nate_sf

Thanks Dave! It won't be the same without your demos but we'll see what we can do...

You went to a bar alone, which takes nerve. Well done! I've been going to bars for 30 years now and I still don't like going alone, though I've gotten to the place where I can stand it. I still prefer to go with friends but will go alone if I'm in a city where I don't know anyone and just want to be around people. If you find yourself in a situation like with the guys with the darts, next time just try saying, "this is only the second (or third...) time I've ever been to a gay bar." Just blurt it out before you can think too much about it. We've all been there at some point, and my bet is you'll make some new friends fast. Whether those are friends for action or just social friends, you never know. And unfortunately there is no way of knowing who will be top, bottom or vers until the moment of truth (or unless you ask). The gay sports leagues seem like a good option, and my bet is the more you go and people see you, the more people will approach you to get to know you.

Fun at IKEA

Mine too.

Yep the date is approaching, just over two months away! The Hyatt Regency (host hotel) is now fully booked for Friday and Saturday night. Immediately near MAL, The Liason is directly across the street and as of now still shows rooms available though they're pricey. The George is one block up the street, and also still shows rooms and the rates are more reasonable. I've stayed at both for MAL and they're both good. The Washington Court Hotel is also up the street in the next block, though I haven't stayed there myself. In terms of Hotwire, the Hyatt where MAL is held is in the "Capitol Hill" zone. DC is relatively easy to get around on transit, and walking too though it can be damn cold in January. The "Dupont-Embassy Row" zone includes the traditionally gay neighborhood Dupont Circle, and is also convenient to where the brunch will be. I'd think anywhere between Dupont and Capitol Hill will be convenient to the various events planned for the weekend. @ArVaGuy and I have been keeping a list of those who have said they are interested or confirmed in coming. Get in touch with either of us if you have questions or want to let us know you're coming. And of course questions can be posted here in this thread.

Here's an article that provides background and instructions. The setting is in the Timeline and Tagging section, which may not be the first place some might think to look. https://www.dailydot.com/debug/turn-off-facebook-face-tagging/ The article includes the caveat Note that the wording of that privacy setting doesn’t say Facebook itself can’t recognize your face. Your features will still be analyzed using Facebook’s AI software, but your friends won’t see tag suggestions.

You must use the link or phone number provided on the Leather Weekend site to book a room as the entire hotel is for the guests of MAL Weekend. Rooms will appear sold-out if using the Hyatt website directly since MAL has reserved the entire hotel. I'd expect this also avoids someone unbeknownst booking a room expecting a regular ol' Hyatt experience and being in for an unexpected surprise when they arrive! Here's the link for booking a room. A two-night stay is required: http://www.leatherweekend.com/hotel/ As of right now, there are still rooms available for the weekend dates.

Thanks all for the early interest so far. We've got you on the list and will be in touch with more details as the date approaches. As for deadline for deciding, the only part that has a deadline is the Sunday brunch since we'll need to provide the venue with a head count a few days before the event. The rest of the events can be more spontaneous. And yep it will be cold, but I've found it manageable in the past and I'm no fan of cold myself. The host hotel has a coat check, and well... seems like a lot of clothes get checked along with the coats!

Please mark your calendars for the next Forum DC Gathering, January 12-14, 2018. @ArVaGuy and I have been working the past couple of months to put together plans for next year's gathering, and we'll be co-hosts. As with past DC gatherings, the weekend will span the MLK weekend, and coincide with Mid Atlantic Leather (MAL). There will be a range of get-togethers, culminating in the traditional brunch on Sunday, January 14th. Last year's effort for the gathering had the best of intentions, but fell short when a venue for the brunch was not arranged. No harm, no foul, but not something anyone wants to have happen again. For this next year's event, arranging the venue for the brunch has been the first order of business, and it's been all confirmed. This event WILL happen, and you can start making arrangements with confidence. Along the lines of making arrangements, we wanted to post an announcement early particularly for those interested in booking a hotel room in the MAL host hotel, or one of the hotels nearby. As of this writing there are still rooms at the MAL host hotel, but in year's past the host hotel has sold out well in advance of the event. So if you've been thinking you might want to book a room in the host hotel, you might want to do that sooner than later. Here is the link to the reservations page: http://www.leatherweekend.com/hotel/ For those of you who may not be interested in MAL or the leather scene, not to worry! Traditionally the DC gathering has coincided with MAL because it's a long weekend and many of us are in town, but the forum gathering is otherwise independent of the leather activities and is welcoming to all forum members. You may choose to sample some of the MAL activities, or go "whole-hog", or alternatively forgo them completely. That's up to you. At this early stage we are posting so you can plan the dates ahead, book your hotel if inclined, and let us know if you're interested in attending so we can start putting together a head count for the brunch. If you're interested in attending, please send a direct message to either @ArVaGuy or @nate_sf or both of us (direct messages can include more than one recipient). As the date approaches, we'll get in touch with each member who has expressed interest. And if you have general questions or suggestions for the gathering, please do so in this thread. We're excited to be continuing this fun tradition and hope you'll join us!

