BootmanLA

I agree, with the slight modification that: Trump cared not one whit about conservative judicial priorities as articulated by McConnell and the Federalist Society et al. - it wasn't that he didn't necessarily believe in it, he just didn't give a damn, because his experience with the courts has always been delay, delay, delay, and eventually things go away or settle for a pittance. Notice that he's almost never the plaintiff in any action - he threatens to sue constantly, but he never did when it was his personal or corporate money. He only got involved as a plaintiff when it came to his campaign, because that was all someone else's money. To the extent he cared about judicial nominees at all, it was with the expectation that they would be "Trump judges" and rule in his favor all the time. That was his big miscalculation, because the FedSoc judges that they crammed onto the federal bench have a dim view of executive power. Right now, it's Biden's regulations they're striking down, but these ideologues (on the appellate courts, that is) are just as likely to strike down Trumpian overreaches if he gets back into office.

I think this highlights a distinction that of which people should be aware. When health officials opine on the difficulty of a man getting pozzed through topping, they're referring (in general) to a man fucking an HIV+ bottom and being directly infected by him. That is relatively hard to do (but not impossible, certainly; it generally requires there to be some sort of tear in the process, where blood comes in contact with the top's cock, either through a tear of his own, or by leaking up into the urethra, which is easier to infect). But when the top is fucking a bottom (of any status) and there are already loads in that bottom's rectum, the calculus is changed. If those loads are all undetectable, pozzing is highly unlikely. But if any of those loads has a high viral content, then yes, pozzing is definitely possible.

FWIW, although I use an Android phone day-to-day, I have an iPhone I connect to wi-fi to use to test websites under development to see what they look like in Safari. When I go to [think before following links] https://breeding.zone directly in the Safari Browser, it takes me to this site. That makes me think that you're probably trying the wrong URL (the address in the title bar) - for instance, if you're using "breedingzone.com" that won't work. If that isn't the problem, I can't really suggest why Safari won't work directly for you. It should never be necessary to go through Google to get to a website if you're using the correct URL.

Kinda wonder, then, how you would have had sex before HIV was a thing, because the "risk" simply didn't exist.

First: Just because *you* don't believe in "bi, str8 curious etc." doesn't mean those things don't exist. Sexual orientation is a spectrum, not a black or white issue. Just because *you* can't imagine yourself being attracted to women as well as men doesn't mean there aren't plenty of men out there who are (and women who are attracted to both, as well). It's true that in some societies, it's more acceptable to be bisexual (especially if you mostly are interested in the opposite sex) and thus some actually gay men will claim to be bisexual and publicly date women (although not actually have sex with them). That was a common thing in the 70's and 80's here in the U.S., when "experimenting" young men would declare themselves to be "bi" before later admitting they were gay and had no interest in women. BUT - not all people who say they're bisexual are, in fact, gay or straight. More importantly, it's not your place to decide that they are - as you correctly note, it's none of your business. As for "bromance": Here in the U.S., as I understand the term, it's used to describe a relationship between two men that has a "love" component without a "sexual" component. Two guys who are mostly inseparable but who aren't having sex (whether they identify as straight, gay, bisexual, or whatever) are said to be in a "bromance" - a kind of love that is like a brotherhood (hence the "bro" part) where the guys have emotional attachment (the "romance" part). Whether that's what your gossipy friends at work were talking about or not, I can't say. On a side note: based on your description, it sounds like everyone in your workplace is spending an inordinate amount of time worrying about who is sleeping with whom and what gender each person there is attracted to. Or is it just that *you* spend a lot of time thinking about this, so you ask a lot of people about it, and then it seems to be all they talk about? You might consider whether you're just adding fuel to this fire of gossip.

