BootmanLA

I'm still curious about this topic. How does the race of the top affect how you "take" his cock? Is there some mysterious secret about big cocks when they belong to black men (as opposed to white men, Hispanic men, Asian men, or whomever) that makes them hurt? An explanation would be most appreciated.

I think this is (sorry to say) more evidence that you're fantasizing about there being "something" there beyond a friendship. I get that you're closeted, and I know that's tough. But I can't think of many more volatile situations than a closeted gay man making advances on a putatively straight man - with whom he works, who lives in the same building, and who has a live-in girlfriend. Someone earlier called this a dumpster fire with a fast-burning fuse; I'd add that there seems to be TNT or something packed around the edges of the dumpster as well.

I'll preface this by saying that since I've never met you, him, or the girlfriend, I'm just spitballing here. But here's what it sounds like to me: The other guy is straight, in a relationship, living with his girlfriend. He has found a friend, one who lives nearby, who shares some interests, who understands his work and the pressures it places on a person, such that he doesn't have to explain to you what it means to be on a high because you saved a patient who came in, in really bad shape, or conversely to lose a patient who came in not initially seeming all that bad off. No wonder he's relaxed around you and enjoys spending time with you. None of that suggests, in and of itself, any attraction whatsoever to you as a romantic/sexual partner. That doesn't mean it CAN'T be there, but there's no reason to expect it - nothing you've said in any of your posts hints that your appeal to him is as anything other than a friend. And you didn't mention in any of your posts that you've told him (either directly or indirectly) that you're gay. For all you know, he has zero idea, and if he did, he'd be a lot more distant around you. Or maybe it wouldn't matter, but still only interested in friendship, because he wouldn't have any idea you thought of him "that way". So I'll suggest an even more rudimentary set of questions to ask yourself: 1. [Assuming, in fact, that he doesn't know you're gay] If you come out to him - not about your feelings for him, but just about being gay - and he pulls back from your friendship, such that it becomes a lot more distant, are you okay with that? If not, then you need to figure out whether remaining "closeted" to him is worth the friendship. 2. [Assuming he does know you're gay, or you tell him and he's not bothered by that] Is there ANYTHING - anything concrete, that is - that's not just wishful thinking that would suggest he has any interest in you as anything other than a friendly colleague? If not - if he's given you no reason to think he's definitely got a sexual/romantic interest in you - I think any attempt to nudge things in that direction could blow up in your face - and you're back to losing a friend by weirding him out. 3. But - assuming you feel it's worth the risk, after he knows you're gay, there's always the oblique-but-not-really approach, where you lament not being able to find someone good to date, that it's a shame he doesn't have a gay twin, or that it's a shame he's straight and taken, because other than that, he's the kind of guy you'd like to meet. You don't make it about sexual attraction - suggesting that you are [banned word] on him somehow - but about about liking him enough that (except for being straight and taken) you'd like to take it to a higher level. In a fantasy world, he'd say "Actually, I'm not straight, I'm bi, and to be honest, she's really more of a friend and we've stopped dating, just still living together as friends." But that's the fantasy world, which 99.9999% of the time doesn't exist. More likely, in the real world, he'll pull back some, until he's sure you're not pursuing him hoping to get him into bed. But knowing that you like him that much can actually serve as the basis for a deeper friendship.

Interesting perspective. If the US is the "mother" of tattoo culture, who are its offspring? Considering that Central and South America and Asia (and even natives of North America) have tattoo cultures that long predate even the "discovery" of North America by Europeans, how do you place these entities on the "tattoo culture" family tree? Even Europe has a tattooing history that predates the U.S.'s existence. This is about the dumbest take I've seen on anything this week.

It's a web site optimized for mobile devices, not an app. So there aren't going to be "versions" in the classic sense of "download this upgrade". If and when they revise the website significantly, it'll become available automatically as soon as it's live.

