Simon Suraci

For just massage, I agree. That’s crazy, no matter how skilled or amazing he is at massage. From the comments here so far, it sounds like the massage skill level leaves something to be desired. 
For full service massage, escort service, or combo massage/escort service, $300 for an hour is not unreasonable at all. That’s what I charge and my clients pay it without hesitation. Of course I charge half that for my regular massage services. Reading @Ocposterboy‘s and @tennisjock’s comments give me doubts that anything to the level of escort service is on offer.
Ghosting upon arrival is not ok. @DiscreetInSoCal and @aeikaryokothanks for posting a warning of such unprofessional behavior for others to steer clear.
Remember guys, think with your big head. It’s all too easy to get carried away with an image online of a hot guy and lose yourself in the fantasy, only to be disappointed with the reality in person. Good looks only go so far. 
 

For just massage, I agree. That’s crazy, no matter how skilled or amazing he is at massage. From the comments here so far, it sounds like the massage skill level leaves something to be desired. 
For full service massage, escort service, or combo massage/escort service, $300 for an hour is not unreasonable at all. That’s what I charge and my clients pay it without hesitation. Of course I charge half that for my regular massage services. Reading @Ocposterboy‘s and @tennisjock’s comments give me doubts that anything to the level of escort service is on offer.
Ghosting upon arrival is not ok. @DiscreetInSoCal and @aeikaryokothanks for posting a warning of such unprofessional behavior for others to steer clear.
Remember guys, think with your big head. It’s all too easy to get carried away with an image online of a hot guy and lose yourself in the fantasy, only to be disappointed with the reality in person. Good looks only go so far. 
 

For just massage, I agree. That’s crazy, no matter how skilled or amazing he is at massage. From the comments here so far, it sounds like the massage skill level leaves something to be desired. 
For full service massage, escort service, or combo massage/escort service, $300 for an hour is not unreasonable at all. That’s what I charge and my clients pay it without hesitation. Of course I charge half that for my regular massage services. Reading @Ocposterboy‘s and @tennisjock’s comments give me doubts that anything to the level of escort service is on offer.
Ghosting upon arrival is not ok. @DiscreetInSoCal and @aeikaryokothanks for posting a warning of such unprofessional behavior for others to steer clear.
Remember guys, think with your big head. It’s all too easy to get carried away with an image online of a hot guy and lose yourself in the fantasy, only to be disappointed with the reality in person. Good looks only go so far. 
 

^This!!!
Here is my two cents in typical long form fashion.
Firstly, thank you @SouthOfTheBorder for posting this topic. Clients don’t want to talk or think about these things. So many people are immature when it comes to discussing sexual health. Our culture stigmatizes people for wanting - and having - sex. Our culture looks down on sex workers and treats us as scapegoats. We’re the “dirty” ones, the irresponsible, the depraved. But that’s just not true. If anything, professional sex workers are much more responsible and informed than the average person with regard to managing risks, maintaining good sexual health, communicating with their partners, and guarding their personal safety.
For every sketchy provider story I hear about on here, there are half a dozen experienced working men doing the right things and handling business professionally, not doing drugs or extorting people or behaving recklessly. The negative stories stick out more so we tend to focus on those. In between the horror stories are many good guys doing good work.
I’ll share the following because I know that many of you respect honesty and straight talk. A lot of providers don’t want to share this type of stuff openly because many clients are uneducated and carry around unfair biases and misinformation around sex and sexual health and use it to demonize us. The concern is clients will hold such information against us thinking “So-and-so had such and such last year. Ohhh better not hire him because I might catch the same thing”. It’s not fair because your average msm bareback hookup is going to be a much higher risk to you than hiring a professional. Hiring an experienced pro with a head on his shoulders is going to be relatively much safer for you than random sex in the wild. Clients on this platform are more educated than average on such matters, so perhaps I am preaching to the choir - still stigma persists no matter what we share or keep silent on. That’s why we don’t talk about this stuff very often. Also, it’s not sexy. But it’s important just the same.
Non-provider men similar to me have WAAAY more unprotected casual sex than I do, and they only get checked every three months (at best!). Most of them are on PreP and bareback exclusively. Doctors in the US require quarterly testing for patients receiving a PreP regimen, so that’s normal. Some of my peers are not on PreP and don’t know their HIV status, much less whether they are spreading STIs around because they are not testing on any regular basis - perhaps only if/when they experience symptoms (and not everyone experiences symptoms). Many straight-curious and bi men fall into this category, but any type can. If they test, it might be only once or twice a year. Your best case scenario outside of hiring is a conscientious gay guy getting tested every three months.
I test every month because of my work. Not because I have more sex than others, but because I care a great deal about my clients, my own health, and my ability to work. Monthly testing only leaves a small window for anything to happen and me not know about it. Keep in mind when you test, you are not clear as of that date you test. You are clear as of 10-14 days or so prior to the date you test, perhaps less. Incubation periods take time for the infection to show up on a test and to be communicable to others. Verify this info with your healthcare provider, as I am not your doctor. I merely bring up the point to clarify testing is not an up-to-the-minute snapshot of what is in your body - rather a snapshot of what has developed in your body (or not) over a period of time since your last exposure up to the time you test.
For example, I had a session last year for a client with multiple providers in which I had unprotected sex (bottom) with one of the providers. I topped the client and another provider in that session. As it so happened, I tested on my monthly schedule the following day. A couple days later I got the test results and all was negative. Little did I know one provider I was exposed to during that encounter passed an STI on to me. Given my activities in the weeks surrounding the encounter, I was able to confirm by process of elimination who it was and when. I topped clients, as I typically do, in the following weeks without knowing any of this, and thankfully did not expose any of them to an infection since the infection was rectal only. On my next test, I caught the issue and immediately alerted a few people who may have been exposed based on the activities with which we had recently engaged. It was only a two week or so window that I potentially passed it on and was yet unaware I had an infection. Since I have much fewer clients engaging me for bottom and/or bottom-adjacent activities, it was pretty easy to identify the few that may have been exposed in that short window. Since I test so frequently, I fortunately had the opportunity to give them all quick notice to get tested and/or treated before an infection had enough time to develop, express symptoms, and/or be passed on to anyone else. Here is a client response:

I love my regular clients. Most them are really good people.
Aside - the provider I got the infection from is married to another provider. Given they have frequent unprotected sex with one another and with all of their respective clients, the risks for them are necessarily higher than your average working guy. Keep this in mind when hiring a provider couple, or one of a pair of providers. Not to stigmatize, but to measure your risk.
I have a fraction of the sex of men similar to me, and it’s generally with people who a) are more conscious about the risks they are taking, b) have much less sex on average, and c) practice safer sex -maybe 10-20%.
Every provider is different. Some have more recreational sex, some have less. Some have riskier sex, some safer sex, perhaps some mix of both. I’d say that providers tend to have much less recreational sex than their peers, if not by intentional choice, than by the mere practical realities of being in this business. That’s me. One cannot be blowing loads recreationally right and left and expect to have any sexual energy left for his clients to enjoy. 
Sex carries some risk no matter how much or little sex you have, be it protected or unprotected. Having sex exposes you to the possibility of contracting sexually transmitted infections, full stop. How much risk you are willing to tolerate is up to you. We have many other threads in the forums on how to mitigate risks, like oral vs anal, top vs bottom play, using condoms, vetting your guys, etc, so I won’t get into all those here. My point is you have to be responsible for your own health and assess your own personal level of risk tolerance.
For the married/attached guys out there regularly having sex with their significant other, it’s best to keep open communication with your partner/spouse about your hiring. I know many of you don’t share for various reasons, so you risk inadvertently passing an STI on to your partner, and that is a much more difficult conversation to have than discussing the boundaries of your relationship beforehand. I suppose, if you’re not having sex with your partner, you can manage your own sexual health without your partner needing to know anything about your hiring or hooking up habits. Assess and manage your personal level risk, and get tested regularly in proportion to that risk and treat infections promptly if/when they manifest. Simple as that. Better yet, if you’re able, get on PreP and follow the required testing regimen. I know many won’t for shared health record privacy concerns. Talk to your significant other. Sooner or later things will surface. One of my clients likes to bareback flip fuck and he regularly has sex with his wife. I am upfront with him about all of my sexual health and relative risks. He wants the sex anyway. Hey, to each his own.
This is our livelihood. It behooves us to stay healthy, obviously for our own sake, but also for the sake of our business. We can’t make money when we are recovering from a sexually transmitted infection. For masseurs like myself, I can’t offer escort service, but I can still massage, sans the extras I otherwise might offer during my recovery, nor can I offer combo massage / sex work service. It puts a damper on what I can earn in that 1-2 week period. For the full time escorts out there, they can’t earn a dime unless they are knowingly putting their clients at risk, which is not only problematic from an ethical and moral perspective, but also just doesn’t make business sense to do. We have too much to lose by damaging our reputations in this way.
So…in a sense, seeing a responsible, professional provider may actually carry, in many ways, less risk than having casual recreational sex with the average man who has sex with men. I don’t mean zero risk. Less risk.
I agree with much of the other posters on mitigating risk with visual checks, mouthwash, peeing after sex, washing, etc. Never a bad idea, but all of these are marginal at best in helping reduce your risk. If you have the sex at all, you already took on the risk. Very little in the form of after care will prevent you from getting STIs.
We sex workers take on this personal level of risk and manage that risk as best we can. That’s part of what you’re paying us for. Think like how much you pay an oil rigger vs a controlled environment factory line worker. One job is inherently more risky, so you compensate it more to account for that level of risk and damage control.
When your providers inform you that you may have been exposed to an STI, they are being responsible and doing the right thing. Please do not stigmatize them or punish them for doing their job or for taking on reasonable levels of risk that this job requires. Honor them and show them respect. Keep hiring us when we are well, because we are responsible and professional, and we care.

