A Tale of a Footstool

Discover how personly continues the legacy of Craigslist Personals by creating a safe anonymous space for human interaction.

Craigslist Personals was quite an interesting place. For anyone who may not have used it or even know what it was, it was a space within Craigslist where one could simply post a personal without registering for an account. One only needed an email address in order to create a personal, with the link contained within the email sent to the email address functioning as way to manage the personal.

There was total freedom to post whatever one wanted. One particular personal that always stuck out in my mind was a man who wanted to be used as a human footstool. Basically, his offer was that he would come over to your place and position himself on all fours near a seating area of your choosing. You would then sit down and relax your feet upon his back and read a book, watch a movie, etc. all while completely ignoring him. He would do nothing else except serve as your footstool for however long a time was agreed upon.

He was a man and his offer was for women only. I am not sure if any women ever took him up on his offer (it appeared from the personal that at least some had) but I always enjoyed the spirit of such personals because they are very much to the point about enjoying a shared unique activity as much as enjoying the presence of that person. People on Craigslist Personals had a more direct way to express and explore a side of themselves than could ever be achieved by writing a mass-consumable public profiles which are indistinct from all the other ones.

Of course, total freedom came with a price. There were other personals too, some much more direct and aggressive, and downright frightening even. Purportedly the personals section was being used for human trafficking and with the passage of certain controversial laws against human trafficking in the United States, Craigslist Personals was removed in 2018 for all United States users and removal for the rest of the world followed soon after.

Since then, I do not think there has been a proper safe space established online where people can explore simple fetishes such as being footstools. On one hand you have the dating apps which are always leading towards marriage, and on the other hand you have hookup based platforms which focus on immediate gratification, which are also not ideal. Both extremes create environments of pressure and expectations, which is not ideal for human interaction.

personly positions itself in the middle of both extremes. By retaining anonymity, people get to express a side of themselves that would otherwise not be possible. There are certain safeguards in place to ensure a safe environment for interaction, such as identity verification. This makes it possible for people to want to be used as footstools to easily find those people who want to use someone as a footstool.

So to the "footstool guy" and anyone else out there who feels like they need an alternate form of expression, personly was made for you. Enjoy participating and expressing the best and unique side of yourself ;)