BootmanLA

An observation: As the rules change - and I'm in favor of rules changing as circumstances dictate, they're not holy scripture handed down from on high - topics and posts that once may have been acceptable might no longer be. In reality, the topic "Best Age for Starting Sucking Cocks" probably should be nuked, period. As the moderator in question explained, it's one thing to say "I started at X age"; it's another thing to say "Boys should start at X age" when X is most definitely illegal in most jurisdictions. And the topic of the folder, as titled, really suggests the latter rather than the former. I suspect the ONLY reason it wasn't deleted was that there are, in fact, a lot of posts of the first type (probably mostly bullshit, but I digress), and those are expressly permitted. The topic probably should have been renamed "What age did you first suck a cock?" but then there are probably half a dozen such topics already in existence because TOO MANY PEOPLE CREATE A NEW TOPIC EVERY TIME THEIR BRAIN FARTS INSTEAD OF LOOKING TO SEE IF ONE EXISTS ALREADY. But back to the rules changing: when they change, it would be a major undertaking to go through the forums looking for everything that violates the rules (and every acceptable post that nonetheless depends on a post that violates the rules). It's just not practical for a small volunteer staff to do. So all that they CAN do, really, is enforce the rules going forward as evenly as possible (NOT taking into account that posts that violate the new rules still exist).

Sadly, the same is generally true in the U.S., though in the last presidential race, turnout was extraordinary (compared with past elections, that is, not compared with an absolute standard). By percentage of registered voters, it was the highest turnout since 1900. That, at least, is one thing we can credit to Donald Trump: he turned his supporters out, but he also turned out the opposition even more.

Personally, I disagree on the idea that both parties "absolutely" suck; it's true that I'm not 100% in agreement with either party, but my quibbles with the Democrats are marginal at best. In fact, I think it's kind of hard to square saying both parties "absolutely" suck with saying one party sucks "hugely less". If that's the case, then the suckage in the first case isn't absolute, not by a long shot. More importantly: we do not have a 50/50 split in society. We have, at best, a 55/45 split broadly speaking, with the split increasing in width on particular issues, all in favor of the Democrats and their agenda in general. The problem is that the way our political structure works, a minority can, and often does, control. Consider: The last time a Republican candidate for president actually got the majority of the votes was in 2004, and that was when we were at war and not yet broadly aware of the false pretenses under which we went to war nor were we aware of all the atrocities we were committing there. Had we been, I don't think Bush II would have won a majority (and he might not have won re-election-even then, Bush only got 286 EVs, so still fairly close). The election before that where the GOP candidate got the majority of the vote was in 1988. The Senate's non-representational qualities are so well-known that it hardly bears repeating, but one statistic: The 50 Democrats in the Senate represent 41.5 MILLION more people than the 50 Republicans do. Since senators are elected statewide, they more accurately reflect the political will of an entire state than the makeup of the often gerrymandered House delegations. If senators were proportional to the population like House members, but still elected statewide, the Senate would never have been in Republican hands this century. The House was majority-Democrat from 1952 (!) to 1994 (42 years) for a reason - before extensive gerrymandering with the aid of computers, the House more adequately reflected the mood of the people, which was decidedly non-Republican. The House only flipped GOP under Gingrich because of a long campaign of disinformation and misinformation and outright lies (techniques the GOP hasn't abandoned since), And even with the huge shift toward the GOP in 1994, they still ended up with a 230-204 split, a spread that rapidly declined in subsequent elections; after a small rally under the sexual predator Dennis Hastert, the shift in the House went back toward the Democrats and culminated in taking the House in 2006. Only extreme gerrymandering after the 2010 census coupled with ugly racist rhetoric flipped the House back to the Republicans. In fact, in 2012, Democratic candidates for the House collectively got 1.4 million more votes than Republican candidates, but the GOP still kept control with 234 seats. The same happened in 2000; Dem candidates got more votes than R ones, but the Republicans kept control of the House. NEVER has the GOP won the popular vote while losing the House. More importantly: the points at which the GOP took control (always at midterms) were in very low turnout elections (lower than typical even for a midterm). The points at which the Dems took control (in 2006 and 2018) both were high-turnout elections and the margin of the Democrats over the Republicans was huge. On the issues: Two-thirds of Americans support same-sex marriage. 71% say abortion should be legal in at least some cases and a majority say those cases go beyond "life of the mother, rape and incest". Two-thirds of Americans think taxes need to be raised on the rich. A majority supports cutting defense spending. More than half of Americans support forgiving student debt (at least at the level Biden has moved to do), while even larger majorities support making higher education less expensive so that student debt isn't such a problem. We are not a 50-50 country and we are NOT, as certain asshole politicians and right-wing media figures like to lie, a "center-right" country that has been co-opted by the liberals. We are a center-left country under occupation by the GOP, and increasingly, that GOP is becoming more and more authoritarian, more fascist, and more desperate to cling to power by any means necessary.

