BootmanLA

As a concept, sure, I agree, it would be nice if every place that allowed sex on the premises had prep space. But it's not practical (nine square feet set aside for a minimal douching booth is nine square feet that can't be used for people actively having sex, which means you've got to have a bigger facility or limit the number of people you can have in at one time. I realize a few guys, one way or the other, won't make a profit or loss flip, but there's an optimum amount of space to be provided for any given number of guys who are there to play. Secondly, you're talking plumbing, and more especially, plumbing designed to handle feces, meaning plumbing that may get clogged easily. Or that a patron may use and just not bother cleaning behind himself, which means an employee has to then go behind when it's reported and clean someone's shit up and then render the space usable again. In other words, while I see the utility, I can also see how it could be a potential nightmare to deal with. I'm not sure how the Seattle facility solves those problems, or maybe Seattle people are just more polite, but given the number of assholes who've left bathrooms I've gone into filthy and stinky, I'd say that would be something most places couldn't count on.

Here's the thing, though. I know (broadly speaking, and admittedly overgeneralizing) two types of submissives (and by extension, two types of dominants). The first kind are those who have an innate need to serve and service, and in fact derive a great deal of self-esteem from being a good submissive. If there were a non-sexual analogue, I'd think of the classic manservant, who's not the equal, so to speak, of his employer, but within his realm, he's the diamond among lesser rocks. He has to follow orders, but he knows (and his employer/master knows) that without him, things would all just fall apart. His employer/master may confide personal information in him that he wouldn't share with an equal, knowing it's safe. He derives his satisfaction/reward from a job well done, a job he knows not everyone could do, much less do well. This kind of guy is submissive, but from a position of self-awareness and pride in what he does. The other type are those who have been abused into submission, whether it's physically or (much more likely) psychologically so, and probably for most of their lives. These are the guys whose self-esteem is non-existent, and the "reward" he gets is attention, even though that attention is negative in scope and reinforces his lack of self-esteem, Like all (or virtually all) humans he craves contact with others, but the only way he knows how to get it (or the only way he thinks he CAN get it) is to allow those he considers his betters ("real" men, or basically everyone else) to abuse him, because then at least he feels something - even if it's a negative feeling. The non-sexual analogue I come up with is the kid who desperately wants to be liked by the cool kids, the jocks, and he's willing to undergo any humiliation just so they pay him any mind: he'll do their homework, wash their cars, give them money to pay for a date with a girl, let them cheat from his exam, whatever it takes. I don't know whether it happens that a guy is submissive by nature and this allows users to take advantage of him, or if a guy becomes submissive because he's been abused by others so long that he's internalized that as normal. My suspicions lend toward the latter. But I don't think the latter kind of submission is healthy, certainly not like the first type. And I'm aware that there's no chasm between the two, and someone can have elements of both types in them, as you noted in your mixed feelings at that campground. But as for how that connects with cumdump bottoms: a submissive of the first type is going to take the pride approach - he had a job to do, and by god, he did it. And more importantly, if he DID feel like he'd had all he could reasonably take, and he wasn't there for his Sir to show off, he'd probably insist on being able to stop when he damned well felt like it. He might respond to positive urging - "Come on, you can do it, just one more cock and load, I know you can" - but essentially letting someone rape him because he didn't feel like he had a right to say no? That guy, the healthy submissive, would say "Fuck that". The second type is the sort that's going to get killed one day because he can't say no to anyone, and one day a guy's going to insist on choking play or gun play or whatever that gets out of hand, and he's just going to die because he never learned he was worthy of saying NO. As I mentioned, there's (again broadly speaking and with overgeneralization) two types of dominants. There's the kind who helps nurture and mold his submissives into the best submissives they can be, in a way they can be proud of; and there's the kind who abuses (whether physically or mentally) his subs into complying with his demands simply because he demands it. The former kind may use discipline as part of training, for instance, but it's always as part of a reward system, including praise for accepting the pain and reinforcing his self esteem as a worthwhile man who just happens to be a submissive, and one he's proud of. The latter kind gets pissed off and decides the sub's going to suffer for his mood and he knows just what buttons to push to put the sub in the mental space that he'll accept whatever kind of abuse gets handed down. I hate these guys. When a nurturing dominant connects with a proud submissive, the result's an incredible dynamic. When a shitty dominant connects with a proud submissive, either the sub's going to walk early on (if he's secure enough in his role) or he may end up damaged, especially if the shitty dominant is skilled at slowly breaking down a good sub's esteem. When a nurturing dominant connects with an abused sub, he may be able to help that sub begin to heal, particularly if the sub is able to get mental health help and learn to overcome some of his toxic background. There's no guarantee it will happen - it takes a lot of work, and the sub has to learn how to value himself again - but it's possible. But when a shitty dominant connects with an abused sub, you can pretty much figure the sub's going to come out worse, not better, from the experience. If he survives.

