BootmanLA

I think there's a question to be asked here. Are you talking about something to wear or do in an area that's mostly gay-friendly and/or gay-oriented, like Boystown in Chicago or the Castro or the Village? That would be simple - a t-shirt with an arrow pointing toward your back and a sign "Enter at the rear". Outside of such an area, which is what I suppose you mean? It doesn't exist, and I'm not sure it can or should. I'm not anti-sex by any means, and I'm all in favor of equal treatment of gay and straight sexual messaging. But you seem to want something invisible to the public at large, yet visible to "those in the know" as you say. Hanky codes, at their actual useful peak, only conveyed a modicum of useful information. The hanky position indicated top or bottom preference, and the basic colors (navy, light blue, red, gray, yellow) covered the basics and the major kinks. Contrary to some people's beliefs, those extravagant charts listing gold lame and peacock blue as signifying this or that were really more in-jokes than anything else. And bear in mind: the hanky codes weren't used to signal to other gays while among outsiders - nobody assumed a blue hanky in the left pocket of your jeans out on a city street at noon meant anything. They were meant to cut down on wasting time in gay-specific (or at least, gay-friendly) settings, so that two bottoms looking to get fucked didn't spent half an hour chatting each other up before finding out they both wanted the same thing. Or so that a guy looking to be tied up could scan for a left-pocket gray hanky and know he wouldn't get "ewww, gross" as a response for suggesting it. Even if such a symbolic item could be identified, there's a huge problem in teaching everyone what it meant. Back in the hanky code days, word could spread through the bar community (people talk to bartenders, and people used to - imagine - gather in public places and interact instead of going onto apps and websites to connect. Generally speaking only other gay people were ever there, so information about things like the hanky code could spread like the Underground Railroad, without letting the wider public in on the secret. You can't do that any more, because both the bars are significantly reduced in number and anyone and everyone can find something when it's posted online. Because of that, nothing stays "in the community" any more, and even if a bunch of gay people began to, say, wear a cockring on their right belt loop as a sign of being a cumdump bottom, what that means would quickly become widespread knowledge in the community at large - such that most people would avoid that sign because it was no longer discreet.

Here's the thing, though. We can say "Not all Republicans..." until we're blue in the face, but that doesn't change the fact that (a) a lot of Republicans are, in fact, whatever negative characteristic we're trying to absolve the rest from (pick one or more: racist, religiously bigoted, anti-immigrant, whatever), and (b) that batch of (racist, bigoted, anti-immigrant, whatever) Republicans are not only the base of the party, but its heart and soul. They write the party platform, which - to this day - still opposes same-sex marriage. Despite decades of proof that abstinence programs result in more unplanned pregnancies, more sexually transmitted infections, and more abortions (until the Dobbs decision), they are stalwartly in favor of eliminating any form of sex education that actually teaches kids things like contraception and disease prevention. We can say "Not all Republicans..." until we're blue in the face, but the party governance is in the grip of extremists, especially on the notion of Christian dominance. Even their would-be leaders whose family origins clearly mark them as "those people" feel compelled to Americanize their names to appeal to a bigoted primary electorate - hence we don't have former governors known as Nimarata Haley and Piyush Jindal, we have "Nikki" and "Bobby". We can say "Not all Republicans..." but the man who is essentially its leader - a twice-impeached, twice-indicted grifter - brooks no dissent and despite ample evidence of his criminality is the frontrunner for his party's nomination. No one else is even close in any poll. If "not all Republicans" meant anything, he wouldn't have 76% favorable ratings among Republicans. And that's despite virtually every single one of his former top people - cabinet secretaries, chiefs of staff, whomever - coming forward to confirm that yes, he's just as ignorant and ill-informed as everyone says. Sure, there are individual Republicans out there who don't want Trump in office again, who aren't anti-gay bigots, who aren't racist, who aren't anti-immigrants. The question I have is, "Why?" There was once a principled economic reason possible, that Republicans were better stewards of the economy, but since half our total debt was run up in just two Republican administrations, since the Republicans proved under both Shrub and Hair Furor that they had no principles other than spend the fuck out of the Treasury, that reasoning rings hollow. What, exactly, does the Republican party stand for today - not some faded tintype image from 1952, but today - that any self-respecting, non-racist gay person could support?