^This!!!
Here is my two cents in typical long form fashion.
Firstly, thank you @SouthOfTheBorder for posting this topic. Clients don’t want to talk or think about these things. So many people are immature when it comes to discussing sexual health. Our culture stigmatizes people for wanting - and having - sex. Our culture looks down on sex workers and treats us as scapegoats. We’re the “dirty” ones, the irresponsible, the depraved. But that’s just not true. If anything, professional sex workers are much more responsible and informed than the average person with regard to managing risks, maintaining good sexual health, communicating with their partners, and guarding their personal safety.
For every sketchy provider story I hear about on here, there are half a dozen experienced working men doing the right things and handling business professionally, not doing drugs or extorting people or behaving recklessly. The negative stories stick out more so we tend to focus on those. In between the horror stories are many good guys doing good work.
I’ll share the following because I know that many of you respect honesty and straight talk. A lot of providers don’t want to share this type of stuff openly because many clients are uneducated and carry around unfair biases and misinformation around sex and sexual health and use it to demonize us. The concern is clients will hold such information against us thinking “So-and-so had such and such last year. Ohhh better not hire him because I might catch the same thing”. It’s not fair because your average msm bareback hookup is going to be a much higher risk to you than hiring a professional. Hiring an experienced pro with a head on his shoulders is going to be relatively much safer for you than random sex in the wild. Clients on this platform are more educated than average on such matters, so perhaps I am preaching to the choir - still stigma persists no matter what we share or keep silent on. That’s why we don’t talk about this stuff very often. Also, it’s not sexy. But it’s important just the same.
Non-provider men similar to me have WAAAY more unprotected casual sex than I do, and they only get checked every three months (at best!). Most of them are on PreP and bareback exclusively. Doctors in the US require quarterly testing for patients receiving a PreP regimen, so that’s normal. Some of my peers are not on PreP and don’t know their HIV status, much less whether they are spreading STIs around because they are not testing on any regular basis - perhaps only if/when they experience symptoms (and not everyone experiences symptoms). Many straight-curious and bi men fall into this category, but any type can. If they test, it might be only once or twice a year. Your best case scenario outside of hiring is a conscientious gay guy getting tested every three months.
I test every month because of my work. Not because I have more sex than others, but because I care a great deal about my clients, my own health, and my ability to work. Monthly testing only leaves a small window for anything to happen and me not know about it. Keep in mind when you test, you are not clear as of that date you test. You are clear as of 10-14 days or so prior to the date you test, perhaps less. Incubation periods take time for the infection to show up on a test and to be communicable to others. Verify this info with your healthcare provider, as I am not your doctor. I merely bring up the point to clarify testing is not an up-to-the-minute snapshot of what is in your body - rather a snapshot of what has developed in your body (or not) over a period of time since your last exposure up to the time you test.
For example, I had a session last year for a client with multiple providers in which I had unprotected sex (bottom) with one of the providers. I topped the client and another provider in that session. As it so happened, I tested on my monthly schedule the following day. A couple days later I got the test results and all was negative. Little did I know one provider I was exposed to during that encounter passed an STI on to me. Given my activities in the weeks surrounding the encounter, I was able to confirm by process of elimination who it was and when. I topped clients, as I typically do, in the following weeks without knowing any of this, and thankfully did not expose any of them to an infection since the infection was rectal only. On my next test, I caught the issue and immediately alerted a few people who may have been exposed based on the activities with which we had recently engaged. It was only a two week or so window that I potentially passed it on and was yet unaware I had an infection. Since I have much fewer clients engaging me for bottom and/or bottom-adjacent activities, it was pretty easy to identify the few that may have been exposed in that short window. Since I test so frequently, I fortunately had the opportunity to give them all quick notice to get tested and/or treated before an infection had enough time to develop, express symptoms, and/or be passed on to anyone else. Here is a client response:

I love my regular clients. Most them are really good people.
Aside - the provider I got the infection from is married to another provider. Given they have frequent unprotected sex with one another and with all of their respective clients, the risks for them are necessarily higher than your average working guy. Keep this in mind when hiring a provider couple, or one of a pair of providers. Not to stigmatize, but to measure your risk.
I have a fraction of the sex of men similar to me, and it’s generally with people who a) are more conscious about the risks they are taking, b) have much less sex on average, and c) practice safer sex -maybe 10-20%.
Every provider is different. Some have more recreational sex, some have less. Some have riskier sex, some safer sex, perhaps some mix of both. I’d say that providers tend to have much less recreational sex than their peers, if not by intentional choice, than by the mere practical realities of being in this business. That’s me. One cannot be blowing loads recreationally right and left and expect to have any sexual energy left for his clients to enjoy. 
Sex carries some risk no matter how much or little sex you have, be it protected or unprotected. Having sex exposes you to the possibility of contracting sexually transmitted infections, full stop. How much risk you are willing to tolerate is up to you. We have many other threads in the forums on how to mitigate risks, like oral vs anal, top vs bottom play, using condoms, vetting your guys, etc, so I won’t get into all those here. My point is you have to be responsible for your own health and assess your own personal level of risk tolerance.
For the married/attached guys out there regularly having sex with their significant other, it’s best to keep open communication with your partner/spouse about your hiring. I know many of you don’t share for various reasons, so you risk inadvertently passing an STI on to your partner, and that is a much more difficult conversation to have than discussing the boundaries of your relationship beforehand. I suppose, if you’re not having sex with your partner, you can manage your own sexual health without your partner needing to know anything about your hiring or hooking up habits. Assess and manage your personal level risk, and get tested regularly in proportion to that risk and treat infections promptly if/when they manifest. Simple as that. Better yet, if you’re able, get on PreP and follow the required testing regimen. I know many won’t for shared health record privacy concerns. Talk to your significant other. Sooner or later things will surface. One of my clients likes to bareback flip fuck and he regularly has sex with his wife. I am upfront with him about all of my sexual health and relative risks. He wants the sex anyway. Hey, to each his own.
This is our livelihood. It behooves us to stay healthy, obviously for our own sake, but also for the sake of our business. We can’t make money when we are recovering from a sexually transmitted infection. For masseurs like myself, I can’t offer escort service, but I can still massage, sans the extras I otherwise might offer during my recovery, nor can I offer combo massage / sex work service. It puts a damper on what I can earn in that 1-2 week period. For the full time escorts out there, they can’t earn a dime unless they are knowingly putting their clients at risk, which is not only problematic from an ethical and moral perspective, but also just doesn’t make business sense to do. We have too much to lose by damaging our reputations in this way.
So…in a sense, seeing a responsible, professional provider may actually carry, in many ways, less risk than having casual recreational sex with the average man who has sex with men. I don’t mean zero risk. Less risk.
I agree with much of the other posters on mitigating risk with visual checks, mouthwash, peeing after sex, washing, etc. Never a bad idea, but all of these are marginal at best in helping reduce your risk. If you have the sex at all, you already took on the risk. Very little in the form of after care will prevent you from getting STIs.
We sex workers take on this personal level of risk and manage that risk as best we can. That’s part of what you’re paying us for. Think like how much you pay an oil rigger vs a controlled environment factory line worker. One job is inherently more risky, so you compensate it more to account for that level of risk and damage control.
When your providers inform you that you may have been exposed to an STI, they are being responsible and doing the right thing. Please do not stigmatize them or punish them for doing their job or for taking on reasonable levels of risk that this job requires. Honor them and show them respect. Keep hiring us when we are well, because we are responsible and professional, and we care.

^This!!!
Here is my two cents in typical long form fashion.
Firstly, thank you @SouthOfTheBorder for posting this topic. Clients don’t want to talk or think about these things. So many people are immature when it comes to discussing sexual health. Our culture stigmatizes people for wanting - and having - sex. Our culture looks down on sex workers and treats us as scapegoats. We’re the “dirty” ones, the irresponsible, the depraved. But that’s just not true. If anything, professional sex workers are much more responsible and informed than the average person with regard to managing risks, maintaining good sexual health, communicating with their partners, and guarding their personal safety.
For every sketchy provider story I hear about on here, there are half a dozen experienced working men doing the right things and handling business professionally, not doing drugs or extorting people or behaving recklessly. The negative stories stick out more so we tend to focus on those. In between the horror stories are many good guys doing good work.
I’ll share the following because I know that many of you respect honesty and straight talk. A lot of providers don’t want to share this type of stuff openly because many clients are uneducated and carry around unfair biases and misinformation around sex and sexual health and use it to demonize us. The concern is clients will hold such information against us thinking “So-and-so had such and such last year. Ohhh better not hire him because I might catch the same thing”. It’s not fair because your average msm bareback hookup is going to be a much higher risk to you than hiring a professional. Hiring an experienced pro with a head on his shoulders is going to be relatively much safer for you than random sex in the wild. Clients on this platform are more educated than average on such matters, so perhaps I am preaching to the choir - still stigma persists no matter what we share or keep silent on. That’s why we don’t talk about this stuff very often. Also, it’s not sexy. But it’s important just the same.
Non-provider men similar to me have WAAAY more unprotected casual sex than I do, and they only get checked every three months (at best!). Most of them are on PreP and bareback exclusively. Doctors in the US require quarterly testing for patients receiving a PreP regimen, so that’s normal. Some of my peers are not on PreP and don’t know their HIV status, much less whether they are spreading STIs around because they are not testing on any regular basis - perhaps only if/when they experience symptoms (and not everyone experiences symptoms). Many straight-curious and bi men fall into this category, but any type can. If they test, it might be only once or twice a year. Your best case scenario outside of hiring is a conscientious gay guy getting tested every three months.
I test every month because of my work. Not because I have more sex than others, but because I care a great deal about my clients, my own health, and my ability to work. Monthly testing only leaves a small window for anything to happen and me not know about it. Keep in mind when you test, you are not clear as of that date you test. You are clear as of 10-14 days or so prior to the date you test, perhaps less. Incubation periods take time for the infection to show up on a test and to be communicable to others. Verify this info with your healthcare provider, as I am not your doctor. I merely bring up the point to clarify testing is not an up-to-the-minute snapshot of what is in your body - rather a snapshot of what has developed in your body (or not) over a period of time since your last exposure up to the time you test.
For example, I had a session last year for a client with multiple providers in which I had unprotected sex (bottom) with one of the providers. I topped the client and another provider in that session. As it so happened, I tested on my monthly schedule the following day. A couple days later I got the test results and all was negative. Little did I know one provider I was exposed to during that encounter passed an STI on to me. Given my activities in the weeks surrounding the encounter, I was able to confirm by process of elimination who it was and when. I topped clients, as I typically do, in the following weeks without knowing any of this, and thankfully did not expose any of them to an infection since the infection was rectal only. On my next test, I caught the issue and immediately alerted a few people who may have been exposed based on the activities with which we had recently engaged. It was only a two week or so window that I potentially passed it on and was yet unaware I had an infection. Since I have much fewer clients engaging me for bottom and/or bottom-adjacent activities, it was pretty easy to identify the few that may have been exposed in that short window. Since I test so frequently, I fortunately had the opportunity to give them all quick notice to get tested and/or treated before an infection had enough time to develop, express symptoms, and/or be passed on to anyone else. Here is a client response:

