BootmanLA

It's not that California law supersedes Federal law - it can't. Rather, it's that state laws can provide MORE protection than federal law does - as, for instance, in some states it's illegal to discriminate in housing based on sexual orientation, even though federal law offers no such protection. That's not the same thing as superseding. In this case, federal law says: Your data is protected under federal law, but there are certain situations in which it's not a violation of federal law for a provider to disclose that information, typically in response to a court order. What California has done is said that regardless of whether federal law doesn't prohibit that disclosure in those circumstances, state law nonetheless DOES prohibit it, and that state law also includes a specific right to sue for a violation. But that's still not "superseding" anything. It's providing a layer of protection where the federal law does not.

You may want to check the settings for Malwarebytes to see if you can whitelist BZ. I suspect one of two things is happening: either Malwarebytes is reacting to the test for where your IP is located (unlikely - I suspect that's happening completely on the server end) and considers that suspicious behavior; or someone reported the site to them, and it's gone on a list based on user reports. There are other possibilities, of course, but I think these are the more likely answers because they're simplest.

Yes, oral sex presents a "low risk" for HIV. "Low risk" does not mean "no risk" - there are cases of HIV being transmitted that way - but the risk is low (and lower today, than historically speaking) for multiple reasons. 1. The cells in your mouth and throat are less receptive to infection than the lining of your rectum. 2. HIV has a low survival rate in a hostile environment, and your stomach, with its acidic content, certainly qualifies as hostile. 3. Infection rates are down sharply since the introduction of effective treatment for HIV infection and even more sharply since the widespread adoption of PrEP. That means any particular person is much, much less likely to have an HIV infection which is at the stage of being able to infect another person; people who are on meds and taking them faithfully typically have undetectable levels of HIV in their system, meaning it's not generally sufficient to infect another person. And people who are on PrEP and using it correctly are highly unlikely to have been infected recently and not know it. That makes the overall pool of potential sex partners much safer, on average. Again, "low risk" is not "no risk". And if you can receive PrEP at low to no cost, it's probably worth it, not only for your own piece of mind, but because it allows you to consider other forms of sexual contact, if those end up interesting you at some point, with less concern. The other STIs you mention are bacterially caused, not virus caused, so antibiotics can be used both to treat them and to prevent infection. When used prophylactically - that is, to prevent rather than to cure - it's typically taken shortly AFTER the potential exposure, rather than before. Because the primary medication being tested for this use is doxycycline, this is called "DoxyPEP" - with PEP referring to "Post-Exposure Prophylaxis". Why not pre-exposure? In a nutshell, pre-exposure medications work by maintaining a baseline level of medication in your system, so that whenever you are exposed to the infectious agent, your system is already primed to fight it off. But taking antibiotics steadily helps develop antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, and that's bad - so you take the medications AFTER your (potential) exposure, before you show symptoms, to keep the infection from taking hold. Note that this isn't really practical if you're sucking dick every day. It's designed as more like urgent care/emergency treatment, not something you go get three times a week. As a relatively new member here, you can't. (New, in this case, means "by number of posts made", not "how long since I joined.") After you've made a certain number of posts, you'll see a large "heart" icon in the lower right corner of each post. Hovering over that lets you choose the reaction you want - the default "heart" means "Like", but you can choose other options as well. Note that at first your ability to react to posts, once you get it, will be severely limited; over time, as you make more posts, the limit on number of likes you can make each day grows. This is to encourage participation by posting and commenting. There are discussions about this in the Tips and Tricks forum, at the top of the home page for this site.

You are correct about the medical part of your question - some HPV infections can appear completely asymptomatic and yet later cause significant concerns - not just anal and "other genital area" cancers, but oral ones, too, if the infection were to be contracted via oral sex. As for cost: Assuming you're correct, all I can recommend is that you start saving now, forgoing something minor, if necessary, to put a few bucks aside every week, with a commitment not to touch that money for anything else except an absolute emergency. I don't know your financial situation (nor do I need to), but if you managed to put away, say, $5 a week for 20 weeks - less than four months - you'd have the money needed. "One day" could be a lot closer if you just keep taking steps in that direction.

