BootmanLA

No rational person disputes the first point here. But you can't simply wave away the entire drawing of the lines of the Middle East - not respecting long-standing ethnic boundaries, but simply dividing the former Ottoman Empire for the convenience of the victors of the first World War - with a "right or wrong" dismissal. The Jews were not "given" the land today known as Israel; they essentially migrated en masse after the second World War, seized the land which was then under British control, and declared a nation-state therein. It's arguable that the world owed a homeland to a people who had been so abused over the centuries, but let's not pretend it happened because "they" were "given" anything. That's historically inaccurate. As for making it better: they made it better for themselves. They did not make things better for the hundreds of thousands of non-Jews who were already living there. A huge amount of that development came because the U.S. poured billions into Israel over the years - resources that were long denied to "the other side," as you dismiss them. But even so, the "mud huts" canard is just that: a lie, because the Palestinian people, when today's West Bank was part of Jordan, had established many thriving cities over the centuries - perhaps not gleaming steel and glass and concrete mid-20th century structures, but certainly more than "mud huts". Those lands are now essentially under Israeli control, and Israel greatly restricts the movement of Palestinians throughout the West Bank - having seized most of the resources of that area for itself. To be fair, the Palestinian people have mostly been pawns in a struggle between the major Arab states - Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, etc. - and the west, represented by Israel, the U.S. proxy in the area. The 1967 and 1973 wars between various Arab states and Israel was more about asserting dominance over the entire region than it ever was about providing any sort of state for the Palestinians. Jordan, in fact, is almost entirely a Palestinian nation, and could easily have absorbed many of the refugees in the West Bank, both economically and culturally; but the refugees make a potent political issue, and it's to Jordan's (and Syria's, and other states') advantage to maintain them as such. It's no different from the Republicans' refusal to actually address immigration reform in this country because "da border" makes a great political cudgel with which to beat up Democrats. The situation in the West Bank has been ongoing since 1967, and over the decades has deteriorated, not improved - as more and more of the best land there has been seized by "settlers" (ie occupying colonialists), the plight of the rightful occupants of that land has grown worse and worse. In Gaza, Israel simply sealed the border around it, letting in very little and letting out very little - and you wonder why it's less developed than Israel proper? There's no question that Hamas's terroristic attacks over the decades have helped make things worse; but at the same time, how many decades does an occupying power get to control another people before those people will fight back using any means available? And that's not to excuse Hamas terrorism or their leadership's criminal mismanagement of the government in Gaza, about which you are correct. But Israel had a hand in creating that situation - a deliberate choice by our ally - and as they say, the chickens are coming home to roost.

To clarify: I don't have a problem with, for instance, saying "I was fucked by a guy with a BBC". Or a BWC, or any other color one chooses. It's when "a guy with" is erased, and all that's referenced is said BBC, that I shake my head. It calls to mind the Addams Family's "Thing" - a hand unconnected to any person, just running around doing things on its own, accountable to no one. I suppose if a guy wants to be thought of as nothing more than a life support system for his cock, with no value or use other than to provide a blood supply to make it erect, that's his right.

That, in a nutshell, is the entire problem with the "BBC" phraseology. It basically says that the rest of the man might as well not exist; that, in fact, his entire self is that one appendage. What a horrid way to look at a fellow human being.

The "white female demographic" that would demand Haley is already out of reach for Trump, thanks to Dobbs. There are basically two types of white female Republicans out there now: the hard-core, racist or racist-adjacent Trump supporters, on the one hand, and the non-crazy Republican women who used to be the backbone of the party but who are quietly voting against the nuts because even they, conservative as they might be, aren't about to sacrifice their daughters to some forced-birth agenda. I would agree, except Trump has a nasty, visceral disgust over anyone who's disabled. He can't stand even photo ops with people in wheelchairs; do you really think he'd agree to campaign with someone who uses one? Especially when there are half a dozen other Republicans out there who have just as good a resume as Abbott and who won't outshine Trump (which, never forget, is a key consideration).