Are you suggesting that gay people are pushing for sex ed and refusing to hide being gay so that we can recruit children to a gay lifestyle or something? Surely that's not what I'm reading. If not, please clarify; if it is, well, you'd fit right in with the right-wing assholes who've been trying to harm our community since forever. I'm not sure how you reach people who think homosexuality is a sickness or a sin and "compromise" with them. It's like trying to compromise with people who think the earth is flat or the moon is made of green cheese. Sooner or later, reality has to intrude and responsible people have to ignore idiocy. That said, I don't know any gay people whose goal in life is to promote sexual freedom and drugs to minors. Yes, of course they exist. They're not part of any governing or want-to-be-governing organization I know of. On the other hand, there's a (small but vocal) portion of people on the far right that want to make it legal for adult men to marry young girls of almost any age - and unlike the handful of gay people who might be promoting sexual freedom for older youth, there's a measurable number of right-wing politicians, IN OFFICE, who support allowing adult men to marry girls - in some cases, as young as 12 or 13. But sure, tell me how it's the gays who are promoting sexualizing children.

I'm not saying pedophiles are all right-wingers. I'm saying that most of the ones publicly identified are affiliated with right-leaning groups - churches, the Boy Scouts, Republican elected officials, etc. They're also the ones most loudly insisting that all gay people are pedophiles-in-waiting, just looking to lure in other people's kids. It's projection.

Sure, if the GOP would stop banning what some of us are perfectly happy to let our children attend (like Drag Queen Story Hour). NOBODY on the left is demanding that all kids be rounded up and forced to listen to Verandah Gazebo read Snow White. But lots of people on the RIGHT are demanding that such events be banned - that public venues be closed to them - that people who allow children to attend such things be charged with child endangerment. It's pretty clear who's forcing whose values onto whom.

I assume what you mean is "I've found out I caught something every other visit to the clinic...". If you're catching something every other time you go to the clinic, something's going on at that clinic. Yes, I'm kidding.

Can't comment on the guy in question but it looks very much like he was photoshopped onto the sign in question. I'd doubt whether he's actually any sort of LEO at all - very possibly these "calendar" guys are all essentially cosplaying.

Age? It might be any age, because I don't think there's some magic age where kids suddenly are "old enough" to face a person in costume. If there is, we need to ban kids going to Chuck E Cheese, McDonald's, Burger King, any sort of Trick-or-Treating (groomers! groomers!), and more. Kids see a man in drag, and IF they're astute enough to realize it's a man, they understand it's a form of dress-up play, not something sexual in and of itself. And yes, drag can be sexualized, but then so can gym workouts. So can walking down the street. So can... almost any activity in which humans engage. If you want to limit kids' exposure to sexualized behavior, that's fine, but be prepared to (A) distinguish that from drag per se, and (B) apply it evenly across the board to a huge swath of human undertakings. Because if you don't, you're just basically saying you object to drag. And not liking drag is fine, just as not liking sushi or pesto is fine; just don't try to ban drag or sushi or pesto for other people. And how would you define "LGBT content"? Does that mean any story in which there is a gay character, or two characters of the same sex in a relationship? If so, do you also object to "heterosexual content"? In other words, are you saying Prince Charming and Cinderella are fine, but not Prince Charming and Cinderfella? There's a huge difference between acknowledging that same-sex couples exist - that's a societal reality - and going into detail what EITHER of those couples - gay or straight - do in bed.

The only people pushing to have "little boys" watch or engage in anything sexual are clergy (most of whom are very conservative) and right-wing pedophiles (ditto).

Of course, the data raises other questions. Presumably, the way they know which guys have become HIV+ is that they've been tested and confirmed to be poz. It's not inconceivable that, as hntnhole suggests, realizing that "the worst" that could happen already has might well release some guys' inhibitions about fucking a lot more regularly. After all, as someone who's been out and about since before the first HIV deaths were reported, I can confirm that indeed a lot of guys' response to HIV's entry into the STI universe was to restrict how much sex they had and who they had it with, in the hope that by reducing and narrowing contacts they might escape infection. That's not a bad strategy as long as a particular STI is not widespread, but it becomes a lot less useful if even one guy among these small circles or chains of guys having sex with each other gets infected. Once one has HIV, there certainly COULD be a realization that having more sex (with more partners) is now an option. In other words: the question is whether an increased sex life after infection is because of some internal biochemical change brought about by the infection itself, or is it a more or less conscious choice we make, even if we don't really think about it that much?

Without testing (including possible genetic testing), it's impossible to know for sure.

