BootmanLA

Complex thoughts require complex understanding, which not all posters here seem to be capable of. In a nutshell: Putin's long game is (a) restoration of the USSR/Russian Empire as a geopolitical force, and (b) defeat or disbanding of NATO, the primary threat to his expansionist plans. As long as Trump was in office, attacking NATO and threatening to withdraw, he was useful to Putin in goal (b). We now know from more of Trump's former circle of advisers that he had been quite candid about pulling the US out of NATO during his second term, if he'd won one (which he mercifully did not). That disruptive influence in the west was far more valuable to Putin's grand schemes than any territorial gain might be. This is an old concept known as the "useful idiot", one with which you may not be familiar (or at least not in the way one might think). Once Trump was defeated, and someone firmly committed to NATO was elected to replace him, the calculus shifted. Putin had to decide whether he could spread enough disinformation about Ukraine to get away with invading and seizing power (as he had done in Crimea, and to lesser extents in Georgia and other former Soviet republics). One good thing about Biden (among many) is that he knows that US intelligence, while not always perfect, is some of the best in the world. Because they had intercepted much of Putin's plans for false flag operations, etc. as a means of making Ukraine to be the aggressor, and Biden smartly chose to release enough of that intelligence that the world could see Putin's game plan for what it was: naked aggression. And as a result, the west is united against Russia in a way that would never have been possible without someone like Biden - who actually READS his intelligence briefings and more importantly, understands them - in charge.

I point out errors of fact when I see them. Who makes them, honestly, is of little consequence to me.

I believe you mean "times" per nanosecond. Which is a tad of an exaggeration. More to the point, I didn't point out that Johnson was a clown as a "campaign to magically improve gay rights worldwide". I called him a clown because he is. Which pretty much confirms my opinion that he's a clown, right? Because Putin's long game involves not just taking Ukraine (and the rest of the former USSSR) but also demolishing NATO. Trump was gleefully trying to assist with that effort (for his own, idiotic reasons) and was played like the fool he is by Putin. Putin knew that as long as Trump was serving his role of disrupting the western alliance it was better to wait on Ukraine, because it was unlikely the US Congress would allow the president to abandon NATO if a war broke out in Europe. Once Biden was elected and he began to repair breaches with NATO, Putin knew he had to act on Ukraine quickly, but it may be that he waited too long - the west is more solidly unified against him than ever would have been possible under Hair Furor (the US, not the English, version). I hesitate to be critical of a nation's entire people, especially one with perhaps the only electoral system more archaic and non-representative than ours in the US, simply because of which idiot rises to the top. If you mean specifically those who voted for Johnson, by all means, I consider them clowns as well.

So - just to clarify - what counts as "anything to do with health"? If a post mentions PrEP, for instance, does that mean it doesn't belong in general, but here? Here's the thing. Topic after topic, post after post, in this forum have zero to do with health, unless you consider anything related to "deciding to bareback" to be something "to do with health". Post after post of people talking about how great it feels. Post after post of people talking about "natural". Post after post of people talking about "just do it" - which has to be the least credible "health" advice since doctors in the 1950's were making ads for cigarette companies. A small percentage of posts do mention the health concerns tied to bare sex - STIs, primarily, but also other complications - but the notion that simply "deciding to bareback" is itself a health category, without any requirement that the discussion be about the health (as opposed to pleasure) aspects of barebacking stretches the definition of "health" beyond recognition. Look at the initial post in this topic: not a single word about health, unless you really stretch things and decide the offhand comment from the OP about wanting to be seduced a "health concern", as in mental health. And if that's the case, every post about fantasies is a "mental health" topic. And of course the responses largely have zero to do with the health aspects of barebacking at all, even the loosely defined mental health ones. People like ErosWired, and me, and a handful of others really try to focus on the health questions raised. And ten times as many people chime in with zero health advice, just "take the load man" comments. As long as those aren't weeded out, the weeds in this particular collection of topics (Making the Decision to Bareback) choke out all the actual health advice. And while I appreciate that posts reported for being seriously off-topic get handled quickly, it seems like reports that "this response has zero to do with health" get written off as "well, this is the one guy's opinion, and we're not the 'stay on topic' police, so if it is responsive in some way, it stays".

