Webupon

Dearcupid  is a UK online agony aunt specialising in questions about sex, personal relationships and dating but with some interesting differences.  Here you don’t just get one answer and one point of view for your question, you can get a whole range of answers from a great many people all giving you their solution.

The format is similar to a magazine format in that questions are posted as they arrive and people are then invited to offer answers or solutions with the answers posted separately.  In some cases the person posing the original question replies to the answers and this is posted in the ‘Followups’ section.

The various ‘agony aunts’ themselves are then rated by users and their ’scores’ displayed so that it possible to see who the users rated as a person giving the most useful answers.  In addition, the ‘agony aunts’ often display a short bio and sometimes an image.  If you wish, aunts that you like can also be added as favourites. 

Of course, to ask or answer questions you need to be a member first but joining is easy and free.

In use, there is a range a questions as diverse as there are people writing in and just about every question (and more) that I could think of has been asked.  The site covers more or less everything to do with sex, dating and relationships and deals with it in a very mature and easy-to-understand way.

You can navigate via the top menu to look at the most active topics being discussed, the most viewed questions and also find questions still requiring an answer, as well as go to the followups section.

There is a useful selection of forums that allow you to select a category and ask a question or reply to one.  Again, the range of forums is quite wide and, interestingly, includes one called ‘Media Requests’ which is the one to select if you want to appear on (UK) television shows. 

This site is very much like the ‘Agony Aunt’ columns found in popular Magazines but transferred online and with some changes that the Internet allows to make a much more comprehensive and, we thought, far ranging service.  Not the least of which is to be able to look back at an archive of previous questions.

For the avoidance of doubt, anyone can read and answer questions that are posed so long as they are members and this does give the answers much more scope and also, we thought, makes them more relevant than simply having just one answer.  We also thought that the answers gave the site a freshness and a more comprehensive feel.

Finally, note that the sex and relationship questions that are asked can be very frank at times and so this site might not be a suitable one for young children to view.

Particularly now, sex and relationship problems are ones that confront us all at one time or another and it is good to know that there is a website where we can air our problems and hear from ordinary people on their solutions and comments.  If you read the ‘Followups’ section you will see how useful the answers have been to those who asked.

Even if you don’t wish to ask a question, it is interesting to look through and see what topics have been raised in the past. 

On a more serious note, personal problems of this nature can often seen insurmountable when you are involved in them and this site provides a service which is both quick and comprehensive to help sort out solutions and allay fears.

We thought it was a good and useful website and a useful addition to the web.