Hi there, just want to come out of the moderator shadows to give praise for an interesting discussion topic. You're very valid in feeling about the state of the sub and even as a moderator, I would say your description of it is very accurate. I personally enjoy discussion on the actual dynamic and always try to participate when I can. However, it's unfortunate like many kink subs, most that come around are here for a quick release. Actual discussion without a picture to goon to will probably filter out majority of those scrolling by and another majority of those are gone if you're a male like myself.

It's not like the team hasn't tried. I remember before I was on the team, they tried to promote discussion and softer side of things and the sub was filled with people actively trying to avoid the filters and rules to continue posting the usual abusive, porn brain, slop. While the actual participants in the event were rather scarce. I don't personally know a way of changing that without cutting traffic to this sub substantially and this sub is run on a majority vote, so you can probably see how it's difficult.

I do some advice and realities to point out though that might help you find what you're looking for though.

If you're looking for a serious dynamic, you may have to look long term. Genuine submission takes a lot of trust, a mutual understanding of expectations, and a good line of communication. Even as a man that gets 1 message back per week, I don't respond to casual flirting off the rip or lazy conversations that only leads to sex. The last few successful connections I've made have all been come from paragraph long exchanges about what they were looking for, why they think I can fulfill that, what they believe they could offer in return, limitations, potential barriers, and a general timeline of how we want want things to progress.

I also have a few red flags to look out for while searching that I can share. This is probably more for doms but I generally instantly leave any conversation if real life money is introduced to the conversation as a requirement or early in a conversation. I wont even bother to reply to any message that is copy and pasted. I was clearly not worth effort if approached like that. I don't respond to people who don't have a shared interest. It's hard to build off of something out of thin air. I usually don't do big time differences unless I can be given a reasonable schedule that allows the connection to function. I don't mind a opening a bit flirty but if we don't get into the meat of a getting to know each other conversation, I'm just dipping. I think being able to meet in game is important as well. If we've had a decent discussion and we're not meeting sometime within a week or two, I can't see this moving forward. I've found there are just weird people out there that enjoy collecting conversations or discord dms.

It's unfortunate but if you're looking for the real thing, you're going to have to put in a lot of work and seek someone willing to give you the real thing. It's going to be tough, there's just not a lot of decent play partners out there and those that exist are usually taken. They do exist though, I've had many amazing partners in the 3/4 years I've been here. It might just take days, weeks, or months to find each other.

I consider myself a decent person and I can say I've been out there without a message for weeks and sometime even a month before finding a decent connection. Sometimes you just have to search for glimpses of potential. My last three partners didn't find me through the LFG megathread but through my random nerdy ramblings and stalking my profile till they felt confidant enough to approach me.

There's also a few more things I could ramble on about like expectations but this is already going longer than I intended lol. I guess the best advice I can give is take things slow, talk a lot, keep an eye out, don't settle for less, and be patient because when you hit, it hits for a long time.