Generally I find (your mileage may vary) that people pick a spot on this spectrum based on their current circumstances and stay there unless the circumstances change. That is, Joe and Tom are monogamous until they agree they're not any more. Bob and Phil decided to be "monogamish" and they interpret that as they're free to have a casual fling with a stranger now and then, but it's one-off and not with friends. Fred and Mark are similar except they only allow each other to play when they're apart - one of them is traveling, the other home, and nobody talks about it when they're back together. John and Roy are polyamorous - there's nothing "casual" allowed, no rando fucking, but they date other people, either together or separately, as part of a larger extended family. Steve and Gene are a couple but they have no pretensions to monogamy or even monogamish or polyamory; they're each other's primary partner but sex with anyone else is fine, repeats or not. In other words, you choose where you want to be along the spectrum and work it out with your partner; you don't have to work your way from one end to the other. That's something the two of you have to decide for yourselves. As a general rule, if the lines are reciprocal (you both follow the same rules), then it defaults to what the "less open" person is willing to allow. That can be anywhere from "you can flirt but no touching" to "it's okay to fuck someone else". But you have to set the rules down, rather than assume you and he are on the same page. Note that you don't HAVE to have reciprocal lines. For instance, you might be fine with him sexting with someone but not actually meeting up. He might not want you to sext with someone else. As long as you are both comfortable with a rule that isn't exactly even, that's okay. Again, that's something you have to work out for yourselves. Some people have rules like "Not if we're both in town." Sometimes it's "Not if we're both at home - no bringing a guy home while I'm here, and no leaving me here alone to go out for a fuck". Sometimes it's "Not if we already have plans for something". Some of my friends just say "X guy wants to fuck me, I'll be back in an hour or so" as they leave the house and the partner's only response is "Try not to wake me up when you come in, I'm turning in early". Some couples like the "after" discussion, some don't. Some may think they can handle it but can't once they actually start to hear about it. If you've agreed that it counts, yes. I'd say by default it counts as a violation of monogamy, but whether it is a problem for monogamish people is for them to decide based on what they think about outside sex in general. By being a good husband at heart. I'm assuming based on this question that you think you're more interested in non-monogamy than he might be, or that at least he's got more qualms about it. One way to be reassuring is to agree that at any point, the other partner can declare the relationship closed again, at least temporarily, while you work out issues between you. And then honor that - if he says "we need to close this down", you agree - cancel pending trick dates, let guys know you're off the market again for now. That doesn't mean you have to stay forever like that; but that's a good test for him as to whether he can accept non-monogamy, and a good test for you as to whether you can give up other guys completely if that's what's important to this guy.

That depends whether you're editing on a Mac, a Windows PC, an iPhone, or an Android phone. Google "How to blur faces in a video on a <fill in device name>" and you'll get lots of options.

Unfortunately, this entire folder is probably devoid of health-related information and most, if not all, of its topic threads should just be thrown into the main general forum. At least that way, the "sexual health" area could actually focus on - shocking, I know - sexual health, instead of every casual poster on here getting his jollies by encouraging others to be sluttier than they even dream of being themselves. I mean, I get the original idea of this particular forum within Sexual Health was to discuss the health aspects of why people decide to bareback. But the reality is, virtually every topic becomes the same thing: "Oh, mah gudness, here ah am, this innocent widdle boy, never have done anything so shocking as BARE SEX, but this big mean brute man wants me to! Whatevah will ah do? <cue fluttering eyelashes and parasol twirl>. JFC. Do, or do not. Those are the options.

I *believe* you just "find out". I would note, however, that you don't need to be checking every day; sufficient participation to gain that permission isn't specified (like all such), but it's a good bit higher than the 17 posts you're showing as having made thus far.

You are correct. I shouldn't post when I'm tired and aggravated.

There are numerous discussions about tips for this, what often doesn't work, and the like. Instead of reinventing the wheel just for you, why not do a search here and see what dozens or hundreds of people have already contributed?