I'll concur, in my experience it is a niche market but there are plenty of guys who want someone more mature. However with any niche market it can have a feast-to-famine pace, so just plan accordingly for down times. Also I found that as the older I got, the more likely I would be asked to top. That seemed to fit the perception or desire for a Daddy-type role. Though I'm versatile I can't remember the last time I was hired to bottom. Not a problem for me since I love to top, but I don't know how things would be for an older bottom escort. I'll add that there seems to be a disproportionate share of guys on this forum who skew towards preferring older escorts. So keep up participating here in the forums, and you'll attract their attention!

Welcome Logan. This place is a lot of fun and also a great resource.

Can't I have both?

I'm so sorry to hear all about this. I know how awful it feels to have a major blowout with a loved one. Besides the suggestions to get counseling, I'm wondering whether it would help or further hurt things if your husband knew your weekend companion was an arranged escort companion, rather than a fling or affair through Grindr? Since an escort is booked for a purpose and in theory should be less threatening to a relationship than an affair, some people feel it is preferable. An escort is not likely to try to break up your marriage, whereas someone you're having a fling or affair just might if they get too close. You hire an escort to scratch an itch, and in your situation that itch had not been scratched for seven years. On the other hand, he might be more angry knowing you spent money on an escort. Or he may reflexively dislike the idea of hiring an escort; although here on the Forum we think of escorts positively, not everyone does especially if it's not something they've done a lot of thinking about. As others have said, it's worth apologizing for having not told the truth, but at that point it's time to talk about why the sex stopped seven ago and what the status of the marriage has been from seven years ago until this episode. Before your husband tries to throw you out, it's only fair that he tell you why you stopped having sex together - seriously. "We're too old" won't do. Has he lost his libido? Has something else been bugging him that he hasn't told you about? Has he been having sex with someone else so he's not horny when he's with you (you never know)? It sounds like he is deflecting blame on you, but he owes you an explanation too. Whatever you do, please don't do anything drastic even if you were only suggesting that in jest. You will get through this, and there are lots of supportive folks here to help. I know of other Forum members helping each other through major domestic dramas, and it's one of the best things this place has to offer.

Hot baguette-on-demand: http://sf.eater.com/2016/7/29/12325912/baguette-vending-machine-castro-san-francisco

I'll second this suggestion. Amir's got a great bod and is lots of fun.

I paid a visit to Dick's this past week and was pleasantly surprised. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I had fun. There was a nice variety of dancers, from twink to muscle hunks, and they put a good amount of effort into their stage routines. I went on a Wednesday so admission was only $5, but your wallet will get emptied out soon enough. I did private dances with four different guys, and three of the four did a really good job (the fourth would be in the "calling it in" category). But three out of four aint bad, and they do get fully naked for you, up close and personal. In the main room the dancers are quite assertive in marketing themselves, but it was all very friendly and I did not mind. My favorite guy was perhaps the least assertive, which I liked, but when I looked over to him and caught his eye he came over right away. As for other Phoenix stuff, there is a group of male dancers called Wild Men of the West (WMW) Productions. I saw some of their dancers at Cruisin' on 7th, and the Anvil. If you scan the bar sites or check the WMW Facebook page you can figure out where they'll be dancing. Nice hunky guys, very friendly and nice to look at, and private dances are available. Not fully nude since they're in bars, but what they do wear is pretty minimal and very tantalizing. That is my report from the field, gents and ladies.