To these comments I will add: you say you don't want to become poz NOW - maybe in the future, but not now. Get on PrEP, if your test is negative. HIV infections are declining in general, and have been since PrEP became widely available, but it's still a crap shoot if you're having unprotected sex. If, and when, you someday decide you're ready to become poz, you've seriously considered all the crap that comes with it, and you're sure of your feelings, you can go off PrEP at that point and take your chances.

Shouldn't this be posted in, say, "Fantasy things that never happened that I find erotic" or something like that? Or just write a fiction story about it and have an excuse for making it up.

I would like to see Cheney defeat Trump for the nomination, even though I don't want her to win the general election (she's still very much a right-winger, just one that doesn't countenance coups). Remember that she voted for all the bad things Trump wanted to do, and while she's FINALLY come around on same-sex marriage (after opposing it even while her lesbian sister was getting married), she's still very much a solidly Republican official - just not one enamored with the Mango Mussolini. But honestly, I don't see Cheney being able to defeat Trump in the primaries. While his iron grip on the party's faithful has slipped somewhat since he left office, the pro-Trump crowd in the GOP outnumbers the anti-Trump crowd. Things could change, especially if he's indicted and convicted by then, but even then I'm not sure I'd rule out him getting the nomination. I made the mistake of underestimating his appeal in 2016, thinking (like many) that there was no way he could win. Never again.

There is no "training" for this. As others have clearly stated, the colon is completely different from your rectum in terms of tissues, etc, and the problem you're encountering is almost certainly caused by the bend where the two connect. In some people, that opening is narrower than others; in some people, the angle is more acute than others. The muscles that line the colon aren't ones subject to conscious control, like your anal sphincter is; they have one function, and that is to move waste down the colon into the rectum as it's (usually) dried out through absorption of excess water. And because of the nature of those muscles, there's basically no way to "train" the junction to more readily allow something to traverse the opposite direction. Some people's systems can handle that, other people's systems cannot. A long enough dildo with a very soft end - say, one that's 12" long but where the 6" at the tip is very, VERY soft, almost floppy - might be able to slip through slowly and gradually without causing bleeding. But that's not going to "train" anything; it's just going to slip through without damage. When it's pulled out, your system is going to shift right back the way it was. Which means - even if you can get something up that far, you won't be able to pound it back and forth like a good fucking and not cause bleeding. For what it's worth, I'm guessing your system just isn't built for that kind of use.

Generally I agree, except that the more of them you push together, it becomes easier to see bigger trends even if the details aren't quite right. What it looks like, for now, is that Trump's death-grip on the GOP is hurting more than it's helping - that may not continue to be the case, but, as noted, in all five special House races this year, the Dems are outperforming how Biden did in that same district just two years ago, suggesting a broader movement against Trumpism. I don't think we'll see massive change either direction either. But with things as closely balanced as they are right now in Congress, even a little shift one way or the other could spell either massive success or dismal failure. For instance, if we pick up two Senate seats, that instantly sidelines Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema from their obstructionist agendas (as long as the rest of the Dems hold together). Things like a stronger reaction to climate change or closing the carried interest loophole suddenly become possible again (at least on the Senate side). And even things that haven't been pushed in the Senate yet might be seen as feasible. On the other side: we'd need to hold the House to get those things through, and that's a tougher order. I'm becoming more hopeful, though, that we can do that, and the Alaska flip is sweet, sweet news on that front (assuming Palin doesn't drop out of the race for the regular election this fall). If we lose the House, that's the end of any legislative achievements for the Biden administration, as the Republicans are as mad at him as they were at Obama for daring to win an election they think they own. At that point it becomes Executive Order City and, if we hold the Senate, judgeship confirmations galore.