To this excellent point I would add that on the liberal side, everything below the orange-yellow line (where things cross over to problematic) is a niche, small-market item. Nothing below that line is anything but a website or podcast, and all with limited reach. But below that line on the "conservative" side? You've got the entirety of the FOXNews Channel, as well as two of its most popular shows (Hannity and Carlson), plus InfoWars. You have the Supreme Grifters of Turning Point USA and the Charlie Kirk Show. Not to mention Epoch Times and (as you noted) OAN on TV (soon to be dead) and Newsmax TV. In other words, the sites and people the right holds up as paragons of information are - by your own admission, by linking this here - among the worst of the worst. It's especially noteworthy that the "journalistic" personalities most admired on the right are also squarely among the least reliable AND farthest right. By contrast, though no one doubts Rachel Maddow is a lefty and Joe Scarborough is leaning in that direction, they're head and shoulders above Hannity, Carlson, Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk, and Alex Jones in terms of accuracy and quality of their work.

Please re-read this thread, and the others on related topics. Simply being a member for a year doesn't do anything. You have to participate, and a fair amount at that, before you can message other members directly. You have made 19 posts in this time, or slightly more than one a month. That's certainly not a great deal of participation.

A4A is full of spambots and fakes, in addition to flakes. I don't see how anyone ever uses it for anything productive, but as they say your mileage may vary. Recon focuses on fetishes, and I think the problem there is that there are lots of guys curious about certain fetishes, but not curious enough to actually pursue them in any real way. That's certainly not true of all, or even a majority, of Recon members, but even a small number of flakes can make one wary of a site.

Six years ago, the idea that the Senate majority leader would be able to get away with a year of a vacancy on the Court was unthinkable - especially a vacancy with a single, highly qualified nominee waiting virtually the entirety of that time. Before the Garland standoff, only one "long" vacancy had occurred since about 1875, when Abe Fortas's seat came open. And in the case of Fortas's successor, the problem there wasn't a majority leader sitting on the nomination; it was Nixon's nomination of two successive unqualified and bigoted individuals who both had hearings and were brought to a floor vote. Only once he nominated a less repulsive judge was Nixon able to get Fortas's replacement confirmed. World of difference between that and McConnell just sitting on the nomination - and if he can do it for 14 months, why not 24 or 36? What, really, could stop him, as long as his party backs him? No dispute there. I don't see where the Supreme Court has "legislated" anything, really. That's another right-wing euphemism for "interpreting the Constitution in a way we don't like." Sandmann got a nuisance settlement. While the amount was/is confidential, most legal scholars believe, for good reason, it was in the low six figures - a couple of hundred thousand dollars. That's hardly enough to make him "one of CNN's highest-paid". Not even close. Then explain how originalism exists as a school of "thought" and how it's a school inhabited solely by the far right. In "originalist" thinking - and Thomas is the premier example of it - he simply believes that if the words of the Constitution as understood in 1787 were not seen to encompass something, that's it - game over, the meaning as written at the time is the only thing that matters (or, for amendments, as understood at the time the amendment was adopted). Many of Thomas's noted dissents are exactly on this point. Nope, we cannot agree on that. It's true that the op-ed parts of the cable news networks lean left or right - as op-eds in print and broadcast have always done. That includes Rachel Maddow and Tucker Swanson Carlson alike. But the parts of CNN and MSNBC that are "straight news" - which occupy far more of the 24-hour cycle than "straight news" does on FOXNews - are not notably biased. The "straight news" on FOX is biased in multiple ways - not least of which is their deliberate ignoring of any news story that doesn't fit the op-ed narrative they present in the non-news portions of their broadcast day. As for the Equal Time rule - it was obsolete by the time it was abolished, because it did not and could not ever apply to cable TV. Define "recent". What's important is that Thomas is recorded as in dissent from the majority's opinion more than any other justice, and frequently dissents even in 8-1 cases because his way of thinking about the law in question is so far removed from even his conservative compatriots on the Court. He's well-documented as willing to overturn precedent far more often than any other justice he served with, even including the arch-conservative Scalia (who said "I'm a conservative, but I'm not nuts"). Thomas believes, unlike almost any other justice in history, that prior decisions are owed no deference if he thinks they were wrongly decided. THAT is a sign of politics on the Court - the notion that you just appoint enough justices to get 5 who think in one way, and they'll just overturn anything that they disagree with, regardless of how much havoc that might cause. I do agree we're unlikely to agree. But I can point to many an issue on which I've changed my mind, when more actual evidence supporting a different outlook is presented.