Your comment isn't really off-topic (IMO) but I think it's missing the context of the original post. In some cultures in Europe, circumcision is rare except among people of Jewish or Muslim religious traditions. Both groups, in some regions, face hatred for their beliefs and/or ethnic background. Hence in a setting where that circumcision is obvious (his examples were saunas and orgies, but could also include gym locker rooms/showers, sex clubs, and more), those people may well face discrimination or outright hatred - not necessarily because they're cut, but because of what the hating people think it means. That, I believe, was the OP's point. In the United States, circumcision has long been common, particularly among white men, for a century. A lot of Americans do in fact prefer cut cocks, but there is a significant subset of the gay male culture that really, REALLY likes uncut men. I don't know a lot of men who would reject an uncut man, but I do know a few; I agree no one should be rude about it. Except for those who have an extreme fetish for uncut men, I don't think many gay men here would reject a man who is circumcised.

As @viking8x6 notes, snake tattoos have a long history with different meanings in various cultures (and sometimes many multiple meanings within a culture) - not to mention that the US basically has no "tattoo culture" of its own, and so people here adopt designs willy-nilly from all over in combinations that range from the sublime to the ridiculous. So if you see one, you can always, you know, ask. What it means to him might be relevant or not.

For those in a sufficiently large city, that is probably an option. For the hundreds of thousands (or more) of gay men who live in small cities, towns, or rural areas, in-person cruising is frequently unavailable and dangerous when it is. Many such places have no gay bars or other gay-friendly establishments and public cruising can lead to arrest and/or being beaten or killed. If nothing else, an app gives those people some level of security by allowing them to feel out the person before divulging contact information or specific location. Again, sometimes that works, sometimes not. In the past, I've met guys out at gay bars who even came home with me anticipating play - and then having more than one of them zip up once we got to the "feel each other's erections through clothing" stage. Only one was blunt enough to just say it - "I thought you were bigger" - but yeah, there are guys who will say "sorry, I was looking for a bigger cock" and leave even after going to all that trouble. Online, at least, I can be up front that I'm not that big and not to expect me to flip for them, and if that's an issue, they can decline without having to look me in the eye. Your mileage may vary.

Or, as I noted, such people should accept that other people will consider them a shit person.

You asked for an explanation. I gave one to you. I'm not arguing for or against any of the reasons people cite; please take it up with them, not me, if you think their life choices are "silly".

I don't think you read the original post or else perhaps you don't understand it. Nobody's arguing that if you want sex "now" you should have to wait ten hours for it. What people are complaining about is people who say "Yes I'll do it, let's meet up now" and then don't show. So no, you don't owe a "sub" an explanation if you haven't committed to showing up. If you have, then, well, you do. Unless of course you're content with being a shit person.

Perhaps not. But your posts are leaning sharply in that direction. And frankly, here's what bothers me about this. 1. You stated, early on, that "And him being weak unable to resist it made me feel as if i riaped [sic] him." 2. You've never ONCE said anything about him expressing an interest in this or making the first moves or whatever. In fact, other than talking about how he moans while getting fucked, you haven't posted ANYTHING that suggests he's seeking this out. 3. You've stressed in more than one post about how you see yourself as "helping" him - again, nudging into fetish territory. 4. You wrote in one post, about making him sit on your cock, "It made my dick so hard knowing that he was "trapped". I told him so and I kissed him. I fucked the hell outta him." Not that you two kissed - that YOU kissed HIM. I could go on and on, but it's starting to come across as a very creepy, rapey situation. I'm not saying disabled people can't fully and enthusiastically consent to sex (or even initiate/ask for it), even when the non-disabled person has to take the physical initiative and the disabled person may not be able to do much to direct or control things. But I'm not hearing one single iota of a suggestion that any of this is his idea.

I don't think "fear" has anything to do with it, except for those religious nuts who practice the "My body is God's Temple and I'm keeping it pure for Him" sort of business. Rather, I think there are various reasons/justifications that different people use as the reason to participate. Some submissive/bottom types do so at the urging/request/demand of a dominant/Top man (partner or otherwise), to help teach him to be less interested in his own orgasm. Some guys do it because if they know they aren't going to be getting off all month, they are less inclined to waste time on the apps or going out cruising or whatever else might distract them from otherwise productive days and nights. Some guys do it as a rather extreme form of edging - the first orgasm after November 30 is probably going to be pretty intense. But no, I don't think people are "afraid" of sex.

