ErosWired

He used up almost a pint of K-Lube this last time. (K-Lube is not a typo - it’s formulated for human use, vs J-Lube which is intended for veterinary use.) He did say it would have been better if I had mixed it a tad thicker, but the stuff is very slippery when applied. If pain is to be expected, why do all these fisters rave on about how good it feels without ever mentioning the pain involved? Masochism is not that common a fetish. I can tolerate some pain, but don’t enjoy it, and for this I even took an ibuprofen/acetaminophen combo in anticipation of the pain. I shudder to think what it would have been like otherwise. I also did pre-stretch, to a dilation of about 9” circumference, because I knew that if I went in unstretched it would never happen. I may give it one more shot (third time’s the charm?) but if the result is similar I think that’ll be the last time.

Last night I took my second fist, by the same fisting Top who did the first. He’s pretty good, I think; patient, experienced, knowledgeable, and has relatively small hands. He takes the time to explain what he’s doing as he goes. I read people describing what an amazing experience fisting is, how good it feels, how they can have full-body orgasms…but that has not been my experience so far. Entry is painful, no matter how much deep breathing I do or how many times I apply poppers, and once it’s in it’s uncomfortable. An orgasm is out of the question. This morning my body ached down there from the play (he advanced beyond the second ring, very unpleasant) and I still feel it a bit. I don’t think he did me any harm, but do others feel this kind of next-day pot-fisting discomfort? I don’t read many references on here to entry pain, but I definitely hurt going in. Is that common for the first couple of times?

I suspect they are, at least in terms of what I think ‘total bottom’ means, and ought to mean using ‘total as the qualifier - that is, a bottom who simply does not provide Top service in any way. I’ve read any number of posts on here by men who declare themselves total bottoms because they only occasionally penetrate someone else. But that’s not total, it’s a very little bit vers. So I suspect the number of never-Toppers is actually much smaller. No, the poll isn’t scientific and doesn’t pretend to be, and until it gets more responses it’s not going to really tell us anything.

I’m willing to risk it. 😉

The questioner may no longer be on the site, but it’s an important question, particularly with a Collins. I never close mine entirely when I’m ready to remove it, but instead place a finger between arms of the hinge so that there’s something to block complete closure. Complete closure usually results in pinched flesh, and steel is unyielding. The thing about a Collins is that the blades don’t open parallel to one another, they splay outward inside you kind of like a Pear of Anguish. At full spread, removal is likely impossible for all but very accomplished hole stretchers (for whom the speculum would be of little use anyway), so at least some degree of closure is necessary. I’ve gotten so that I can now pull mine out half-open or so, but best practice really is to retract it nearly fully closed. The same is true for most any kind of speculum, as all of them press metal to metal on full closure.

100% of us originated elsewhere. Native Americans simply got here first (from northeast Asia) and ate only called ‘native’ because the Europeans found them already here when they arrived. There was no human presence in the New World to begin with; humans did not evolve here independently. I can trace part of my lineage to 1635 in Jamestown. Others came in the late 18th Century. I, as an individual, did not come from abroad and I have to go back in some cases centuries to find a member of my family who did. Having been born here, I am myself a native American (small N). I have great sympathy for those of First Peoples descent and what they lost with the catastrophic introduction of European influences, followed by their unconscionable treatment ever since. They deserve better. But (since my genetics show I am basically 100% of British Isles derivation) I would also point out that other cultures hail from places with histories of calamity resulting from outside invasion - like, for instance, Britain. The history of the British Isles is a litany of conquests from without, which in some cases almost wholly supplanted the original (native) populations, and each successive culture was the ‘native’ one to the next invader. The breakdown of my ancestry by DNA says all Britain, but how can I say that when there’s a smattering of northern France and Scandinavian, and a tiny hint of Italy in there, too? Easy - those traces are the echoes in my blood of the Romans, the Vikings, and the Normans who all overran Britain in their day and started fucking the natives. Followed to its furthest extent, one could say that I’m ‘from’ places separated by hundreds of miles, but I obviously didn’t ‘come’ from there as an individual, and I can’t ‘go back’ to somewhere I’ve never lived.