I love my regular clients. Most them are really good people.
Aside - the provider I got the infection from is married to another provider. Given they have frequent unprotected sex with one another and with all of their respective clients, the risks for them are necessarily higher than your average working guy. Keep this in mind when hiring a provider couple, or one of a pair of providers. Not to stigmatize, but to measure your risk.
I have a fraction of the sex of men similar to me, and it’s generally with people who a) are more conscious about the risks they are taking, b) have much less sex on average, and c) practice safer sex -maybe 10-20%.
Every provider is different. Some have more recreational sex, some have less. Some have riskier sex, some safer sex, perhaps some mix of both. I’d say that providers tend to have much less recreational sex than their peers, if not by intentional choice, than by the mere practical realities of being in this business. That’s me. One cannot be blowing loads recreationally right and left and expect to have any sexual energy left for his clients to enjoy. 
Sex carries some risk no matter how much or little sex you have, be it protected or unprotected. Having sex exposes you to the possibility of contracting sexually transmitted infections, full stop. How much risk you are willing to tolerate is up to you. We have many other threads in the forums on how to mitigate risks, like oral vs anal, top vs bottom play, using condoms, vetting your guys, etc, so I won’t get into all those here. My point is you have to be responsible for your own health and assess your own personal level of risk tolerance.
For the married/attached guys out there regularly having sex with their significant other, it’s best to keep open communication with your partner/spouse about your hiring. I know many of you don’t share for various reasons, so you risk inadvertently passing an STI on to your partner, and that is a much more difficult conversation to have than discussing the boundaries of your relationship beforehand. I suppose, if you’re not having sex with your partner, you can manage your own sexual health without your partner needing to know anything about your hiring or hooking up habits. Assess and manage your personal level risk, and get tested regularly in proportion to that risk and treat infections promptly if/when they manifest. Simple as that. Better yet, if you’re able, get on PreP and follow the required testing regimen. I know many won’t for shared health record privacy concerns. Talk to your significant other. Sooner or later things will surface. One of my clients likes to bareback flip fuck and he regularly has sex with his wife. I am upfront with him about all of my sexual health and relative risks. He wants the sex anyway. Hey, to each his own.
This is our livelihood. It behooves us to stay healthy, obviously for our own sake, but also for the sake of our business. We can’t make money when we are recovering from a sexually transmitted infection. For masseurs like myself, I can’t offer escort service, but I can still massage, sans the extras I otherwise might offer during my recovery, nor can I offer combo massage / sex work service. It puts a damper on what I can earn in that 1-2 week period. For the full time escorts out there, they can’t earn a dime unless they are knowingly putting their clients at risk, which is not only problematic from an ethical and moral perspective, but also just doesn’t make business sense to do. We have too much to lose by damaging our reputations in this way.
So…in a sense, seeing a responsible, professional provider may actually carry, in many ways, less risk than having casual recreational sex with the average man who has sex with men. I don’t mean zero risk. Less risk.
I agree with much of the other posters on mitigating risk with visual checks, mouthwash, peeing after sex, washing, etc. Never a bad idea, but all of these are marginal at best in helping reduce your risk. If you have the sex at all, you already took on the risk. Very little in the form of after care will prevent you from getting STIs.
We sex workers take on this personal level of risk and manage that risk as best we can. That’s part of what you’re paying us for. Think like how much you pay an oil rigger vs a controlled environment factory line worker. One job is inherently more risky, so you compensate it more to account for that level of risk and damage control.
When your providers inform you that you may have been exposed to an STI, they are being responsible and doing the right thing. Please do not stigmatize them or punish them for doing their job or for taking on reasonable levels of risk that this job requires. Honor them and show them respect. Keep hiring us when we are well, because we are responsible and professional, and we care.

This is a much more powerful justification for the building blocks of payment than typically presented. And I doubt every provider thinks this way - but 100% respect for those that do. 

See if you can turn the butler.

I really appreciate @Simon Suraci thoughtful and honest post. We have had two providers who alerted us following a session that they tested positive for an STI. In both cases, our response was similar to Simon's client. We're Gen X and used to testing for HIV and having the sharing of that information be urgent. 
So we are always grateful for providers being honest. We keep it to ourselves of course. And we've never actually had an STI from a provider. 

^This!!!
Here is my two cents in typical long form fashion.
Firstly, thank you @SouthOfTheBorder for posting this topic. Clients don’t want to talk or think about these things. So many people are immature when it comes to discussing sexual health. Our culture stigmatizes people for wanting - and having - sex. Our culture looks down on sex workers and treats us as scapegoats. We’re the “dirty” ones, the irresponsible, the depraved. But that’s just not true. If anything, professional sex workers are much more responsible and informed than the average person with regard to managing risks, maintaining good sexual health, communicating with their partners, and guarding their personal safety.
For every sketchy provider story I hear about on here, there are half a dozen experienced working men doing the right things and handling business professionally, not doing drugs or extorting people or behaving recklessly. The negative stories stick out more so we tend to focus on those. In between the horror stories are many good guys doing good work.
I’ll share the following because I know that many of you respect honesty and straight talk. A lot of providers don’t want to share this type of stuff openly because many clients are uneducated and carry around unfair biases and misinformation around sex and sexual health and use it to demonize us. The concern is clients will hold such information against us thinking “So-and-so had such and such last year. Ohhh better not hire him because I might catch the same thing”. It’s not fair because your average msm bareback hookup is going to be a much higher risk to you than hiring a professional. Hiring an experienced pro with a head on his shoulders is going to be relatively much safer for you than random sex in the wild. Clients on this platform are more educated than average on such matters, so perhaps I am preaching to the choir - still stigma persists no matter what we share or keep silent on. That’s why we don’t talk about this stuff very often. Also, it’s not sexy. But it’s important just the same.
Non-provider men similar to me have WAAAY more unprotected casual sex than I do, and they only get checked every three months (at best!). Most of them are on PreP and bareback exclusively. Doctors in the US require quarterly testing for patients receiving a PreP regimen, so that’s normal. Some of my peers are not on PreP and don’t know their HIV status, much less whether they are spreading STIs around because they are not testing on any regular basis - perhaps only if/when they experience symptoms (and not everyone experiences symptoms). Many straight-curious and bi men fall into this category, but any type can. If they test, it might be only once or twice a year. Your best case scenario outside of hiring is a conscientious gay guy getting tested every three months.
I test every month because of my work. Not because I have more sex than others, but because I care a great deal about my clients, my own health, and my ability to work. Monthly testing only leaves a small window for anything to happen and me not know about it. Keep in mind when you test, you are not clear as of that date you test. You are clear as of 10-14 days or so prior to the date you test, perhaps less. Incubation periods take time for the infection to show up on a test and to be communicable to others. Verify this info with your healthcare provider, as I am not your doctor. I merely bring up the point to clarify testing is not an up-to-the-minute snapshot of what is in your body - rather a snapshot of what has developed in your body (or not) over a period of time since your last exposure up to the time you test.
For example, I had a session last year for a client with multiple providers in which I had unprotected sex (bottom) with one of the providers. I topped the client and another provider in that session. As it so happened, I tested on my monthly schedule the following day. A couple days later I got the test results and all was negative. Little did I know one provider I was exposed to during that encounter passed an STI on to me. Given my activities in the weeks surrounding the encounter, I was able to confirm by process of elimination who it was and when. I topped clients, as I typically do, in the following weeks without knowing any of this, and thankfully did not expose any of them to an infection since the infection was rectal only. On my next test, I caught the issue and immediately alerted a few people who may have been exposed based on the activities with which we had recently engaged. It was only a two week or so window that I potentially passed it on and was yet unaware I had an infection. Since I have much fewer clients engaging me for bottom and/or bottom-adjacent activities, it was pretty easy to identify the few that may have been exposed in that short window. Since I test so frequently, I fortunately had the opportunity to give them all quick notice to get tested and/or treated before an infection had enough time to develop, express symptoms, and/or be passed on to anyone else. Here is a client response:

I love my regular clients. Most them are really good people.
Aside - the provider I got the infection from is married to another provider. Given they have frequent unprotected sex with one another and with all of their respective clients, the risks for them are necessarily higher than your average working guy. Keep this in mind when hiring a provider couple, or one of a pair of providers. Not to stigmatize, but to measure your risk.
I have a fraction of the sex of men similar to me, and it’s generally with people who a) are more conscious about the risks they are taking, b) have much less sex on average, and c) practice safer sex -maybe 10-20%.
Every provider is different. Some have more recreational sex, some have less. Some have riskier sex, some safer sex, perhaps some mix of both. I’d say that providers tend to have much less recreational sex than their peers, if not by intentional choice, than by the mere practical realities of being in this business. That’s me. One cannot be blowing loads recreationally right and left and expect to have any sexual energy left for his clients to enjoy. 
Sex carries some risk no matter how much or little sex you have, be it protected or unprotected. Having sex exposes you to the possibility of contracting sexually transmitted infections, full stop. How much risk you are willing to tolerate is up to you. We have many other threads in the forums on how to mitigate risks, like oral vs anal, top vs bottom play, using condoms, vetting your guys, etc, so I won’t get into all those here. My point is you have to be responsible for your own health and assess your own personal level of risk tolerance.
For the married/attached guys out there regularly having sex with their significant other, it’s best to keep open communication with your partner/spouse about your hiring. I know many of you don’t share for various reasons, so you risk inadvertently passing an STI on to your partner, and that is a much more difficult conversation to have than discussing the boundaries of your relationship beforehand. I suppose, if you’re not having sex with your partner, you can manage your own sexual health without your partner needing to know anything about your hiring or hooking up habits. Assess and manage your personal level risk, and get tested regularly in proportion to that risk and treat infections promptly if/when they manifest. Simple as that. Better yet, if you’re able, get on PreP and follow the required testing regimen. I know many won’t for shared health record privacy concerns. Talk to your significant other. Sooner or later things will surface. One of my clients likes to bareback flip fuck and he regularly has sex with his wife. I am upfront with him about all of my sexual health and relative risks. He wants the sex anyway. Hey, to each his own.
This is our livelihood. It behooves us to stay healthy, obviously for our own sake, but also for the sake of our business. We can’t make money when we are recovering from a sexually transmitted infection. For masseurs like myself, I can’t offer escort service, but I can still massage, sans the extras I otherwise might offer during my recovery, nor can I offer combo massage / sex work service. It puts a damper on what I can earn in that 1-2 week period. For the full time escorts out there, they can’t earn a dime unless they are knowingly putting their clients at risk, which is not only problematic from an ethical and moral perspective, but also just doesn’t make business sense to do. We have too much to lose by damaging our reputations in this way.
So…in a sense, seeing a responsible, professional provider may actually carry, in many ways, less risk than having casual recreational sex with the average man who has sex with men. I don’t mean zero risk. Less risk.
I agree with much of the other posters on mitigating risk with visual checks, mouthwash, peeing after sex, washing, etc. Never a bad idea, but all of these are marginal at best in helping reduce your risk. If you have the sex at all, you already took on the risk. Very little in the form of after care will prevent you from getting STIs.
We sex workers take on this personal level of risk and manage that risk as best we can. That’s part of what you’re paying us for. Think like how much you pay an oil rigger vs a controlled environment factory line worker. One job is inherently more risky, so you compensate it more to account for that level of risk and damage control.
When your providers inform you that you may have been exposed to an STI, they are being responsible and doing the right thing. Please do not stigmatize them or punish them for doing their job or for taking on reasonable levels of risk that this job requires. Honor them and show them respect. Keep hiring us when we are well, because we are responsible and professional, and we care.

