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@Philip, I always read what's written, and I share your frustration about being asked to repeat information that's in my (fully filled-out) profile. A particular pet peeve is repeating the obvious in profiles. If you're muscular or work out x times a week, we'll be able to tell from your photos. And if you have to say that you're a "nice guy", it probably means that you have been accused of not being nice. @ErosWired, I agree, specific profiles help avoid conversations that will be awkward and that won't go anywhere. "Just want to cuddle" often is a red flag, as is the blank profile or the model-quality torso marked "looking for friends". @Japbtm, I love Grindr's new tags, but they really are just Tribes v2. Both generations of Grindr classifications suffer from the same design flaw: users don't know whether tribes and tags reflect what you are or what you are seeking in someone else. I have had a paid Grindr subscription for several years now. It pays for itself in the time I save from being able to limit the "cascade" (the grid of people) to people who (a) are currently online and (b) not only have a pic, but a face pic, specifically. If I could also remove profiles with distance display turned off, I'd be ecstatic. I don't want to have to guess how far apart we are, and it's possible to find any Grindr user's exact location from the locations of nearby users — a scary possibility, but nevertheless true for any location-based system that sorts profiles in order by distance.

The Hep A, Hep B and HPV vaccines, and a PrEP regimen including periodic HIV- and STI testing, might be worth considering. (I mention this just in case you haven't already considered these prevention strategies.)

Good question, @Philip. We love the idea of cuddling but we start to overheat. We love the idea of holding hands but our intertwined fingers start to hurt and our palms start to sweat. We love the idea of falling asleep in each other's arms, but one person's arm goes numb and the other person can't get into a comfortable sleeping position, etc., etc. The joys of physical intimacy! If you are cuddling but the guy moves away from you, stay playful and maintain physical contact in a different way. Lay your hand on some part of his body as he cools. Touch his feet with your feet. Nuzzle his neck a bit. He probably is legitimately overheated, but he'll be ready again soon enough. One other thought: Some guys are worried about what cuddling means. If he's a casual sex partner, you may be able to reassure him that you're cuddling because it feels good, not because you want to marry him. Although some guys seem to ration cuddles, you can cuddle with a guy even if you don't know his name, even if you'll never see him again, even if he's in a relationship with someone else, even if he was ass-up, face-down in a room at the bathhouse and just took your load!

The guy who snickers at you in front of his friends now won't be snickering later that night when he's got you bent over in a dark corner, your ass is gripping his cock like a vise, and he's seconds away from nutting inside you. Regardless of what men say, they appreciate easy sexual outlets. Think of what it means for you to satisfy 10–20 men each week. After you've made them cum, they are ready to go back to being good husbands/boyfriends, good dads, good workers, etc. During crises like the one we are living through now, there's always glowing talk about "heroes". To me, bottom sluts who provide satisfaction to lots of men are the unsung heroes who keep society running.

Good question, @Philip. This is the ambiguity of "Netflix and chill". I would submit that there is no fundamental difference between a date and a hookup. The only time that the distinction matters is when one person thinks it is (or was) a date and the other thinks it is (or was) a hookup. If both people are on the same page, how the encounter is (or was) classified really doesn't matter; the same activities (and outcomes) can occur (or not occur) in either context.

Well said about endless questions. When a conversation should progress to a yes or a no — photos have been exchanged, likes and dislikes have been shared, availability has been ascertained — but new questions are introduced, that's a red flag. I would say, however, that this behavior is not just based on position or age / age difference, and that it's not restricted to online environments. Hedging seems to be part of the game of sex / relationships.

Yes, yes, yes! I love what you wrote in general, but I want to call out this point. Much of our discussion has been US-centric. People may not realize that the anti-gay laws common in African and Caribbean countries are holdovers from British colonial rule. (I do not mean to exonerate present-day Black political leaders. Just as former colonies can choose to sever exploitative economic ties with Britain — to stop sending sugar cane and tea, so to speak —, leave the Commonwealth and remove the Queen as the head of state, they can also repeal stupid British laws if they want to.)