The problem is, the hypothesis being tested is that a given person's sex drive increases after HIV infection. About the only way to test that would be to get a bunch of people who are negative and NOT on PrEP, and have some of them engage in unprotected sex with HIV+, detectable people, such that there are people who you can monitor as their infection progresses. And that would be a horribly unethical format for a study. In theory, I suppose, one could test a bunch of high-risk people, and keep testing them, having all of them log their sex drive as objectively as possible (as if that weren't already a big can of worms), and compare in a couple of years the ones who ended up poz versus the ones who did not. But even that seems pretty damned dodgy.

You quote me saying "you may find SUCH CONSENT RULES patronizing" (emphasis mine) and then go on to reword my statement as "consent in general" to make it easier to attack. If you're going to debate what someone has written, you have to actually engage with his words - or do they not teach that in universities any longer? Is it fair game to just change what someone said and then base your countervailing arguments on that? You say "the insinuation of such policies that all consent must look a specific way" while ignoring that I pointed out, VERY CLEARLY, that the law we're discussing says nothing of the kind. In fact, this law is expressly clear that how consent is shown or not shown in any given case is highly contextual. And laws making certain behaviors crime are not solely for the purpose of preventing those crimes. There's the very important purpose of punishing those who transgress. As for your paper: I've read it. I think it raises some interesting questions but that's about it. I don't think you can draw any conclusion from a study of ten - TEN - people selected at a gay pride event as indicative of anything. Given that almost all were students, it might be relevant to a study of student-specific experiences; but even so, that's an incredibly tiny sample of people who were already self-selected to some extent because they're ones who would show up at a Pride event - thus completely non-representative of those who aren't out or who otherwise dislike large, crowded events like a Pride festival. What I find especially problematic is your paper's sweeping statements - for instance, "Ultimately, gay men felt like affirmative consent, as well meaning as it was, was not created with them or the diversity of gay sexual culture and subcultures in mind, and that this made affirmative consent policies difficult to interpret or apply to their interactions." Again, that's based on conversations with just ten gay men. Period. I'll not address your methodology, other than to point out when you ask questions and "let" those lead into other areas of discussion - a tactic that can easily be manipulated to get a discussion going on what you want to prove - you're eliminating any hope that the "study" (if you can call ten interviews a study) is free of bias. Again - I don't disagree that consent can manifest itself very differently in different populations. But the law in question ALREADY ACCOUNTS FOR THAT. It sounds like you're bitching about something the drafters of the legislation worked hard to cover precisely because people are different. All I can take from that is that despite allegedly believing in consent, you aren't supportive of any attempts, no matter how well-structured, to penalize those who violate that consent.

If affirmative consent laws have a heterosexual bias, it's because the world has a heterosexual bias. Most lawmakers are heterosexual and their work is going to be shaped by their viewpoints unless they're challenged. It's the same reason "head and master" laws were the norm until the 1960's or later: the people making the laws virtually all lived in a world where husbands dominated and wives submitted. And the reality is that women are more subject to sexual violence than men are. Certainly men can be and are sexually assaulted, especially in situations like prisons and boarding schools and the like. But the numbers are with the women, and I don't think it's a big mystery why. You may find such consent rules patronizing. Those who have been raped, or forced to participate in sexual activities to which they didn't consent, might beg to differ.

Sad to see some users feel the compulsion to "vote down" posts from a moderator who's simply explaining the rules. How insecure must a person be to do that?

Finally: obviously this should be clear, but that's what I see at this point, two months out. I'm sure my view will change a little (or a lot) one direction or the other as election day in November approaches. So I'll be ignoring all the "Ha ha look how off you were" comments that only look at this post, and not any changes I acknowledge during the next couple of months. It's a current long-range forecast, which looks different than it did four months ago and different from what we'll be seeing November 1.