As Viking noted, messaging is a privilege. But beyond that: again, the point of this site is not primarily for members to communicate on-on-one with each other. It's to develop a community. Once you prove yourself part of the community, you get the privilege of private communications.

Indeed, but depending on what you mean by "old", it's important to remember that probably the majority of those who were big in the 1980's and 1990's are now dead.

Dude, with all due respect - look at the date on the last post of the actual story, from August of 2011. Chances of another chapter of this story emerging from the author are somewhere around the odds of Donald Trump getting re-elected and then nominating Hillary Clinton to the Supreme Court.

But she wasn't nominated. Bush had the option of submitting her name even knowing she might not get confirmed. That's what Obama did with Garland, even after Yertle the Turtle declared he was going to hold that seat for the next Republican president, whoever that might be (if you think he'd have let Clinton get a justice confirmed on the Court, you're on some sort of substances). Nope. I will freely admit I think a strict conservative approach to the Constitution is wrong (if it were, television, radio, and internet news media would not be covered by the First Amendment, because the First Amendment guarantees freedom "of the press", and in "originalist" thinking - what the conservative wing insists on - a "press" is a physical piece of equipment producing printed material. It's only because we consider the "evolving" meaning of things - something the right wing routinely denounces when it comes to things like sexual orientation being a protected characteristic - that FOXNews enjoys First Amendment rights. Be that as it may, I think a variety of viewpoints on the Court are a good thing, within a reasonable range. I'm no more in favor of a radical leftist approach than I am of the extreme right-wing positions of Clarence Thomas. I'm not the only one - by far - who thinks Thomas is outside the mainstream. The fact that he is frequently - by an order of magnitude more than any other justice he's served with - standing alone in dissent on matters of long-settled jurisprudence tells any disinterested observer that much. He routinely has staked out positions so far to the right that not even Rehnquist, Scalia, or Roberts would go for. Unlike most cheerleaders for one side or the other on here, I actually have to read the opinions issued by the Court - not only majority Opinions, but plurality ones, dissents, partial dissents, and the like, and it's patently clear to anyone who's read Thomas's work that he is outside the mainstream. Or was, until a couple of more recent appointees - the Handmaiden among them - have joined the Court. I assure you that you don't have to explain to me who Preet Bharara is. I agree he would probably make a good choice for an appellate judge at any court, and possibly a SCOTUS justice as well. Odd choice, for a politics forum, but hey, you do you. You may not want to make this political, but every confirmation decision for the US courts is political. Right now, we can HOPE that the replacement for Breyer is more like Breyer than, say, Thomas. If somehow the GOP manages to drag this confirmation out past the midterms (if even one Democrat isn't present to support the nominee, you can bet the GOP will block whoever it is), and the Republicans regain control of the Senate, I have no doubt that McConnell will decide that the Court got along with 8 justices just fine while Scalia was dead, so another two years is no big deal. You're once again parroting right-wing bullshit. Let's get the facts straight. The victim in this VA case was a female student raped by a male student who was her former dating partner. He was not a transgender girl nor was he posing as one, and the school in question had NOT adopted a policy regarding trans persons using restrooms, so that bullshit about liberal policies leading to this is just that - bullshit. The female victim CHOSE the girls' restroom to talk with her former dating partner (I use that term because while they had had consensual sex on more than one previous occasion, I don't know if she considered him a "boyfriend" or what). He assaulted her in the rest room out of opportunity, not because he used a liberal policy to sneak his way in there. Once transferred to another school during the disciplinary process (separate from the criminal process), he sexually assaulted ANOTHER student. The girl's father was arrested at a school board meeting after he got violent and threatened another parent with a fist in her face. I get that he was upset about his daughter's case, but violence towards other parents is not the way to handle it, and he was appropriately arrested for the assault. Garland's memo about parental attacks on school boards, etc. had nothing to do with this case. It had to do with the growing number of right-wing brainwashed people who refuse to wear masks and want to prohibit schools from even allowing masks for the students who feel vulnerable, and who want to prohibit any vaccination requirements, because these dumbfucks have been conditioned by FOXNews and even sleazier right-wing outlets that there's something dangerous about the COVID vaccines, even as over 900,000 people have died from the disease in this country in just two years. THOSE are the parents the AG was warning people to be on the lookout about - the kind that are likely to organize, show up and disrupt meetings, and otherwise terrorize - yes, terrorize is the right word - others into acquiescing to their idiotic view of the world. The VA case, by contrast, was a local incident, not something that would normally rise to the level of notice by the attorney general of the United States. That's like expecting the president to know your fucking birthday and send you a card. Top federal officials have a little bit more on their plates to worry about than a single incident of a domestic violence/rape case in a school.

