As a casual dating site that totally celebrates fun, casual hookups and sexual freedom, you might be surprised to learn that we DON’T recommend shooting off super explicit, raunchy messages as your first communication with other members. And now, there’s a study to explain why: almost NO ONE LIKES IT.

Via Forbes:

Speaking of a problematic yet common practice that can potentially turn off your match’s interest, psychologist and lead researcher Amanda Lilly warns against the use of sexually explicit messages which are “not expected as an initiation despite being commonplace and most people do not favor these messages.”

“Even people who are more tolerant of sexualized initiation messages don’t view them positively, kind of neutral at best,”she adds.

To understand why explicit messages are a turn off for many, the researchers recruited 275 adults under 30 years of age to participate in an online study. The participants were asked to imagine matching with someone through online dating who sent either a traditional greeting or a sexually suggestive or explicit message.

Explicit openers are perceived more negatively than other greetings overall – prompting those on the receiving end to respond with a spectrum of negative behaviors ranging from not responding, blocking, reporting the sender, and/or lashing out against the sender.

Regardless of interpersonal consequences, for Lilly, there seems to be an overarching, primary concern behind this practice: a glaring lack of consent. Pointing out how these messages might violate your match, she says, “I never want to ‘yucky’ anyone’s ‘yum’ as long as it is between two consenting adults, but consent can be a problem with initiation messages because there is no previous communication to establish consent.”

So, wanna talk dirty to a sexy single online? Go for it – AFTER you’ve discussed it with the receiver. Otherwise? YUCK.