I found most of your tips and suggestions well thought through. But this last small rant - well, it strikes me kind of like complaining that restaurants don't have showers so you can wash your work sweat off before eating. Seems to me if you're going to a bathhouse, you ought to take care of things like cleaning out before you leave home. I can't imagine something that I'd find less appealing in a bathhouse than going to the bathroom to relieve myself and hearing (or worse, seeing) someone flushing shit out of his ass because he wasn't prepared when he arrived.

It wasn't so much the sexual revolution affecting things, at least for gay sex. For male on male sex, condoms were only considered necessary if you (or your partner) had a wife or fiancee and you needed to protect against getting syphilis or gonorrhea (because you'd likely pass it on to her, and then it's all "you got some 'splaining to do"). Both were easily treatable (this is before antibiotic resistant versions were really a thing) so gay men would just go to the doctor, get a shot, and go about their business. The sexual revolution probably did have an impact on condom usage for straight people. Before the 60's, the only real contraceptives available were condoms (for men) and diaphragms (for women) - the latter of which required a doctor's prescription and thus "revealing" to a medical person that you were, or hoped to be, sexually active. That meant condoms were far more commonly used. Once other forms of birth control came along (the IUD, the pill) at the same time that medicine was starting to treat contraception with respect and discretion, women were able to take control of their reproductive options - something that Roe also sped along - which meant men had less and less reason to use condoms. And of course, with the sexual revolution humming along, it became more acceptable for women to have slept with men, even other men, before marriage, so an STI wasn't necessarily the end of a relationship either (sometimes neither partner could be sure who infected whom). That meant even less use of condoms. Until, of course HIV - and even then, it took a few years to confirm it was definitely a virus, transmitted sexually, and that condoms prevented that transmission. Sales, distribution, and use of condoms soared, and rose every year until the mid-90's when the first triple cocktail treatments for HIV came out. That didn't end condom use by any means, but it gave hope to people that IF they got HIV through barebacking, it was possibly treatable, which probably encouraged risk-takers to cut back on or abandon the use of condoms. Since PrEP, of course, and even more since the pandemic began, condom usage has plummeted.

I'm not trying to shame those who feel ashamed. I'm calling out those who actively and deliberately seek to be shamed and try to normalize that for everyone else. I'm certainly willing to accept I may have phrased some of this badly. As a young man just coming out in his mid/late teens (and Roman Catholic in a deeply conservative state, to boot), there was no end to the shaming heaped on people like me. I don't claim to be superhumanly strong or made of teflon (I was miserable for a good while) but ultimately I realized nobody else was going to make me "feel good about myself" until I stood up for who I was. My parents weren't particularly accepting of gay people even before I came out and I largely cut them out of my life for about six years until my absence forced them to deal with things and open up to me - which made for a LOT of really lonely holidays, among other things. But I had to deliberately and consciously reject that shame that had been heaped on me in order to grow into a self-confident adult. So I can understand why people do feel shame over being a bottom or being promiscuous. I get how that shame is not only imposed from outside the gay community (straights looking down on those awful gays who are such sluts, especially the ones who do the nasty things like take it up the ass) but from within as well (that girl is pure trash, she's a bottom and she'll spread 'em for anyone). The latter is a lot harder for me to accept - why would we, as a long-persecuted community, do so much to tear each other down? - but it gets downright impossible when people deliberately internalize that shame *by choice* and brag about being "nothing but something for REAL men to use to get off". That mentality seems to be deliberately constructed to wallow in abuse; and it just boggles my mind that people who - by all appearances - OUGHT to understand how toxic that attitude is, and what it does to one's self esteem can gleefully inflict it upon themselves.

