former lurker

Not so fine a line unless the employer has a track record of selectively going after gay porn performers and not straight porn performers. But not having his face visible makes it easier for him to argue he didn't bring any ill publicity to the employer/show.

Some guys don't want a single picture that shows their face and their dicks, or a single ad where both are pictured.

I just did a search for "leftbench". @MascFitStud has correctly assessed the former's posting history, including being "underwhelmed" or dissatisfied with guys who routinely elicit rave reviews from more credible posters. It also seems there's reason to doubt leftbench ever met the guys he found underwhelming.

Wow! So many guys I would have loved to have met. Jason Branch, Andrew Justice, Tom Vaccoro and Tom Chase would have been top of my list of guys I would like "to do" me.

Interesting. I haven't seen that in my RM account, but have obviously gotten those sort of emails. Those sorts of messages are generally harmless unless you click on them. Then they cull whatever metadata they can. I'd report them to RM and delete them.

He's gawjus!

It's only happened to me once. The request was from a guy I had seen before several times, but had not seen in a while. He wanted to be sure I was the same guy. I trusted him, so I sent a face pic. In general, I don't send pics to people I don't know.

How could you tell they were fake?

It's the handler who wants to limit the requests. He probably figures there are a lot of people who will ask for pics or information and never hire. They're trying to monetize the window shopping.

Since the fall of the USSR, and especially under Putin, Russia has been so transparently corrupt that a lot of people who grew up there consider that the norm. At the risk of injecting politics into this forum, I'd suggest it's a view shared by our current President. You do what you can get away with and if you're caught, you wiggle your way out of it. It's how things operate in Russia. And even Russians who recognize the corruption as a problem are so used to it that it's an instinct for a lot of them. It's like a kid who grows up with a physically abusive father. He knows his father was an abuser, maybe hates him for it, but has no other role model or point of reference for how to "discipline" his own children.

A lot of Russians, or folks from former SSR's, consider westerners pampered and think we lack drive and toughness. A lot are also suspicious of people of other racial backgrounds.

Not universally. I have relatives from that part of the globe who are among the warmest people you could ever encounter. Others, not so much.

Rod, thank you. It was a difficult loss, and one that kept coming back over and again after my father's death and then my mother's. While they were still alive, my focus was on caring for them and shielding them, as much as possible, from the pain of their loss. Once they passed, and I was no longer pushing aside my own sense of loss to focus on them, it hit me again. And suicide leaves so many overlapping emotions. Fortunately, his son was engaged at the time and married that year. His wife and her family are wonderful and have helped, along with me and my family, to fill the void but he was especially close to his father. Now, every happy occasion such as the birth of my nephew's two sons is tinged with a bit of sadness for me because I can't help but think of all my brother is missing. But life requires us to live. And although it's not a salve, I enjoy the occasional big fat hard dick myself, lol. Again, thanks for your kind thoughts.

At the very start for the U.S., back in February, a cousin and his HS aged son were on a two week trip to Italy. As soon as news of the outbreaks started, he rented a car and they adjourned to the countryside until he could change flights to return to the U.S. Flights were still allowed, especially for U.S. citizens returning from Europe. Their temperatures were taken before they could exit the plane, and they were instructed to self-quarantine for two weeks, which they did. His son started taking his classes online during those two weeks and by the time the quarantine time passed, the schools had closed and all classes were online. So far, there have been some weeks when there were people stopped from crossing state lines by car, but that didn't persist. It may restart, however, if/when a spike occurs. For now, there are some "hot spots" that my state says you can only come from if (1) you have a 72 test result showing you don't have covid, or (2) you self-quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in the state. There's no mechanism in place to enforce the latter. That could change without notice. The situation is, and likely will remain, fluid.

I understood. There's a spectrum of what "closing" means, just as the term "lockdown" is too broadly used to refer to everything from lowering indoor capacity at bars to requiring masks when shopping to recommending self-quarantining if you have symptoms that may be covid related. I'm sorry if I confused matters. The point I was focused on is that if one's going to cross borders, one has to be on top of both countries' approaches. For now, self-quarantining is the course "required" in a number of U.S. states, but there's no monitoring in most places to ensure compliance. At some point, especially if the virus spikes in more places as is likely, I expect some states will start to limit travel with additional measures.

I'm so glad to read that you are working productively toward your goals! As I'm sure you'd agree, it's trite but true that we can't control everything that happens to us but we can control how we understand and react. It can be empowering to do that. And from what you've said, it's clear you have approached this entire situation with care, thoughtfulness and integrity. That alone would make you incredibly lovable and attractive to many, many, many people. Onward and upward!

I'm guessing it was the last line about verifying his age with a drivers license that led to the blocking. I'm not making excuses for him, but there's any number of reasons that line could have made him skittish. For example, a lot of online verification doesn't require a driver's license or a photo id, just a credit card in your name, billing address, etc. He may have thought he was in trouble when he was not. In any event, if you have any reason at all to think someone is under age, it's best to not even contact them. Whether it's a sting, or an actual under age person with fake id, or whatever, it's playing with fire. And it's skeezy to the extreme. Sometimes we gather info because we're curious. But resisting the temptation to do so with someone who you suspect is underage is, in my view, the better course.

