AirmaxUK

Add to that Central Station's Underground Club in Kings Cross (not too far from Vault - a couple of bus stops, or a walk) which is a bit more kink oriented. List of events here: [think before following links] https://undergroundclublondon.co.uk SOP/Sunday is very good for BB so long as you don't mind getting a bit wet 😉

Speaking as someone who's quite introverted - perhaps as a result of being slightly 'on the spectrum', one of the most difficult things is eye contact. If someone I don't know well makes eye contact with me then it makes me feel really uncomfortable - even if I like them. Similarly I struggle with making eye contact - either across a room or in conversation. I'll tend to look at their sneakers, an item of clothing they're wearing, a tattoo, or something else instead.

Anyone planning to be at SOP today? Always great to meet guys from here. DM me if you're going or say hello there. Depending how hot it is, I'll either be in a dirty orange hivis, blue jock and yellow trainers or hivis, rubber/waders.

Maybe send the person on here a DM to remind them to update (or remove) their links? Mine are up to date.

I realise this is too late, but I'd go. You can host in your hotel anytime and most guys into raw fucking will be at biohazardmen anyway. Have a plan B - if it sucks, go somewhere else... there's tons of choice. Did you go? How was it?

For some guys, making that decision they feel "in control" of the situation?

Bookmarking this - very useful insight for future travel plans...

Yes.. Also I remember talkers like Lintilla's Multiple Worlds, some of the gay MUDs/MUSHs (ca 1994) and the IRC channels on efnet.

I think a big problem with the current. hookup apps is a lack of accountability. If people behave badly then there's no red flags to warn others. But why not turn that around and give green flags for being a good citizen? Much like Uber has a rating system when you ride - for both the passenger and the driver, I'd think there's a place for such a system on hook up apps. How it would work would be an interesting PhD in Social Science... I think having only positive feedback and no negatives avoids the whole situation where people give revenge bad feedback and it has to be moderated. Maybe there's a bunch of traits you can give props for - "Showed up on time" - "Accurate pics" - "Gave me a load" - "Took my load" - "Multiple loads" - etc... All of these reputation points would be things that are based around an actual meet. The idea here is that by being positive rather than negative in feedback it helps build more of a community. Perhaps some red flags are also needed to deal with bad actors - but would have to be moderated to prevent abuse. The only flaw I can see is that it may be difficult for newcomers to build a reputation from scratch. But reputation has to be earned, somehow/ - so it's sort of the point.

So... currently if you go on BBRT and set the location to Central London and list the events, you'll see a bunch of guys (about 50%) advertising for the same hotel. As of this morning, of those ads, most have 0-2 guys attending, one or two have 5-10 and one ad stands out as having 49 guys. What I'm interested in, is why is the guy with 49 people so successful - his ad isn't notably different - he's not the youngest - and there are guys who are more of a thirst trap who are in the 0-2 guys zone. The successful guy's profile only has one pic you can see and there's not a lot of description. His event is for a Thursday, which I imagine would be less busy than a weekend. This seems to happen with some regularity - lots of ads for the same place and one has a ton of responses, the others very little. I've often wondered why. Given the quoted 20% show up rate for guys with <10 visitors is it worth it? You'd be better off down the road at The Vault or one of the Saunas, surely? For those that do this, do you rely on BBRT or work the apps hard trying to lure guys in?

It's not just the tops not showing up - I noted someone had booked a room for such an event on BBRT and I asked him afterwards how it went. Turns out he never turned up at the hotel to collect his prizes. If I was one of the fifteen or so tops booked in I'd be well pissed to find the bottom didn't show up. What's a mystery to me is how/why some guys at that hotel get a ton of interest and others don't. It seems quite hit and miss.

There are a few good clubs (IMO), but it depends on your perception of 'good'. As for the hotel, I think they have realised: they are no longer taking bookings for one night only - minimum two nights. There's still five ads on BBRT for the weekend though... Agree with @ErosWired here. Probably they're attending more places now so I'm seeing it around more and more. And I agree with the costume comment. What's next will be people getting biohazard tattoos to be 'edgy' ???

A few trends I've noticed: Guys who go to a cruise/fetish party and are too glued to their phones to notice guys in the same room. The invention and rise of online "Cash Masters" in the last few years. The thing with the dog hoods and pretending to be a puppy. Traditional Skinhead and Leather scene getting smaller and very few younger guys getting into it. Fetishgear becoming fashion and label brand oriented for twinks rather than into it for fetish (Looking at you, Mr Reigellio) Although viagra and others are more readily available more and more guys in darkrooms etc. who can't get it up I guess because of illegal drugs. Bareback is no longer a USP/differentiator. Increasing numbers of different ads (5+ sometimes) on BBRT for different guys doing the cum-dump thing on the same Saturday in what is becoming known as the cum-dump hotel in London. It's not all bad though. Some of the above is just effects of the changing landscape we live in evolving.

Longshot short notice... I am in Newport (south Wales, not IoW) tomorrow morning and free from 1pm. Was planning to go to Greenhouse Newport to meet a mate but he just bailed. So, at a loose end and looking for distractions. Anyone around or have some suggestions where to go/what to do?

After reading previous comments, I watched it this evening. I found Bobby's character to be really irritating. That's just me though... Eyerolling queens tend to affect me that way. BF was a bit more tolerant. I wouldn't have watched it to the end if it were not for Aaron who - physical attributes aside - seemed to me to be the most relatable character in the movie. A few elements in the story were funny observations. As already mentioned the Grindr-Butt-Pic scene but also the moment where the 4th person joins in the group sex scene and awkwardly struggles to get involved. Very true to backroom life! The only error I spotted was they didn't put the cap on the poppers before throwing it down on the bed. Entertaining - I don't regret spending time watching it, and we both kept off our iPhones for the duration, but it won't get re-watched.