This brings up an interesting point. Tops tell me that they do like to see an ass pic of the bottom while it's being fucked. But using such a pic as the main or avatar pic has the effect of leading to uncertainty at first glance (and lots of people make their decision to interact based on their first visual impression. I think whether it's successful or no depends on the proportion of Top to bottom (or cock to ass) in the picture. If the Top and his cock take up more room in the frame, the impression is that the owner wants to fuck. If the bottom and his ass take up more room, it becomes clear that the owner is the one being fucked. As the proportions approach equal, it becomes less and less clear. @Bimarried001's avatar says "Top" to me on first glance, whether he means it to or not.

In order to quantify the prevalence of Tops' attitudes on this subject, I've created a related poll, link below. If you are vers or bottom, please do not respond to the poll—the questions are designed to be answered by Total Tops.

This poll is intended to gauge Tops' attitudes toward seeing a cock pic in a bottom's profile. The poll is intended only for Total Tops—please DO NOT REPLY if you are vers or bottom. Some of the questions are designed in such a way that non-Total Top replies will skew the data.

The first dictionary definition of queer - and the one originating circa 1500, is ‘strange, peculiar, odd, eccentric’. By 1740, it had the added sense, colloquially, of ‘open to suspicion, doubtful as to honesty’. By 1781, ‘appearing, feeling or behaving in a way other than normal’. By 1812 the term is used in relation to money that is counterfeit, and begins to be used as a verb, meaning ‘to spoil, ruin’. The sense of ‘homosexual doesn’t come along until 110 years later, first attested in 1922. Language does change over time, and obviously new nuances of meaning are being overlaid on queer at a snappy pace just now. But the word already had over four centuries of common usage before it meant ‘gay’, and just because people may co-opt it to suit their desires in the given moment doesn’t mean that the word loses all its past associations in the culture. In the case of queer, a derogatory connotation lingers, carrying a sense of something abnormal, suspect, odd. I don’t like the word, and would never label myself with it largely because I have the sense of it as a negative term. No doubt this is partly a result of coming of age in 1980s Appalachia, where queer was used as a slur. Yes, the meaning has changed for some people in recent times …but that new meaning hasn’t replaced the original as the first definition in the dictionary. Although a person can call himself what he likes, he must still contend with how others will react when he chooses a word others use in a different way.

A pointless rant? I’m not the first person to ever comment on this, and the thrust of the topic is asking for an explanation of something I genuinely don’t understand. It wasn’t a rhetorical question. Just because a topic doesn’t happen to engage you doesn’t make it pointless. So far, I still don’t. The reasons given don’t reflect the nature of the Tops I’ve experienced, and that experience involves a number of Tops that is statistically significantly by any measure. I’m sorry, but the idea that a majority of Tops want to play with a bottom’s cock, or refuse a fuck if they can’t get a pic of one, doesn’t wash. I get fucked plenty, and practically no Top ever asks to see my cock, nor touches me beyond a quick feel, if all, and the great majority don’t. I don’t have a lot of locked photos, and where I do, I unlock them on request. It’s extremely uncommon for someone to ask for a cock shot once they’ve seen the rest. And, it does affect me. If I’m hosting, I don’t like being baited-and-switched by someone who isn’t actually looking to fuck and tries to get my interest with a cock he doesn’t intend to use. Again, not all those who post such a pic are guilty of that, but it happens. Yes, I could, and do, pass such profiles over if I’m surveying who’s available; it’s the ones that approach me that are the nuisance. And no, I couldn’t just ignore them, I don’t ignore people who take the time to contact me. As mentioned in another post above, I do understand, given some of the reasons given, why a bottom might post a cock pic among a set of images - that goes with the cover-your-bases idea. But not as the main image. Your personal experience must reflect the norm in the PNW, which, by your own frequent descriptions, is not the norm elsewhere. The figures you speculate may or may not be accurate where you live, but I think you’re projecting your personal taste onto the population of Tops at large and trying to extrapolate from that. There’s no way I can have taken the amount of cock I have in the place I’m in if 90% of available Tops disqualify me for not having a cock pic. That’s just not happening.