I think you've hit it on the head. Jake is catering to a niche -- clients who want to experience being with a muscular guy but not necessary for penetrative sex. For clients who like muscles but are more about the sex, his prices are extravagant and his activities too limited. For guys who prioritize the muscles and not the sex, he is an ideal worth paying to see. Getting him to go beyond the non-sexual, or to do specific sexual things is outside the norm for him, is not guaranteed to occur, and will cost a lot. I'd rather not hire a guy if I think he's uncomfortable with what I like to do. I don't want to bribe him into doing what he is uncomfortable with doing.

I came to understand how my suggestion sounded, especially to the OP, after he responded to it. I'm not suggesting that the situation was his "fault", and certainly not entirely his fault. Rather, my point was that he brought certain self-image issues to the encounter and that what transpired fed into those issues and caused him distress. I am not a therapist (although I have a number of close relatives who either are therapists or have benefited from therapy) and so I shouldn't have made what sounding like a cavalier comment as a post on an open forum. My instinct was to be helpful by suggesting that the OP would benefit from tackling whatever led him to be vulnerable and to be so affected by a disappointing escort experience. But my intentions aside, I can see how it sounded to the OP. If I could go back in time, I would have omitted some of what I said on the forum and perhaps written to the OP in a DM. I don't consider therapy to be a stamp of shame or an indication that the therapy client has something wrong with him. It's a form of treatment that can be helpful with any number of obstacles one may be facing. Some use therapy to overcome addictions. Some use it to develop better interpersonal skills and understandings. Some use it in combination with other forms of treatments to deal with, for example, bi polar disorder (as an Uncle of mine did). My brother resisted therapy when he clearly needed it and ended up taking his own life. My Uncle used therapy to deflect the need for medication until the therapy helped him realize he needed the medication. My brother died before he turned 60 in a year when his only son was set to marry, and our father was clinging to life with stage 4 kidney failure. My Uncle lived to 87 and succumbed to cancer earlier this year. Still, I recognize that being told to seek therapy strikes you one way, while coming to that conclusion yourself has a much different impact. Ultimately, we all have to figure out what works best for us. So, I didn't mean to come off as flippant and apologized if that's how it did come off. I do think a lot of us could benefit from introspection and the assistance of professional therapy. I don't want to make it about the OP, although that's what prompted all of this. Do I think he could benefit from therapy? Yeah, but I don't know anything about him other than what he wrote here so my impression is based on very limited information. More to the point, in my experience, therapy is something the patient has to believe will be helpful to work. There are cases where people are committed or court ordered to be in therapy. Some of those situations turn out well. Most don't change anything, at least without further incidents and further consequences causing a course correction. If the OP can benefit from counseling/therapy, I hope he opts to avail himself of that option. If he doesn't perceive a need or benefit, and finds it offensive to have some stranger suggest it in a public forum about escorts and clients, I completely get that, too. It's his life and he should live it the way that makes sense to him. Now, as far as how all of this impacts the escort-client dynamic, I suspect that a lot of the best escorts have a good deal of empathy for their clients and do their best to make them feel good about themselves and the experience. But that doesn't guarantee an erection for x amount of time, and if the lack of an erection is perceived by the client as a rejection, what's the best response? I tend to favor self awareness and introspection, perhaps to a fault at times. The encounter was a snapshot. The OP's life is ongoing, and he will figure this all out in his own way on his own schedule with or without the assistant of a professional. Or he won't. If he and I were close IRL, I'd look for opportunities to figure out what would be in his interest and how to encourage him to pursue that path. But we're not, I'm limited in what I know, and my advice apparently came off as judgmental rather than productive encouragement.

With national border crossings, that's always an issue. You may be able to go someplace but not return. Different treatment of similar circumstances based on different priorities of the two or more governments. With covid, it's a much broader and more probable obstacle to crossing borders.

I'm always curious about the exact sequence and wording that results in a block. What we get is a narrow view from one perspective. Not that it's unhelpful, and it's great that people share their experiences. I suppose the only way to know how he'll react is to contact him yourself.

Take him to dinner and order a bottle of wine. The restaurant will do the carding for you.

You can make plans, but don't count on it. We're heading into flu season. And in much of the US and even more of Canada, that coincides with conditions that drive people indoors. It'll be a bumpy winter.

Thanks for the insights. Part of what makes human interactions as rich and complex as they are is being exposed to people who have different experiences, backgrounds and perspectives. Listening works wonders.

He was arrested on a variety of charges including domestic abuse and kidnapping that were subsequently dropped, but the charge that he raped a 10 year old was not dropped. I believe he was either convicted or took a plea, but I can't find anything about the final resolution. The charges emerged at the same time his wife divorced him.