Not only does the medical data pertain only to AIDS diagnoses, we simply don't know how many people's deaths were recorded as something other than AIDS-related, as long as there wasn't too close scrutiny. Moreover, just because someone infected in, say, 1988 was still alive in 2000 doesn't mean he was still alive in 2010 or 2023. Even though the concept of 3-drug cocktails had been discovered (or invented) a few years earlier, those medications weren't in reach of everyone. That doesn't mean the data we DO have from the era is completely useless. But as a means of determining the percentage of men who were HIV-infected in the 1980's who are still alive, it's not too far from that. We don't have a base number - that of infections - to even look at. Nor do we know, for instance, if a guy who was 35 in 1980 when infected and who would now be 78 if still alive, but who died nine years ago of X or Y, might still be alive if not for having HIV. HIV, in such a case, wouldn't be considered the cause of death, but it may still be a factor. What we can do, as the Chronicle story did, is look at the big numbers - how many local cases had been diagnosed over the years, and how many of those people could they find still alive. Some, undoubtedly, moved away. But the surviving number locally was depressingly small, which tracks the anecdotal evidence of people who lived through the era and recall the relentless death reports.

As I understand the SF Chron story, they were looking specifically at Bay-Area residents only. It's true that SF attracted lots of guys for fuck-cations (and even just regular vacations where a hookup or two occurred) - but those aren't the people the newspaper report covered. They were interviewing residents, and doing research into public health records (which would almost all be for residents, not visitors - because visitors would have likely returned home long before their diagnosis, especially in the days when there was no test and you could only get a diagnosis when an infection hit). And yes, of course SF was at a unique place on the curve, given its demographics. But that also means it has a big population to study (meaning you can get more reliable data) contrasted with, say, early 80's statistics from small midwestern cities. SF also had one of the earliest quality treatment centers (and by treatment I mean in the overall sense, not HIV-med-specific, which didn't exist yet). In other words, assuming one was infected, *where* it happened (for the purposes of this story) didn't matter. People who came to SF, had sex, got pozzed in the process, and returned home, would be counted in that home area's caseload and records when they were diagnosed.

With respect to the earring/hanky/armband left/right thing: I think there's a difference between a garment-type accessory, like a pocket hanky or an armband - which you've chosen to wear that night for whatever reason - and having a piercing in one ear, because (aside from not wearing any earring at all on a given night) there's no way to let that express your evening choices. Although I know a lot of guys are purely bottom or nearly so, and have known a handful of purely top men, most guys I know who used the hanky/armband code chose the side based on mood. Which you can't do with an earring, unless you pierce both sides and routinely go without one or the other. I'll also note that these things were *almost* exclusive to the leather/kink community - you didn't see guys wearing hankies in their back pockets going to the dance clubs on Saturday nights, for the most part. And as one of the early posters noted, there were only a handful of colors that were considered rather universally understood: Yellow for water sports (obvious), Navy for fucking, Light Blue for oral (a lighter shade for a "lighter" action than fucking), Black for S&M, Gray for B&D, Red for fisting (perhaps as a "danger" kind of symbol, since fisting used to be considered the "most" outrageous kind of gay sex). Brown "existed" but I can't say I ever encountered it in real life - it's the sort of thing that even other hanky code users would have found problematic. I vaguely remember the first time I saw a code list that included greens - two shades, "Hunter" (or Forest) for Daddy/son stuff, "Kelly" green for escorts and johns, and then at some point someone added Olive, which made sense for military. But then the whole thing exploded into nonsense.