I've been without the cable box for about three years now. I just have roku, and no antenna so no broadcast capabilities. It took some getting used to, and it's definitely changed the way I watch TV since nothing is live, but I can't say I mind it. Like rvwnsd I'm an NPR guy so that satisfies my appetite for news, and if something is particularly newsworthy I can find clips online easily enough. Of the streaming I mostly watch Netflix, Amazon Prime, Showtime and HBO. I have Hulu as well but will probably let that go since I don't find myself watching much on it. Also with Hulu not only does it have commercials but the commercials are inserted at really odd places in the program that make no sense. At my place in SF we get service from an ISP called Monkeybrains, which has been great. No Comcast nonsense, though it required mounting a receiver on the roof. The strength and consistency of the signal is way better than when we had Comcast.

LOVE it!

I'll be the first to admit I would not know the correct musical term for whatever it was I was describing... crescendo does not sound right, as the part of the song was not getting louder. It was climbing a scale upwards, towards a climax, and then <ka thunk> hit the scratch and returned back down, only to climb up again, and again, and again, and again. Sort of like edging! Ha! I've been trying to do that too. It's a damn hard habit to break. And that brings us back on the topic of the OP... another typing term that would befuddle the youth would be "carriage return." Indeed, carriage return went out with the IBM Selectric. You DO know what a Selectric is, right? Oh forget it....

When I was a tiny tot we had a stack of old 45s that we'd play over and over again on our little plastic turntable. My parents told me the records had been given to them by a babysitter, and they were vintage even for the time. One of us kids' favorites was Margaret Whiting's "Only Love Can Break a Heart" but it had a big scratch or crack that made it repeat just where the orchestra was reaching a crescendo, so it would rise up, and rise up, and rise up again and again until somebody nudged the stylus. To this day if I listen to the song on youtube I expect to hear the repeating crescendo, and am surprised when it just goes right past.

Vinyl is definitely making a come-back. My hubby and I like to go see emerging bands at bars and small clubs, and over the past few years more and more of them have vinyl EPs and LPs at their "merch" tables. The reasons people have told us range from liking the "warm" sound of vinyl, to the ability to better control pirating, but also just the coolness/hipster factor. Of course most of us ditched our turntables within the past 10 years, just in time for vinyl to come back in vogue. And yes, we are starting to see cassettes show up on the merch tables too. I haven't seen any 8-tracks though!

I really like this show. I've watched the whole season. It is subtle, and as it progresses delves into the transitioning character more (there's one episode that is entirely a flash-back and serves to reveal a lot of the context). While it is humorous it is also quite poignant, and though the episodes are short they can really pack a punch. After a couple of the episodes I thought I had to just put it aside for a bit. It has a bittersweet quality, which may be the kinds of feelings one would have in that situation - my understanding is the series creator based it on her own experience with a transitioning parent.

I have a couple of regular clients who like to be fisted, and the only thing they use to relax are over-the-counter poppers... plus lots of lube and time. There does seem to be a correlation between fisting and PnP but it's not a requirement by any means. I'd steer clear of the PnP scenes, it's not necessary.

With foie gras about to be banned in California at the end of this month, a number of restaurants have been making a point of putting foie gras on their menus. Not to settle for just plain ol' foie gras on its own, they've been getting creative. So of course there has been foie gras ice cream. I don't think they'll be serving it at Burger King though!

I've done a number of shoots for Kink (pun intended) including one just this past Monday in a bar. Yes, the "blue pills" provide help but over the course of a 5-hour shoot there is a need for fluffing despite the chemical assistance. There are no official fluffers on the set, but there is quite a bit of fluffing between cast members between takes. In the last one there was one guy who was particularly into sucking dick and volunteered to be a fluffer. In fact, sucking got him hard so in providing fluffer services he was able to get "fluffed" himself. It's a win-win if there ever was one :-) As for the tours of the Armory, I'd highly recommend it. The place is amazing in it's own right as a piece of historical architecture, and the overlay of the porn studio makes it even more intriguing. Should be on every gay man's list of attractions when visiting SF!