Because this isn't a hookup, one-on-one based site. It's a discussion forum, so discussions should, overwhelmingly, take place on the public boards, not in private messages between users. That's not to denigrate such services, of which many, many exist. That's to say that this isn't designed as one of them. And I'd note that one of the problem such sites face is a massive number of fake profiles and spam messages. On one of the "apps" out there, I can't log on without getting at least 3-4 messages within the first minute, all from bots spamming me to come check out some other site. That's the reality of the internet today, and that's not what the owner of this site wants. By focusing on the public discussions, and limiting the ability of members to communicate privately until they've proven themselves, there's more of a sense of community here (in my opinion) than on any "meet your flavor-of-the-week guy here!" site out there. And for the record, it's not "indefinitely". There's an algorithm that controls what access each member has, based on a number of factors (primarily based on the number of postings you've made, but also factoring in how many reactions you've made once you get that ability, reactions others have given to your posts, and so forth). It's not "indefinitely", but the site owner is deliberately vague about how much participation gets you X level of access, precisely to defeat those bot/spammer types who would use that information to target getting sufficient access as soon as possible.

If I had the time, I'd offer to RawTop to temporarily take on moderator duties to clean up the Health forum (not deleting things, just moving the non-health topics to appropriate places). But I don't, and in any event, I'd probably prune more ruthlessly than most would appreciate.

I respectfully disagree. He gave a statement about himself - having no choice in the matter - and then described a group in which he INCLUDES himself ("we", not "they") as having chosen this route. Those are inherently contradictory viewpoints. It's like saying "I'm a carnivore and can't stop myself from eating red meat" and then saying "We carnivores choose to eat red meat instead of other foods."

I'd note that the person you're saying "Amen" to is no longer a member of this site, despite his raving about "strong bonds" and such. If he feels such strong bonds, why ditch one of the biggest sites specifically for barebacking? My guess - an informed guess based on watching a lot of people come and go here - is that he's gotten his jollies pretending to be a member of some sexually liberated "brotherhood" bound by being poz, and he's moved on to some other masturbatory fantasy. In decades of being around poz people - since the early/mid 1980's - I've found plenty of poz men - LOTS of poz men - who were accepting of their status and felt it was nothing to be ashamed of. I've found some who claimed "poz pride" but when queried on it, expressed that they meant they weren't going to be shamed into hiding it. They were going to be "out and proud", but not in the sense of "See what I accomplished"; more in the sense of, in the words of the song, "I am what I am, and what I am needs no excuses." I've even met quite a few who admit to fantasies involving pozzing, both for chasers and for non-consenting others, but the key word is "fantasies". I've known a small handful who actually were willing to undertake pozzing someone AFTER a serious discussion of the cons and risks involved. I've never known anyone who actually relished the idea of expanding this so-called "brotherhood" on a wide scale in real life. My experiences, of course, are my own, and quite limited, and I'm sure that "I've never known anyone who" is not the same as "There is no one who". Still, I'd say I look with a very skeptical eye at people posting to that effect online. Even here.