I haven't been to my local bathhouse or to the glory hole arcades for a long while, but I concur. For me, fucking guys, getting blown, and occasionally blowing guys in those venues usually resulted in an STI. (Ditto for meeting privately with men who identify as straight or who are married and cheating on partners of any gender. These types are fun to fuck, but they tend to bury their heads in the sand, as if denial and inaction were effective STI prevention strategies.) I have standing orders for HIV and STI testing through my regular health provider as part of my PrEP regimen, and can go as often as every three weeks. I choose to go monthly. When I return to the fun venues, my strategy will be to fuck regulars at home right after testing, and strangers at the venues a week or so before my next tests. This of course won't prevent all transmission — known or regular partners can also have undiagnosed STIs — but it should reduce the chances that I'll pass something to someone else. I do make clear to my sexual partners that I have not yet taken my vow of celibacy and that I play between tests; test results are static snapshots. Conversely, I steer clear of people who don't fill out the date last tested in their Grindr profiles, or who indicate that they were last tested more than 3 months ago. Negative HIV and STI tests at a point in time are not informative, but a habit of regular testing tells me the kind of person I am dealing with, and it is what I offer in return. I encourage you never to feel ashamed about getting tested, about having an STI, or about disclosing a current or past STI to a sex partner. First, STIs are a health matter, never a moral question. Second, people who never get STIs probably have limited sexual experience — great if you're into virgins, but not much fun otherwise. Third, by taking the step of getting tested, you are looking after your own health and that of your sex partner(s). This makes you the best kind of sex partner!

Interesting. I guess Richard Branson is cool with gay bareback sex! Margaret Thatcher was of course anti-gay, and being gay was still illegal when she first came to power, so I guess BT was willing to stay true to her policies after she privatised the company. 😂 In all seriousness, a lot of ISPs and cellular service providers arbitrarily block access to adult sites (or, more likely, to adult sites that aren't willing to pay to be unblocked). T-Mobile, in the US, is one such company. Usually the blocking is done by the ISP's internally-hosted, default domain name servers; simply switching to third-party DNS may resolve the problem. Unfortunately, finding a third-party DNS that doesn't block adult sites or log and resell your data requires research. Hint: OpenDNS blocks adult sites unless you register and pay, and Google's 8.8.8.8 DNS exists only so that the company can add your DNS lookup history (i.e., the name of every Web site you visit, with patterns such as time of day and rough location, plus truly insidious associations such as the sequence of sites you visit) to the profile of you that it sells to advertisers. If choosing a better DNS doesn't work, a VPN might, but BBRTS and even Grindr block some VPNs — possibly with good reason, because VPNs in general are easily used by bad actors to flood sites with traffic and take them down (DDOS/distributed denial of service).

The general issues and the individual issue with BBRTS that people have mentioned are frustrating, but BBRTS's platform-independent mobile Web site and direct payment options make the service a bastion of freedom in an increasingly regulated Internet landscape. You could probably breed guys by accessing BBRTS from a $50 Raspberry Pi 4 hobby computer whose truly open-source operating system runs the Firefox Web browser. You don't need a smart phone that costs hundreds of dollars. (Apple iOS is an excellent, but totally proprietary, operating system, and though Google portrays Android as open-source, key components that make cell phones work are closed-source, and the product overall is of lower quality.) A BBRTS app would be ineligible for distribution in Apple's and Google's official app stores. (Yes, some manufacturers of Android phones don't block access to unofficial app stores.) Even the direct credit card processing deal must constantly be at risk, given what was done to PornHub last year by MasterCard and Visa, based on nothing more than anecdotes compiled by a vindictive, puritanical reporter in a sloppy, heavily biased New York Times article. I predict that we will see more mobile Web-based services, and a revival of old-fashioned payment methods such as mailing in a money order (which can be bought anonymously — for the time being — at any United States Post Office). I don't blame such services for having clunky Web sites. They are simply not allowed to access the fancy Apple iOS and Google Android OS features that officially-permitted apps can use, and their direct payment streams limit potential revenue. (The sad part is that, whereas porn and sex sites provide pleasure and are by-and-large harmless, some extremist groups with harmful goals struggle to get access to common technology platforms and must also resort to similar, informal solutions. Hopefully we can draw a clear distinction between something that's good, like a site through which gay men can breed, and something that's bad, like a site where violent people, racists, etc. can meet.)

I'm out of reactions for today, but what a beautiful story, and memory of a non-traditional first date! I'm at once sorry for your loss and happy that you got to enjoy 30 years with him!

Hey, @Philip! I dated a guy I'd met in a glory hole booth at Folsom Gulch. The first part of me that he saw was my dick through the hole, and the first part of him that I saw was his dick through the hole. I do remember that he was wearing a white/grey/black plaid flannel shirt the night we met, which I found attractive at the time. He was very much a "regular guy" and out of the scene. I was in my early twenties and relatively new to San Francisco. He and I joked that we could tell our parents we'd met at a "bookstore", leaving out the part that it had been an adult bookstore. Few will remember the SOMABoy blog from the early years of the Web (the term "blog" hadn't been coined yet), but he once wrote about his ideal first date. This involved fucking/getting fucked (bare, if memory serves — or maybe that's wishful thinking on my part) through a glory hole and then going out for dinner. Dating a man you meet at a bathhouse or other public sex venue is not a fantasy. It's a good idea, because it removes one of the key uncertainties in a new relationship: the risk that you're sexually incompatible. Before cell phones were common, Steamworks in Berkeley had an area with notepads and pens where new friends could write down and exchange their phone numbers. I'd love to hear other people's success stories. To me, they are the antidote to testimonials from gay couples who met on OKCupid, at MCC, or in some other "wholesome" context and were apparently brainwashed by suburban heteros. (I am happy for these couples but I find them boring, and their testimonials, as revolting as romance movies on Lifetime.) I met my BF on BBRTS and have always joked that we should post a contrarian testimonial.

