She survived the beer-guzzling, knuckle-bleeding, blue-collar town of Rotterdam, NY (self-described) and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts/English from Hofstra University graduating there with honors. Now, after earning 12 hours towards her Masters in Public Affairs at the University of Maryland's Baltimore Campus, she is the Administrative Supervisor for an international corporate insurance company in Albuquerque New Mexico and spends her quality time attending the opera, theatre and cooking international goodies for festive holidays. A divorced single parent with three children and too many pets, Roxanne Nelson is the neighbor next door that just happens to also operate one of the more respected singles Internet sites in the world.
I met Roxanne the first time in 98 via an Internet chat room and a phone conversation quickly followed. I will be the first one to admit that I was more than skeptical and our conversation, although polite, was defiantly edgy. I was working for another magazine at the time and under pressure from my editor to find something type worthy with the "Springerish" feel. Needless to say, I did not find the gutter drain lead story she wanted in Roxanne's endeavor. In any event, time tells all and I have learned to expect and live with the unexpected. It's my life and what I do for sanity after all. So, without further adieu, if it's bar hopping or window shopping, when it comes to finding that perfect one; for one night or forever, love is just a click away........
Lets get started by telling the world how it all got started.
Well, Johnny, I conceived The Catalog of Women in 1990 while traveling for my full-time employer when I noticed how many available women the world over are looking for someone special, and how many available men are looking for someone with special attributes.
I've seen so many "Swingers Sites" on the web, is that what you are?
We definitely do not think of ourselves as a "swinger's site" and we're
not intending to be a swinger's site, although I do know we have a few
swingers featured. I have no problem with that because, frankly, they
send us the sexy pictures that draw a lot more attention from guys than
just plain old "map-of-your-face" portraits. Aside from that, some years
ago I, myself, was involved in the so-called "swingers scene" for a short
while with an old boyfriend, and I found that swingers, too, are actually
looking for someone just like those who aren't swingers. They're just
going about it differently and having a lot of fun in the process.
I also found that much of swinging consisted of guys just trying to find
a source of easy lays. In fact, at the private swing club we used to go
to, some of the guys were so expectant that they would've had higher
chances of getting laid if they had gone to a brothel instead.
So, your site is different because sex is not the only reason people place personals?
We're different because we've put together both paper and electronic
versions of The Catalog of Women in which we classify and catalog all
kinds of women of every size, shape and look. They all have different
personalities and desires and definitely aren't all looking for the same
thing. They all have different motivations for being in The Catalog of
Women.
Browsing through all those personals sounds tedious with over 3,000 to choose from but I understand you have a unique way of listing your personals?
One thing that makes The Catalog of Women unique is that we capitalize
on the fact that men are visually oriented creatures and very specific
about the style of female which turns them on the most. So we catalog
the women in such a way that guys--or any of our perusers, some of them
are BI-females and lesbians--can pick out a girl by selecting her
attributes rather than by just random browsing. You know, attributes
such as her hair color, eye color, height, bust size, the size of her
derriere, etceteras. We use an alphanumerical system I established for cataloging women based on countenance and figure much like Professor Edward C. Pickering's astronomy team's classification of stars at Harvard at the turn of this century.
That sounds complicated, is it?
Simply put, readers enjoy "shopping" for their idea of a fantasy lady by piquantly selecting attributes--of the Fabulous Female they would like to meet--through utilization of trichotomous links rather than by database search or merely browsing in the web version at http://www.roxannes.org or keys found on the first few pages of the paper version to go directly to the style of lady they like. Of course, the paper version facilitates simple browsing but is neither as efficient nor updated daily.
So I click on blonde, blue, 5'2" 36-24-36 and she appears?
Well, lets say your getting the idea.
Thanks for clearing that up.
I was wondering just how many "hits" you receive on an average month?