It still doesn’t make sense to me, though. If you post a cock pic, you don’t just get Vers guys who are also looking to suck, you’re also broadcasting to bottoms (by far the majority of those looking - that you’re a potential Topping candidate. Fending off all the unwanted fucking requests from bottoms would, to my mind, outweigh any potential benefit to ‘covering your bases’. Plus - and I‘ve been told this by multiple Tops - when a Top is browsing profiles to find a cunt to fuck, what he wants to see is ass, so he can decide if he wants it. They’ve gone so far as to take pics of me to show me what motivates a Top: All ass. You might snag a Vers Top who also wants to suck, but Tops who just want to fuck are likely to give you a pass. Additionally, when I see a profile with a cock pic that claims to be a bottom, I immediately suspect the person is trying to bait-and-switch other bottoms in the hope of persuading them to Top instead of getting fucked as expected. That’s not covering bases, that’s attempting to widen the pool of candidates by deception. Not saying you’re one of this type, but they’re definitely out there. Personally, I don’t even give out a cock pic even if requested, because if a guy is asking for it, he has a reason, probably involving his wanting to be penetrated in some way. If the guy’s after my cock, he’s likely to be a problem encounter, and certain to leave disappointed. The only time anyone sees my cock in a pic is A) if we’re discussing piercings; B) if we’re discussing cock cages; or C) if it’s incidentally visible in my ass pic.

We see them all the time - bottoms who post profiles, in which they say up front that they’re bottoms, looking to suck or get fucked - and yet their main pic, or their avatar, is a cock pic. If you are one of these men, please, for all our sakes, explain why you do this. It’s maddening. On the face of it, there’s no rational reason for it. Hell, half of the bottoms here don’t even want their cocks touched. The first principle of marketing is that the thing you’re trying to sell is the thing you put in the shop window; if you’re trying to get people to come in and but peaches you don’t put cucumbers in the shop window, you put peaches. Good day, sir, I’d like to buy one of your longest, thickest cucumbers, if you please. And two walnuts while you’re at it. We don’t sell cucumbers, sir, or walnuts either, but we have some very succulent peaches. Then why does the sign outside say ‘Cucumber Market’, and why are you advertising walnuts as buy-one-get-one-free? I don’t get it. Most of us don’t. If there is an actual, sensible reason for doing this, please explain. If there isn’t, please, please stop.

That’s an interesting combo - poppers are a vasodilator, but caffeine is a vasoconstrictor, so in theory the action of the two might cancel out the effects of each to some degree. Which adds to the question as to whether the headspace you get is partly placebo. That is, whether you get turned on by poppers because you’re thinking about getting turned on by poppers.

I very much appreciate the difficulty of doing s Top’s work well - there’s a great deal of difference in excellent Topping and poor Topping, and I’ve had plenty of both to compare them. Just achieving and maintaining an erection over a long effort can be a challenge, never mind reaching climax. And dealing with bottoms who are fussy, pushy, selfish, greedy, or haven’t bothered to prepare is no doubt a pain in the ass. The sense of your comment, though, sounds like you’re saying that the main difficulty you face is that there’s too much ass that needs to be fucked and not enough hours in the day. Would that all Tops were so diligent. But in fact, there being such a glut of bottoms means you have your pick, and no obligation to service them all. Of course, many a bottom would ask the same question, whether Tops appreciate how difficult it is to bottom - spending sometimes hours in cleanout and prep, uncomfortably restricting diet and rinsing out intestines just to get ready for a single Top (who may or may not flake), and spending weeks or months in difficult and painful hole-stretching to be able to accommodate those eager cocks and fists. On top of which there being stiff competition for the Tops that are available. A talented, eager, eager-to-please Top is like gold; in the view of some, an eager-to-please-himself Top is like platinum. But a Top who Tops badly is worth far less.

I wonder to what extent there’s a placebo effect after one has used poppers for a while. I know for a fact that poppers don’t have the effect on mr that they originally did, no matter how fresh they are - the first handful of times I was at risk of blacking out after just a few sniffs, and did, a couple of times. That hasn’t happened in ages. So clearly I’ve become somewhat conditioned to the effect. Does that mean, then, that my ass is loosening up simply because I know I took a sniff, or even just because the scent itself triggers me to loosen? I’m sure the actual vasodilation effect is still at play, but I wonder if some of it’s just a mental association.

That’s been my experience at ABSs. Guys all sitting around with their cocks out hoping for someone to go down on them orally, but they won’t touch an ass even if it’s three feet in front of them, bent over and wet. I think there’s a fundamental difference between men who want to get off, and men who want to get laid. Some men are breeders, and some are not. And yes, at all the bathhouses I go to, the GH ramps are practically never used.

