Certs are one piece of information I weigh among many but I do consider them to be a significant plus. It indicates someone else has met this person and liked them enough to go to the trouble. If multiple people did that it is unlikely to be fake. I also follow up sometimes with people who gave a cert, especially when I am vetting single males for parties. I find the idea of someone having "too many" certs to be laughable. WTF are we doing here anyway?
Membeship just lapsed would make sense.
I didn't think of that one.
Peppa wasn't a free profile a few days ago - my guess is 3 month membership just lapsed.
How is peppa able to post here?
I thought free membes had no way of contacting paid?
I'm not complaining, I just don't ever recall seeing a free member in the forums and thought paid members couldn't contact them. Or they couldn't respond.
Let's see, Peppa is a new profile, whose text speaks like they have been around the LS for a while but has zero certs and is judgemental as hell about people who enjoy sex with others. on a swinger's site. That's a lot of nopes for us.to stay on point to the OP, IF we are somewhat interested we would make a note and see if they evolve ie broaden their selves and get some traceable certs. Certs with traceability to reality profiles are a main criteria for us
Peppa4U - No judgement intended. To each their own in the LS.
@Mayhem8 - "Peppa can speak to this directly as to their specific reasons, but I have seen LS peeps that deem other people too promiscuous based on a large # of certs, and therefore considered too risky."
You are spot on with that.
In my opinion, too each their own. As for me, I am extremely picky about who I go with (even that is not 100% safe), we have been in this lifestyle long enough to know that one can never be to careful. An active person can infect 20+ people before they are aware that they are infected.
You don't know if a Cert is fake any more than you know if a profile is fake,
But we can usually get a fairly good idea if the Cert is fake by looking to see if there is a reciprocal Cert, or seeing Certs from the profile that left the cert.
We think Certs play a part in determining if a profile might be a good match for us. Are the Certs from people like us in terms of age and preferences? Are they the standard buzzwords and short & quick, or is the Cert more descriptive & flushed out? I think we get a feel for someone by the Certs that are left. We've had some great experiences with single men whose Certs gave us a good indication of what they were like, and in every case where we've ended up meeting them, they have been exactly as their Certs described.
We've never once looked at a profile with a large number of Certs and thought them to be too promiscuous. That's an interesting take, and I guess we can understand why some people might think that.
"..too promiscuous based on a large # of certs..."
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Interesting paradigm in the lifestyle. :/
Ymichael14 - "I'm guessing Peppa means like the fake reviews you see online."
Peppa can speak to this directly as to their specific reasons, but I have seen LS peeps that deem other people too promiscuous based on a large # of certs, and therefore considered too risky.
We have a few certs but only do them if people ask us to. Usually they give us one and ask if we can reciprocate. As already mentioned, since certs have to be approved by the person receiving them before they are posted, you will never see negative certs. While I see the logic in wanting to identify fakes/flakes, negative comments can get into a pissing contest that SLS doesn't want to be in the middle of, and I can't say I blame them.
Mayhem- as for faking certs, I did have a guy contact me on FET asking me to give him a cert on SLS so he could meet the cert requirement of a local swing club.
Never met the guy, never talked to him.
No, I didn't do it.
But that is one way to get fake certs.
I'm guessing Peppa means like the fake reviews you see online. 100 postive reviews and not one negitive comment.
In other words, they are trying to hard to make the certs look real and attract people.
Good question hotluvrs. Generally people are in the LS for some sexual variety. It's probably going to be easier/safer to see if you can find people willing to share STD test results than to rely on anything people say or write.
Some will be more obvious that they enjoy a lot of variety and others, not so much.
Peppa, I’m not sure if I understand your objections. Are you saying that being with 50 people is too many? If so, at what number do you draw the line?
Thing with me is, I check the certs and the people who certify them and so on, this can add up to hundreds. I have seen persons who has a handful of certs who has been with someone who has been with 50 couples and those 50 couples has certs from another 30 couples. Not sure about anyone else but to me it is a red flag. To each their own I suppose.
I believe the fake profile/cert thing. I've seen several profiles where the same writing style, grammatical errors and misspellings crop up in both the cert and the profile. Plus, let's face it. Some folks are desperate enough to pay for a single month on a fake profile so they can seed their main one.
It's more than just a bit of work. If free member tries to Cert someone they get - "Sorry, we currently only allow our paid members to certify other members.". This would mean that they're not only creating fake profiles, but they're paying for them as well. Seems unlikely, but who knows.
I have no way to verify the validity of this but I have heard that some people create fake profiles just to give themselves certs. Sounds like a lot of effort for not much meaning.
Frank & Nina
I had a SF friend share a message exchange she had with a SM recently, where he mentioned that he wasn’t one to kiss and tell. She reminded him that he had 45 certs.
Personally, I think that any more than 10 is a bit much, but you (the collective “you”), do you.
BT
The more certs the less chance you have with me. One guy contacted me he had 50 certs, he had no chance at all.
We enjoy reading certs it tells you something about the people giving and receiving them.
I can see certs being big for SFs, but most of this doesn't matter to us. For the few times we meet a new couple through online interaction, we either have them over the house for dinner, or meet them at a nearby restaurant if there are any doubts/questions. Either way, we are not going out of our way so the worst case is we just don't meet them if they're a no show.
While I can be fooled, I generally get a really good idea if someone is real and of interest just from the online messages and profile. By the time we actually get to the point of meeting someone and actually do, I'd say that roughly 99% of those meeting have positive outcomes, whether that be actual play time or just great conversation, or both.
Some people seem to be online looking for a reason to say "No". We are pretty much the opposite, and our social calendar definitely reflects that. I would say though that we are very non-typical when it comes to online interactions. Usually if/when people find us, they are like, "Why the hell can't it be this easy all the time?". I do understand the senitiment but have no definitive answer to that question.
We do prefer certs BUT if a profile is newer and has pics (particularly party banner pics), we may approach or have communications with them. We do trace certs as they can give you information and "prove" they are real. We look for known peeps certing them and will trace a couple levels of certs as that can also lead to known peeps. So if one of their certs are certed by a couple we know , they effectively certed the new interest. More recently it hit us that regardless if a known peep is in the trail, once you get say 3+ unlimited members in the cert trail, the odds a faker, building multiple supporting profiles, is going to pay lifetime on that many profiles is slim.
So we have been active swingers well over 25 years, started in south Florida, swing capitol of USA.
Recently 2025 we have taken all our CERTS out as we have found so many judgmental people on SLS.
We do not use Video calls as it takes at least an hour to prep for our date nights with new people and yes sorry first impressions make all the difference with us.. we dress for success, hair made up, heels , perfume , cologne, etc one cannot get a first impression of us being in our gym clothes..
If we decide to meet you... we give you our cell number and we meet that simple. Any excuses we move on.. it has worked great for us and only burned a couple times when we were first on SLS by a no show and fake wanna bee swingers .
Our XXX photos tell all we are real and thank those on SLS we have played with!
Certs are appreciated, but not absolutely necessary. We've met incredible couples over the years, sometimes a once in a lifetime night we've met on vacation, others we've met with couples for more multiple "play dates", so getting certs is not a real problem. Over time, we've learned to be more nuanced; kiss and tell is not always spilling the beans. Max & Claire