Actually, that's not felching. Felching is when someone (often the top, but not necessarily) sucks the semen from the bottom's ass after the fuck is over. Simply expelling it, whether to the toilet or a towel or whatever, is not felching.

At least, the porn he lets his dad monitor. Dollars to donuts the son has a burner phone or wifi-only tablet or something that dad has no idea exists. Greene will never get 218 votes for speaker from her colleagues. Nor will Gaetz. Gym Jordan couldn't, and while he's a shit person, he's still less problematic than Greene or Gaetz. My guess is that they will limp along sniping at each other in the GOP Caucus until November, accomplishing very little if anything (and that only if the Democrats help them). It's a beautiful sight [wiping tears from my eyes].

I'm sure you're not the only one at all. But there's just no "maybe" about it - this thing had at least three levels of inappropriate caked on top of each other. First is the choice to have sex in the room in the first place. I don't consider congressional hearing rooms "sacred" or anything - they're just meeting rooms for politicians to put on a show pretending to care or be outraged by the issue du jour nowadays, while all serious work in Congress occurs elsewhere, behind closed doors, or over email and phone conversations. But sex in a place where other people work - and where even lower-level staff, like the contracted cleaning crews, may stumble onto things they don't want to see - is just plain rude. Second, filming it is an order of magnitude more stupid, in an era when any video clip stands an excellent chance of being shared with the other 7.999999998 billion people on the planet. It's a one-way ticket to job loss, being blackballed from any sort of serious endeavor (anyone heard from Anthony Weiner lately?), and, unless you come from a rather warped family, probably a lot of disappointment around the holiday table. Third, even if you're going to do 1 and 2, not using anything to disguise identities (making it trivial for people to figure out who was involved) is catastrophically dumb. Back to your point: there are LOTS of ideas that are very, very hot to think about, but that (if carried out) show just how stupid someone can be. This is Exhibit A.

That's like saying an elephant is "not exactly svelte".

That's not true either. For one thing, bacteria and viruses mutate, and a virus that doesn't do much of anything for a thousand years can, in the right circumstances, mutate into something quite deadly. That's the path SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) took; a mutated virus entered the population in a densely populated, close-quarters kind of setting, and that plus trade and travel pretty much guaranteed its spread. This was absolutely a "new" disease, caused by a mutated form of an already-discovered virus type. Or a very problematic virus, like HIV, that can cause significant problems and even death but which is ordinarily very difficult to transmit, can lurk quietly out there, doing very little harm overall until human behavioral changes (like the explosion of gay sex in the 1960's and 1970's and onward) provide a much more efficient method of transmission. Introduce a pathogen that can be transmitted sexually into a population with very high rates of concurrent partner change (ongoing sex with a bunch of different partners), and what once was an infection that affected, typically, two people - the original infected one, and his partner - becomes an epidemic.

Exactly. The last Republican president to get a majority (or even a plurality) of votes cast for president was Shrub, in 2004, and if we actually elected based on most votes gotten, he wouldn't have been a candidate in 2004 (because he'd have lost in 2000). Prior to that election, the last time a GOP candidate won a plurality of votes was in 1988.

Not to mention that many of us in a lot of states have to use a VPN to connect, which means we aren't going to always have the same IP address (as visible to the website).

To be clear - I don't think the OP is necessarily talking about sex on the premises where you met - just that a random meet-up somewhere, in a non-sexual/gay space (like his supermarket example) that led to hooking up (presumably soon after).

And who died and made you Emperor of Gay Bathhouses? You're free to associate with whom you want. You're not free (in this country) to tell other people they can't associate with the people THEY want to associate with, in a space you do NOT control. I do agree that you don't have to respect anyone. You do, however, have to TREAT other people with a certain level of respect if you don't want to be kicked out of establishments where your attitude isn't welcome. And I would venture to say - bear with me here - if the bathhouse allows trans men to participate, they are welcome. Probably more than some anti-trans bigot who's going to make a hissy fit about being too close to a vagina.