First, a quick review of the (limited) possible benefits: today's HIV medications, though much more powerful and at the same time milder than early meds, can and sometimes do take a toll on your body's functions. Notably, in some number of patients kidney function gets gradually impaired, but there can be ripple effects in other parts of your body. Those effects may or may not "reverse" if you go off meds, but for someone experiencing them, they shouldn't get worse (unless there are other factors at play). It's important to remember, though, that some changes wrought by being on HIV treatment are much harder to reverse. That said: the negative effects are multiple. Not only does your viral load go up, but your innate immune system keeps trying to fight off HIV, with more limited success than when you're on meds - and that success almost always ends up failing, meaning your immune system largely gives up the fight. And just like HIV drugs can damage other parts of your body, so can HIV itself. But in the interim, while your immune system is fighting and being gradually overwhelmed by HIV, other infections that you might readily fend off otherwise can take hold. At one time, before viral load counts and undetectable statuses were a thing, judging someone as having AIDS wasn't about the numbers; it was having one or more of some well-known "opportunistic infections" - things negative people only rarely get, but which were commonplace in people with advanced cases of HIV infection. Cognitive impairment is certainly possible, if HIV becomes rampant in your system. There are infections that can devastate your lungs, your eyes, your nervous system, and your gut. Some of these are treatable, some are not, and some of them can themselves be fatal. In the long run, it's suicide. That doesn't mean you can't stop for a while, and go back on meds later (though doing so periodically may render those meds or meds made in part with those compounds ineffective), but that's not a decision I would recommend without consulting your doctor. It's possible he or she will agree as long as you continue to get routine blood screenings and commit to going back on meds when a particular threshold is reached. It's possible he or she won't. The question I'd ask is, "Why?" Not saying there are no good reasons to do this in a particular case (and to be fair, no one owes anyone else an explanation for that kind of decision, except perhaps one's partner if one exists). But doing it because you're facing issues with side effects, and doing it because you're wanting to become toxic, are very different scenarios.

Maybe if you read the posts in question more closely you'll see I was talking about two different things. (Or maybe you don't care, you're just looking to try to make me look hypocritical. I can't know which it is because I can't get inside your brain.) The earlier "I get it" post refers, rather clearly, to the fact that I get you are neurodivergent and that you perceive and interact with people differently because of that difference. I don't have to "get," on a visceral level, exactly HOW it's different, to recognize THAT it's different. Just like I don't have to "get" what it's like to be a black man in America to know that his experience and mine are, in many respects, radically different. In fact, I can even identify many of those respects in which many such men and I are different - the need for behaving in certain ways when dealing with law enforcement, for instance, even knowing that behaving exactly as recommended is no guarantee of fair treatment; what I can't "get" is how that feels, what it's like to live like that. I can guess, I can imagine, but I can't KNOW. Likewise: I can identify some of the respects in which many neurodivergent people and I are different - in part because of the work they, and their advocates in the health community, have done to educate us. I can't "get" how it feels to be neurodivergent, nor do I pretend to. I do fairly confident that when such a person tells me "I am unable to pick up on X type of signal from others", I can make that statement with respect to his circumstances and not be pulling shit out of my ass. I may not understand how that affects him, but I can recognize that it DOES affect him.

I fully acknowledge I don't "get" autism the same way I don't "get" what it's like to be Black in the U.S. I can understand some aspects of both objectively, I can observe from the outside to a certain degree, but "get"? No, I don't pretend to. But that also means you don't "get" what it's like to be neurotypical, either - only that you see aspects of it going on around you and it's outside your ability to experience as we do (that's my limited understanding of it). And you drive that home by describing what they are *based on how they feel to you* without qualifying that this isn't some universally agreed upon convention - and in fact, obviously, a lot of people find these things useful or the software apps wouldn't have them in place.

I figure "both" as well. I'm happy to share a face pic here with anyone for whom there's a reason, but since I treat this as a discussion spot, not a hookup/dating/whatever spot, I consider faces less necessary.