I grew up half an hour east of Knoxville. I went back to the old hometown last year for the first time in 20 years. The rate of uncontrolled development was eye-opening, but the nature of the place hadn’t changed. I can’t imagine East Tennessee becoming a gay magnet. It’s Appalachia, for God’s sake. While I was there I thought, what the hell, and hosted in my hotel room. Pickings were as slim as I expected. They’ve also been dismal in the tourist hell of greater Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg. And to my knowledge there is no bathhouse in K-town. If you love mountains, Great Smoky Mountains National Park doesn’t disappoint, but East Tennessee is no sex Mecca.

I’m a total bottom, but I don’t object to having my cock touched in the process, nor would I object if the Top wanted to make me ejaculate - but no one, and I mean no one, ever tries. Since I started cumdumping I can’t remember a single time a Top has attempted to make me have an orgasm that way. It’s fine, I’m not looking for or expecting it, but it just doesn’t seem to be on any Top’s agenda, and why should it be? Besides, if I’m doing my job right, their minds are totally somewhere else.

A while back someone here suggested that people wear those rubber wristbands in different colors to indicate role - Top, bottom, vers, etc. It would be simple enough to add an additional color for ‘side’. Maybe beige or mauve or some other nondescript, noncommittal, unadventurous hue. The trouble with the wristband idea, though, is that you’d inevitably end up with guys wearing multiple bands, thereby defeating the whole purpose.

From the way you have frequently described men’s approach to sexual practice in the PNW, it sounds as though ‘versatile’ has evolved a new meaning signifying “among the several non-fucking things we do, I do a number of them”. The guy you reference may consider himself ‘versatile’ because he’s good with both toys and fisting. He might also consider himself versatile because he’s willing to penetrate a hole with a toy or fist, where a bottom doesn’t penetrate at all.

I haven’t seen that before…anywhere. Digital images are not usually described (as in, anywhere I’ve ever seen or heard) in terms of ‘density’. The only thing I can think of is that it’s saying the file is saved an excessive resolution, for instance at 300ppi rather than 72ppi, but I’ve never encountered a system sensitive to resolution before. In my professional work, I very often received image files to work with whose resolu Really, the only way to be certain that your image files are optimized for uploading to a website is to take the extra step of converting them before you make the attempt.

That might have been unsatisfying, as typing generally requires both hands.

The 1%, of course, would be instances like the ‘Let’s See Your Holes’ thread (up to 34 pages of image posts since last June)(!) where the pictures are the point. Another instance was one like you talk about in your last paragraph - an info topic I started on speculums, where speculums are not well known to readers and trying to describe them without images would have been challenging. But as you rightly point out, the forums are principally for discussion, not show-and-tell, especially the kind where people are posting pics in thread to satisfy an exhibitionist/exposure fetish. That functionality is provided by the Gallery feature.

@harrysmith25 - Had you simply focused on proposing your legitimate question as to how LGBT interests can remain vital and relevant in a shifting and polarized political climate, you might have found yourself taken mote seriously. As it is, you instead burdened your inquiry with hyperbole and a plethora of references and descriptions that betray strong political and social assumptions on your part. In a single screed you manage to find a way to be offensive to people on the political left (‘lefties’), Trans persons (‘trannies’), senior citizens (‘fickle as toddlers’), and by inference anyone who supports the current President. In particular, calling those on the left ‘bloodthirsty, nasty goons’ and piling absurd insults onto Biden (‘ornery, borderline-senile’) make it crystal clear that your political philosophy is not that of a reasonable centrist, but rather that of an entrenched partisan on the right. The most telling passage is where you suggest (and this appears to be the core of your argument) is that gay men need to find a target similar to JK Rowling to harrass in order to draw political attention - as though such negative tactics ever persuaded anyone if anything - any sensible person should reject that uncivil nonsense out-of-hand as nothing more than a furtherance of the trend toward collapse of civil public discourse. A trend aptly illustrated, by the way, by your over-the-top ad hominem attacks on anyone who challenges you - such tactics are the mark of someone with a limited capacity for rational debate. This isn’t an interpretation; this is a textual analysis of what you yourself wrote. If you come across as an insensitive right-wing reactionary, you have only your own words to blame. As @JimInWisc correctly notes, there are legitimate concerns for LGBT rights in many areas of the country, issues raised by the actions, or threatened actions not of the ‘lefties’, but of those on the political right. Your proposed solutions would only pour gasoline on a dumpster fire.