Oh, and as part of #3: that all the posts that talk about "sperm" automatically corrected to "semen" unless it was a post about actual reproduction.

This isn't to spook you - as @viking8x6 noted, it's highly unlikely you are poz (get tested!) or at high risk for getting HIV. But just remember: men can lie, and guys can say they're on PrEP without actually taking it, or without taking it regularly enough to protect themselves. Relying on someone else's word adds another (unquantifiable) layer of risk, whether they're saying "I'm on PrEP" or "I'm negative". Most men probably are being truthful; and of those that aren't, some undoubtedly don't realize it (ie guys who say they're negative but they last had a test four years ago). So I'm not saying assume they're lying - but understand it's a possibility that what they say isn't actually true.

Again, though, that's something that's happened everywhere. Bathhouses in mid-sized cities across the country have been closing up in the last decade (those that survived the AIDS shutdowns, that is). Even in larger cities, the number of bathhouses has declined precipitously (and Covid has done a number on the rest). I'm not disagreeing that it's different now, nor am I disagreeing that apps aren't a big part of the problem. I'm just noting it's not a problem local to New Orleans. What I think IS different about New Orleans' situation is that 20 or 25 years ago, a visitor to the city from almost anywhere else in the country (except, say, SF, NYC, Chicago, and maybe one or two other places) would have found sex available essentially on the street - not prostitution, just people hanging out around the bars socializing and ending up going off to play. That vibe isn't common in the US even in gayborhoods, because local sensibilities dictated otherwise. New Orleans - both in the lower French Quarter and in parts of the Marigny - embraced the gay community publicly and welcomed visitors to indulge themselves with the rest of us. That's gone (again, in part, thanks to the apps) but it's something NOLA had that most other cities didn't. A lot of cities had bathhouses and sex clubs.

To be fair to New Orleans: it's not that things are worse there than most other mid-large cities, it's that for a long time, it was a special example that was different from the rest of the country. So it perhaps stings a little more that hooking up is harder there than it used to be, compared with a place like, say, Indianapolis or Omaha.

I hate to be critical but as phrased, this question really has no answer. A circumcised "total top " who has sex with a handful of carefully screened partners, all of whom are on Prep or undetectable, has a much different risk than a circumcised "total top" who has lots of sex in bathhouses and cruisy public areas where multiple tops share cumdump bottoms. The most that can be said is that, very generally speaking, and with all other factors equal, (a) topping is less risky than bottoming and (b) circumcised men are at slightly lower risk than uncut men. So as far as those two factors are concerned, your risk is lower than it would be if you were a bottom or uncut. That's all that can be said as to 'how hard it is" for you to get HIV.

1. The end of right-wing politics in the United States. 2. A workable cure for HIV. 3. A magic web plug-in that would correct the spelling and grammar in posts here and that would reject any that it just couldn't translate into understandable English.

For what it's worth, the oldest reference to a dad fucking his son on this site is in a Bareback fiction story posted in 2010. Oh, and guess who created that topic? Rawtop. The site owner.

That's certainly more helpful. I'd still like to advocate for testing for hardcore fetish (if not both hard/softcore) before poz fetish, on this reasoning: the point of segregating stories by focus is, in part, to keep people who don't want to see "X" from running across it. In a website about bareback sex in general with a significant portion dealing with HIV-related topics, compare two fiction stories: 1. A story that contains a scene of deliberate pozzing as one element within, say, a story about fisting; 2. A story that contains a scene of fisting and rosebuds as an element within a story about two HIV+ men having sex Which one, on a bareback/breeding/HIV-tolerant site, is more likely to bother a larger group of users? I'd argue it's the latter. Or consider those stories that get photos for illustration, which as has been discussed, is apparently OK here. Is a user more likely to get wigged out by stumbling onto a photo of cum dripping from an ass (ie an illustration of the "pozzing" aspect of the fisting story), or by stumbling onto a photo of a bright red rosebud prolapsed rectum in the middle of the poz fetish section? Again, I'd argue the latter. For that reason, I'd strongly recommend that hardcore fetish be segregated BEFORE testing for poz content. And yes, I recognize that's RawTop's call (in conjunction with his moderators' advice). Just food for thought.

