devoting resources against this fraud. Unless, of course, they can make the human trafficking connection, which seems to be all the rage for the DoJ.

I would tend to see a lot of what I thought were shills on Ashley Madison.  That is very good looking women that did not have much background info list or women who would send messages wanting to "chat".  Of course all this was designed to get me to use up or buy more credits by sending them messages.  The woman I did meet was about a 5/6 and she seemed genuine but my sixth sense told me not to pursue.  I did send out a "traveling man" message while traveling to chicago and I got one response from an escort and actually a response from a girl who wanted to meet for sex at my hotel.  We exchanged texts for a couple days talking about the "wild sex" we both wanted.  She was about a 4/5 based on her pics.  It fell through the day of our meeting.  I think because she wanted dinner before hand.

All in all, why would any half decent looking woman need to go on AM?

The only positive hit I got was a working girl who agreed to meet me if i would pay her "driver". If her pics were accurate she was certainly cute enough but I decided it was too much risk and found TER. Never did see an ad or profile from her here. I think choosing to pass was wise.

Because some of us just want to fuck. I was casually screwing a guy who decided he wanted a relationship. When I said no, he wanted to break off our sex hook ups. Since his pussy eating was A+ I agreed but it was terrible. I just wanted to have sex with him. He would call me often and wanting to go out for dinner, blah blah blah. If the point of AM is for sex hook ups only, why not go on there and find some guy who does not want a relationship? I did try AAF but the guy I was wanting to bang really bad didn't get back to me. I quit shortly after that.

I have met a couple of women and had sex with both.  One was looking for a relationship, but the other is there for the right reason and I still see her occasionally.  I sent out lots of emails though and overall, I wouldn't recommend it.

I signed up on AM out curiosity (they buy "escort" as a keyword). Then men there are ridiculously thirsty and lack any home training. I played around on it for an hour and got bored. When I decided to cancel the account, they wanted $250 to wipe my profile "for security purposes".

Fortunately I didn't use my personal email; I just pulled the photos and erased the text.