maninsoma

I used to enjoy seeing their oversized posters in the store windows, taunting me with ripped young flesh. I think I only went in the store once (with a friend who wanted to go) because I knew their clothes weren't for me. I wasn't plus sized then like I am now, but even then I knew that their brand was made for people built differently than me. Some clothing brands are just cut for extremely lean bodies; if you don't have a body like that, you either need to buy a size larger than you'd need for some areas of your body in order to accommodate the bit of fat you have in your midsection or just buy other brands designed with your body type in mind. I have less a problem with A&F marketing itself to the athletically built than I do with their racism. Does anyone remember the scandal when it was revealed that the stores would put white people on the sales floor but people of color either worked in the stockroom or weren't hired at all? Or their t-shirts that used stereotypical, insulting images of Asians? Yes, their models were cute but they were also almost always white. The racism behind A&F was very obvious.

That's a minute of my life I'll never get back (that's how long I lasted before I closed the window playing this alleged "music").

I can understand the logic of wanting to protect everyone somewhat versus providing greater protection to only some people when supplies are low. I know that originally the thought was that the first shot only provided about 50% protection but that was only looking at the first two weeks after injection. It's interesting that the protocol remains two shots if, in fact, the difference in protection is only 2% after more time has passed.

Your shots are being scheduled more than 3 months apart? I thought the second was typically given 3 weeks after the first.

I'm not vegan but can enjoy a good vegan meal. I highly recommend Native Foods (a small chain with a few southern California locations and a few locations in other states). Unpretentious but tasty, and unlike some vegan restaurants a carnivore isn't going to find the portion size lacking. What I don't understand is how difficult it is to find good Thai food, not just in Palm Springs but in southern California in general. Maybe I just haven't had good luck at picking the right places, but of the several Thai restaurants I've gone to in the greater LA area and in Palm Springs the only one that came close to serving something that didn't just seem like generic "Asian" food (meaning that it actually had flavor from lemongrass, galangal, thai chilis, etc) was a place in Desert Hot Springs -- and that was far from the best Thai food I've ever had. Guess I'm spoiled where I live since it's easy to find decent or better Thai food in San Francisco. Hint: If you go into a Thai restaurant and you see things on the menu like sweet and sour chicken you are not going to be eating Thai food. I echo Rick's for breakfast. I like Sherman's, too, but enjoy their sandwiches a lot more than their breakfast. My favorite place for dinner in Palm Springs is Trio, in part because I like their food but also in part because they hire so many attractive young men as waiters.

Good for you that you got that all sorted out by directly asking for what you wanted.

The phrase "piece of work" usually has a negative connotation to me, as in someone is difficult to get along with. I doubt that's what you mean since you wrote it in response to him opening his private pictures. Did you just mean that his "piece" looks like it would take "work" to handle? Or did you mean something else?

The phrase "piece of work" usually has a negative connotation to me, as in someone is difficult to get along with. I doubt that's what you mean since you wrote it in response to him opening his private pictures. Did you just mean that his "piece" looks like it would take "work" to handle? Or did you mean something else?

This thread reminds me of a forum member who is an escort who expressed a belief that everyone he met socially who knew he was an escort should be willing to pay him if they ended up having sex. That seemed rather presumptuous to me and is something I've encountered more in Mexico than in the U.S. I am not particularly enamored with guys who try to hustle me. The main difference in this case is that the initial meeting came about through an advertisement for paid services. One way to approach this, as someone else suggested, is simply to decline his offers to come over for a session for which he expects to be paid. At other times, contact him and ask to get together, making it clear that you are expecting an uncompensated date. If he takes you up on your offer, then your answer is clear: he is motivated to hook up with you outside of the confines of a professional relationship. If he isn't interested in your offer, then you know one of two things: The guy really isn't that into you or the guy isn't into you enough that he's willing to do it without getting paid. I personally have no problem with getting together with a guy who initiates contact with me as long as I've established that sort of understanding with him. The two men I hired the most both initiated a lot of our meetings, one because he traveled a lot and wasn't always around and the other because he was a college student in another area and contacted me when he was back visiting family during school breaks. I didn't get my mind twisted in either case that because they reached out to me and seemed to enjoy our time together that I should be unhappy about still paying their fees.