^This!!!
Here is my two cents in typical long form fashion.
Firstly, thank you @SouthOfTheBorder for posting this topic. Clients don’t want to talk or think about these things. So many people are immature when it comes to discussing sexual health. Our culture stigmatizes people for wanting - and having - sex. Our culture looks down on sex workers and treats us as scapegoats. We’re the “dirty” ones, the irresponsible, the depraved. But that’s just not true. If anything, professional sex workers are much more responsible and informed than the average person with regard to managing risks, maintaining good sexual health, communicating with their partners, and guarding their personal safety.
For every sketchy provider story I hear about on here, there are half a dozen experienced working men doing the right things and handling business professionally, not doing drugs or extorting people or behaving recklessly. The negative stories stick out more so we tend to focus on those. In between the horror stories are many good guys doing good work.
I’ll share the following because I know that many of you respect honesty and straight talk. A lot of providers don’t want to share this type of stuff openly because many clients are uneducated and carry around unfair biases and misinformation around sex and sexual health and use it to demonize us. The concern is clients will hold such information against us thinking “So-and-so had such and such last year. Ohhh better not hire him because I might catch the same thing”. It’s not fair because your average msm bareback hookup is going to be a much higher risk to you than hiring a professional. Hiring an experienced pro with a head on his shoulders is going to be relatively much safer for you than random sex in the wild. Clients on this platform are more educated than average on such matters, so perhaps I am preaching to the choir - still stigma persists no matter what we share or keep silent on. That’s why we don’t talk about this stuff very often. Also, it’s not sexy. But it’s important just the same.
Non-provider men similar to me have WAAAY more unprotected casual sex than I do, and they only get checked every three months (at best!). Most of them are on PreP and bareback exclusively. Doctors in the US require quarterly testing for patients receiving a PreP regimen, so that’s normal. Some of my peers are not on PreP and don’t know their HIV status, much less whether they are spreading STIs around because they are not testing on any regular basis - perhaps only if/when they experience symptoms (and not everyone experiences symptoms). Many straight-curious and bi men fall into this category, but any type can. If they test, it might be only once or twice a year. Your best case scenario outside of hiring is a conscientious gay guy getting tested every three months.
I test every month because of my work. Not because I have more sex than others, but because I care a great deal about my clients, my own health, and my ability to work. Monthly testing only leaves a small window for anything to happen and me not know about it. Keep in mind when you test, you are not clear as of that date you test. You are clear as of 10-14 days or so prior to the date you test, perhaps less. Incubation periods take time for the infection to show up on a test and to be communicable to others. Verify this info with your healthcare provider, as I am not your doctor. I merely bring up the point to clarify testing is not an up-to-the-minute snapshot of what is in your body - rather a snapshot of what has developed in your body (or not) over a period of time since your last exposure up to the time you test.
For example, I had a session last year for a client with multiple providers in which I had unprotected sex (bottom) with one of the providers. I topped the client and another provider in that session. As it so happened, I tested on my monthly schedule the following day. A couple days later I got the test results and all was negative. Little did I know one provider I was exposed to during that encounter passed an STI on to me. Given my activities in the weeks surrounding the encounter, I was able to confirm by process of elimination who it was and when. I topped clients, as I typically do, in the following weeks without knowing any of this, and thankfully did not expose any of them to an infection since the infection was rectal only. On my next test, I caught the issue and immediately alerted a few people who may have been exposed based on the activities with which we had recently engaged. It was only a two week or so window that I potentially passed it on and was yet unaware I had an infection. Since I have much fewer clients engaging me for bottom and/or bottom-adjacent activities, it was pretty easy to identify the few that may have been exposed in that short window. Since I test so frequently, I fortunately had the opportunity to give them all quick notice to get tested and/or treated before an infection had enough time to develop, express symptoms, and/or be passed on to anyone else. Here is a client response:

I love my regular clients. Most them are really good people.
Aside - the provider I got the infection from is married to another provider. Given they have frequent unprotected sex with one another and with all of their respective clients, the risks for them are necessarily higher than your average working guy. Keep this in mind when hiring a provider couple, or one of a pair of providers. Not to stigmatize, but to measure your risk.
I have a fraction of the sex of men similar to me, and it’s generally with people who a) are more conscious about the risks they are taking, b) have much less sex on average, and c) practice safer sex -maybe 10-20%.
Every provider is different. Some have more recreational sex, some have less. Some have riskier sex, some safer sex, perhaps some mix of both. I’d say that providers tend to have much less recreational sex than their peers, if not by intentional choice, than by the mere practical realities of being in this business. That’s me. One cannot be blowing loads recreationally right and left and expect to have any sexual energy left for his clients to enjoy. 
Sex carries some risk no matter how much or little sex you have, be it protected or unprotected. Having sex exposes you to the possibility of contracting sexually transmitted infections, full stop. How much risk you are willing to tolerate is up to you. We have many other threads in the forums on how to mitigate risks, like oral vs anal, top vs bottom play, using condoms, vetting your guys, etc, so I won’t get into all those here. My point is you have to be responsible for your own health and assess your own personal level of risk tolerance.
For the married/attached guys out there regularly having sex with their significant other, it’s best to keep open communication with your partner/spouse about your hiring. I know many of you don’t share for various reasons, so you risk inadvertently passing an STI on to your partner, and that is a much more difficult conversation to have than discussing the boundaries of your relationship beforehand. I suppose, if you’re not having sex with your partner, you can manage your own sexual health without your partner needing to know anything about your hiring or hooking up habits. Assess and manage your personal level risk, and get tested regularly in proportion to that risk and treat infections promptly if/when they manifest. Simple as that. Better yet, if you’re able, get on PreP and follow the required testing regimen. I know many won’t for shared health record privacy concerns. Talk to your significant other. Sooner or later things will surface. One of my clients likes to bareback flip fuck and he regularly has sex with his wife. I am upfront with him about all of my sexual health and relative risks. He wants the sex anyway. Hey, to each his own.
This is our livelihood. It behooves us to stay healthy, obviously for our own sake, but also for the sake of our business. We can’t make money when we are recovering from a sexually transmitted infection. For masseurs like myself, I can’t offer escort service, but I can still massage, sans the extras I otherwise might offer during my recovery, nor can I offer combo massage / sex work service. It puts a damper on what I can earn in that 1-2 week period. For the full time escorts out there, they can’t earn a dime unless they are knowingly putting their clients at risk, which is not only problematic from an ethical and moral perspective, but also just doesn’t make business sense to do. We have too much to lose by damaging our reputations in this way.
So…in a sense, seeing a responsible, professional provider may actually carry, in many ways, less risk than having casual recreational sex with the average man who has sex with men. I don’t mean zero risk. Less risk.
I agree with much of the other posters on mitigating risk with visual checks, mouthwash, peeing after sex, washing, etc. Never a bad idea, but all of these are marginal at best in helping reduce your risk. If you have the sex at all, you already took on the risk. Very little in the form of after care will prevent you from getting STIs.
We sex workers take on this personal level of risk and manage that risk as best we can. That’s part of what you’re paying us for. Think like how much you pay an oil rigger vs a controlled environment factory line worker. One job is inherently more risky, so you compensate it more to account for that level of risk and damage control.
When your providers inform you that you may have been exposed to an STI, they are being responsible and doing the right thing. Please do not stigmatize them or punish them for doing their job or for taking on reasonable levels of risk that this job requires. Honor them and show them respect. Keep hiring us when we are well, because we are responsible and professional, and we care.

@Simon Suraci thank you for this candid post.
my sense has always been sex w established providers is safer in all respects vs random guys in the wild.  
the reasons nobody wants to discuss STIs in personal terms are very complicated -  there’s the general shame one feels for having contracted an STI, potential shaming from healthcare providers, potential stigma by others and then there’s just not wanting to ruin the fantasy that is largely driven by unrealistic porn that almost everyone consumes these days.  

I’m lucky - I live in a big city with easy access to non-judgmental healthcare, but yet I still feel like I failed or did something wrong when contracted an STI in the past.  I don’t have much sex compared to the average person in a big city & don’t participate in the apps - I practice safer sex w condoms most of the time.  And yet - it has happened to me.  And if it’s happening to me, then it’s happening to many others as well.  They just don’t talk about it. 
Now, when hiring providers - the first in-person conversation is about sexual health and how we can proceed.  It’s not sexy, but it’s honest and can build trust immediately.  Trust & honesty = better sex.  Uncomfortable conversations are frequently the most necessary conversations.

^This!!!
Here is my two cents in typical long form fashion.
Firstly, thank you @SouthOfTheBorder for posting this topic. Clients don’t want to talk or think about these things. So many people are immature when it comes to discussing sexual health. Our culture stigmatizes people for wanting - and having - sex. Our culture looks down on sex workers and treats us as scapegoats. We’re the “dirty” ones, the irresponsible, the depraved. But that’s just not true. If anything, professional sex workers are much more responsible and informed than the average person with regard to managing risks, maintaining good sexual health, communicating with their partners, and guarding their personal safety.
For every sketchy provider story I hear about on here, there are half a dozen experienced working men doing the right things and handling business professionally, not doing drugs or extorting people or behaving recklessly. The negative stories stick out more so we tend to focus on those. In between the horror stories are many good guys doing good work.
I’ll share the following because I know that many of you respect honesty and straight talk. A lot of providers don’t want to share this type of stuff openly because many clients are uneducated and carry around unfair biases and misinformation around sex and sexual health and use it to demonize us. The concern is clients will hold such information against us thinking “So-and-so had such and such last year. Ohhh better not hire him because I might catch the same thing”. It’s not fair because your average msm bareback hookup is going to be a much higher risk to you than hiring a professional. Hiring an experienced pro with a head on his shoulders is going to be relatively much safer for you than random sex in the wild. Clients on this platform are more educated than average on such matters, so perhaps I am preaching to the choir - still stigma persists no matter what we share or keep silent on. That’s why we don’t talk about this stuff very often. Also, it’s not sexy. But it’s important just the same.
Non-provider men similar to me have WAAAY more unprotected casual sex than I do, and they only get checked every three months (at best!). Most of them are on PreP and bareback exclusively. Doctors in the US require quarterly testing for patients receiving a PreP regimen, so that’s normal. Some of my peers are not on PreP and don’t know their HIV status, much less whether they are spreading STIs around because they are not testing on any regular basis - perhaps only if/when they experience symptoms (and not everyone experiences symptoms). Many straight-curious and bi men fall into this category, but any type can. If they test, it might be only once or twice a year. Your best case scenario outside of hiring is a conscientious gay guy getting tested every three months.
I test every month because of my work. Not because I have more sex than others, but because I care a great deal about my clients, my own health, and my ability to work. Monthly testing only leaves a small window for anything to happen and me not know about it. Keep in mind when you test, you are not clear as of that date you test. You are clear as of 10-14 days or so prior to the date you test, perhaps less. Incubation periods take time for the infection to show up on a test and to be communicable to others. Verify this info with your healthcare provider, as I am not your doctor. I merely bring up the point to clarify testing is not an up-to-the-minute snapshot of what is in your body - rather a snapshot of what has developed in your body (or not) over a period of time since your last exposure up to the time you test.
For example, I had a session last year for a client with multiple providers in which I had unprotected sex (bottom) with one of the providers. I topped the client and another provider in that session. As it so happened, I tested on my monthly schedule the following day. A couple days later I got the test results and all was negative. Little did I know one provider I was exposed to during that encounter passed an STI on to me. Given my activities in the weeks surrounding the encounter, I was able to confirm by process of elimination who it was and when. I topped clients, as I typically do, in the following weeks without knowing any of this, and thankfully did not expose any of them to an infection since the infection was rectal only. On my next test, I caught the issue and immediately alerted a few people who may have been exposed based on the activities with which we had recently engaged. It was only a two week or so window that I potentially passed it on and was yet unaware I had an infection. Since I have much fewer clients engaging me for bottom and/or bottom-adjacent activities, it was pretty easy to identify the few that may have been exposed in that short window. Since I test so frequently, I fortunately had the opportunity to give them all quick notice to get tested and/or treated before an infection had enough time to develop, express symptoms, and/or be passed on to anyone else. Here is a client response:

I love my regular clients. Most them are really good people.
Aside - the provider I got the infection from is married to another provider. Given they have frequent unprotected sex with one another and with all of their respective clients, the risks for them are necessarily higher than your average working guy. Keep this in mind when hiring a provider couple, or one of a pair of providers. Not to stigmatize, but to measure your risk.
I have a fraction of the sex of men similar to me, and it’s generally with people who a) are more conscious about the risks they are taking, b) have much less sex on average, and c) practice safer sex -maybe 10-20%.
Every provider is different. Some have more recreational sex, some have less. Some have riskier sex, some safer sex, perhaps some mix of both. I’d say that providers tend to have much less recreational sex than their peers, if not by intentional choice, than by the mere practical realities of being in this business. That’s me. One cannot be blowing loads recreationally right and left and expect to have any sexual energy left for his clients to enjoy. 
Sex carries some risk no matter how much or little sex you have, be it protected or unprotected. Having sex exposes you to the possibility of contracting sexually transmitted infections, full stop. How much risk you are willing to tolerate is up to you. We have many other threads in the forums on how to mitigate risks, like oral vs anal, top vs bottom play, using condoms, vetting your guys, etc, so I won’t get into all those here. My point is you have to be responsible for your own health and assess your own personal level of risk tolerance.
For the married/attached guys out there regularly having sex with their significant other, it’s best to keep open communication with your partner/spouse about your hiring. I know many of you don’t share for various reasons, so you risk inadvertently passing an STI on to your partner, and that is a much more difficult conversation to have than discussing the boundaries of your relationship beforehand. I suppose, if you’re not having sex with your partner, you can manage your own sexual health without your partner needing to know anything about your hiring or hooking up habits. Assess and manage your personal level risk, and get tested regularly in proportion to that risk and treat infections promptly if/when they manifest. Simple as that. Better yet, if you’re able, get on PreP and follow the required testing regimen. I know many won’t for shared health record privacy concerns. Talk to your significant other. Sooner or later things will surface. One of my clients likes to bareback flip fuck and he regularly has sex with his wife. I am upfront with him about all of my sexual health and relative risks. He wants the sex anyway. Hey, to each his own.
This is our livelihood. It behooves us to stay healthy, obviously for our own sake, but also for the sake of our business. We can’t make money when we are recovering from a sexually transmitted infection. For masseurs like myself, I can’t offer escort service, but I can still massage, sans the extras I otherwise might offer during my recovery, nor can I offer combo massage / sex work service. It puts a damper on what I can earn in that 1-2 week period. For the full time escorts out there, they can’t earn a dime unless they are knowingly putting their clients at risk, which is not only problematic from an ethical and moral perspective, but also just doesn’t make business sense to do. We have too much to lose by damaging our reputations in this way.
So…in a sense, seeing a responsible, professional provider may actually carry, in many ways, less risk than having casual recreational sex with the average man who has sex with men. I don’t mean zero risk. Less risk.
I agree with much of the other posters on mitigating risk with visual checks, mouthwash, peeing after sex, washing, etc. Never a bad idea, but all of these are marginal at best in helping reduce your risk. If you have the sex at all, you already took on the risk. Very little in the form of after care will prevent you from getting STIs.
We sex workers take on this personal level of risk and manage that risk as best we can. That’s part of what you’re paying us for. Think like how much you pay an oil rigger vs a controlled environment factory line worker. One job is inherently more risky, so you compensate it more to account for that level of risk and damage control.
When your providers inform you that you may have been exposed to an STI, they are being responsible and doing the right thing. Please do not stigmatize them or punish them for doing their job or for taking on reasonable levels of risk that this job requires. Honor them and show them respect. Keep hiring us when we are well, because we are responsible and professional, and we care.

^This!!!
Here is my two cents in typical long form fashion.
Firstly, thank you @SouthOfTheBorder for posting this topic. Clients don’t want to talk or think about these things. So many people are immature when it comes to discussing sexual health. Our culture stigmatizes people for wanting - and having - sex. Our culture looks down on sex workers and treats us as scapegoats. We’re the “dirty” ones, the irresponsible, the depraved. But that’s just not true. If anything, professional sex workers are much more responsible and informed than the average person with regard to managing risks, maintaining good sexual health, communicating with their partners, and guarding their personal safety.
For every sketchy provider story I hear about on here, there are half a dozen experienced working men doing the right things and handling business professionally, not doing drugs or extorting people or behaving recklessly. The negative stories stick out more so we tend to focus on those. In between the horror stories are many good guys doing good work.
I’ll share the following because I know that many of you respect honesty and straight talk. A lot of providers don’t want to share this type of stuff openly because many clients are uneducated and carry around unfair biases and misinformation around sex and sexual health and use it to demonize us. The concern is clients will hold such information against us thinking “So-and-so had such and such last year. Ohhh better not hire him because I might catch the same thing”. It’s not fair because your average msm bareback hookup is going to be a much higher risk to you than hiring a professional. Hiring an experienced pro with a head on his shoulders is going to be relatively much safer for you than random sex in the wild. Clients on this platform are more educated than average on such matters, so perhaps I am preaching to the choir - still stigma persists no matter what we share or keep silent on. That’s why we don’t talk about this stuff very often. Also, it’s not sexy. But it’s important just the same.
Non-provider men similar to me have WAAAY more unprotected casual sex than I do, and they only get checked every three months (at best!). Most of them are on PreP and bareback exclusively. Doctors in the US require quarterly testing for patients receiving a PreP regimen, so that’s normal. Some of my peers are not on PreP and don’t know their HIV status, much less whether they are spreading STIs around because they are not testing on any regular basis - perhaps only if/when they experience symptoms (and not everyone experiences symptoms). Many straight-curious and bi men fall into this category, but any type can. If they test, it might be only once or twice a year. Your best case scenario outside of hiring is a conscientious gay guy getting tested every three months.
I test every month because of my work. Not because I have more sex than others, but because I care a great deal about my clients, my own health, and my ability to work. Monthly testing only leaves a small window for anything to happen and me not know about it. Keep in mind when you test, you are not clear as of that date you test. You are clear as of 10-14 days or so prior to the date you test, perhaps less. Incubation periods take time for the infection to show up on a test and to be communicable to others. Verify this info with your healthcare provider, as I am not your doctor. I merely bring up the point to clarify testing is not an up-to-the-minute snapshot of what is in your body - rather a snapshot of what has developed in your body (or not) over a period of time since your last exposure up to the time you test.
For example, I had a session last year for a client with multiple providers in which I had unprotected sex (bottom) with one of the providers. I topped the client and another provider in that session. As it so happened, I tested on my monthly schedule the following day. A couple days later I got the test results and all was negative. Little did I know one provider I was exposed to during that encounter passed an STI on to me. Given my activities in the weeks surrounding the encounter, I was able to confirm by process of elimination who it was and when. I topped clients, as I typically do, in the following weeks without knowing any of this, and thankfully did not expose any of them to an infection since the infection was rectal only. On my next test, I caught the issue and immediately alerted a few people who may have been exposed based on the activities with which we had recently engaged. It was only a two week or so window that I potentially passed it on and was yet unaware I had an infection. Since I have much fewer clients engaging me for bottom and/or bottom-adjacent activities, it was pretty easy to identify the few that may have been exposed in that short window. Since I test so frequently, I fortunately had the opportunity to give them all quick notice to get tested and/or treated before an infection had enough time to develop, express symptoms, and/or be passed on to anyone else. Here is a client response:

I love my regular clients. Most them are really good people.
Aside - the provider I got the infection from is married to another provider. Given they have frequent unprotected sex with one another and with all of their respective clients, the risks for them are necessarily higher than your average working guy. Keep this in mind when hiring a provider couple, or one of a pair of providers. Not to stigmatize, but to measure your risk.
I have a fraction of the sex of men similar to me, and it’s generally with people who a) are more conscious about the risks they are taking, b) have much less sex on average, and c) practice safer sex -maybe 10-20%.
Every provider is different. Some have more recreational sex, some have less. Some have riskier sex, some safer sex, perhaps some mix of both. I’d say that providers tend to have much less recreational sex than their peers, if not by intentional choice, than by the mere practical realities of being in this business. That’s me. One cannot be blowing loads recreationally right and left and expect to have any sexual energy left for his clients to enjoy. 
Sex carries some risk no matter how much or little sex you have, be it protected or unprotected. Having sex exposes you to the possibility of contracting sexually transmitted infections, full stop. How much risk you are willing to tolerate is up to you. We have many other threads in the forums on how to mitigate risks, like oral vs anal, top vs bottom play, using condoms, vetting your guys, etc, so I won’t get into all those here. My point is you have to be responsible for your own health and assess your own personal level of risk tolerance.
For the married/attached guys out there regularly having sex with their significant other, it’s best to keep open communication with your partner/spouse about your hiring. I know many of you don’t share for various reasons, so you risk inadvertently passing an STI on to your partner, and that is a much more difficult conversation to have than discussing the boundaries of your relationship beforehand. I suppose, if you’re not having sex with your partner, you can manage your own sexual health without your partner needing to know anything about your hiring or hooking up habits. Assess and manage your personal level risk, and get tested regularly in proportion to that risk and treat infections promptly if/when they manifest. Simple as that. Better yet, if you’re able, get on PreP and follow the required testing regimen. I know many won’t for shared health record privacy concerns. Talk to your significant other. Sooner or later things will surface. One of my clients likes to bareback flip fuck and he regularly has sex with his wife. I am upfront with him about all of my sexual health and relative risks. He wants the sex anyway. Hey, to each his own.
This is our livelihood. It behooves us to stay healthy, obviously for our own sake, but also for the sake of our business. We can’t make money when we are recovering from a sexually transmitted infection. For masseurs like myself, I can’t offer escort service, but I can still massage, sans the extras I otherwise might offer during my recovery, nor can I offer combo massage / sex work service. It puts a damper on what I can earn in that 1-2 week period. For the full time escorts out there, they can’t earn a dime unless they are knowingly putting their clients at risk, which is not only problematic from an ethical and moral perspective, but also just doesn’t make business sense to do. We have too much to lose by damaging our reputations in this way.
So…in a sense, seeing a responsible, professional provider may actually carry, in many ways, less risk than having casual recreational sex with the average man who has sex with men. I don’t mean zero risk. Less risk.
I agree with much of the other posters on mitigating risk with visual checks, mouthwash, peeing after sex, washing, etc. Never a bad idea, but all of these are marginal at best in helping reduce your risk. If you have the sex at all, you already took on the risk. Very little in the form of after care will prevent you from getting STIs.
We sex workers take on this personal level of risk and manage that risk as best we can. That’s part of what you’re paying us for. Think like how much you pay an oil rigger vs a controlled environment factory line worker. One job is inherently more risky, so you compensate it more to account for that level of risk and damage control.
When your providers inform you that you may have been exposed to an STI, they are being responsible and doing the right thing. Please do not stigmatize them or punish them for doing their job or for taking on reasonable levels of risk that this job requires. Honor them and show them respect. Keep hiring us when we are well, because we are responsible and professional, and we care.