To further address BareLover's question about getting a prescription for a condition/disease before confirming the diagnosis: in cases where lab backups are common, it's not unusual to go with the doctor's best instinct (to get treatment underway quickly), especially if we're talking about basic antibiotics. For instance, thanks to some internal plumbing that's not quite standard, I have a tendency towards UTIs, about once a year or so. I know my body well enough to know the symptoms and when I can tell I've got one, I usually visit urgent care if it's after hours, and they take a urine specimen. From that, they can tell I have an infection, but not what species of bacteria; that requires a culture, and it can be 3-4 days after giving that sample before they have the culture results back. From experience I know that my infections are usually treatable with trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (the generic name for Bactrim DS), and the urgent care has notes in my file that's what usually works best. On occasion, however, the culture has come back with a different bacterium and instead, ciprofloxacin is indicated; usually I already know that because the Bactrim isn't working and it's been a few days. When the problem comes up during day hours, my HIV doctor will phone in orders for a urine test to the local lab while also calling in the Bactrim prescription, and we proceed the same way once the lab results come back. The alternative is letting an infection go unchecked at all until the complete lab results are available - and that's usually not a good idea.

Just to be sure: I assume you mean real-life experiences, and not either (a) fictional "stories" (which belong elsewhere) or (b) eroticized encounter retellings (which also belong elsewhere).

I think that highlights the problem with the current layout - either stories get broken up - and you have to jump over to another section entirely, find the story thread, read the post(s) there, and then return to the original thread. And I can see in a longer story things going back and forth, all over the place. I assume a final "hierarchy" of rules would have to come from RawTop, ultimately, but I'd envision it going something like this: 1. If it contains any significant amount of chem sex, other than a passing reference, it goes in there, because that forum can be "closed off" for members who don't want to read about that (e.g. people in recovery, or who've lost friends to substance abuse). 2. Otherwise, if it contains sex with women - either straight or bi - it goes in the Straight/Bi fiction forum, even if it contains fetish elements. 3. If it's neither chemsex or straightsex, then the test is for fetish: if a significant element of the story is based on a hardcore or softcore fetish, then it goes in the appropriate forum. That's with the understanding that other stories with lesser amounts of a fetish might not hit that "significant element" trigger. Hardcore trumps softcore, so if a story contains both, it goes in Hardcore. 4. Otherwise, if it contains chasing/pozzing/stealthing elements, it goes in the Bug Chasing/Pozzing forum. 5. If none of the above apply, then it goes in the General Bareback section. This is just a sample - for instance, an argument could be made the bug chasing/pozzing/stealth test should come before the hardcore/softcore test. I'd disagree, but it's an arguable point (my argument would be that pozzing is certainly closer related to the main focus of this site than, say, fisting or watersports).

I thanked you for that post because I think it's important that anyone who's chasing - or even considering chasing - understand that it's not a comfy feather bed life with chocolates on the pillow. Being part of some non-existent "brotherhood" doesn't do squat for you. And it's not, as you've noted, a relentless grind of bad things happening to you. For the most part, with enough resources and fortitude, it's all manageable, more or less, until it isn't any more. Triple-drug cocktails in a single (expensive) pill have been around for not quite 20 years. Thus far, broadly speaking, prognoses are good. But some of the earliest drugs have proven to have long-term toxic effects on the human body. The newest drugs, not so much, but then we have far shorter experience with them. And so far, it appears that the best of these drugs show no signs of becoming ineffective over the time they've been in use. There's no guarantee, though, that things will stay that way. What if we find out that these drugs work for, say, 30 years and then the virus manages to overcome them, after 30 years of hiding deep in the body where the drugs can't reach the virus? We assume that, of course, drugs will continue to advance, but for how long?