Not enough. (Laughing)
At the end of December 1999 we were averaging 4,142 hits per week, so
that's about 18,000 hits per month. I realize that's not a lot compared
to large, long-established sites, but on the other hand, we have so far
been basically text driven so we don't have thirty little graphical
doodads on each page that multiply the hit count--or waste
bandwidth--however, before the end of January, we will be changing over
to a new server which will give us a lot more space and flexibility so we
will be adding tons more large pictures.
Tell me a little about the people make up your clientele?
Our paying members, just like our Fabulous Females, are forever
changing and are from all walks of life and hail from all four corners of
the globe. I have to admit, though, that about two-thirds of the
Fabulous Females featured are from the US, England, Australia and New
Zealand.
Right now, on January 20, 2000, (at the time of this interview) most of
our paying members are from North America and most of those live on the
coasts--a few more on the East coast than the West. About six percent
live outside the US and Canada--we even have members in places like
Afghanistan, Andorra, India, and the Faro Islands! Two percent of our
paying members are women.
Our paying members' ages range from 18 to over 60, but the majority are
in their 30s and 40s. Four-fifths are single or divorced, with about 10
percent having children in their households.
Most of our members have either some college or a bachelor's degree.
Our members' annual income ranges from less then $15,000 to over
$100,000, most of them being in the $16,000 to $79,000 range with the
largest majority in the $30,000-$39,000 bracket, and, interestingly, the
second largest majority have an income of over $100,000. More than half
of our members own their own homes.
Well, you've convinced me you know what your talking about. Now, here is the question I know the readers are asking themselves. Most of the women featured on your site are professional escorts, right?
The women featured in The Catalog of Women are forever changing because
we're always hearing from new women while at the same time many of our
Fabulous Females are meeting someone and becoming inactive, but, as far
as I know, we have never had any professional escorts or prostitutes.
Come on, they all can't be the girl next door?
Well, we do have a handful of professional female dominates. You can
pick them out from the amateur dominates and fantasy role players
because they don't talk about anything else.
Other than that, aside from a few swingers, we have mostly "regular"
women who are searching for a special man, and even a couple looking for
a special woman. Of course, these "regular" women must be above average
and they absolutely must send us relatively decent pictures of themselves
if they want to be featured in The Catalog of Women and become what we
call a Fabulous Female. Otherwise, a guy could save his money and go
shopping for the same average women in the aisles of his local
supermarket.
Do you see your site or sites like yours as the Y2K trend in matchmaking?...dating?...mating?...cheating?
(Laughing again) The really cool thing about using The Catalog of Women, or even
publications with contact ads or lists, or using the online versions such
as BBSs or their websites, voice mail services, or even trying to meet
people via online services like AOL, is that you can meet someone whom
your path would never ever otherwise have crossed. The Catalog of
Women is an extension of that concept but in a very deliberate and
organized way.
As Barbara Lacey, my Project Coordinator, often points out, "We go to
extreme efforts to search the world for available women and keep our
files current in regard to their availability status!"
Anyhoo, Johnny, this is not a "Y2K trend" because all of these things
have been around for years, so it's already a well established trend but
one that I see growing into one of the standard ways of finding other
people for whatever purpose, especially with more and more people using
computers. In fact, about half of our paying membership has been using
computers for at least three years. I certainly hope our site becomes
one of the standard ways of finding romantic interests, and, of course,
my dream is that our site will eventually be considered a valuable
resource and be as large and as well-known as, say, Amazon.com or Yahoo.
You also have an ad listed on your site. Is there a special moment or
someone you would care to talk about, discretely of course, that happened as
a direct result of your ad and site? I'm sure the readers would love to hear something spicy.
We don't run "ads," unless you want to buy space by the inch. Our rate
card is available upon request. (Smiling) What we do for our Fabulous
Females is publish articles on them derived from the information and
pictures they send us.
Logged and noted Captain.
More to the point, I would say that Laura and Barbie have definitely had
some exciting "special moments" as a result of our write-ups on the site.
For me, it's more like a peak experience.
OK, you have my full attention, please continue.