I'll go first: I don't see any of the current Democratic seats flipping to the Republicans. Only three were ever really possible flips: Kelly (AZ), Warnock (GA), and Cortez Masto (NV). The Dems had the advantage of only having 14 seats up for election and most of them are solidly, solidly blue. AZ was a possible problem, but Kelly leads Masters in virtually every poll, and it appears to be his race to lose. (The GOP's Senate fund has started canceling ad buys scheduled to run in AZ, a sign they think the money would be wasted there.) Warnock is in a tighter race in GA, but almost every day Herschel Walker sticks his foot into his mouth AGAIN, or another previously undisclosed child by yet another mother turns up, or fact-checkers find out he's lied about another part of his life story. Cortez Masto is leading in her race by 7 points and with the abortion issue now out front and center, in a state that was long noted as a place where women's rights (especially for quickie marriages and quickie divorces) are respected, she might well expand that margin. On the other side of the aisle, the Fetterman-Oz (PA) matchup seems almost like a rout, with Fetterman leading Oz by as much as double-digit margins in many polls. This seat looks like the most likely to flip. Ron Johnson's seat in Wisconsin also seems to be falling behind his challenger in recent polls, in part because he's seen as closely tied to Trump (and possibly participated in the attempts to have Pence throw out WI's electoral votes), and in part because of his vocal support of abortion restrictions (which play out differently now, in a post-Dobbs world, than they did a year or more ago). For the open seat in OH, J.D. Vance is struggling to raise funds, and his Democratic opponent, Tim Ryan, is both well-known and generally liked - and Vance, like Masters, Walker, and Oz, has Trump hanging around his neck. NC's race is also very close, but the polls are tightening and NC has a LOT of well-educated women voters who may very well respond to the Democrat (Beasley) rather than the Trump-endorsed GOP candidate (Budd). And finally, while Marco Rubio still leads his Democratic opponent Val Demings in Florida, it's also a tight race and one that could go south at any point for him - especially with the volatility of the governor's race also affecting turnout. My thought is that at least two of these five GOP-held Senate seats are likely to flip. As for the House, having flipped one seat (Alaska) and lost one seat (Texas) in special elections this term, the margin of control is almost as thin currently as the Senate's. And because of gerrymandering (which is more prevalent in Republican controlled states than in Democratic controlled ones, especially among the larger states), more voters preferring Democrats over Republicans doesn't mean Democrats are likely to control (or continue to control) the House. House races are won over much smaller districts and the vast majority are solidly in the hands of one party or the other. The national preference for who controls Congress is expressed as the winning party followed by the margin by which they're preferred over the other; for example, D+2 means roughly 51% want the Democrats to control Congress, 49% want the Republicans. If the national mood is D+2 or less, the Republicans usually win (or keep) control of the House. Even a D+3 is typically barely enough to maintain only a couple of seats majority. The good news is that lately, that number (on average, across multiple polls) has been more like anywhere from D+4 to D+8, on average, though it's varied considerably over the year. The trend, though, is in favor of the Democrats over the last couple of months (I think largely due to the abortion decision, and to Trump). The wildcard will be: how much more is going to come out about Hair Furor? Right now, his base, of course, is eating up his fury over the FBI's search warrant for Mar-a-Lago, but every new revelation in the case makes him look that much worse. The more he inserts himself into congressional races, the more he seems to spur turnout - for the Democrats. When he was on the ballot in 2020, his side turned out even more than they did in 2016 - but the Democrats bested that, with even more gains. This year, with the fury against him not subsiding and facing new legal challenges, some portion of his 2020 vote will stay home or vote third party or (in some cases) vote for the Democrat. I'm predicting that the House stays Democratic and maybe even gains a one or two seats; if it goes to the Republicans, it will only be by a few seats. And they will promptly fall into disarray because there's no one who can unite the Trump faction and the traditionalists.