To all of the above, I will add this: you suggested in one reply that you "don't feel depressed", but depression is a lot more complex than simply "feeling depressed" (or at least, it certainly can be). I'm not a therapist or mental health professional, but I do know depression can have both a mental and a physical (ie body chemistry) component. So, for instance, when you have a situation that seems to have no resolution - like having a partner in whom you're not interested sexually, with whom you seem to have significant differences in interests - the result can be depression even if you don't "feel depressed". As another example, you mention that you can't travel due to work constraints, except for very rare occasions that may be hard to negotiate. That, too, could be having a depressive effect that you just haven't identified as such. It's worth having a complete screening done for that. You might find that there are a lot of factors you hadn't considered affecting your mental outlook, and those may be manifesting themselves sexually more than any other way.

That is by definition not a wave. A wave is a measurable increase in something, often (but not always) a significant or dramatic increase. The media choosing to highlight something does not make the incidents a "wave". It may be that there is a wave of STORIES about these incidents, but that's a completely different thing entirely.

Summing up this article: A drunk driver hit some pedestrians, possibly swerving trying to avoid a cyclist. ONE of five listed victims of the incident is a migrant from a nearby shelter - and not even necessarily the one who died (it appears most of the people who were injured survived). Pro tip: if a drunk driver hits a bunch of pedestrians near a shelter for migrants, it's not surprising one of the victims is a migrant. Unless you think he got drunk and drove to the shelter area specifically to target migrants, this has zero to do with the fact that one victim (again, of at least five) is a migrant, and it does not constitute a "wave". Even if several migrants have been injured or killed in traffic accidents in recent months, that does not constitute a "wave" of migrant victims any more than the fact that several of them were men (or women) makes a "wave" of men (or women) being hurt or killed.

It's also the 2020's version of phone sex, where people type out descriptions of how depraved they pretend to be in order to get hard and get off reading other people's pretend descriptions of how depraved THEY are.

A "wave"? What's your source for this? I can't find any reference to it, in either the mainstream respectable media or the crappy Murdoch type tabloids like the NY Post. There have been a few isolated incidents, but a "wave" suggests something either large or coordinated or both and I can't find any evidence for either.

The short answer is "probably not". The code for this forum is supplied by a third-party vendor, and is increasingly creaky. When & if the long-awaited custom-coded version of the site becomes available, it may be possible to make changes suggested by the members. That said, the point of the "think before following links" bit is because of past problems with people posting links to prohibited material.

And he's still posting actively while he waits to be canceled - and actually signed up to beta test features of the software. I'm starting to wonder if something in this site attracts people with multiple personalities.

Abbott and DeSantis grab up a bunch of newly arrived immigrants, lie to them about what their options are, herd them onto buses and planes, and forcibly take them to other states. That's such a far cry from what the Biden administration is doing (and remember, it's the FEDERAL government's job to make and enforce immigration policy, not some whackadoodle fuckwad governors who want to seal up the bigot anti-immigrant vote) that it's not even in the same universe. I do agree that some sort of amnesty program ought to be part of the solution, but you'll NEVER get the red state officials to sign on to that; all they understand is PUNISH, probably because they were beaten as children by toxic abusive parents and think punishment is the only way you can teach anyone anything. As for the minefield thing: there's a reason civilized countries ban their use. And as for the military: we use our military to enforce borders *sparingly*, between two adversarial parties. We aren't adversaries with Mexico or Canada, although if some moron president as stupid as Hair Furor was ever gets elected again, we might end up at war with either or both, probably for a policy like that.

I would add: the real problem, like with the drug problem, is the demand side, not the supply side. As long as people want drugs (for whatever reason), there will be entities and individuals seeking to meet that demand to make a profit. And as long as there are jobs that need to be filled in the US that US workers generally won't take (like almost anything outdoors in the southern US, for starters, and anything agricultural that can't be done from the relative comfort of a seat on a combine or harvester or whatever, then people will seek to come here to fill those jobs. We could essentially kill the "illegal" immigration problem by having a guest worker program that allowed in as many temporary workers as were needed for, say, the harvesting season in California or the construction season in Alabama (and repeat across the country). We had a de facto system like that for decades, and such workers, generally young men, came to this country for three or four or seven months, worked, sent home whatever they could, and then returned at the end of harvest or construction or whatever. We largely ignored the traffic both ways across the border because we intuitively understood we needed the labor here. The American wages were low by US standards, but high by their home standards; only the income-generating men were in this country, which meant most of their families stayed back where the cost of living was lower, and the families were reunited at the end of a work season. Once this country got the stupid idea that these people were the source of imported drugs - ignoring the truckloads coming through ports of entry all along the border - and we began cracking down on "illegal immigrants", these men started staying put after work seasons ended, because it was too dangerous to keep trying to go back and forth across the border; you might get in THIS time, but there might not BE a next time, so better to stay here. And that led people to want to bring their entire family here, rather than be separated. True, they get the benefit of living in the US - but it's a lot more expensive, which means that both parents need to work, sometimes multiple jobs, in order to pay the costs of living here. Before, a group of 4-5 guys could rent a small house, stay together for the working season, and because they were sharing living expenses, they could send home a big chunk of earnings which went a lot farther in Mexico or Honduras or El Salvador. Now, those same wages have to support a wife and kids at US prices, which doesn't work - so again, multiple jobs by both parents.