^This!!!
Here is my two cents in typical long form fashion.
Firstly, thank you @SouthOfTheBorder for posting this topic. Clients don’t want to talk or think about these things. So many people are immature when it comes to discussing sexual health. Our culture stigmatizes people for wanting - and having - sex. Our culture looks down on sex workers and treats us as scapegoats. We’re the “dirty” ones, the irresponsible, the depraved. But that’s just not true. If anything, professional sex workers are much more responsible and informed than the average person with regard to managing risks, maintaining good sexual health, communicating with their partners, and guarding their personal safety.
For every sketchy provider story I hear about on here, there are half a dozen experienced working men doing the right things and handling business professionally, not doing drugs or extorting people or behaving recklessly. The negative stories stick out more so we tend to focus on those. In between the horror stories are many good guys doing good work.
I’ll share the following because I know that many of you respect honesty and straight talk. A lot of providers don’t want to share this type of stuff openly because many clients are uneducated and carry around unfair biases and misinformation around sex and sexual health and use it to demonize us. The concern is clients will hold such information against us thinking “So-and-so had such and such last year. Ohhh better not hire him because I might catch the same thing”. It’s not fair because your average msm bareback hookup is going to be a much higher risk to you than hiring a professional. Hiring an experienced pro with a head on his shoulders is going to be relatively much safer for you than random sex in the wild. Clients on this platform are more educated than average on such matters, so perhaps I am preaching to the choir - still stigma persists no matter what we share or keep silent on. That’s why we don’t talk about this stuff very often. Also, it’s not sexy. But it’s important just the same.
Non-provider men similar to me have WAAAY more unprotected casual sex than I do, and they only get checked every three months (at best!). Most of them are on PreP and bareback exclusively. Doctors in the US require quarterly testing for patients receiving a PreP regimen, so that’s normal. Some of my peers are not on PreP and don’t know their HIV status, much less whether they are spreading STIs around because they are not testing on any regular basis - perhaps only if/when they experience symptoms (and not everyone experiences symptoms). Many straight-curious and bi men fall into this category, but any type can. If they test, it might be only once or twice a year. Your best case scenario outside of hiring is a conscientious gay guy getting tested every three months.
I test every month because of my work. Not because I have more sex than others, but because I care a great deal about my clients, my own health, and my ability to work. Monthly testing only leaves a small window for anything to happen and me not know about it. Keep in mind when you test, you are not clear as of that date you test. You are clear as of 10-14 days or so prior to the date you test, perhaps less. Incubation periods take time for the infection to show up on a test and to be communicable to others. Verify this info with your healthcare provider, as I am not your doctor. I merely bring up the point to clarify testing is not an up-to-the-minute snapshot of what is in your body - rather a snapshot of what has developed in your body (or not) over a period of time since your last exposure up to the time you test.
For example, I had a session last year for a client with multiple providers in which I had unprotected sex (bottom) with one of the providers. I topped the client and another provider in that session. As it so happened, I tested on my monthly schedule the following day. A couple days later I got the test results and all was negative. Little did I know one provider I was exposed to during that encounter passed an STI on to me. Given my activities in the weeks surrounding the encounter, I was able to confirm by process of elimination who it was and when. I topped clients, as I typically do, in the following weeks without knowing any of this, and thankfully did not expose any of them to an infection since the infection was rectal only. On my next test, I caught the issue and immediately alerted a few people who may have been exposed based on the activities with which we had recently engaged. It was only a two week or so window that I potentially passed it on and was yet unaware I had an infection. Since I have much fewer clients engaging me for bottom and/or bottom-adjacent activities, it was pretty easy to identify the few that may have been exposed in that short window. Since I test so frequently, I fortunately had the opportunity to give them all quick notice to get tested and/or treated before an infection had enough time to develop, express symptoms, and/or be passed on to anyone else. Here is a client response:

I love my regular clients. Most them are really good people.
Aside - the provider I got the infection from is married to another provider. Given they have frequent unprotected sex with one another and with all of their respective clients, the risks for them are necessarily higher than your average working guy. Keep this in mind when hiring a provider couple, or one of a pair of providers. Not to stigmatize, but to measure your risk.
I have a fraction of the sex of men similar to me, and it’s generally with people who a) are more conscious about the risks they are taking, b) have much less sex on average, and c) practice safer sex -maybe 10-20%.
Every provider is different. Some have more recreational sex, some have less. Some have riskier sex, some safer sex, perhaps some mix of both. I’d say that providers tend to have much less recreational sex than their peers, if not by intentional choice, than by the mere practical realities of being in this business. That’s me. One cannot be blowing loads recreationally right and left and expect to have any sexual energy left for his clients to enjoy. 
Sex carries some risk no matter how much or little sex you have, be it protected or unprotected. Having sex exposes you to the possibility of contracting sexually transmitted infections, full stop. How much risk you are willing to tolerate is up to you. We have many other threads in the forums on how to mitigate risks, like oral vs anal, top vs bottom play, using condoms, vetting your guys, etc, so I won’t get into all those here. My point is you have to be responsible for your own health and assess your own personal level of risk tolerance.
For the married/attached guys out there regularly having sex with their significant other, it’s best to keep open communication with your partner/spouse about your hiring. I know many of you don’t share for various reasons, so you risk inadvertently passing an STI on to your partner, and that is a much more difficult conversation to have than discussing the boundaries of your relationship beforehand. I suppose, if you’re not having sex with your partner, you can manage your own sexual health without your partner needing to know anything about your hiring or hooking up habits. Assess and manage your personal level risk, and get tested regularly in proportion to that risk and treat infections promptly if/when they manifest. Simple as that. Better yet, if you’re able, get on PreP and follow the required testing regimen. I know many won’t for shared health record privacy concerns. Talk to your significant other. Sooner or later things will surface. One of my clients likes to bareback flip fuck and he regularly has sex with his wife. I am upfront with him about all of my sexual health and relative risks. He wants the sex anyway. Hey, to each his own.
This is our livelihood. It behooves us to stay healthy, obviously for our own sake, but also for the sake of our business. We can’t make money when we are recovering from a sexually transmitted infection. For masseurs like myself, I can’t offer escort service, but I can still massage, sans the extras I otherwise might offer during my recovery, nor can I offer combo massage / sex work service. It puts a damper on what I can earn in that 1-2 week period. For the full time escorts out there, they can’t earn a dime unless they are knowingly putting their clients at risk, which is not only problematic from an ethical and moral perspective, but also just doesn’t make business sense to do. We have too much to lose by damaging our reputations in this way.
So…in a sense, seeing a responsible, professional provider may actually carry, in many ways, less risk than having casual recreational sex with the average man who has sex with men. I don’t mean zero risk. Less risk.
I agree with much of the other posters on mitigating risk with visual checks, mouthwash, peeing after sex, washing, etc. Never a bad idea, but all of these are marginal at best in helping reduce your risk. If you have the sex at all, you already took on the risk. Very little in the form of after care will prevent you from getting STIs.
We sex workers take on this personal level of risk and manage that risk as best we can. That’s part of what you’re paying us for. Think like how much you pay an oil rigger vs a controlled environment factory line worker. One job is inherently more risky, so you compensate it more to account for that level of risk and damage control.
When your providers inform you that you may have been exposed to an STI, they are being responsible and doing the right thing. Please do not stigmatize them or punish them for doing their job or for taking on reasonable levels of risk that this job requires. Honor them and show them respect. Keep hiring us when we are well, because we are responsible and professional, and we care.

^This!!!
Here is my two cents in typical long form fashion.
Firstly, thank you @SouthOfTheBorder for posting this topic. Clients don’t want to talk or think about these things. So many people are immature when it comes to discussing sexual health. Our culture stigmatizes people for wanting - and having - sex. Our culture looks down on sex workers and treats us as scapegoats. We’re the “dirty” ones, the irresponsible, the depraved. But that’s just not true. If anything, professional sex workers are much more responsible and informed than the average person with regard to managing risks, maintaining good sexual health, communicating with their partners, and guarding their personal safety.
For every sketchy provider story I hear about on here, there are half a dozen experienced working men doing the right things and handling business professionally, not doing drugs or extorting people or behaving recklessly. The negative stories stick out more so we tend to focus on those. In between the horror stories are many good guys doing good work.
I’ll share the following because I know that many of you respect honesty and straight talk. A lot of providers don’t want to share this type of stuff openly because many clients are uneducated and carry around unfair biases and misinformation around sex and sexual health and use it to demonize us. The concern is clients will hold such information against us thinking “So-and-so had such and such last year. Ohhh better not hire him because I might catch the same thing”. It’s not fair because your average msm bareback hookup is going to be a much higher risk to you than hiring a professional. Hiring an experienced pro with a head on his shoulders is going to be relatively much safer for you than random sex in the wild. Clients on this platform are more educated than average on such matters, so perhaps I am preaching to the choir - still stigma persists no matter what we share or keep silent on. That’s why we don’t talk about this stuff very often. Also, it’s not sexy. But it’s important just the same.
Non-provider men similar to me have WAAAY more unprotected casual sex than I do, and they only get checked every three months (at best!). Most of them are on PreP and bareback exclusively. Doctors in the US require quarterly testing for patients receiving a PreP regimen, so that’s normal. Some of my peers are not on PreP and don’t know their HIV status, much less whether they are spreading STIs around because they are not testing on any regular basis - perhaps only if/when they experience symptoms (and not everyone experiences symptoms). Many straight-curious and bi men fall into this category, but any type can. If they test, it might be only once or twice a year. Your best case scenario outside of hiring is a conscientious gay guy getting tested every three months.
I test every month because of my work. Not because I have more sex than others, but because I care a great deal about my clients, my own health, and my ability to work. Monthly testing only leaves a small window for anything to happen and me not know about it. Keep in mind when you test, you are not clear as of that date you test. You are clear as of 10-14 days or so prior to the date you test, perhaps less. Incubation periods take time for the infection to show up on a test and to be communicable to others. Verify this info with your healthcare provider, as I am not your doctor. I merely bring up the point to clarify testing is not an up-to-the-minute snapshot of what is in your body - rather a snapshot of what has developed in your body (or not) over a period of time since your last exposure up to the time you test.
For example, I had a session last year for a client with multiple providers in which I had unprotected sex (bottom) with one of the providers. I topped the client and another provider in that session. As it so happened, I tested on my monthly schedule the following day. A couple days later I got the test results and all was negative. Little did I know one provider I was exposed to during that encounter passed an STI on to me. Given my activities in the weeks surrounding the encounter, I was able to confirm by process of elimination who it was and when. I topped clients, as I typically do, in the following weeks without knowing any of this, and thankfully did not expose any of them to an infection since the infection was rectal only. On my next test, I caught the issue and immediately alerted a few people who may have been exposed based on the activities with which we had recently engaged. It was only a two week or so window that I potentially passed it on and was yet unaware I had an infection. Since I have much fewer clients engaging me for bottom and/or bottom-adjacent activities, it was pretty easy to identify the few that may have been exposed in that short window. Since I test so frequently, I fortunately had the opportunity to give them all quick notice to get tested and/or treated before an infection had enough time to develop, express symptoms, and/or be passed on to anyone else. Here is a client response:

I love my regular clients. Most them are really good people.
Aside - the provider I got the infection from is married to another provider. Given they have frequent unprotected sex with one another and with all of their respective clients, the risks for them are necessarily higher than your average working guy. Keep this in mind when hiring a provider couple, or one of a pair of providers. Not to stigmatize, but to measure your risk.
I have a fraction of the sex of men similar to me, and it’s generally with people who a) are more conscious about the risks they are taking, b) have much less sex on average, and c) practice safer sex -maybe 10-20%.
Every provider is different. Some have more recreational sex, some have less. Some have riskier sex, some safer sex, perhaps some mix of both. I’d say that providers tend to have much less recreational sex than their peers, if not by intentional choice, than by the mere practical realities of being in this business. That’s me. One cannot be blowing loads recreationally right and left and expect to have any sexual energy left for his clients to enjoy. 
Sex carries some risk no matter how much or little sex you have, be it protected or unprotected. Having sex exposes you to the possibility of contracting sexually transmitted infections, full stop. How much risk you are willing to tolerate is up to you. We have many other threads in the forums on how to mitigate risks, like oral vs anal, top vs bottom play, using condoms, vetting your guys, etc, so I won’t get into all those here. My point is you have to be responsible for your own health and assess your own personal level of risk tolerance.
For the married/attached guys out there regularly having sex with their significant other, it’s best to keep open communication with your partner/spouse about your hiring. I know many of you don’t share for various reasons, so you risk inadvertently passing an STI on to your partner, and that is a much more difficult conversation to have than discussing the boundaries of your relationship beforehand. I suppose, if you’re not having sex with your partner, you can manage your own sexual health without your partner needing to know anything about your hiring or hooking up habits. Assess and manage your personal level risk, and get tested regularly in proportion to that risk and treat infections promptly if/when they manifest. Simple as that. Better yet, if you’re able, get on PreP and follow the required testing regimen. I know many won’t for shared health record privacy concerns. Talk to your significant other. Sooner or later things will surface. One of my clients likes to bareback flip fuck and he regularly has sex with his wife. I am upfront with him about all of my sexual health and relative risks. He wants the sex anyway. Hey, to each his own.
This is our livelihood. It behooves us to stay healthy, obviously for our own sake, but also for the sake of our business. We can’t make money when we are recovering from a sexually transmitted infection. For masseurs like myself, I can’t offer escort service, but I can still massage, sans the extras I otherwise might offer during my recovery, nor can I offer combo massage / sex work service. It puts a damper on what I can earn in that 1-2 week period. For the full time escorts out there, they can’t earn a dime unless they are knowingly putting their clients at risk, which is not only problematic from an ethical and moral perspective, but also just doesn’t make business sense to do. We have too much to lose by damaging our reputations in this way.
So…in a sense, seeing a responsible, professional provider may actually carry, in many ways, less risk than having casual recreational sex with the average man who has sex with men. I don’t mean zero risk. Less risk.
I agree with much of the other posters on mitigating risk with visual checks, mouthwash, peeing after sex, washing, etc. Never a bad idea, but all of these are marginal at best in helping reduce your risk. If you have the sex at all, you already took on the risk. Very little in the form of after care will prevent you from getting STIs.
We sex workers take on this personal level of risk and manage that risk as best we can. That’s part of what you’re paying us for. Think like how much you pay an oil rigger vs a controlled environment factory line worker. One job is inherently more risky, so you compensate it more to account for that level of risk and damage control.
When your providers inform you that you may have been exposed to an STI, they are being responsible and doing the right thing. Please do not stigmatize them or punish them for doing their job or for taking on reasonable levels of risk that this job requires. Honor them and show them respect. Keep hiring us when we are well, because we are responsible and professional, and we care.

^This!!!
Here is my two cents in typical long form fashion.
Firstly, thank you @SouthOfTheBorder for posting this topic. Clients don’t want to talk or think about these things. So many people are immature when it comes to discussing sexual health. Our culture stigmatizes people for wanting - and having - sex. Our culture looks down on sex workers and treats us as scapegoats. We’re the “dirty” ones, the irresponsible, the depraved. But that’s just not true. If anything, professional sex workers are much more responsible and informed than the average person with regard to managing risks, maintaining good sexual health, communicating with their partners, and guarding their personal safety.
For every sketchy provider story I hear about on here, there are half a dozen experienced working men doing the right things and handling business professionally, not doing drugs or extorting people or behaving recklessly. The negative stories stick out more so we tend to focus on those. In between the horror stories are many good guys doing good work.
I’ll share the following because I know that many of you respect honesty and straight talk. A lot of providers don’t want to share this type of stuff openly because many clients are uneducated and carry around unfair biases and misinformation around sex and sexual health and use it to demonize us. The concern is clients will hold such information against us thinking “So-and-so had such and such last year. Ohhh better not hire him because I might catch the same thing”. It’s not fair because your average msm bareback hookup is going to be a much higher risk to you than hiring a professional. Hiring an experienced pro with a head on his shoulders is going to be relatively much safer for you than random sex in the wild. Clients on this platform are more educated than average on such matters, so perhaps I am preaching to the choir - still stigma persists no matter what we share or keep silent on. That’s why we don’t talk about this stuff very often. Also, it’s not sexy. But it’s important just the same.
Non-provider men similar to me have WAAAY more unprotected casual sex than I do, and they only get checked every three months (at best!). Most of them are on PreP and bareback exclusively. Doctors in the US require quarterly testing for patients receiving a PreP regimen, so that’s normal. Some of my peers are not on PreP and don’t know their HIV status, much less whether they are spreading STIs around because they are not testing on any regular basis - perhaps only if/when they experience symptoms (and not everyone experiences symptoms). Many straight-curious and bi men fall into this category, but any type can. If they test, it might be only once or twice a year. Your best case scenario outside of hiring is a conscientious gay guy getting tested every three months.
I test every month because of my work. Not because I have more sex than others, but because I care a great deal about my clients, my own health, and my ability to work. Monthly testing only leaves a small window for anything to happen and me not know about it. Keep in mind when you test, you are not clear as of that date you test. You are clear as of 10-14 days or so prior to the date you test, perhaps less. Incubation periods take time for the infection to show up on a test and to be communicable to others. Verify this info with your healthcare provider, as I am not your doctor. I merely bring up the point to clarify testing is not an up-to-the-minute snapshot of what is in your body - rather a snapshot of what has developed in your body (or not) over a period of time since your last exposure up to the time you test.
For example, I had a session last year for a client with multiple providers in which I had unprotected sex (bottom) with one of the providers. I topped the client and another provider in that session. As it so happened, I tested on my monthly schedule the following day. A couple days later I got the test results and all was negative. Little did I know one provider I was exposed to during that encounter passed an STI on to me. Given my activities in the weeks surrounding the encounter, I was able to confirm by process of elimination who it was and when. I topped clients, as I typically do, in the following weeks without knowing any of this, and thankfully did not expose any of them to an infection since the infection was rectal only. On my next test, I caught the issue and immediately alerted a few people who may have been exposed based on the activities with which we had recently engaged. It was only a two week or so window that I potentially passed it on and was yet unaware I had an infection. Since I have much fewer clients engaging me for bottom and/or bottom-adjacent activities, it was pretty easy to identify the few that may have been exposed in that short window. Since I test so frequently, I fortunately had the opportunity to give them all quick notice to get tested and/or treated before an infection had enough time to develop, express symptoms, and/or be passed on to anyone else. Here is a client response:

I love my regular clients. Most them are really good people.
Aside - the provider I got the infection from is married to another provider. Given they have frequent unprotected sex with one another and with all of their respective clients, the risks for them are necessarily higher than your average working guy. Keep this in mind when hiring a provider couple, or one of a pair of providers. Not to stigmatize, but to measure your risk.
I have a fraction of the sex of men similar to me, and it’s generally with people who a) are more conscious about the risks they are taking, b) have much less sex on average, and c) practice safer sex -maybe 10-20%.
Every provider is different. Some have more recreational sex, some have less. Some have riskier sex, some safer sex, perhaps some mix of both. I’d say that providers tend to have much less recreational sex than their peers, if not by intentional choice, than by the mere practical realities of being in this business. That’s me. One cannot be blowing loads recreationally right and left and expect to have any sexual energy left for his clients to enjoy. 
Sex carries some risk no matter how much or little sex you have, be it protected or unprotected. Having sex exposes you to the possibility of contracting sexually transmitted infections, full stop. How much risk you are willing to tolerate is up to you. We have many other threads in the forums on how to mitigate risks, like oral vs anal, top vs bottom play, using condoms, vetting your guys, etc, so I won’t get into all those here. My point is you have to be responsible for your own health and assess your own personal level of risk tolerance.
For the married/attached guys out there regularly having sex with their significant other, it’s best to keep open communication with your partner/spouse about your hiring. I know many of you don’t share for various reasons, so you risk inadvertently passing an STI on to your partner, and that is a much more difficult conversation to have than discussing the boundaries of your relationship beforehand. I suppose, if you’re not having sex with your partner, you can manage your own sexual health without your partner needing to know anything about your hiring or hooking up habits. Assess and manage your personal level risk, and get tested regularly in proportion to that risk and treat infections promptly if/when they manifest. Simple as that. Better yet, if you’re able, get on PreP and follow the required testing regimen. I know many won’t for shared health record privacy concerns. Talk to your significant other. Sooner or later things will surface. One of my clients likes to bareback flip fuck and he regularly has sex with his wife. I am upfront with him about all of my sexual health and relative risks. He wants the sex anyway. Hey, to each his own.
This is our livelihood. It behooves us to stay healthy, obviously for our own sake, but also for the sake of our business. We can’t make money when we are recovering from a sexually transmitted infection. For masseurs like myself, I can’t offer escort service, but I can still massage, sans the extras I otherwise might offer during my recovery, nor can I offer combo massage / sex work service. It puts a damper on what I can earn in that 1-2 week period. For the full time escorts out there, they can’t earn a dime unless they are knowingly putting their clients at risk, which is not only problematic from an ethical and moral perspective, but also just doesn’t make business sense to do. We have too much to lose by damaging our reputations in this way.
So…in a sense, seeing a responsible, professional provider may actually carry, in many ways, less risk than having casual recreational sex with the average man who has sex with men. I don’t mean zero risk. Less risk.
I agree with much of the other posters on mitigating risk with visual checks, mouthwash, peeing after sex, washing, etc. Never a bad idea, but all of these are marginal at best in helping reduce your risk. If you have the sex at all, you already took on the risk. Very little in the form of after care will prevent you from getting STIs.
We sex workers take on this personal level of risk and manage that risk as best we can. That’s part of what you’re paying us for. Think like how much you pay an oil rigger vs a controlled environment factory line worker. One job is inherently more risky, so you compensate it more to account for that level of risk and damage control.
When your providers inform you that you may have been exposed to an STI, they are being responsible and doing the right thing. Please do not stigmatize them or punish them for doing their job or for taking on reasonable levels of risk that this job requires. Honor them and show them respect. Keep hiring us when we are well, because we are responsible and professional, and we care.