Americans have blind spots, to be sure, but the First Amendment is what stops the US Congress — and now, an increasingly conservative judiciary — from banning the parts of this Web site that have not already been banned. I'm not aware of a specific connection between First Amendment speech and lying and cheating. (I would be interested in hearing examples relevant to this thread.) On the contrary, I do know that US laws against libel and slander protect people from lies, and that these laws do not apply when what's written or said is true.

As a top who cannot resist fucking preloaded holes, I once picked up three used condoms, brought them home, refrigerated them, and then dumped the contents into the hole of a slutty bottom. At first he thought I was about to put ordinary lube in his hole. He soon noticed the smell of semen and commented, "Oh, cum!" or "Yay, cum!". Knowing that my sperm was going to mix with the sperm of three random guys turned me on even more than usual. I love Dr. Robyn Baker's book Sperm Wars, and imagined the literal sperm war that was about to take place in this guy's ass. I had picked up the condoms from an area of Oakland (a classic American "inner city" type city, for those not familiar with the San Francisco Bay Area). At the time, the area was sort of forgotten. Straight, presumably married guys would drive sex workers there at night to fuck in their cars, discarding used condoms before driving home to the suburbs. It's strange for me to discuss such an unusual fetish, but I remember at the time having a strong impulse to pick up the condoms. I also felt a connection with the random men. I imagined what their races might be, what they might look like, and what might have driven them to risk their marriages and their orderly, suburban lives. (Oakland, like many other American cities, has at times wasted resources on severe enforcement programs, based on incarcerating alleged sex workers and making examples of alleged clients by publishing their names and photos. In this way, the damage is done without real evidence, without due process, and without recourse. It is absurd to deny people something so basic as the right to fuck! I felt empathy for everyone involved.) I still walk through that area from time to time. Several condominium and apartment blocks have been built there in the last few years. As happened along Folsom Street in San Francisco, the arrival of new residents who can afford overpriced condominiums or luxury apartments means less tolerance for clandestine sex in the neighborhood. There are fewer used condoms on the street, and I don't have the impulse to pick them up anymore (I guess fetishes sometimes work that way), but it still makes me happy to know that each of those condoms represents a needed release for one person and, I hope, economic advancement for another.

The best is when one of the tops aims for the other top's shaft and covers it in (real) cum, which the other top fucks into the bottom.

I'm eager to hear what bottoms do. As a top, I love sliding into a prelubed hole. It is impossible to resist. Because I'm uncut I can penetrate most holes with just a little spit, but a prelubed hole is just so luxurious. Ideally, the last top's cum is my lube, but the question of what to do ahead of your first fuck still applies. To minimize leakage, I'd imagine that a viscous, oil-based lube like Vaseline would work best (assuming condom-free play).

People have complained in different ways about the "normalization" of behaviors that they dislike and disagree with. An alternative approach might be to acknowledge that sex is a powerful human impulse, not far removed from our impulses to breathe and eat, and that none of us is perfect. I'd call it a descriptive (looking at something as it is) as opposed to normative (looking at something as we think it should be, as we wish it were, etc.) approach. Being flexible with one's romantic partner(s) is likely to lead to much less unhappiness. In this case, I'd say that means not throwing out a whole relationship, or threatening to, just because the partner fucks someone else. For those who say it's OK as long as the partner is "honest" about it, I'd say that the descriptive approach also means accepting that disclosure is hard and might not come as quickly as you'd like or be as thorough as you claim you'd like. (For people who were socialized to the Disney prince/glass slipper/happily ever after/monogamous wedded bliss view of relationships, detailed disclosure of the sex acts, the physical attraction and/or the emotional attraction often shatters the myth so totally that there is no potential for reconciliation. The psychological consequences are grave, not just because the current relationship must end, but because the myth holds that there is only one prince, and thus there will never be another.) A flexible outlook might even benefit the individual. As Dan Savage wrote in his column years ago, it's a good idea to give your "cheating" partner an occasional "Get out of blowjob free" card, because someday you might need the same card yourself.