For what it's worth, I sincerely doubt there are *any* cities where there are more tops than bottoms; I'd suspect the ratio is more typically 3 to 1 the other way around, at a minimum. That's for actual openly (more or less) gay men. I'm sure that there are places where there's a number of men who will fuck an ass on a man even though they identify as straight, and that might inflate the number a bit. That doesn't mean an appealing bottom can't attract lots of tops - certainly it happens. And you may be better positioned than some to find what you're looking for. But keeping your expectations reasonable (and being pleased to the extent they're met, thrilled if exceeded) is probably important.

FWIW I certainly don't think there's anything wrong with saying "I want to get fucked" or even "Man, I'm dying over here because I can't get fucked with a pandemic raging around us". It sucks. Believe me, I know all too well. But there's a difference between lamenting that you can't do as you'd wish you could in normal times, and actually going out and behaving as though normal times were back upon us. Every time I read one of those stories about a bride who just HAD to have her 150-person reception at her wedding and it ends with 37 people getting Covid, 20 of them seriously and six of them dying, I want to slap the fuck out of her for being such a selfish idiot. And that's when someone gives in on the temptation for what's possibly a once-in-a-lifetime event. When that kind of risk is incurred so you can blow a load in some stranger's ass, or get loaded up by some rando in a dark room, I get incensed. Because those are the same mother fuckers who will then go into the grocery store in the next week, the same ones who can't follow the little signs on the floor asking people to move in one direction or the other on each aisle. And they may not even know they've been infected, if they have mild symptoms or none at all, but that doesn't mean he won't pass it on to the 70-year old man who's shopping in the same aisle or ahead of him in the checkout lane. That doesn't protect the cashier who has no choice but to work because she's the primary support for her family, including her retired mother who lives with them. And sure - lots of our talk about HIV and the like would repulse the average person - but the average person isn't put at risk by whatever it is we do, sexually, "in the normal times". There are arguments to be had about health care, and driving up overall costs for insurance, and the like, but those are about money, not about lives. A pandemic - where a virus you pick up at Cumunion is something you can accidentally cough onto someone with whom you have casual contact in a public setting - is about life and death.

And every underground sex party (and non-distanced wedding reception, and frat party, and every other kind of non-socially-distanced gathering) is like spreading grease along the path of that race helping make sure the runners slip and fail to make it to the finish line in time.

I guessed but don't like to assume. So, to respond appropriately: Yes, I'm on BZ. That doesn't mean I'm here actively trying to get laid during a pandemic. In fact, if anything, I'm on BZ because it's an outlet to stay in touch with others during a time when we OUGHT to all be limiting physical contact with anyone outside our own "living bubbles" to the absolute minimum. My comments were directed at those people whose sexual desires apparently rise to the level of "needs" that warrant all the risks of breaking the guidelines promoted to try to STOP this goddamned pandemic before it kills another half million people in the US. I'm sick to death of people characterizing their desire to be a huge slut as a "need". You don't NEED that. You WANT that. Under normal circumstances, indulging that want doesn't hurt anyone else, so more power to you - but these are not normal circumstances. And yes, I enjoy sex as much as anyone (and probably more than many). But I also recognize that it's fucking irresponsible to indulge in the kind of exposure that an event like a Cumunion Party (underground or not) presents - and I get really, really irked at the wailing and gnashing of teeth by some of these shitheads who whine "but but but I haven't been fucked in A WHOLE MONTH and I just can't live without that and it's a matter of life and death for me!" Fuck that. Anyone who's shitty enough to go to underground sex parties during a pandemic is someone I don't want to know, in any way.

I think it's a case of "we don't know IF there are long-term issues yet" because we haven't had a lot of these single-pill/daily treatments for long enough to know - how would you know if 40 years on a medication will eventually tear up the pancreas, for instance, when the medication itself has only been around for ten years? We all certainly *hope* that the long-term consequences of decades of HAART treatment are minor to negligible. But until we have enough long-term data, we just won't know.

Not sure why you "can't". If it's a cost issue, there are almost certainly programs, even in benighted NC, to help offset the cost.

You don't have to be "on pins and needles" all the time if you're on PrEP. Getting HIV is no longer the inevitable consequence of repeated episodes of bareback sex. Now, if you WANT to be poz - for whatever reason - that's one thing. But if you have fears, that's your brain telling you this is something to think about, and there's a way to handle it - by protecting yourself while indulging in the sex you like.

