Sexes: TLC for DWMs and SWFs

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Classified love ads are a booming business

At a few dollars or so per line, they are the natural outlet of the discreet, the sincere and the sensitive, all seeking kindred spirits for meaningful relationships. Classified love ads, once relegated primarily to nonmainstream papers like New York City's Village Voice and the sex magazines, are now blossoming almost everywhere. In the ad columns of at least 100 magazines and newspapers, even in dailies like the Chicago Tribune, armies of hopeful DWMs and SWFS seek mergers as POSSLQs (translation: divorced white males and single white females wish to unite as persons of the opposite sex sharing living quarters).

Analysts and advertisers seem to agree that love ads are now an important part of the mating game. ''Your Aunt Susan isn't going to find anyone for you," complains Philadelphia Businesswoman Cari Lyn Vinci, who has met 25 men by using ads. Adds Edwin Roberts, manager of classifieds for New York magazine: "If you talk to people who go to singles bars, you just hear a lot of frustration."

The most successful ads seem to indicate a quivering sensibility or a rakish, humorous personality, perhaps with a naughty hint of "life in the fast lane." The New York Review of Books often features a mock high-cultural tone ("Man who is a serious novel would like to hear from a woman who is a poem"). Sincere is the lowest-ranking adjective, says Sherri Foxman, author of a new book on the subject, Classified Love. "If you write 'Sincerewoman seeking sincere man,' you're going to get 25 boring letters." Since standards of accuracy are not always rigorous, the words slim and attractive are not taken literally. Susan Block, a Los Angeles writer, says "the most frequent complaint from men is that the women weigh more than they say. The women complain that the men are flaky."

The recently divorced, along with homosexuals newly out of the closet, use the ads to find quick action. Senior citizens, the handicapped ("I walk with a cane") and those with concerns ("SWM . . . seeks WF WITHOUT HERPES") can come right to the point without hours of social jousting. Once the natural home of kinks and losers, the classified personals now attract people known to advertisers as "upscale." Even the Village Voice, which handles about 50,000 replies to love personals each year, says its audience is "mid-30s, affluent, with many professionals."

Some of the publications do have taboos. The Chicago Tribune, which runs love ads Mondays and Fridays, does a brisk business among the divorced, but takes no marrieds. Most large newspapers and city magazines turn down blatantly kinky ads, but a few slip by the censors in disguise. "I love wearing makeup" is a semisubtle hint at transvestism. At the Voice almost anything goes. "We allow people to describe themselves fully," says Associate Publisher John Evans, "but we don't allow things like mention of body parts."