This thread reminds me of a forum member who is an escort who expressed a belief that everyone he met socially who knew he was an escort should be willing to pay him if they ended up having sex. That seemed rather presumptuous to me and is something I've encountered more in Mexico than in the U.S. I am not particularly enamored with guys who try to hustle me. The main difference in this case is that the initial meeting came about through an advertisement for paid services. One way to approach this, as someone else suggested, is simply to decline his offers to come over for a session for which he expects to be paid. At other times, contact him and ask to get together, making it clear that you are expecting an uncompensated date. If he takes you up on your offer, then your answer is clear: he is motivated to hook up with you outside of the confines of a professional relationship. If he isn't interested in your offer, then you know one of two things: The guy really isn't that into you or the guy isn't into you enough that he's willing to do it without getting paid. I personally have no problem with getting together with a guy who initiates contact with me as long as I've established that sort of understanding with him. The two men I hired the most both initiated a lot of our meetings, one because he traveled a lot and wasn't always around and the other because he was a college student in another area and contacted me when he was back visiting family during school breaks. I didn't get my mind twisted in either case that because they reached out to me and seemed to enjoy our time together that I should be unhappy about still paying their fees.

I visit porn sites using Firefox with two extensions installed - AdBlock Plus and Ghostery. Some sites won't work with those enabled, but they do a good job of filtering out the sties that are trying to trick users into installing malware by blocking pop-up windows.

I drank whole milk as a kid, sometimes with chocolate flavored powder added and sometimes with strawberry flavored powder added. I don't drink milk by itself now. I only buy it to add a bit to my morning coffee.

I use eu as well. I like the layout more. Even though Google image search largely fails to find matches now, I still try it when a new ad catches my attention. I cannot drag images for searching from rent.men the way I can from rentmen.eu.

My parents did not drink. For a few years, we lived in a house with a nice bar downstairs that was stocked with various sorts of alcohol but they never touched it. I have some photographs of my parents from earlier in their relationship where they seem to be imbibing with other young people, so I assume that they drank alcohol when they were younger and then made a conscious decision to stop at some point. As a result, I never touched alcohol until some older teen supplied some to be once. It was nasty, cheap "cherry vodka" which I barely drank. I didn't try it again until it was legal for me to do so and, initially, could only tolerate very sweet mixed drinks like black Russians.

I think that in the earlier days of masseurs advertising on line, having provocative photos in the ad was a likely indicator that the masseur was willing to go beyond a basic, therapeutic massage. Over time, though, I think that some guys realized that they got more interest by showing flesh even though the service they provided was not erotic in the least. In other words, don't assume that a guy who shows a bare torso or a photo of him in a jockstrap is going to provide any specific service. Communicate in advance what your desires are.

As a teen I worked as a busboy/dishwasher. When the restaurant was busy, the pace was grueling. I didn't know until my first shift that even though the restaurant closed at 10pm, that meant they would seat customers who came in prior to 10pm. Because people kept coming in until just before closing time, I ended up working more than an hour past when I thought I would be off work. The bonus was that this position was also the restroom cleaner. It's amazing how dirty some people can leave a public restroom.

Maybe we'll get lucky and Decades will run a Phyllis marathon due to her death. If so, I'll set my DVR to record it.

I see it more like you. It is a business transaction, and like most businesses there are those where "the common man" can afford to shop and then others where the cost limits the customer base to people with high incomes. Just because someone who makes minimum wage or slightly better buys clothes at Target doesn't mean he is "exploiting" Target by not paying the same as it would cost to buy clothes at Saks Fifth Avenue. Saks isn't sending a message about power and exploitation by carrying luxury brands and pricing them accordingly; they are offering products at a certain price and each individual can decide (a) whether he can afford the price and (b) whether he thinks their goods are worth the price. So, back to Cade -- is he worth $1,000/hour. To some he might be, especially because of his porn background. To some with the means to hire him, maybe they just aren't interested in what he has to offer. And then for many of us, we simply cannot justify spending that much to spend an hour with anyone. That doesn't mean we are looking to exploit people but rather understand that the market is such that not everyone doing this type of work can command that price.

I agree that expecting a provider with a reputation like Cade's to have the same rate as a random person with no "celebrity" attached to his name isn't reasonable. Someone well known through porn becomes "ultimate fantasy" material for some, and what greater thrill is there than actually having with with your ultimate fantasy? So it makes sense to me that someone who has made a name for himself in porn has a higher than average rate. As to what is a reasonable rate for someone like Cade, that's up to him and the market to decide. I know I cannot afford $1,000 per hour, but if he can get that (and wants to get that -- if I were in his position, I'd simply make money having sex with other hot, young guys on Fans websites versus escorting) then more power to him.

Without first hand experience of the market, I'm sure there are plenty of female sex workers who are not charging $3,000 per hour. At that rate, only the very well heeled could afford to hire. You mean to tell me that there is no market for clients with less money and providers with lower rates? That would be like arguing that the only restaurants that exist are those that have Michelin stars.