^This!!!
Here is my two cents in typical long form fashion.
Firstly, thank you @SouthOfTheBorder for posting this topic. Clients don’t want to talk or think about these things. So many people are immature when it comes to discussing sexual health. Our culture stigmatizes people for wanting - and having - sex. Our culture looks down on sex workers and treats us as scapegoats. We’re the “dirty” ones, the irresponsible, the depraved. But that’s just not true. If anything, professional sex workers are much more responsible and informed than the average person with regard to managing risks, maintaining good sexual health, communicating with their partners, and guarding their personal safety.
For every sketchy provider story I hear about on here, there are half a dozen experienced working men doing the right things and handling business professionally, not doing drugs or extorting people or behaving recklessly. The negative stories stick out more so we tend to focus on those. In between the horror stories are many good guys doing good work.
I’ll share the following because I know that many of you respect honesty and straight talk. A lot of providers don’t want to share this type of stuff openly because many clients are uneducated and carry around unfair biases and misinformation around sex and sexual health and use it to demonize us. The concern is clients will hold such information against us thinking “So-and-so had such and such last year. Ohhh better not hire him because I might catch the same thing”. It’s not fair because your average msm bareback hookup is going to be a much higher risk to you than hiring a professional. Hiring an experienced pro with a head on his shoulders is going to be relatively much safer for you than random sex in the wild. Clients on this platform are more educated than average on such matters, so perhaps I am preaching to the choir - still stigma persists no matter what we share or keep silent on. That’s why we don’t talk about this stuff very often. Also, it’s not sexy. But it’s important just the same.
Non-provider men similar to me have WAAAY more unprotected casual sex than I do, and they only get checked every three months (at best!). Most of them are on PreP and bareback exclusively. Doctors in the US require quarterly testing for patients receiving a PreP regimen, so that’s normal. Some of my peers are not on PreP and don’t know their HIV status, much less whether they are spreading STIs around because they are not testing on any regular basis - perhaps only if/when they experience symptoms (and not everyone experiences symptoms). Many straight-curious and bi men fall into this category, but any type can. If they test, it might be only once or twice a year. Your best case scenario outside of hiring is a conscientious gay guy getting tested every three months.
I test every month because of my work. Not because I have more sex than others, but because I care a great deal about my clients, my own health, and my ability to work. Monthly testing only leaves a small window for anything to happen and me not know about it. Keep in mind when you test, you are not clear as of that date you test. You are clear as of 10-14 days or so prior to the date you test, perhaps less. Incubation periods take time for the infection to show up on a test and to be communicable to others. Verify this info with your healthcare provider, as I am not your doctor. I merely bring up the point to clarify testing is not an up-to-the-minute snapshot of what is in your body - rather a snapshot of what has developed in your body (or not) over a period of time since your last exposure up to the time you test.
For example, I had a session last year for a client with multiple providers in which I had unprotected sex (bottom) with one of the providers. I topped the client and another provider in that session. As it so happened, I tested on my monthly schedule the following day. A couple days later I got the test results and all was negative. Little did I know one provider I was exposed to during that encounter passed an STI on to me. Given my activities in the weeks surrounding the encounter, I was able to confirm by process of elimination who it was and when. I topped clients, as I typically do, in the following weeks without knowing any of this, and thankfully did not expose any of them to an infection since the infection was rectal only. On my next test, I caught the issue and immediately alerted a few people who may have been exposed based on the activities with which we had recently engaged. It was only a two week or so window that I potentially passed it on and was yet unaware I had an infection. Since I have much fewer clients engaging me for bottom and/or bottom-adjacent activities, it was pretty easy to identify the few that may have been exposed in that short window. Since I test so frequently, I fortunately had the opportunity to give them all quick notice to get tested and/or treated before an infection had enough time to develop, express symptoms, and/or be passed on to anyone else. Here is a client response:

I love my regular clients. Most them are really good people.
Aside - the provider I got the infection from is married to another provider. Given they have frequent unprotected sex with one another and with all of their respective clients, the risks for them are necessarily higher than your average working guy. Keep this in mind when hiring a provider couple, or one of a pair of providers. Not to stigmatize, but to measure your risk.
I have a fraction of the sex of men similar to me, and it’s generally with people who a) are more conscious about the risks they are taking, b) have much less sex on average, and c) practice safer sex -maybe 10-20%.
Every provider is different. Some have more recreational sex, some have less. Some have riskier sex, some safer sex, perhaps some mix of both. I’d say that providers tend to have much less recreational sex than their peers, if not by intentional choice, than by the mere practical realities of being in this business. That’s me. One cannot be blowing loads recreationally right and left and expect to have any sexual energy left for his clients to enjoy. 
Sex carries some risk no matter how much or little sex you have, be it protected or unprotected. Having sex exposes you to the possibility of contracting sexually transmitted infections, full stop. How much risk you are willing to tolerate is up to you. We have many other threads in the forums on how to mitigate risks, like oral vs anal, top vs bottom play, using condoms, vetting your guys, etc, so I won’t get into all those here. My point is you have to be responsible for your own health and assess your own personal level of risk tolerance.
For the married/attached guys out there regularly having sex with their significant other, it’s best to keep open communication with your partner/spouse about your hiring. I know many of you don’t share for various reasons, so you risk inadvertently passing an STI on to your partner, and that is a much more difficult conversation to have than discussing the boundaries of your relationship beforehand. I suppose, if you’re not having sex with your partner, you can manage your own sexual health without your partner needing to know anything about your hiring or hooking up habits. Assess and manage your personal level risk, and get tested regularly in proportion to that risk and treat infections promptly if/when they manifest. Simple as that. Better yet, if you’re able, get on PreP and follow the required testing regimen. I know many won’t for shared health record privacy concerns. Talk to your significant other. Sooner or later things will surface. One of my clients likes to bareback flip fuck and he regularly has sex with his wife. I am upfront with him about all of my sexual health and relative risks. He wants the sex anyway. Hey, to each his own.
This is our livelihood. It behooves us to stay healthy, obviously for our own sake, but also for the sake of our business. We can’t make money when we are recovering from a sexually transmitted infection. For masseurs like myself, I can’t offer escort service, but I can still massage, sans the extras I otherwise might offer during my recovery, nor can I offer combo massage / sex work service. It puts a damper on what I can earn in that 1-2 week period. For the full time escorts out there, they can’t earn a dime unless they are knowingly putting their clients at risk, which is not only problematic from an ethical and moral perspective, but also just doesn’t make business sense to do. We have too much to lose by damaging our reputations in this way.
So…in a sense, seeing a responsible, professional provider may actually carry, in many ways, less risk than having casual recreational sex with the average man who has sex with men. I don’t mean zero risk. Less risk.
I agree with much of the other posters on mitigating risk with visual checks, mouthwash, peeing after sex, washing, etc. Never a bad idea, but all of these are marginal at best in helping reduce your risk. If you have the sex at all, you already took on the risk. Very little in the form of after care will prevent you from getting STIs.
We sex workers take on this personal level of risk and manage that risk as best we can. That’s part of what you’re paying us for. Think like how much you pay an oil rigger vs a controlled environment factory line worker. One job is inherently more risky, so you compensate it more to account for that level of risk and damage control.
When your providers inform you that you may have been exposed to an STI, they are being responsible and doing the right thing. Please do not stigmatize them or punish them for doing their job or for taking on reasonable levels of risk that this job requires. Honor them and show them respect. Keep hiring us when we are well, because we are responsible and professional, and we care.

So true.  I have a provider I have been seeing for a year..a hire from Rent Masseur.   What started as a massage session has evolved into something way more than I bet many escorts provide.  It's almost like an out of body experience it's so good...and gets better every time.  
After the session is over, we can relax and talk about what's going on in our lives and other stuff. We are very different people in our personal lives, but that doesn't mean we can't be friends.  I have much respect and appreciation for him because I was nervous as can be with my first hire, and he is as sexy as they come, and he has always treated me wonderfully.
If he ever gives up or leaves the area, he would be greatly missed.  

Definitely.  It’s all about clear communication.  No one is a mind reader. That is also why I like establishing a reporter with a masseur and becoming a regular client.  Makes life so much easier for both parties.  Plus lets you build respect and friendship along with having a great time !  Nothing like a solid connection which builds over time. 

My advice is - hire someone with plenty of reviews, someone who does NOT do PNP.
 
Secondly, give as much information about what it is you want. although providers are very experienced in the field, they are not mind readers - the more you tell them about what you want, what you don like - the better your experience will be!  I think this is even more vital in circumstances where you are wanting him to be aggressive with you - for eg. what do you mean by aggressive? do you want to be thrown around, slapped? hair pulled? spat on?  spanked? or just bossed around verbally - tell him what are you limits, as well as your desires. 
 
The more open and honest you are, the more likely you will get what you want.  I would be shocked if you are asking for something they haven't already heard! 
 
ENJOY!!!!!

Just wait until he gets to your ass.
Did you let Mike know your 'safe word' yet?  

I LOVE rimming. It’s among my best sexual talents, and one of my specialties. I enjoy doing this for my clients, and sometimes they book me just for a rimming session. It’s not infrequent I make men cum this way. Great if a client enjoys rimming me too, but I’m truly a giver. I wrote a guide. Linking below:
 

I've had a number of clients tell me they would like a "BFE" and I always ask them to define what they mean.   I've heard a lot of different descriptions.   I largely view it as being open and flexible,  including things like kissing and cuddling  (but not always).  Also there can be some "implied"  things there,   like  tenderness,  good communication and even  (gasp)  acting like a gentleman.    A good provider will take the time to find out what a client expects before agreeing to provide the service.