Well, through my very own Catalog of Women I met quite a few men who
really opened my eyes. But out of the men I've actually met
face-to-face there's one very special guy I met about whom I care very
much. All I will say about it is that he even loves my stretch marks! At
first I thought he was just another silver-tongued devil who was putting
me on just to get into my panties and my panties fit him very well, but that
is another story. (Laughing) But he is serious and he calls my stretch marks
"highways to heaven." Sometimes he watches me put on my makeup and he
will run one of his large, sexy hands through the length of my hair,
gently pulling the woolly hair on the back of my neck almost up to the top
of my head and then appreciatively tell me how beautiful I am, and
definitely turns on!
It sounds like your definitely on top of things, pardon the pun.
Are there any true love/success/wedding bell stories that happened
from meetings on your site?
I've received at least two wedding invitations because of the paper
printed version of The Catalog of Women but I think I'll let Barbie answer
your specific question:
Barbie:
This is not a "movie-ized" version. This is real life! I was in our AOL
chat room, Club Roxi, talking to a guy I had spoken to a few times
before. He had recently lost his wife to a brain tumor. She was also
pregnant at the time with their first child so his loss was doubly
horrible. With a great deal of cheeriness, a woman entered the room and
really captured us all with her friendliness plus ease in which she told
us about herself. She really brought the widower out, but for some
reason, he decided to sign off. I immediately IM'ed him that she seemed to
be extremely interested in him in particular and that he should make
plans to chat with her one on one soon! He did. She did. They exchanged
pictures, spoke on the phone, met in a public place, dated for three
months and married in six! They have since bought a home and are planning
on having children.
They both recently e-mailed us saying, "Wham, Bam, Thank you Roxanne's!"
Back to Roxi:
We plan on adding a chat room or two to our web site once we have fully
changed over to our new server. That way we can include people who don't
use AOL, plus we'll be much less dependent on AOL.
Do you see a time when everyone will simply "surf" for love?
I don't think using the web for finding a significant other will replace
traditional ways anymore than advertising yourself by fax or using
telephone voice mail services have. Face it, finding someone special is
really a numbers game in which the more people you meet the greater
chance you have of finding a significant other, and the web is one more
resource for meeting even more people and greatly improving your chances
You're about to start a service for women to find men? What are you going to call it and when will it be available?
It shall be called Roxanne's MAGNIFICENT MEN, the compliment of
Roxanne's FABULOUS FEMALES, and the URL shall also be
www.magnificentmen.com. By the way, at this juncture you can access Roxanne's
FABULOUS FEMALES and The Catalog of Women using either
www.fabulousfemales.comor www.roxannes.org.
We plan on getting MAGNIFICENT MEN online this year. It hasn't been a
priority in the past because the majority of people online have been men,
but more and more women are coming online as evidenced by the increasing
number of our Fabulous Females who are getting email addresses.
Are there any plans for a Gay/BI/fetish section on your site or a possible separate site controlled by you?
We have no plans at this time for a specific Gay/BI/fetish site or sites,
but FABULOUS FEMALES already features a few lesbian and bisexual
women, and two percent of our paying members are women who are looking
for other women.
So, what does the future have in store for Roxanne?
My dream is that our site will eventually be considered a valuable
resource and be as large and as well-known as, say, Amazon. Com or Yahoo. However, I'm typically more concerned with other people than myself and my focus is usually on how I can benefit others. My personal goals have always been to be the very best Roxanne Nelson I can be.
I think that about covers it. Roxanne, I know your a busy lady so let me just thank you on behalf of PURR and myself for your time now, and close out this interview with one last question.
(Roxanne nods)
So, next time you're in Nashville, dinner?..........
Sure, if you go into every public men's room in Nashville and write on
the walls in big letters: For a good time log onto www.roxannes.org!
If you wish to subscribe to The Catalog of Women (TM) or want to
know more about Roxanne's FABULOUS FEMALES (TM), please visit their web site
athttp://www.fabulousfemales.com.
You may also mail or E-mail Roxanne a
postal address where you can receive paper mail and she will send you
information.
The Catalog of Women
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