I'll try to make what I said in plain English clearer: it's a question of which of the two parties is *closer* to what you feel aligned to. I understand that if you're a neo-Nazi even the modern Republican Party isn't authoritarian enough for you, and if you're a radical anarchist who believes no one should own property of any sort whatsoever, the Democratic Party will seem repressively conservative. But even so, one of the two parties would still be *closer* to what you believe than the other, because there are undeniable massive differences between what the two parties support - down to the point now where Republicans don't even believe in small-d democracy if it means the people elect leaders that the GOP doesn't approve of (hence their moves across the nation to gerrymander, to restrict voting rights, to reduce voter eligibility and opportunity, etc.). It's frankly bullshit to say that both parties are "fraught with lies deceit and flat out wavering on everything". Yes, it's true that sometimes candidates make pledges they're unable to fulfill. That's the nature of politics in a closely divided country. The Republicans were unable to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017 despite having broadly campaigned on that precise issue in 2016, because a handful of members of their very slight majority in the Senate wouldn't go along with it. Does that mean the Republicans should have abandoned the fight to the Democrats because it failed to deliver this key item - even though the GOP DID deliver the huge tax cuts that they also campaigned on, and the buttload of radical right-wing judges that they also promised? Conversely: the Democrats got a bare majority (for tied questions) in the Senate this round, meaning that not only do all the members have to stick together to vote to pass something (with the VP breaking a tie), but it can only happen on bills that affect the federal budget (because of the exception to the filibuster) or when at least 10 Republicans join them trying to pass a bill. Does that mean Democrats should abandon the playing field to the Republicans, even though they delivered on the COVID package? I don't know, frankly, what you consider the "bare minimum", but it sounds like you want there to be a magic fairy wand that, once a party has the slightest majority, it can wave said wand and make anything and everything their supporters want to happen, happen. It doesn't work like that. Politics is long, hard work, with incremental progress offset at times by significant backsliding. The way to guarantee you never will get what you want is to refuse to compete at all - either by not voting or by cosplaying a voter by throwing away your vote on a candidate who cannot win.

Not in the slightest. I'm not here to tell anyone else what they should/shouldn't feel (unlike the hundreds of threads that start with bullshit like "Should a cumdump bottom always...." or "Should getting pozzed be the ultimate goal of...." - as though any of these mother fuckers have the slightest say, whatsoever, about what anyone else should or shouldn't do in their private lives). That said, I spent WAYYYYYY too long in my younger years learning to respect myself as an individual, the good and the bad, strengths and flaws alike. I'm a damned good bottom and frankly, if anything, I think some guys who only top and refuse to bottom are "lesser" than me - because I can do things they can't bring themselves to do. Separately, as I've written elsewhere: it's well documented that there's a broad strand of misogyny in the gay male community. I think it's bound up with this whole notion of bottoms as "sissy bois" with clits instead of dicks and pussies instead of holes. People who utilize that language often are belittling bottoms and doing so by choosing words that reflect female anatomy - which screams pretty loudly about thinking women's genitalia (and thus women in general) are lesser beings. Now - I realize each of us has a unique sexuality and it's not for me to tell you how you should do it. But man, I feel sorry for you people who feel shame doing what is a very natural act, instead of taking joy in doing this very natural act to the best of your ability. I can't imagine living my life thinking I'm lower than anyone else.

This "bothsidesism" is the stupidest take on politics I've seen and I've been a diligent observer of the political process for 40+ years. Of course both sides have politicians who lie. That isn't the fucking point. Anyone who thinks there is any political figure who has the perfect nature attributed to JFC is, well, naive as can be and probably shouldn't be allowed to go out in public without an escort. What matters is which party's candidates come closer to what you believe in, among the *actually electable* candidates on the ballot for a given race. Anyone who votes for someone other than the candidate who comes closer to his views isn't voting; he's doing political masturbation disguised as performance art.

The simplest reason I can think of: every new thread would automatically go to the bottom of the heap, and probably stay there, because many people won't go beyond the first page of threads. But something that got 300 responses ten years ago and then died out would stay as "popular" simply because a lot of people replied at one time. Posting the threads in the order of the most recent posting shows which topics are more active; something that gets a couple of replies and then dies down will sink further and further down, which achieves some of the "sort by popularity" goal without actually torpedoing everything new.