There's a lot to unpack here. You're married, but "no woman will have you"? Seems like one woman will. Are you looking for other women while still married to your wife? If so, that might be more of a problem, actually, than being poz, because an awful lot of women aren't interested in a married man. Your profile says you're a bottom, but you say here that you took one load and now you're poz, and you don't even think you're gay. If you're not gay, you're not a bottom. One bottoming experience does not a bottom make. And all this came about because you "started to view gay porn" - which I guess just fell into your laptop unbidden and unwanted, right? - so you started trying to meet guys because gay men are generally more open about sex, not because that "gay porn" turned you on, but because you "wanted to see what it would be like" with a man. And this is your first post on this site, and yet you've already identified enough with the leather and rubber communities enough to choose a handle reflecting both those AND your "recent" pozzing status - communities that actual gay men often have lots more hangups about exploring (but not the straight married man). Color me unconvinced, at best, but on the assumption that this is all 100% true: 1. Figure out your marriage first. That's a shit-ton more important than anything else. 2. Accept that, if you're straight, yes, some women won't want to have sex with you, even if you're on meds and undetectable. There are gay men who won't have sex with undetectable poz men. Nobody owes us sex - we accept a smaller pool of options, and we move on. 3. If you continue to pursue men for sex, consider that, at best, you may be bisexual and not purely straight. I've literally never known any completely straight man so curious about what gay men do, having sex, that they would bottom for fucking just to find out, and in any event, you said yourself you enjoyed the attention and the vibe and the porn. That's a sign of at least bisexuality (or pansexuality, for the more modern among us), not heterosexuality. 4. Figure out what you want - a man (or men), because men are more comfortable with casual sex? A woman, so you can settle down into a reasonable approximation of a standard heterosexual pairing? A wife that lets you explore your interest in men? Once you decide what you WANT, you can see whether it's reasonable to find it out there. But whatever it is, in a city the size of Toronto, you should be able to find it.

There's a lot you don't cover here, so I can only answer with some generalities. 1. You cannot rely on someone's word that he is negative. It could be that he is; it could be that he isn't, but is lying; it could be that he isn't, but doesn't know that yet. And THERE IS NO WAY TO DISTINGUISH those scenarios. 2. You don't mention your age or your location. But I'm assuming you are over the age of majority wherever you live, and I'm assuming you live in a reasonably developed country even if it is experiencing a period shortage. If I'm correct, then: (A) get yourself tested, not just for HIV, but for any STI's, as soon as possible. Knowing the answer, which is likely "negative on all acounts", will be calming. But even if it turns out you picked up HIV *or* some other STI, they're generally all treatable and some (like gonorrhea or syphilis) can actually be cured. (B) get information from your testing provider about resources for PrEP in your country/region. If that's not an option - let's say you are still in your late teens or early 20's living at home - then at least do some ground work and find out if there are any emergency clinics that offer PEP. PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) is a pill taken either daily (as an ongoing preventative) or not long before, and for a few days after, actual sex. PEP, by contrast, is "POST-Exposure Prophylaxis" - it's a pill taken after unprotected sex (often in cases of rape, but also when you have second thoughts about sex you just had. You can't RELY on PEP all the time, but knowing it exists and that, should you end up in this situation again, you can get treated and hopefully stave off infection, should be of some comfort. And if you live in a region where these things are not readily accessible, I'm sorry. There may be clinics that can discreetly explain options to you, but you may be at the mercy of whatever kind of health care system you have there. (Given the state of US health care, I wouldn't consider that so much a "knock" against it as it is the unfortunate reality.)

It's not a logical fallacy. Some types of warts may well "go away on their own". At best, you can say "HPV, if mild, often goes away on its own after a few years", but even that statement ignores some critical information about types of HPV, and (relevant for this site) HIV+ people may have considerably less success with HPV "going away" on its own. The problem is categorical statements about X or Y or Z on a medical topic - there are almost always other factors/issues that may affect the accuracy of any such statement, which is why "Generally" is one of my most commonly used words in this forum.