The first sentence is partially true. Yes, you have to go to a doctor to have either PrEP or HIV treatment prescribed - they don't just dispense it in vending machines. Yes, you have to either have insurance coverage, or participate in a program designed to make those costs reasonable. But getting a doctor's appointment for these things is not particularly complicated in the U.S., at least, and in most states, there are health office workers whose job it is to assist you in getting coverage under the program. When I first got coverage for HIV treatment, the person assisting me literally filled out the forms as I answered the questions he asked, and he clarified anything I didn't understand along the way. It literally could not have been easier. As for the second sentence, that's really not true. Regulations can change, of course - one of the characteristics of the previous administration was its ham-handed attempts to overturn existing regulations by executive fiat, and the courts repeatedly striking those changes down because there is an established procedure for changing regulations, involving public comment, hearings, and the like. A more competent administration could probably have accomplished far more along those lines, but Hair Furor prized loyalty over competence every day of the week, and as a result, much of what he tried to do never got off the ground. (Caveat: there is a big apparatus being built among conservative groups with plans to "hit the ground running" if Trump or another Republican is elected in 2024, aiming to avoid all those missteps.) Under the ACA, the federal government is charged with identifying and rating preventative health care services based on effectiveness. If a service gets an "A" rating, then it must be provided at no cost under most health insurance plans. In order to change that, a future GOP administration's DHHS would have to reduce that rating, and if they tried, that would almost certainly result in a court challenge to provide evidence that the change was warranted. And I just don't think that is possible - the evidence is what it is. But even so, statutory law doesn't change at the drop of a hat. As we've seen, only certain fiscal items can get through the Senate with a bare majority vote; everything else takes 60 votes to break a filibuster, and changing something like gutting funding for HIV treatment isn't going to get 60 votes in the Senate, period. Your choice, but understand that if things DO change as you fear (I think it's unlikely), it'll be that much harder to get onto meds if you reach the point where they're needed to keep you alive. I don't disagree that many GOP people would be content to see HIV+ die rather than give assistance, but I don't think even all of them would vote to end a program like Ryan White.

There may be 1001 reasons, but not all are valid enough, when dealing with *me*, to justify that. Living in a country where there is danger in doing so is certainly a valid reason. On the other hand, what possible reason could someone living in such a place have for contacting me, in the southern United States? I'm not looking for cyber sex with someone whose first language isn't English, I'm not looking to sponsor someone for immigration purposes, and if it's not safe for him to be open there, I'm sure as fuck not going to travel to that country. Most other reasons - and they all boil down to either "there are people that I'm not out to and don't want to be discovered" or "I have low enough self esteem that I don't think you'll talk with me if you see my face" - can be dealt with by sending a photo with the message (assuming the site allows that, and most do). About the only time I'll consider one of those reasons "valid" enough to continue conversing with the person is if he indicates, first up, that he's interested in talking about something specific and not having to do with finding me physically appealing in some way - such as, he noticed I listed X as a hobby and he shares that hobby. I'm not worrying about what such a person looks like - my friends run the gamut of conventionally plain to ohmygodhesgorgeous, and I am much closer to the "plain" end of that spectrum myself. Otherwise, yeah, I'm pretty much on team "No pic, no chat".

Because you responded with expectations. Here's the thing: you don't know what the person "means" when he taps/oinks/woofs. You just know he's noticed you. Just like in the bar, where it may be "man, that guy is hot" or "man, does that guy know his fly is open?", noticing and acknowledging the notice is just a first step. That's why I respond in a way that acknowledges, but does not impose an expectation of a further reply. If there is one, great. If not, I've done my part, and I move on.

Everything has risks. You pays you money and you takes you chances. So does holding the elevator door for someone coming towards it. So does holding a door for someone approaching it with a package in her arms. It's called living in society, and we do these little things to acknowledge one another's existence and value. Maybe to YOU it's always that way. Assuming the entire world views things the same way as you do is just a little bit self-important. Sometimes a compliment is just a compliment and the person's not interested in more than acknowledging that he finds something about you appealing - even if he has no intent on acting on that appeal. Again, your insistence that it must lead to a suitable transaction or it's an offense against humanity is just... something. I mean, I do get it. You've mentioned before that you're somewhere on the autism spectrum, and that you have a difficult time reading people's signals. That's fair. But neurotypical people (for lack of a better term) do use signals - which we have to evaluate and place in context, and sometimes misstep, but that's life - as a means of navigating social spaces. As I noted, just post in your profile that you don't respond to them, and then you're free to ignore them without worrying that you seem rude - BECAUSE YOU INFORMED PEOPLE, and if they're too stupid to read your profile before tapping/oinking/whatever, that's on them. Complaining that because YOU don't/can't/won't use these things makes them horrible and useless and something that should be abolished is, well, again, something.