This is the one part of your (otherwise spot-on) post that I'm not so sure about. There are populations that might well benefit in that circumstance - for instance, a homeless person who has a pretty fixed abode, who wants to stay healthy but has issues with remembering to take pills, or who doesn't want to carry them on him because of fears of losing them and/or having them stolen. It's been discussed that in such cases, someone with a social services outreach team could make a point of treating those patients in the field, so to speak, either by having a regular day when people can show up, or by visiting certain encampments or whatever on a regular basis. That won't be everyone, of course - it's something that would work best with patients who don't have severe mental illnesses that can make them uncooperative. And of course, when you get to older people (as we're getting to folks with HIV hitting their 70's and 80's), some patients won't remember to take all their medications and don't have anyone checking on them to remind them. Having a social services medical worker come by every couple of months with a shot might be just what some people need. Again, that won't be everyone, of course, but I think there definitely will be cases where inability to adhere to a daily pill regimen will strongly suggest the injectable route.

The op-ed (NOT a news story, mind you) you linked to was from Marc Thiessen, who is an idiot. He slavishly adores everything that a Republican president does, even when it is directly opposite to what the last Republican president did; he supports everything a Republican president stands for, even if it's exactly 180 degrees from what the last Republican president stood for. The man is an unprincipled hack, so I put no stock whatsoever in his "opinions". That said: I look at Janice Rogers Brown as the female Clarence Thomas: someone far outside the legal mainstream. Her record in California was ghastly; she was rated "not qualified" by the Bar Association at the time of her nomination to the California Supreme Court (she'd never served even as a trial or appellate judge at that point). She wrote, at various times, that minimum wage laws represented a socialist revolution in this country, and that post-Lochner court decisions on economic regulation were inherently wrongly decided - in fact, a position that even the ultra-right judge Robert Bork rejected. When she was first nominated to the DC Circuit (again, leaping ahead of far more qualified judges), she was opposed by bipartisan coalition of senators, and her nomination was returned to the president. She was renominated the next term, where she again faced opposition over her abysmal record; she was only confirmed to the DC Circuit as part of a deal worked out between centrists in the Democratic party and the hard-line Republicans, when the Democrats agreed not to filibuster judicial nominees except in the most extraordinary circumstances. (Note that when the Democrats took control of the Senate, the Republicans pointedly refused to honor that same agreement, beginning to block virtually every judicial nominee. No honor, that's what the Senate GOP has.) With barely ONE month under her belt as a DC Circuit judge, Bush began floating her name to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. In other words, just as Bush the First replaced Thurgood Marshall (the first black Justice) with the ethically and morally challenged stain that is Clarence Thomas, Bush the Second wanted to replace O'Connor, the first female justice, with this inexperienced and radical woman, thinking he could pull the same trick as his daddy - blunting criticism of the candidate from the Democrats because she was a Black woman. It's in THAT context Biden made his remarks, which Thiessen DISHONESTLY characterizes as saying "he would filibuster and kill her nomination." The average person won't go back and look up what Biden said, but I did, and what he said was he would probably endorse a filibuster to prevent Brown from becoming a Supreme Court justice. NOT that he would personally lead the filibuster; not that he definitely would "kill" her nomination; that he would JOIN a filibuster, which might or might not succeed. As I said, Thiessen is a hack. Interestingly, Thiessen also bewails the fact that Brown probably had "majority support" in the Senate - as though majority support should be enough to guarantee confirmation. Of course, he's the same asshole who gleefully endorsed Mitch McConnell's blocking of Merrick Garland's nomination, despite the fact that Garland's prior nomination to the DC Circuit was UNOPPOSED - far more support than Brown EVER had, for ANY nomination. As always, Thiessen the Hack is saying "do what I say, not what I do". You're right that no one remembers Janice Rogers Brown. That's because she was an utterly forgettable failure as a judge.

This makes no sense. How can you say that BB is your "nature and cannot change it" and then in the same paragraph go on to say "We choose to be cumcraving faggots"? If you are choosing it, then it's not something you can't change; and if you can't change it, you aren't choosing it.