An Interview With BateWorld.com Creative Director David Maxey

Q: Talk about how you got started

A: I didn't foresee being in the masturbation business when I was younger, but my friend Peter had this idea to start BateWorld.com, a social networking site for masturbators, and life's been an adventure ever since.

Peter manages the business and I'm in charge of the graphics. At first Peter and I did literally everything involved in running the site, and we started out knowing literally nothing about the business. We just learned it by any means we could. Peter's been great about finding solutions when we needed them, and he has a real passion for making it work.

BateWorld opened in 2009 and in the five years since we've had over 100,000 signups and currently have about 20,000 active members. We have two part-time programmers and an assistant, and some of our members pitch in to help out as well.

The BateWorld masturbation empire has now actually expanded into three online sites. We also have an affiliate store called TheBateShop.com and a new blog (still not officially open) called TheBATOR http://bateworld.com/blog/. And of course we've also got https://twitter.com/BateWorld and http://bateworld.tumblr.com/. That's a lot to keep up with for such a small team, but I'm really proud of the work we've all put into it. 

Q: What makes BateWorld the #1 and largest 'bator community online?

A: Well, for reasons I don't really understand, but am extremely happy about, we've been able to build the BateWorld community without much competition at all. What few other masturbation sites there've been haven't found a core membership the way that we were able to, and/or they catered to both men and women but didn't really care much about the content or the experience.

Comparatively, we're still a very small site as adult social networks go, but we cater exclusively to male masturbation. It's our core group of dedicated and loyal masturbators that spend the money to support us that keeps it up and running (the puns, they just write themselves...).

The guys on BateWorld are genuinely friendly and respectful of each other, and there aren't a lot of egos on parade like you see other places. Some guys become good friends and bate buddies, even if they never meet in person, and the more active members become familiar figures in the video chat rooms and other parts of the site. So it's a community effort and a fun place to, literally, hang out. 

Q: Who should join?

A: If you're an adult human over the age of 18 and you've got a dick, you should check us out. If you're a man and you like to watch men masturbate, or if you like to masturbate while men watch, BateWorld will get you off. You don't have to show your face or your dick in your profile, but you can if you want.

One of the most unique things about our site is that it's not just gay or bi men, there are also a lot of straight guys on there too. BateWorld is all about enjoying your cock in the company of other guys, and I love that so many straight men can enjoy that too. 

BateWorld is free for basic members, and premium membership costs are very low compared to most sites. We want as many people to be part of the community as possible. We also have limited time Helping Hand memberships for those who can't afford full membership. So there's no reason not to be masturbating with us right now!

Q: How about some masturbating tips… Any dos and don'ts?

A: Well, DO masturbate. Do it and do it and then do it some more. Masturbation doesn't necessarily have to be complicated, but an experienced masturbator can be a master of the art, taking themselves into worlds of pleasure and life-long self-satisfaction that doesn't have to be solitary. Sharing masturbation together as men is an act of bonding and brotherhood. It can be meaningful or it can be trivial, it doesn't matter which. Masturbation is fun and healthy and important to a man's well-being, and holds many more possibilities than I think most men take advantage of, physically as well as psychologically.

DON'T feel guilty about it, because that's bullshit. Bators are men who understand the rich and varied experiences that cock has to offer and are proud to engage in it. Masturbating cock is a worthy past-time, alone or in groups. Pleasure is a good and worthwhile experience to have, and anyone who tells you differently is an asshole.

AND, from my personal experience:

DON'T try to jack off on a windy beach. It's like masturbating with sandpaper.

Q: What are some of the perils of running a web site?

A: Well damn, there are so many! Especially when it's an adult site. The laws are set up to stifle sexual speech, for one. The amount of paperwork and documentation required for sexual imagery is exceptionally complicated, and basically designed to create violations without really protecting anyone. We've also been banned from PayPal, Google Ads, Pinterest, and Facebook, simply because we have adult content, and if our bank knew what we do we'd be banned from there too.

But dealing with the nonsense which is contemporary coding has been a huge challenge for me. I don't understand the language, and so often I design something that I think will be a simple addition and it becomes a major ordeal. It just makes no sense to me.

Originally the site had so many problems that I thought of it as a haunted house. If you dared to open a window, the doors would blow out and the walls would bleed. Add an extra comma to a headline and the site would disappear. None of it made any sense to me then and it still doesn't. 

Fortunately, after we fled our original hosting company, we built and have maintained a stable and reliably un-haunted site for years now. But the demands of technology keep changing, and just trying to keep up with it is expensive and difficult. When we started, mobile wasn't even a thing, and now five years later, mobile is everything.

Running BateWorld is much like running a theater, you don't want the audience to worry about what's going on backstage, so sometimes they don't appreciate just how hard you've worked to make it all seem seamless. Technically, it's often harrowing behind the scenes, but I'm so proud that we've brought joy and orgasms to thousands of people--something that otherwise would have taken me years to accomplish on my own lol.