I'll add: it's my understanding that initially, members cannot "react" (ie Like, upvote, downvote, etc.) posts by others. That restriction goes away after the member has made a certain (non-disclosed) number of posts of his own. My understanding is that this is designed to encourage participation, and it also keeps out, say, someone creating ten fake accounts all to downvote someone who's pissed them off, or whatever. But yes, sending messages is *also* a function of how much you've participated in the forums here by making posts and replying with comments to others. You can't send messages initially at all; once you've begun participating, at some point you'll get the opportunity to send a small number of messages a day, and that will increase as you continue to post and comment.

If a comment like this is directed as a response to someone in particular's post - it would be helpful to click the "quote" button so the original post (which you can trim down to relevant parts) is included and we know who is being addressed.

FWIW this isn't really a hook up site - it's a discussion board. So I'm not surprised you aren't getting action here (though that's permitted, as you note, in the regional forums). Not sure why Grindr crashes when you use it, but there are many such apps - Growlr, Scruff, Grindr, etc. - all of which operate (at least in part) on the principle of showing you guys near you, in order of increasing distance. You're almost certainly going to find more local action through one of those. It could be your phone; if it's running a really old version of Android or iOS, you might need to upgrade to be able to run current versions of an app like these.

Not surprising. What do SLC and Notre Dame/South Bend have in common? Large conservative religious college campuses. AFAIK, there's nothing comparable in Memphis. Additionally, Memphis is only about 25% white, While I'm sure there are some conservatives there, Shelby County went 65% for Biden last year despite Trump winning the state as a whole with 60% of the vote. So it's a fairly progressive place (at least for the south) and so you're not likely to have the kind of sexually repressed guys you get in a place like South Bend or SLC.

It matters to some of us. If it doesn't matter to you, then that's your call.

Here's the biggest thing: we don't know what the 50-year effect of HAART (Highly Active Anti Retroviral Therapy) will be, because the drugs haven't been around that long to know. Things that have immeasurably small effects with each dose may, over a lifetime, cause significant issues. We just can't know. What we can do is monitor the health of people who are taking HAART and document gradual changes in blood chemistry, which can in turn tell us how other organs are functioning. For now, we know that the side effects (which vary with the particular kind of medication) are significantly less than the eventual effect of being unmedicated, that is, dying. But that doesn't mean the meds have zero impact on you. Some, for example, are less friendly to kidneys than others, and so people who have any impairment of the kidneys already should be steered away to alternate medications that are not as tough on the kidneys. And that brings in a point you mentioned; If you have a good health plan, whether it's through an employer, through an individual policy, through the government (Medicare/Medicaid/VA/etc.) or whatever, you're likely to have your HIV doctor want to see you at least twice a year, with complete blood work done each time to monitor all your functioning. It'll help spot things like becoming pre-diabetic (or worse), or increased creatinine levels, or out-of-whack cholesterol, or high blood pressure. Keeping THOSE things under control can improve your overall health, so yes, in that sense, being treated for HIV can lead to better health outcomes for everything else. Stigma, unfortunately, isn't something that getting treated can help with, except among those who practice "U=U" and do not fear sex with people who have undetectable viral levels. There's a lot less stigma in certain geographical communities, of course - it's much easier to be poz and undetectable in San Francisco or New York than, say, Peoria Illinois or Ashton, Idaho - but broadly speaking there's less stigma in big cities than smaller ones and small towns, and less stigma near the coasts than inland (bigger cities excepted, as in less stigma in Chicago than Conway SC). But being undetectable means it's easier to avoid talking about it than it was for people who had advanced HIV conditions in the late 80's and early 90's when you couldn't hide anything.

There are at least ten variations on this question I can spot at a glance - especially since this entire sub-forum is devoted to that particular question and there are literally hundreds of answers already in place for it. Seems to me it would be easier to read what people have already posted than asking them all to re-answer you personally.

Personally I think most guys who get fucked regularly should have periodic rectal exams precisely for that reason - to monitor for damage. Not that getting fucked is inherently dangerous, but it's not an unknown outcome, either. Still, this is rectal damage, not colon damage (I suspect your colon is fine). The official American Cancer Society recommendation is for screenings for colon cancer to start around age 45, but those screenings do not necessarily need to include full colonoscopies. For people at average risk, an annual stool-based test with a more invasive test every 5 to 10 years may be plenty enough.

It's not likely a question of your length. It's more likely that once you've penetrated that far, the muscle you're talking about has detected something trying to move through it, and it's relaxing enough to do just that. If that muscle tightened down more and more as something tried to move through it, you'd never be able to have a bowel movement because it would trap all the feces up inside the colon.