Most STI's can be spread by sexual or non-sexual contact. If you touch an open syphilis sore, for instance, you can contract syphilis even if the contact was completely non-sexual. Ditto for herpes. That's less true of gonorrhea, for some reason. They're called STI's not because they ONLY spread through sexual contact, but because they OFTEN (or most often) do. At this point, monkeypox qualifies.

One word: Floriduh. Or two words: Ron DeSantis. I'm not faulting you in particular, but anyone who expects a state to have even a vaguely reasonable approach to monkeypox when it's headed by the asshole governor who did so much to drive Florida into the ditch over COVID isn't paying attention. As long as the main vector for the disease is same-sex personal encounters, I don't see Floriduh's health department responding with any urgency whatsoever.

I look at these things - growls, woofs, grrs, oinks, taps, whatever the site has - as the old-school bar equivalent of catching someone's eye across the room and nodding, or otherwise acknowledging that something about him caught your eye. I suppose one problem of "the apps" is that some people INSIST that the only reason to use them is to get laid and how DARE anyone reach out on them for ANY other purpose because you're WASTING my precious time so fuck you. Well, most such apps have an option where you can (a) post what you're looking for - and surprise! many of them offer choices other than "come fuck me right this minute" - and (b) describe what you're looking for and what terms you're looking under. Someone else's failure to utilize those means to convey a clear message about what they want does not constitute a requirement on my part to refrain from contacting them, even with the dreaded "oink" or whatever. If someone puts in his profile "I don't respond to oinks (growls, woofs, whatever)" then I abide by that. If someone puts in his profile "Only contact me if you want to come fuck me within 10 minutes of your first hello message", then I abide by that too. But if someone wants to get his panties all wadded up because he failed to do either of those things and then - OH MY FUCKING GOD - someone has the temerity to attempt to break the ice with the digital equivalent of that across-the-bar nod, I'm grateful, because that's someone I can immediately block with a clear conscience because he's a fuckhead. As for receiving them: I almost always reply. If I have no interest in the person after looking over his profile, but it's otherwise innocuous, I simply say "Thank you, that's kind of you." Most people can interpret that correctly. If I do have an interest, I thank the person AND either growl/oink/woof/whatever back, or just give the written equivalent. If the person's profile indicates he hasn't read mine (for instance, his clearly says he's only looking for single people and his only "Looking for" is "Partner/husband"), I point out that they really, really should learn to read a profile before expressing interest in someone that clearly isn't what they're looking for.

To the Civil War discussion, I'll add: sure, the North was becoming more economically powerful than the South, but that was only relevant insofar as what the North would DO with that power. And the biggest concern among the powers-that-were in the South was that the North's economic growth would result in more and more free states carved from the west, leading to the majority needed to abolish slavery nationwide. The South had long had power to block this because of the 3/5 compromise boosting Southern numbers in the House, but if newly admitted free states boomed in population, that advantage would erode. In other words, the economic dispute itself turned on slavery. And that's why (most of) the slave states seceded after Lincoln's election: he'd made it clear he did not believe the nation could endure "half slave, half free" - that "it will all one thing, or all the other." And the South knew the North would never, ever accept "all slavery". But far from taking my word for it: the surviving declarations of secession, from those states that formally adopted a resolution in favor of it, are crystal clear that preservation of slavery and white supremacy were the driving factors. Mechanization of agriculture, of course, would have made slavery too expensive to continue, and in any other context, slavery would have gone the way of whale oil lamps and buggy whips when confronted with superior technology. But unlike whale oil lamps and buggy whips, slavery and white supremacy was the very foundation of the social order in the south, and you couldn't simply replace slaves with machines without a massive upheaval in the social order. (In fact, one could argue that with the end of Reconstruction, the old social order was largely restored and it stayed in place until the middle of the 20th century).