There's a risk of confusing individual factors with systemic ones. To suggest that lower PrEP use among African Americans contributes to a higher rate of new HIV infections among African Americans might be correct (PrEP uptake among African Americans is lower, new HIV infections in the US are disproportionately higher among African Americans, and in US and global study populations, PrEP use significantly reduced new HIV infections, so PrEP definitely makes a difference) but it would not be correct to go on to suggest that African Americans don't "want" to take PrEP, get tested, look after their sexual health, etc. It's much more than a question of individual will. Others have already mentioned statistical differences in income levels, education, access to health care, and quality of care. Let's also acknowledge the horrible legacy of medical experiments done without consent on African Americans (ref: Tuskegee syphilis experiments). It's no wonder that, even in pockets where there is good access to information and care, systemic suspicion of the medical establishment lingers among African Americans. As a country we have a lot of work left to do to demonstrate that African Americans (and other marginalized groups) are full and equal participants in health systems. I have volunteered for two decades in public health, and have witnessed steps backward (AHF ran anti-PrEP ads in newspapers and is still running poster ads in minority neighborhoods that suggest, through pictures, words and scenarios, that African American men are untrustworthy and that their girlfriends should go to AHF immediately for HIV testing) as well as steps forward (opportunities for people of color, like myself, to participate actively on advisory boards for US government-funded medical research, and big changes to recruiting criteria for these studies, to make sure that the results will be statistically valid for many different population subgroups, including African Americans, trans people, and others). If we look farther afield, at Black Africans, we see inexcusible missteps even today, but that would be a whole other post. Suffice it to say that much work remains to be done to build trust among Black communities, and that if this work isn't done, the health of all the world's people will continue to be affected.

Loads of times 😂 All joking aside, I agree. Fake cum in videos or still photos is such a turn-off. It's instantly noticeable either because there is more than is humanly possible, or because the color and texture are completely uniform, unlike the real thing. I love creampie videos, but it is a shame when the top (or the man, in a hetero film) goes to the trouble of faking the twitching shaft, the grunts, and the slow pull-out, only to unleash a torrent of...hair conditioner? water mixed with starch? liquid soap?

May I add something to your (correct and thorough) explanations, @Karl8181 and @PigBoyDallas? Believe it or not, sometimes I use Grindr for purely social purposes. There are some guys I've fucked in the past, some I've met non-sexually, and some I've chatted with for years but never met, whom I contact only through Grindr.

Are you open to trying uncut? I had a guy over the other week who looked up at me with my load on his tongue, swallowed, smiled innocently, and revealed that that had been his first time sucking an uncut cock.

Very well said! When I was first getting to know my now ex-husband, I discovered that he didn't like getting cum in his mouth, let alone swallowing. Each time I nutted in his mouth and held his head so he had to swallow it, the knowledge that he didn't like it made the experience even hotter. Hint: Don't tell a dom top what you don't like (but are willing to do). 😂

Sorry for my absent-minded mistakes...Berkeley, and RIP Watergarden in San José

One way to give thanks would be to offer up that nice bubble butt to Breeding Zone members near you, and take their loads. 😏 In all seriousness, thank you for sharing this amazing story. I hope that you and your friend continue to explore and discover together.

Coming out as a young person certainly is different, but access to information isn't sufficient to make it easier. The risk of being bullied by one's peers and abandoned by one's parents persists, no matter how much information an individual young person has access to and how much support there is for gay rights in society at large. It's even possible for parents to support gay rights in the abstract, but not as far as their own child is concerned! One factor that can make coming out more difficult today for young people who live in rural and/or conservative areas is economics. Through the early 1980s, it was feasible for a gay high school student thrown out by parents to take money saved from allowances, washing cars, mowing lawns, and gifts from Grandma; buy a Greyhound or Amtrak ticket to San Francisco or New York City; get a basic job; rent a room; and slowly become established in a more accepting place. Today, that Greyhound or Amtrak ticket halfway across the country would cost a few hundred dollars; that basic job would require a high school diploma, if not a college degree; that rental would require references, a credit check and a pay history; and despite the advent of local minimum wage laws, the net wage and the available hours wouldn't cover the cheapest habitable lodging. I say the following partly in jest, but in cases where coming out safely requires migrating, you'd better have a big dick or a tight ass so that you can earn a lot as a sex worker or attract a generous sugar daddy in the new place. Last but not least, there may be information, and even popular support, in the US and in Western Europe for white, cisgender, middle-class gay people, but society is barely beginning to consider what it means to be gay and a person of color, to be gay and working-class, let alone downright poor, to be trans, or otherwise to be different from the "acceptable" gay people represented in Lifetime holiday movies and featured in Wells Fargo Bank mortgage ads that run in the New York Times Sunday magazine (or — and this is the most incongruous and revolting kind of portrayal — in promotional clips shown before films at the Frameline San Francisco LGBT film festival). Of course, there have always been people in these categories, but society at large has never paid attention to them, and to their needs. Please don't assume that everyone's coming out journey has magically become easier.