I'm not sure if you mean something similar to "talk shows" that are on network television or if you have a broader definition. Lots of people have channels on YouTube where the content is a "talk show" as far as I am concerned, but not with the same structure as a TV talk show in the sense of having a monologue and then a guest or two come out. Because I'm a big fan of RuPaul's Drag Race, I have watched a lot of content on line about that franchise. Some of the content is produced by World of Wonder (the production company behind the show); some of it is done by former contestants on the show; and some of it is just random people who decided they would try to monetize their thoughts on the show. To say there is a big difference in quality is an understatement, production quality aside. Some content providers are knowledgeable and then also do a good job of interviewing people. There's a guy named Joseph Shepherd whose content I like a lot. I don't know if he had any inside contacts with the show or if he's just good at making connections, but he gets a lot of people to spend around an hour talking with him and, for a fan of the show, the conversations are interesting. Maybe more similar to TV talk shows except the content is more sexually explicit, there are the shows hosted by Jonny McGovern -- Hey Qween and Look At Huh!. Then there are shows hosted by people actually on the show (Michelle Visage's Whatcha Packin'?, Raja and Raven's Fashion Photo Ruview, The Pit Stop with a variety of hosts) that are generally good. But then we get to other people. I'm not going to call out people whose content I've found lacking, but some former contestants on the show have tried to monetize their "fame" by recording themselves (or themselves with others) critiquing current episodes of the show. A lot of the time, this content isn't entertaining enough to keep me engaged. Sometimes it's a chemistry thing (the person just doesn't have that IT factor that makes me want to watch them) but sometimes it's because the person just rambles on and on with little focus. Probably the worst content I sampled was some woman who was supposedly going to review the show with her partner but the first few minutes of the video I watched was actually her just talking about how stressful her day had been. I'm sure her family and friends might be concerned about that, but as a stranger watching a video I expect it to be focused on the topic at hand. I guess that's my long-winded way to say that these qualities are helpful to make a good talk show: knowledgeable host; good interviewing skills; ability to attract good guests, if that's part of the format; ability to either focus during one take or to edit to keep content engaging; and the elusive IT factor. If marketing to a gay male audience, then it doesn't hurt to be good looking. I agree that it makes more sense to test the waters before investing a lot of money. As long as you have sufficient production quality that people can watch your content (i.e., decent video and audio), focus on the content you are creating first to see if you can gain an audience. These are certainly interesting times, where some people end up making a lot of money as internet "stars." I assume that for every person supporting themselves handsomely by creating online content, though, there are a lot of people whose income from their efforts is little or non-existent. I guess that's because, unlike traditional media, anyone can decide to create content and put it on line. Getting people to want to watch it and to continue to want to watch it is an entirely different matter.

I'm thinking back to a sociology class I had when I was an undergrad. The professor said that one of the things that employees are paid for is their emotional life, at least while at work. In other words, most employers expect a certain amount of agreeability of their employees. You might not particularly like your job, but you're not supposed to bitch about how much you hate your job while you are at work. You can do that on your own time, though I think that just as a coping mechanism a lot of people who don't like their jobs don't spend a lot of time thinking about that on their own time. So in your case, if an escort hates what he is doing but is able to act as if he doesn't while he's working, as long as his clients don't find out does it really matter? I'm not talking about escort-client relationships that become something more than transactional -- where actual friendships develop. An escort who did a good job while not really enjoying himself needn't tell his clients on the way out the door that he disliked his experience with them. He retires and never communicates with them again. It's what I intend to do with my colleagues when I move on. I'd love to tell any number of them off when I'm on my way out, but what would be the point?

It just dawned on me what I don't like about Reno's videos -- he combines the worst of amateur and professional porn. The worst thing about most self-made/amateur porn is that the production values are lower than studio porn. The worst thing about studio porn is that it's over produced, with sex that might have been enjoyable for the performers being interrupted repeatedly by a director who wants to control too much of the action in order to film from certain angles, adjust lighting, etc. It tends to come across as self-conscious and not particularly sexy, even though (hopefully) the faces and bodies are sexy. For me, Reno performs too much for the camera ("look at me, look at me") versus just turning on a camera or two and then enjoying himself. That just doesn't get me excited.

I don't get the appeal. He's cute, but no cuter than lots of other guys his age who show off on camera. The videos of his that I've seen are all boring. That New Year's one is especially tedious. Then again, I've never been a fan of soft core porn or j/o videos.

No personal suggestions for an Apple device since I'm a Windows/Android guy, but I'm pretty sure there's a version of Ghostery for Safari.