The other problem I see with this map (beyond NM and Colorado) is that other areas are also changing. Virginia is shifting purple-blue (they have a Republican governor but the problem there is a bar on re-election to consecutive terms). Arizona and Georgia are also trending in that direction - perhaps not irrevocably, but both states have two elected Democratic US Senators, showing Democrats CAN win statewide in each state. The bigger issue, however, is setting a precedent that if enough wackadoo right-wingers take over a state's government, they can pull out of the Union. IF we had a "Dumbfuckistan" like the red areas of the map here, you can bet they'd write a Constitution without protections for the right to vote AT ALL, so that they could maneuver themselves into permanent power, such that even if a lot of liberals somehow settled in a red state, they'd never be able to vote out the nuts and rejoin America. BUT - having established that you can LEAVE the U.S. (the blue parts), Dumbfuckistan would be pushing people into the remaining blue states trying to flip them red, and then they'd argue that they have a right to leave, too, because Dumbfuckistan seceded and we let it go. That doesn't mean there would be reciprocity, since Dumbfuckistan would have weighted the vote in favor of straight white male Christians, so the U.S. would be under constant siege as they tried to take state after state. They might succeed with Michigan or Pennsylvania. Tempting and amusing as it is, this would be a disaster for the country as a whole.

No suggestions on the first question, as that's out of my wheelhouse. But as for the second: He's expressed that he's not comfortable with what you want him to do. It's (possibly) okay to mention it again, periodically, to see if he's changed his mind, but if he hasn't, after a couple of tries, you need to give that up. He's not a pet to be trained; he's an adult who has the capacity to make his own choices. Frankly, I can't think of something more likely to drive a couple apart than one partner nagging the other to do something he's made clear he doesn't want to do. That's not to say what you want is unreasonable per se; it's just that it's (probably) unreasonable *for him*. Dan Savage refers to this kind of disconnect between one partner's desires and the other partner's limits as "the price of admission". Each of you can set your own price of admission. His may be (at least in part) that you accept he's not going to be a cumdump. Yours might be that he has to agree to be one. But if those are the prices each of you sets, it would be pretty clear neither of you wants to pay the other's price of admission. You said "he is not interested" in this activity. So you have to decide whether you can accept having a primary partner who won't do that (perhaps coupled with having a secondary partner who WILL indulge that interest for you), OR whether you need a different primary partner.

Where did you get the statistic that 20% of people in Berlin are "gay males"? Given that male/female ratios in a given geographic area tend to be roughly 50/50, that would mean roughly 2 out of 5 men are gay. Seriously?

For those GOP apologists who were having apoplectic fits that we dared - DARED - suggest that Justice Thomas' view that people don't have a right to birth control was a harbinger of the GOP's position: The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to guarantee under statutory law that, in fact, Americans have a right to access contraception and that it can't be prohibited by the states. Guess what the vote was? 228 to 195. All 195 votes AGAINST a right to contraception came from Republicans. Only 8 Republicans crossed the aisle to vote with the Democrats. State legislatures are filled with wackadoo Republicans who will vote to ban or require things in line with their personal beliefs at the drop of a hat. If this many congressional Republicans are willing to let states do that, just imagine what states would do if the Supreme Court lets them - and with Barrett, Alito, and Kavanaugh on board, all they have to do is convince either Gorsuch or Roberts. It's closer than you think.