You'd be surprised. Quite a few rich people have zero earned income, because 100% of their money comes from investments and other "non-earned" sources. Sure, some of them also have a "job" for which they receive a "salary", but even then, as you note, it's capped for social security tax purposes. Medicare tax isn't capped, but then that's why the really rich get stock options and not so much cash when they do "work". Even worse, people with ginormous assets (think the Musk Rat) don't have to even pay capital gains tax to access use of their assets. If you or I had, say, $500,000 in stock, and we wanted to start taking out $50,000 a year as living funds, we'd actually have to sell $50K worth of stock, and pay taxes on whatever gains we have. The really, really rich can go to the bank and instead borrow, say, $2 million against their billion dollars in assets, assigning a tiny fraction of those assets essentially as collateral for the loan, which never actually gets paid back, and for which they get a very favorable interest rate. They can then spend that $2 million on food and hotels and whatever, none of it counting as income because it's money they borrowed from their own wealth (which they also accumulate without paying taxes on the gains because they never sell). When the really really rich person dies, there's this multi-million dollar debt that gets paid out of the estate before it's distributed to the heirs, so there's no tax on the gain on whatever had to be sold to pay the debt. Then the heirs inherit the remainder with a basis in the investments at whatever it was worth the day the really really rich guy died. And then lather, rinse, repeat.

As long as the nozzle is less than about 6" (which I'm assuming it is), it shouldn't matter; you'll be squirting water into your rectum, the final section of your digestive/excretory tract before it opens to the outside world at your anus (aka butthole). Some may/likely will backflow up into your colon, which will help clean out "farther up", and of course the more water you use before expelling it, the farther into the colon it will likely flow. You'll likely get the same results no matter how deeply you insert the bulb nozzle. Taking it out, refilling it, and inserting it again is going to allow the water to shift all around your rectum, no matter where you "sprayed" the water inside originally. That's NOT the case with, say, a shower shot hose that's hooked up to a continuous flow of water - pushed far enough in, it may spray directly at the opening into your colon enough to fill it directly, the force of the water opening it up. But that's another topic.

This has been answered before, but to recap: 1. There is no sure-fire way of becoming HIV+, although the odds can be increased or decreased in various ways. Getting fucked by someone with a very high viral load is more likely to infect than by someone with a really low viral load, for example, but the lower viral load might convert someone while the higher viral load might not. 2. The viral load of the person who infects someone else does not, generally speaking, change how fast the infected person (if untreated) progresses to AIDS. 3. The only somewhat relevant thing here is that IF the infecting person has a strain of HIV that is largely med-resistant (and those are, for the most part, rare in the west), then it's possible that someone infected by him may progress faster simply because there's not an effective treatment. But that's a different thing than a "high viral load".

I will further note: there are multiple threads in this particular forum about the drawbacks of the chat system here - which, as has been noted, is a third-party piece of software that only barely integrates into this site. My impression is that it's not a priority of the software maker to update it or improve it, if it's even being supported any longer. That said: RawTop has for some time been working on a new version of this site, which is expected to be fresh from the ground up and which is planned to include a much-improved chat function. But it's a work in progress and not "due" out any time soon.

Strictly speaking, if we were to go by the most common form as the "regular" one, both "slid" and "hid" would be chunked in favor of "slided" and "hided", and "rode" chunked in favor of "rided". Because of the verbs that end in -ide, only those three have irregular forms. These are the verbs ending in -ide in their present tense form (and the corresponding past tense version): abide - abided chide - chided elide - elided hide -hid ride - rode slide - slid