Luv2play

I had an escort I hired fall for me. I'm typing this from our living room (actually, I moved into his place).  But that's a story I haven't told here, yet.  I will share, someday when the time is right. My hesitation to tell it is because it will give others false hope and my situation is really, really rare. I hired escorts so they would leave because I didn't want or have time for a relationship, but this one stuck around. lol. 

I had a very honest talk with a provider I’ve been seeing regularly.  I think it went  well.
Me: There have been things I wanted to say to you and ways I wanted to behave around you that I’m afraid might creep you out and turn you off.
Him:  I appreciate that regard and concern.  But you are free to speak and behave as openly and honestly as you are comfortable.  It does take alot to creep me out.  🤓 The only caveat I will offer is make sure you have firm understanding and control of your emotions.
Me:  I assure you, I know this is a fantasy.  A good one at that.
I promise you that I will never stalk you, I will not be the jealous possessive boyfriend. lol.
But in living out the fantasy,  I want to be able to say “I love you” and behave like I’m really “head over heels in love with you.”  I’m not saying the feeling is fake or real.  It is what it is… a fantasy.
Him: Feel free to be whoever and however you want to be  ☺️

RAFAELALENCAR - Male Escort, Gay massage - New York City | Rent.Men
RENT.MEN RAFAELALENCAR Gay Escort in New York City, New York, available for Gay Escorting,Erotic Massage,Bodywork. | Find all the best Male Escorts at... The Great...

Reminds me of the expression “Americans and British, divided by a common language” lol

Well some years ago you said my individual posts were too long. Especially my paragraphs were too long. I’ve tried to make each post more digestible since then. Sometimes shorter paragraphs and sometimes shorter posts. Sorry if you find my composition still lacking.

Thanks for this post.  Been feeling my age lately (mostly from weird health issues cropping up)...but I was still living at home before college in the 70's....HA!

My impression as an outsider is that there are 5 top tier cities in the US for male providers. NY, LA, SF, DC and Houston. These translate into, finance, entertainment, hi tech, big government and oil resp. Encompassing the areas at the top of the food chain in the USA.
That’s my own assessment which I came up with just through observation. 

From reading the article it seems having sex in saunas may be implicated. Fungus loves to spread in warm moist environments. 

He’s a good top. Pretty friendly, intelligent and will show you a good time in bed. 

My impression as an outsider is that there are 5 top tier cities in the US for male providers. NY, LA, SF, DC and Houston. These translate into, finance, entertainment, hi tech, big government and oil resp. Encompassing the areas at the top of the food chain in the USA.
That’s my own assessment which I came up with just through observation. 

^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 an important topic and one which deserves serious consideration.Thanks for raising it! 
I guess I’m having a lot more sex with different guys than someone who doesn’t do sex work so one might assume that I’d catch things. Especially because the majority of the sex I have is condom less. Most people I see don’t want to use a condom for sex and certainly in the porn I do it’s never with a condom. I think what people see on porn is what they like or want to do in sessions so that ‘no condom’ thing transfers over. Those clients that might want to use a condom because of concerns about STD’s tend to go for action that doesn’t include penetration (oral obviously doesn’t count as penetration!).
However, in the years I’ve been doing sex work I can’t think of any occasions when I’ve caught something from a client, and two occasions when I’ve caught something from another porn performer. It’s actually quite rare and in my check ups (every 3m) I’m clear. 
I think the chances of catching something are far higher when attending sex parties or sex clubs / saunas. The reason? People who do sex work are fastidious about sexual health check ups because if they catch something then they’re unable to work for 2 weeks. Guys that go to these parties and clubs are less careful and get tested less frequently.
So whatI think is that if you see a professional then it’s probably a lot safer than if you see someone off a hookup app or at a sauna or club. 
 

Well some years ago you said my individual posts were too long. Especially my paragraphs were too long. I’ve tried to make each post more digestible since then. Sometimes shorter paragraphs and sometimes shorter posts. Sorry if you find my composition still lacking.

Well some years ago you said my individual posts were too long. Especially my paragraphs were too long. I’ve tried to make each post more digestible since then. Sometimes shorter paragraphs and sometimes shorter posts. Sorry if you find my composition still lacking.

I lived in Miami for the winters of 1998 to 2003, after I had retired. The winter weather was gorgeous. So glad I got to experience that. 

I lived in Miami for the winters of 1998 to 2003, after I had retired. The winter weather was gorgeous. So glad I got to experience that. 

It was pretty steamy pun intended 

I don’t go to saunas at my age anymore but back in the day a lot of sex was going on in the actual saunas. 

Well some years ago you said my individual posts were too long. Especially my paragraphs were too long. I’ve tried to make each post more digestible since then. Sometimes shorter paragraphs and sometimes shorter posts. Sorry if you find my composition still lacking.

Well some years ago you said my individual posts were too long. Especially my paragraphs were too long. I’ve tried to make each post more digestible since then. Sometimes shorter paragraphs and sometimes shorter posts. Sorry if you find my composition still lacking.

Well some years ago you said my individual posts were too long. Especially my paragraphs were too long. I’ve tried to make each post more digestible since then. Sometimes shorter paragraphs and sometimes shorter posts. Sorry if you find my composition still lacking.

The steam room in St Marks in New York in those days was a large well lit tiled room with ranges of tiered sitting around the sides. The sex was going on like in a Roman baccanalia

From his guttural muttering I took him to be German lol
Likd sweet nuthins in my ear

Pushed up against the tile wall with steam all around could hardly make out who was doing me

First time I got fucked in a sauna was in Munich in the 1970s