(To the mods: I hope this stays in the public area and is not moved to the Backroom Chem sex forum, since the whole point is this guy does NOT want to become, in his words, "a drug addicted cumslut". To that end, I think responses urging him to give into this should be removed because that kind of discussion DOES belong in the Chem sex forum.) Tough love time. If you do not want to end up a drug addict, stop with the meth and get rehab, whether it's outpatient or inpatient. The fact that you haven't used in a long time means zero if you are not dealing with the underlying urges. I know there is a significant number of guys who use all sorts of party drugs in conjunction with sex, but frankly, most of the ones I've met have been lousy fucks. That may mean avoiding certain environments where drug use is common. Given that you're already aware of the seductive nature of the drugs, if you don't want to get hooked, it's easier to just keep it out of your life rather than try to be around it without partaking. Stay on PrEP. You don't have to switch to condom sex in order to prevent HIV. You do have to take PrEP according to the directions - either daily, or in advance of AND after planned sex. If you go for the non-daily schedule, you can't find yourself ready to get fucked and suddenly remember you haven't taken a PrEP dose, swallow it quickly, and get to fucking. It takes some time to spread through your system and HIV, if the top is infectious, may beat PrEP to the punch. Otherwise, yes, PrEP is as close to foolproof as it gets. Not perfect - there are rare, occasional cases where it fails - but those are very, very rare. Accept that if you do continue BB sex, you are going to have other STIs from time to time. My experience is that drug addicts have more of them (partly because so many of them stop caring about treating them) and if you stick to sober sex with sober partners, that alone may reduce your risk somewhat. But nothing is foolproof.

True. It would be for the best, ASSUMING another Democrat can win. That's not a certainty. And the rematch may (see below) be critical. Mainly, I think it's because he needs the money. He's learned that billions flow through right-wing politics every cycle, and he's learned how to tap into it. As long as he's the face of the GOP, everyone from DC thinktanks to PACs to state senators and representatives seek his endorsement and spend money at his properties. When you can charge people $10 a pop for basic bottled water and $600 a night for rooms in his resorts, the revenue can make the difference between losing money and making a profit. And as long as he's a candidate, he can raise money via donations and then divert it to pay legal expenses (of which he's got a lot and of which he'll have a lot more in the future). He could still try to fundraise to pay those expenses if he weren't a candidate, but his followers believe he's a multibillionaire, so why would they give him money if they knew up front it was only going to pay his lawyers? Right now, they assume the money's going towards getting him back into the White House. Finally, the DOJ position is that they generally don't make public statements about investigations into declared candidates and they don't do anything (or they're not supposed to do anything) close to an election that might sway voters (a guideline they pointed ignored in 2016 with Clinton). Trump seems to think (mistakenly) that as soon as he declares, he's off limits to the DOJ. He'll learn that isn't the case. As for that rematch: the problem is this. If it's Biden against, say, DeSantis or Cruz, the Republican might win - not because they're more popular, but because the red tilt in the electoral college means turnout in swing states for the Democratic candidate is critical, and if Biden fails to inspire Dems in Wisconsin and Michigan, and the GOP candidate gets out the vote for the challenger, the GOP could well take the presidency. If it's Biden against Trump, Biden would probably win again, because the GOP is souring (significantly) on Trump at the moment. A lot of those voters will come home to the GOP if Trump is the nominee, but there's a growing number of GOP voters would would just vote third party or stay home, even if they couldn't vote for Biden. If it's Trump vs. some other Democrat, that becomes more of a tossup, because Biden (for all his faults) was a known quantity in 2020. He had high name recognition, people generally liked him even if they didn't like the Democratic party, and he wasn't Trump. That last will boost any Democratic nominee, but some Democrats could beat Trump, and some can't. Finally, there's the possibility that neither Biden nor Trump is his party's nominee (the least likely, but most problematic, situation of the bunch). If a well-known Republican like DeSantis is running against a Democratic nominee who is either divisive within the party (too centrist or too leftist), or who motivates the GOP to turn out in opposition (see: Clinton), or who fails to motivate the base, a Republican could win with a bigger margin than Trump did.

Fwiw, at least for now, some portions of the Constitution DO apply to non-citizens. The Court has held that absent a qualifying adjective, "person" means all persons, citizen or not, and in general, any provisions of criminal law in the constitution apply to all persons. As do First Amendment rights, for that matter. Of course the current regime might well ditch that precedent at some point. Interestingly, because SCOTUS has held the Second Amendment confers an individual right to possess a firearm to "people", some federal courts are holding that restrictions on undocumented immigrants possessing firearms are unconstitutional. (Felons can be prohibited from firearm possession as that flows from their conviction with, one presumes, due process.)

To be fair, I think the OP here *IS* implicating his Fifth Amendment rights (conceptually speaking; they obviously don't apply to private companies). Because he sure as shit is waiving his right to testify against himself.