I figured I'd start a new thread for folks to discuss the 2022 midterm elections (in the US, obviously) and beyond. Most of the time, in midterm elections (those which happen two years into a president's four-year term), the party to which the president does not belong usually makes gains, sometimes substantial ones, in at least one chamber of Congress and often both. We've seen this happen in 2018, 2014, 2010, and 2006 this century, and for many of the elections of the late 20th century as well. You'd have to go back to 2002 (when the Republicans gained seats in both the House and Senate while George Bush was president) to find an exception, but then the country was newly at war then, and Bush was riding high on approval at the time. Five or six months ago, pundits were predicting "the usual" for this year's midterms, with the Democrats projected to lose the House and Senate both. Given that inflation has been running high and we've very possibly been in a recession for some months - recessions are easier to diagnose retrospectively - things should be weighing even more heavily in favor of the Republicans this year. And yet... Looking at the Senate, it's looking increasingly like the Democrats will not only hold control of the Senate, but likely (by a small margin, but still) make gains of 2 or 3 seats. What once looked like a bloodbath in the House - the GOP was salivating over possibly gaining 40 or more seats - is looking more like a very close match. In the five special elections held to fill vacancies this calendar year, the Democratic candidate has outperformed Biden's 2020 showing in their particular district in every one - that is, in districts Biden carried, the Democrat won it by an even wider margin, and in districts Trump carried, the Democrat came closer to defeating the Republican candidate than the spread between Biden and Trump. In Tuesday's Alaska special House rate, in fact, the Democrat flipped the district from R to D (the Republicans had held the seat for nearly 50 years). Granted, that was partly to do with Alaska implementing ranked-choice voting; had the state held traditional closed primaries, the R vote might have consolidated around Sarah Palin. But perhaps not: what the ranked vote results show us is that only about half the voters who initially selected the second Republican marked Palin as their second choice; the other half chose the Democrat. It's pretty clear that a significant number of Alaskans did not want Palin, even enough usually solidly Republican voters, that when the choice came down to a Democrat or Palin, they chose the Democrat. And part of that is due to Trump's enthusiastic backing of Palin. While his endorsed candidates are often winning GOP primaries - see, for instance, Blake Masters, Mehmet Oz, Josh Mandel - many of them are facing a stiff challenge in states the GOP used to win handily. Just as disgust over Trump fueled the 2018 House Blue Wave, and swept Joe Biden into office, his insistence on being the public face of every race both boosts his endorsee with the GOP hard-core base and hurts him with moderate GOP-leaning voters while driving up turnout among Dems. Then, too, despite people months ago despairing over any part of the Biden agenda passing, But since then, he's gotten the Infrastructure Bill passed (after how many "Infrastructure Weeks" under Trump?), and the "Inflation Reduction Act" (which includes climate change provisions, drug pricing caps, extending ACA subsidies, and more), and he's taken executive action on things like student loan forgiveness and others - all told, far more actual legislating and action than The Former Guy got done in four years. And lastly, we can't discount the effect SCOTUS's overturning of Roe is having on galvanizing voters to turn out. In ruby-red Kansas, an attempt to strip abortion rights from protection in the state constitution failed by a huge margin - roughly 60/40 against taking away abortion rights. In KANSAS, a state that hasn't gone for the Democrats in a presidential election since 1964. So what are your thoughts on how the midterms are going to turn out?

For question 1: The law wouldn't change my behavior because I already disclose and receive consent for anything I'm involved in. As for dark rooms and steam rooms: if you can't identify the party who (might) have violated this law regarding consent, it's kind of irrelevant; there's nobody to charge with anything if you don't have and can't get a name. In other words, it probably technically applies, but it's like running a stop sign on a desert highway where you can see 5 miles in every direction and there's no other car to be seen: you're not going to get caught, so the law, while applicable, isn't going to impact you under those circumstances. For question 2: Stealthing, as defined in the law (assuming this newspaper summary is correct: the removing, tampering with, or not using a condom without consent) ought to be illegal. There's been a somewhat lengthy discussion about a holding of the Canadian Supreme Court on this issue - a man was found to have sexually assaulted a woman when she'd told him he needed to wear a condom for sex and (on their second go-round) he did not. I recognize the erotic appeal for many around stealthing, just as I can recognize the erotic appeal of forced sex in general while nonetheless recognizing that what we find hot to think about, and what we are permitted to do in real life, are not always congruent.

Some of us *are* older guys. Some of the people being approached *are* older guys. Assuming that only "hip" (does that date me?) language is an "acceptable norm of communication" on "da apps" is more navel gazing. But then I'm sure you consider me an old fogey, so....

I agree for anyone who wants to wear it regularly and become active in the leather world. If one is looking for something to wear to a single sex party or circuit event so that one can dance shirtless, custom fitting is probably a waste of money.