Historically speaking, until about 20 years ago, when the first same-sex marriages were recognized in Massachusetts, most gay relationships had few legal constraints, and in my experience, they tended to end one of two ways. Either the guys mutually broke up, with some degree of "oh well" balanced with some amount of "How dare that SOB...". Or they flamed out in some dramatic fashion, either because one was caught cheating, or one found a new partner and made a splashy exit. Those were the days when same-sex couples were warned, ad nauseum, to put joint leases in writing, to document when one partner loaned the other money, to make sure any property purchases were carefully structured to protect both partners - all in the recognition that when such a relationship ended, recourse to the courts for a property settlement wasn't generally an option. Of course, that's changed with the advent of same-sex marriage, although significant numbers of my gay friends rejected that option even when it became available. And even those who do don't always plan on what might happen. I can grasp that financial entanglements may require that you can't completely separate. But seriously: if the only thing keeping you as "a couple" is the fact you own a house together and it's upside down on the mortgage, or whatever, break up, keep going as roommates, and treat each other with respect. As one of my attorney friends once told me, he divorced his wife when he came out, and that was finalized pretty quickly, but the property settlement dragged on for years (in his defense, he was continuing to support her comfortably; he just had to liquidate real estate assets, over the ensuing years, to create a trust to provide for her indefinitely). If the marriage is over, don't let property issues hold up the divorce. Especially with gay couples, who seldom have children together that might get caught up in the crossfire.

I'm not so sure. When accompanied by a qualifying adjective - massage therapist, marriage therapist, physical therapist - most of the time, that's going to be the case. In such a case, First Amendment concerns are balanced with concerns about deceiving the public as to the qualifications of the person. But there are times when one might use "therapist" with an adjective to describe an activity that not only isn't regulated, but for which no body of standards of work even exist or are in development. If I go around helping people clear up insect infestations in their yards, for instance, and suggest relocating certain plants to take advantage of shade or sun conditions in another location, I might well consider myself - and label myself - a "garden therapist". In fact, I might be legally forbidden from using a term like "horticulturalist" without being licensed. Or if I specialize in restoring hardwood floors, I might call myself the Floor Therapist. And when no adjective is used at all - thus negating any potential problem with public confusion about licensure/qualifications - "therapist" becomes a generic term, and there's a big First Amendment problem with restricting its use. Even terms like "doctor" can't be restricted that way - the Floor Doctor, the Plant Doctor.

and I agree that most of the time, the cheated-on person probably either has a suspicion or concertedly does not want to find out. But I've also known cheaters who were really good at covering their tracks. I will say - as I've gotten older I've found a diminishing number of my friends in purportedly monogamous relationships, sometimes because they've found them hard to maintain, other times because a shrinking pool of men want such relationships in the first place. But be that as it may, I'm talking about the ones who do. In such cases: I think it depends on what the home situation is. if A and B agree to a monogamous relationship, and B later wants to open it up, his rationale makes a difference. If it's just because B wants a variety of sex partners, he owes it to his partner to break up if A is unwilling to consider openness - they're almost certainly going to break up if B gets caught, and as you noted, they tend to get caught. A signed up for a particular kind of relationship, and B can't unilaterally change that without A's consent. If the rationale is that A's sex drive is dramatically diminished, on the other hand, then I think the obligation should be on A to voluntarily look the other way if B gets basic needs met elsewhere, given that he's no longer interested in (or capable of) meeting those needs. B signed up for a particular kind of relationship, and while A may or may not be capable of providing that any longer, it's his changed circumstance that should result in some sort of accommodation. (It goes without saying that B should be discreet, careful, and not let outside dalliances interfere with the basic relationship he has with A.) The same is true if A is unwilling to engage in any reasonable kinks that B may have. And if A simply takes sex off the table - not interested any longer, but unwilling to go for openness - and B values the relationship with A very much, occasional stress-relieving dalliances outside the relationship may be the least bad option, allowing him to continue to be a good partner to A in all other ways. "Least bad" doesn't mean "ideal" and doesn't mean "first go to option"; it just recognizes that A and B are better off together, and B minimizes any hurt A might feel while taking care of his own needs in a respectful manner. NONE of that aligns with "cheating is hot". If B is the one thinking it's hot, then the level of disrespect being shown to A - the one who he allegedly loves so much he doesn't want to break up with - isn't any sort of accommodation for a mismatched partnership. And if C, the cheated-with third party, gets off on being the other man, relishing (as I said) the pain he's helping inflict when the cheating is discovered, well, I hope karma gets his ass.