I have two solutions to this: Frozen cum - devils dick. Even if it's your own. A load is a load... Turkey-baster and a quantity of lube. It's not totally honest, but...

If it were me, I'd give it a go and see how far I got. If I had to tap out, there'd likely be three other bottoms in the hotel that weekend who'd be grateful of a referral.

Is it just me, but on the BBRT mobile site I find I have to log out and back in again to get the geo-location to update when you have moved ? I get an email when someone sends me a message and I set my iPhone to alert me when I get an email from BBRT/NKP/ etc so it's almost instant.

Similar experiences here when in London. I agree the differentiating factor has been lost, and that also affects events like CumUnion. I'll add that I got chatting to a guy who'd organised a cumdump session at that hotel... at the time he had 18 people on BBRT saying they were coming. Impressed, I messaged and asked him what he'd done to get so many guys to sign up as tops (he was advertising for tops only, no bottoms). Nothing special as it turns out. A couple of days afterwards I asked him how it went and how many actually showed up. Turns out *he* never went through with it and hoped to give it another go in a couple of months again. It made me wonder if a lot of what we see on BBRT is fantasy. How do we find the genuine guys amongst the wannabes?

Agree with @tallslenderguy above but would also add the practical palaver of dealing with them when in the moment is a major distraction. I'm not allergic, but I've found that my arse gets to the point where it's had enough a lot quicker if there's latex involved. When PrEP trial came out on the NHS I remember being asked why I wanted to bareback. I remember saying that for my formative years and most of my life sex was promoted within the community as something hazardous that you had to be careful of. I wanted to discover the joy of not having to be paranoid about every encounter and being free of all the anxieties during and afterwards. Using a condom conjures up all of that risk reduction hype in my head and stops me from enjoying the moment...

Shouldn't that be Cumunion Wafers?

Thanks, @RawPlug it's always nice to be appreciated. My purpose here, however, is not seeking any kind of attention for myself, but really to highlight how events promoters and scene/fetish shops really push a narrow image of our culture. It's clear from the responses so far that it's not a unique experience. The question is: what can we do to change things?

This is pretty mild. In a wider context I've been on the receiving end of many comments like this on the scene over the years. I remember the guy on the reception to the Sauna in Waterloo told me "You'd be better off staying home with a packet of crisps. You won't get any fun in here." The barman at Slut Club in Hamburg who took me in hand to the dark room only to ask "What is is like to not be able to see your dick except in a mirror?" These get put down at the time as bitchy barbs, you try to ignore them and move on, but they they're not that harmless because they stay with you.

I guess it depends why you need the VPN as to which is best. I've been using NordVPN for a while. It has been useful when travelling - a lot of Hotel and Public WiFi is unencrypted open access, and the VPN adds some level of security and circumvents any family-filter type blocks. Using it for accessing geographically limited services (like BBC iPlayer) is hit and miss as the streaming services get to know the VPN IPs and ban them. I am not sure I will renew my subscription, since I got a decent fibre connection at home, I set up a VPN server on the router, so I can VPN back home and access all my local storage as well as appear to be in the UK.

Walking around the stands at BLF I stopped and chatted a while with Antoine, the events organiser from Recon. I mentioned that it was nice to see that they were publishing the Recon Fetishweek London Guidebook with three different covers - each with a different guy on the cover - and one in particular stood out because it is an image we don't see often on the scene in advertising and promotion - a bearish guy with a belly. Antoine said that it was a conscious decision on their part, and the model took a lot of persuading to participate because he felt that nobody would ever want someone with his figure in publicity material, and he was afraid it would bring ridicule. I told Antoine that if the model feels that way - imagine what us ordinary joes must feel like participating in the fetish scene. If he is still in touch with the guy, I asked him to tell him that seeing someone identifiable in publicity material makes events like Fetish Week feel all the more friendly and inclusive. It's nice to see Recon trying to move the needle. I wish that others businesses and organisations would also be forward thinking. I'm no expert in advertising - but I'm thinking that actually its really actually a few of us fit the 'skinny Twink' or 'muscle Mary' moulds, but we're somehow conditioned by the culture to be attracted to those images and it becomes a cyclic circle that feeds itself. The second point I wanted to highlight is how the scene and feitsh stores play into this culture - again with images and advertising, but also with exclusion by only offering their products in small sizes and skinny cuts. And they're a bit like SuperDRY in the UK - an XXL there is like an L everywhere else. If you ask for larger sizes in these stores you get reactions from the staff like: "The only thing we have in the store that will fit you is some socks. Maybe." (Gear Berlin) "We have a made to measure tailoring service..." (Blackstyle) "Perhaps you should spend your money on a gym membership first" (One of the leather shops) "The bakery is next door" (Frontstyle) The reasoning is always that the larger sizes are not volume sellers, but I'd challenge that: I think many don't bother looking anymore and as the community ages bit by bit and there are more of us who are built for comfort rather than speed and we settle for our Marks & Spencer casuals. But is there also some discrimination at work here? Maybe these brands don't want the likes of me wearing their names because it spoils some sort of image they want to project. That's when business needs overtakes community needs. There was an interesting article in Attitude recently on body dysmorphia and coming to terms with and learning to love your own body. I can't help thinking that is a really hard struggle many are having - and the culture we exist within really doesn't do anything to help. Again - thanks to Antoine at Recon for starting to push back. Andy