Agreed - I think personal notices (as opposed to official ones from the establishment) are potentially a huge problem.

Being adverse to vaginal sex is not the same thing as "being averse to a vagina being anywhere present in the building I'm in". I do not know of a single bathhouse in the nation that is so small that you can't have sex (with a man who's got a dick and balls) in a room where you can't see that awful nasty vagina that you seem to get the vapors over. The likelihood that there are going to be vagina-having men in every, or even most, of the spaces in a bathhouse on any given night are infinitesimally small. Just don't look at them, turn them down politely as you would anyone else with whom you don't want to have sex, and move the fuck on.

Like @NWUSHorny and @viking8x6, I don't assume "liberals" are "nice" or that "conservatives" are "mean". Both groups include large numbers of people across almost any spectrum you could posit, and "nice" and "mean" are relative terms that don't always have a useful meaning in a particular context. That said, as for the rest of the original ignorant post in this thread, the less said the better.

With respect to notices: I think the point is that bathhouses (and indeed, most, if not all, commercial institutions) should post any "rules of the joint" as well as notices of "special rules for special nights". Those could be as simple as "restrooms for customers only" (which you'll often see in tourist area restaurants, bars, and stores) or as complex as "Trans men are welcome in this space" in a bathhouse. And those notices can be temporary, as in "Tonight's bi-night" or whatever, signaling a temporary change in an otherwise general policy. To me, the latter is like going to a restaurant that's normally fairly quiet, and finding that tonight, there's live country (or other genre) music all evening when you don't like that kind of music. You decide whether it's worth putting up with the music you dislike, in order to eat the food you want; or you go somewhere else to find different food that's acceptable; or you go eat at home; or you skip dinner. But it's the restaurant's choice whether to periodically change up the vibe of the space, and your choice whether to participate in their establishment's offerings or not. In other words, @ErosWired, I'm not necessarily opposed to men-only spaces, particularly sexually-oriented ones that cater to men having sex with other men. I'm not opposed to such places limiting (if they choose) to cis men; I'm not opposed to them welcoming trans men. What seems overkill to me is the attitude some men here seem to have that a bathhouse is irrevocably tainted if there's a man born with a vagina somewhere on the premises - that the entire experience is ruined for him just knowing that such a person is in the facility.

I think you're misunderstanding what the terms "transgendered" and "transsexual" mean, at least as I understand them from extensive contact with the trans community. "Transgendered" means someone whose gender identity - how they identify themselves - does not correspond to the sex assigned to them at birth. There's nothing in "transgender" that says "I don't feel the need to have surgery" - the only relevant factor is the misalignment between gender identity and assigned sex. "Transsexual" at its core means the same thing, although it's often used more specifically to refer to someone who has undergone sex reassignment surgery. When you refer to people who "only occasionally and intermittently" live as the other gender, the "trans" term we formerly used (although it's becoming less favored) was "transvestite." Today, it's considered more polite to use the term "cross-dresser" when referring to someone who sometimes dresses (and behaves/lives) as the opposite sex, but not on a full-time basis. This is how your friend would be identified - a cross dressing man who still is only interested in women sexually. We consider all of these "trans" identities, but when we say "trans man," we specifically mean someone who was assigned female at birth but who identifies as a man - whether or not he has begun hormone therapy and whether or not he has undergone any surgery. Similarly, a "trans woman" is someone who was assigned male at birth but who identifies as a woman (not intermittently, not occasionally), again whether or not she has had surgery or is on hormone therapy.