In some states, the term "massage therapist" is legally restricted to use by people who are certified. There are any number of professions (and they vary from state to state) where the official name of the licensed practitioner of said profession can legally only be used by license holders - architect, for instance, or interior designer. There are some, like "nurse", which can be used generically as a verb (She nursed her baby, they nursed him back to health) but not generically as a noun. As for the massage providers one finds on hookup apps, I assume in most cases they provide some actual massage but are certainly willing to provide happy endings as well. That's usually supported by descriptions of the massages offered ("you'll feel the probing deep within" or "feel your tension release to the manipulations of someone who knows how to draw it out of you".

Also bear in mind that many porn performers escort, and many escorts do porn performing - which one they consider themselves "primarily" (if they do) will vary. A performer might have made $5,000 for a scene in a popular video, but that in turn might have driven $25,000 in escort bookings at $500 a pop. And yes, sometimes sugar daddies kicked in toys like cars and condos and such.

Google "Sharps container" - you can buy the same kind of sharps disposal units that doctors' offices and hospitals use. Once the syringes and needles are in there, you can check with your local health department for where you can dispose of the sharps container - they're much more likely to be helpful if they know you've already packaged them for disposal.

We don't know those statistics with any significant accuracy because we don't know, for certain, when the first infection started in the gay community and we had no tests for infection for the first five years that we DID know people were infected. Bear in mind we only started hearing the first whispers about some new disease taking out gay men when the first known deaths started popping up in 1981 - suggesting infections started well before that. We had rough statistical models that showed how fast the disease would progress without intervention; and certainly the leadership on that intervention was sorely lacking; but there WAS intervention (in the form of condom advocacy) and starting in about 1984, annual new infections fell sharply. That all said, I think two numbers kind of drive home the point that no, there aren't 60 or 70% of 1980's infected men still alive. In 2016, the SF Chronicle did a piece on long-term survivors - health records found 6,000 men in the city who had been living with HIV for at least 20 years (or infected in or before 1996). But in the same city, over 20,000 gay men had died of HIV, some dating back to the early 80's and some more recently infected. So statisticians can't tell for sure how many gay men in SF were infected by, say, 1985 - but given the number of deaths over the years and the relatively small number of long-term survivors (from a period larger than just the 1980's), it's pretty clear that survival rates from the 80's are nowhere near 60%. Those survivors are the exception, not the rule.

I recognize that people are turned on by all sorts of things, including cannibalism, necrophilia, and more. That doesn't mean we have to express approval of their turn-ons simply because they exist. When someone's turn-on hurts other people, then yeah, Ima get judgmental. And here's the thing: cuckolding isn't cheating, because the partner being "cucked" is into it. And if he's into his partner "cheating" on him - is it even cheating? Actual cheating, in my view, is violating the rules you agreed to. No violation, no foul, no cheating. It's the people who brag about how hot it is to fuck someone else's boyfriend and send the cheater home to his partner - knowing the partner would have a negative reaction if he knew - that's offensive to me. It's someone not only putting his own pleasure ahead of someone else's pain, but reveling in that pain as part of his pleasure. That's just being a shit person.

Massage presents its own set of problems because (a) massage, itself, is not only legal but widespread, broadly advertised, and (to some extent) a regulated industry; but (b) "massage" is not infrequently used as cover for prostitution, (c) technically, a masseuse offering to "relieve your stress" if you get an erection during the massage isn't breaking the prostitution law, and (d) there's certainly nothing provably wrong about asking, after such an experience, how much extra of a tip the masseuse thinks it's worth for the "quality of his massage" - the key, as always, is to avoid saying anything that makes a quid-pro-quo provable in court. A masseuse who says "I've had guys give me an extra $50 for that, because they were so relaxed afterward" is probably going to stay in the clear too - not that some vice cop might not try to arrest him, but a conviction almost certainly wouldn't stand. (If an arrest would be the end of the world, erotic massage may not be not something you can safely pursue unless you meet the masseuse through a trusted source. All that aside: there are ethical issue with "legitimate" masseuses, particularly licensed massage therapists (LMT's), providing those services, and for them, getting caught offering it could quickly end with license revocation. Someone who, by contrast, advertises as a "body worker" or offers "stress relief through full-body massage" probably isn't licensed and thus won't be running that risk - but that doesn't mean they're not undercover cops looking to sting customers (it's rare, but it does rarely happen; it's much more common to send young hot(tish) undercover cops for a massage trying to get the masseuse to agree to sex in exchange for compensation.

