For almost all homosexual men the name Manhunt conjures artwork of late nights hookups and content upon pages of users of hot (and never so hot) nude men. Since their establish seven years ago the business provides offered their passionate, sweaty understand from Boston nationwide to be one of the biggest homosexual websites in the usa. In the past several years it’s got missing intercontinental, assisting guys hook up in Mexico, South America, the U.K., Western Europe and Australia, among other far-flung venues.
But while Manhunt has made their label offering intercourse, you had can’t say for sure it visiting the organization’s corporate headquarters on borders of Kendall Square in Cambridge. Walk through the leading doorway associated with the practices of Online friends, Inc., Manhunt’s corporate nickname, and you should see big available reception area decked out in stylish solid wood furniture and classy accents. There aren’t any naked guys prowling the foyer, no movie displays revealing porn movies, no oozing lubricant dispensers. The vibe it gives you down are distinctly most “neat” than “meat.”
Initially the consumer services office present towards back of this company exudes similar sexless pro image. Support service staffers attend rows of cubicles, taking phone calls and staring at desktop screens. But take a closer look at those screens and it rapidly turns out to be obvious that the staff members at Manhunt actually attempting to sell widgets. The reps scroll through countless Manhunt pages, trolling for infractions of company procedures (no medication sources, no minors, no trade of money, without pictures of any individual aside from your self will be the primary formula). While they browse, the displays be a blur of nude systems, a sight that will trigger not-safe-for-work sensors in almost any some other office. But Travis Roe, the instructor for Manhunt’s customer support section, asserted that for longtime personnel, the titillation factor of arriving at work and seeking at pictures of nude guys dissipates quickly.
“excluding the uncommon celebration where anyone throws one thing up that’s simply regardless on the market or they truly are simply therefore drop-dead gorgeous you just are unable to accept it as true, a dick is actually a cock, an ass try an ass. It is not 
to say, you’ve viewed one, you have observed them. But if you’ve observed them all . ” said Roe, trailing down and laughing, “you now’ve seen them all, and you become accustomed to it.”
Phil Henricks, the business’s movie director of advertising and marketing, mentioned that getting to appreciate first-class eyes candy is a perk of employed at Manhunt, but at the end of the afternoon staffers were numbed towards the gorgeous section of the business.
“its types of a great part of the tasks. It really is sort of hysterical, though, because we’re checking out models, and also as enjoyable because it’s it’s also entirely work, while form of get desensitized to it. But it’s a variety of becoming desensitized plus truly enjoying it because, hey, we have purchase hot items for the ads,” said Henricks.
Manhunt’s a growerManhunt can be a gay domestic term, nevertheless when it launched in 2001 few folk observed. The proprietors and founders, Jonathan Crutchley and Larry Basile, began within the homosexual telephone chat range businesses. Crutchley mentioned almost all of their people comprise from the Boston location. But he mentioned the company started initially to just take a downward turn-in 2000, much more males grabbed on online to find couples. Crutchley and Basile realized your only way business would endure is if they took it to cyberspace.
“We chose when the businesses would definitely carry on in the end we needed seriously to post a web site, have actually dudes utilize the websites, and, when it would have success, get them to spend to utilize the web site,” stated Crutchley. They hired a little team of web-site designers, used various different types, and eventually established the internet site that expanded into a gay sex empire.
At first this service membership was no-cost. By 2002 about 10,000 guys through the better Boston location had created users. But the big wager was actually, would somebody buy this service membership? In April 2002 Manhunt e-mailed their customers and advised all of them that those which desired to delight in the benefits for the website would have to shell out ten bucks every month, and those who decreased to cover would be able to need a far more bare-bones form of the site. About 2000 clientele immediately enrolled in the compensated membership. Crutchley asserted that money helped provide the providers the tools to begin increasing their own promotion procedure outside Boston. Quickly Manhunt made its existence identified in cities like ny, Miami and la, building a buzz by holding events at gay pubs, marketing in gay guides, purchasing marketing and advertising on Google and Yahoo, and depending on word-of-mouth.