My guess is that the "pass" was unofficial. In New Orleans, for instance, there's a similar ban on sex in "public" spaces, including the bars. (The main justification is that as soon as some guys start fucking, a bunch gather around to watch, focused on the sex, and it's prime season for pickpockets - especially since a lot of watchers will have their pants open to JO, and they don't feel the wallets being lifted because the victim's pants are loose. The other justification is that some of the most notorious "back room" spots - especially the former Rawhide - were rooms that had at least one wall of doors open to the sidewalk outside, so the sex wasn't especially private.) The reality was that typically, oral was permitted because it was less obvious and didn't attract quite as many lookers-on, and that the further from the outside walls you were, the greater the chances of getting away with actual fucking. And at places like the Eagle Bar upstairs at the Phoenix, there were no windows or doors that the public could see through, so the cops really didn't enforce things too strictly as long as the action was up there, not down in the main bar. But (historically speaking) the cops were very lenient about this during Mardi Gras, Southern Decadence, and the occasional other weekend. What they recognized (but didn't publicly acknowledge) is that the dollars brought into the local economy by the tourists in for those events (and others) are what keeps the city afloat, and strictly enforcing the law was counter productive to that end (plus, the huge volume of people meant you'd have to dedicate a big chunk of a limited police force to that task). So the police precinct captains, etc. would let it be known what the temporary line for enforcement would be for the duration of the special event. I'm guessing it's something similar for Pig Week.

That doesn't answer my question. You specifically said "Trump will pick a white male (as he should)" - emphasis yours. What's the REASON he "should" he pick a white male - specifically? You aren't saying he should pick the best person for the job, ignoring identity politics/DEI. You're saying that a white male - specifically - is whom he should choose, meaning that's more important than any other qualification. The only two possible reasons I can think of are that only a white male could be qualified, or that only a white male would be accepted by his supporters. You suggest that the latter is the case, when you said (again, quoting you) "Trump's base won't allow it" (by which you presumably mean his choosing a woman or non-white man as his running mate. I'm open to another reason why he (again, your words) "should" choose a white man, but the onus is kind of on you to give an alternate reason beyond the two I can think of. If there is one.

So, you're saying that even if a Black man (or Asian man, or woman of any stripe) were judged to be a good fit for Trump as his second-in-command, his base is too racist and misogynist to accept such a person? Or are you saying there's no way a non-white man or a woman could be the best qualified for the position? Thanks in advance for clarifying.

For what it's worth, I never feel like you're an idiot, total or otherwise. I think you bring an important viewpoint to the table, one that many of us otherwise would forget to recognize.

Trump's been ripping her for months now, and while he's pragmatic to a certain extent, he does generally not forgive people he perceives as disloyal. Additionally, he's not going to want anyone as VP who might overshadow him at any point, or who might gain attention from the masses that he believes rightfully should be his. Why else do you think he chose the utterly unforgettable Mike Pence the first go-round, other than to shore up his standing with evangelicals (which he doesn't need to do any more, now that they're fully on board with his racist demagoguery)? In any event, if Trump manages to pull out a win in 2024, 2028 GOP candidates are irrelevant. Anyone who thinks he's going to go peacefully after a second term isn't paying attention to what he's saying.

If you properly understood the Paradox of Tolerance, you'd realize that (broadly speaking) it's rejected in the absolutist form you state. Karl Popper, for example, who wrote one of the more significant works on the paradox, noted that if we have tolerance of everything, including intolerance, we will end up with toleration of nothing - absolute intolerance - because everyone would have to tolerate everyone else's intolerant attitudes about something. It's been said that the Constitution is not a suicide pact, and that if taking any provision to its logical extreme would end up negating the protections of the Constitution, then that provision can't be interpreted in that extreme matter. Free speech is limited, for instance, in that you can't legally incite a violent crime to a group of followers who are ready to commit violence. You can't claim freedom of religion as justification for human sacrifices. You can't claim freedom of the press (or speech) to excuse libel, particularly of a non-public figure. And so forth. There's nothing contradictory about not tolerating intolerance. Tolerance is owed to those who would not use the principle of tolerance to bring harm to others. Or, as Popper himself put it, "We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal."

That was my point.