I can't speak for the site or for RawTop (ie on the policy) but I can speak a bit towards the legal issues. While the exact definition of prostitution varies from state to state, ie what the basic elements of the crime are, that must be proven for a conviction, as a general rule it's agreeing to accept something of value in exchange for a sexual act. "Something of value" could be cash, jewelry, drugs, or whatever; "sexual act" could be anything from a handjob to full-on intercourse. The tricky part is "in exchange for" - ie, would the parties have agreed to engage in the sex act but for the something of value? So any request for assistance, support, etc. that comes AFTER the act becomes pretty problematic in terms of proving prostitution - it's not like the purported sex worker can "take back" the sex if the other person doesn't tip. That doesn't mean waiting to pay until you're done with sex puts you in the clear - the key is whether the agreement for the payment happened before the sex act happened. Stating that you're seeking "generous" guys, but accepting a monetary thank-you after the fact, is probably walking right up to the line but not crossing it. (See negotiations, below, for more on this.) For things of value that exchange before the act - the more attenuated the circumstances the better, legally speaking. So, for instance, taking someone to a nice dinner, and then going back for fucking afterward, might technically be prostitution if the agreement was explicit - feed me and I'll fuck you - but that so rarely happens. The non-sex-worker, in such a case, has a pretty good case that he was simply taking out someone he fancied, and was hoping that the fancying went both directions. Transportation is almost certainly in the clear: the implication is that you were going to have sex, regardless, and paying for his transport to get to you was simply a logistical issue, not a commercial transaction. If there's any negotiation - discussing what $25 vs $150 might get you - it's pretty much a slam dunk case.

Within the French Quarter it's basically impossible these days to get to a hotel room without proof you're the room resident (like a key card). It's a safety issue; allowing non-guests to roam the property invites crime. And the last thing any hospitality business in New Orleans wants right now is on-site crime.

And I'm sure you know this, but that belief is false on its face - Catholics venerate (that is, hold in esteem) Mary, as well as the angels and saints, but do not worship her or them. But like the idea of mixed race vs. "one drop" people, that's too complex an idea for their little pea brains to comprehend.

It's hard to know what the OP thought, 3 and a half years later. But as the first person to address his question: given that it was in the Health forum, I treated it as a Health question. I think the discussion went on from there.

I'm not so sure that's true, at least for what MAGA considers "Caucasian". Since a large proportion of Central and South American "Hispanics" actually have both Spanish and Indigenous roots, they're probably not "Caucasian" in any traditional sense. (And that's one of their objections, obviously.)

Granted (along with your description of the obscenity test), but at least it is a (somewhat poorly) defined term with a specific legal meaning. Deciding whether or not a particular work is obscene or not may be fact-specific and might get different results if tried in different places (strike "might" and insert "certainly would"). But, as I say, at least it's a peg to hang onto, and the Court has been specific in the past that "obscene" refers to sex and only to sex - not violence or anything else that might be harmful to minors. But the bigger point is, it's already illegal to provide obscene material - to anyone. For that matter, it's illegal to receive obscene material; it's not illegal to merely possess it, though that raises the question of how you received it in the first place. Anything else, a restriction that imposes any significant barrier to access by adults is going to have First Amendment problems. "But the kids can see it" is not carte blanche to ignore those problems, and the courts have long ruled that one significant barrier that is unacceptable is a government requiring people to identify themselves in order to access the material. And there's no way to enforce age restrictions on access to online material without requiring people to identify themselves for the purpose of age verification. That said, of course the Court could overturn its previous holdings on the issue, but given that it has (generally) expanded rather than contracted First Amendment protections across the board, even under the current conservative makeup, I'd say that's unlikely. Eventually - and it will take a while, probably - someone in one of these states is going to file the right lawsuit and the Court will take it up and strike down such laws. But until then... we're stuck.