My thoughts: On the one hand, it is getting around the restrictions. But on the other hand, unless someone does it repeatedly, all he's likely to get is the one address, maybe one or two others, and that shouldn't cut into the discussion aspects of the site very much. For that matter, if a new user posts his BBRT, A4A, Telegram, or other site handle in his profile, people will already be able to contact him off-site. So I don't think there's a whole lot that can be done about those off-site exchanges. And if the new user doesn't post publicly, he's unlikely to ever advance to the point where he can do much interacting on here at all.

I'm not sure it's so much symptom-lessening as it is "this guy has already had one exposure, his behavior indicates he could be exposed again, so he's higher-risk and should be prioritized for vaccination." Vaccines are almost always prioritized on the basis of risk. That's not to say it won't ALSO reduce symptoms but I don't think that's the targeting reason.

And I'll add - once in a blue moon, you might miss out on something pretty damned good. Once, about 15 years ago, a guy hit me up - he was another bottom, profile noted he was partnered and submissive, very much not my general type at all. My assumption was that his partner probably wasn't particularly dominant or kinky so he was looking for whatever partial connection he could find, and I was ready to nudge him away. But he paid me a compliment, which I thanked him for, and then after an exchange or two of general comments, he said his partner had pointed me out and told him to contact me - that the partner (who, it turns out, WAS dominant, and all top) liked experienced bottoms and enjoyed fucking them while the (bottom) partner watched. THAT caught my attention. And the dozen or so sessions we had, subsequently, were among the best sexual encounters I've ever had. The bottom learned a good bit about how to take care of his partner's needs, I enjoyed serving as the demonstrator model, and all because I didn't ignore a bottom paying me a compliment one night. No, that's not going to happen often. It may not ever happen for you. But who knows what you've missed out on?

FWIW, I'm not saying everyone deserves a detailed friendly reply as to why the recipient of the message is not interested. At a bathhouse, it's likely you'd shake your head "no" to someone who's putting the moves on you when you don't want him to. There's a big gap between that and ignoring someone entirely. I'm saying that if someone reaches out politely, acknowledge them. If you know up front you have no interest, you can add "Sorry, but I don't think we're a match - good luck!" and leave it at that. If someone pays you a compliment in their initial outreach, thank them. Again, you can add the part about not a match if you want. If someone can only type "hey" or "sup" - that's different. I'm OK with ignoring those generally, especially if you have a quick note in your profile to that effect ("If all you can say is "hey" or "sup", I'm not responding"). But that's ignoring laziness, not ignoring "unappealing" candidates. Turning someone down is almost never rude. But it can be rudely done, and ignoring a polite expression of interest (of any sort) qualifies for that. IMO.

Do you mean exactly like this one, with the same kinds of connectors, etc.? Or do you mean something generally like this? Based on what I know about leather gear, this one looks like a custom job, Without seeing the back side, I'd think this is something any competent leather worker could create - it's just rivets on straps holding a clip hook on the end of each, with those clipped around a large chrome ring.

That could be the case. It also could be that he's simply protective - not that he wants to "dominate" you, but you're his younger brother, and he may see you as vulnerable. And while there's nothing inherently wrong with an age gap between consenting adults, "adult" is a loosely defined term in that context. Legally, one might be an adult at 18; but one might not "mentally" be fully adult and capable of protecting one's own interests until one is a good bit older. Some men never become adults in that sense. I've known a number of same-sex relationships where there was a 20-year or more age gap between the partners. I'm in one myself (well, 19 years' difference). But there's a big difference between partners who are 38 and 18, and partners who are 50 and 30. The younger one, in the second case, is much more likely to, as we say, "have his shit together" and not be as vulnerable to exploitation. So it may be that your brother is simply wanting to protect you from exploitation rather than trying to dominate you. Or it could be some of both.

I hate to be a spoilsport, but a vaccine taken today will only be very partially effective by the weekend - something on the order of 50% for HIV-negative guys (if I remember correctly) and even less for guys who are HIV+, even those who are undetectable. Not sure of your HIV status, but I wouldn't count on a Tuesday shot offering significant protection by Friday night.