quoththeraven

From what I can tell, what they did was make it possible for trafficking victims to sue Backpage in civil court after courts threw out such lawsuits citing CDA. Then the kitchen sink got thrown in.

I figured as much but didn't know the specifics. That's a lot different than operating an online classifieds section.

Yes, for money laundering and a federalized version of promoting prostitution. IIRC, his prison term is two years.

The problem is that the idea of transactional sex freaks some people out. Also because of its association with sleaze and cheating husbands. So how does one advocate for the societal utility of transactional sex? Policy arguments based on sex worker safety aren't helpful with this group of people.

I realize the feedback loop is a relatively recent discovery that hasn't been reported on. That's why I said hardly anyone knows about it. I've read papers on evolutionary psychology that have obvious problems, such as assuming preferences of photos of people's faces has anything to do with mating theory (people form long-term relationships and have children for reasons different from hookups; judging a photo array is not an adequate proxy for choice of mate) and as I said the research totally overlooks the fact that none of it can be conducted under controlled conditions. Sexologist Dr. Emily Nagoski and neuroscientist Dr. Cordelia Fine, as well as others, have written thorough critiques. And for crying out loud, evolutionary psychologists should be familiar with the feedback loop. If anything, "deeply flawed" is a mild characterization. Evolutionary biology doesn't have nearly this level of problems and it's not much older as a discipline.

I made that point. It's not relevant to what his revelations on the forum tell us about how he conducts his business, which in actuality seems to result in whatever random rate a client can get him to agree to. I will also speak about the elephant in the room: his race is a factor in all this. He is going to be pressured to negotiate rates, won't be offered the same opportunities for travel and overnights as others, and will be stereotyped and fetishized (per his complaints about being asked if he can be aggressive). That's a huge burden to deal with and requires more than the usual amount of business savvy and a thick skin to put up with. The only Black escort I can think of to successfully negotiate this path is Sean Xavier, and at least part of the reason why is his porn career.

We need a lobby to explain that it's not commercial sex that's the problem but coerced sex and trafficking. A Twitter friend of mine has a teenage son who's autistic. She is fine with the idea of hiring a sex worker when he's old enough (he's not 18 yet) rather than fumbling through bad experiences exacerbated by his reduced ability to read social cues.

Yes. For one thing, as I understand it, Rentmen does a form of age verification. For another, trafficking is less of a problem on the m4m side. It's also tough to tell from the ads for adults whether they're trafficked or not.

Most clients don't know. Compromising rates based on need rather than some formula or principle (like reductions for longer hiring periods) looks unprofessional. It also leads to questions about who exactly is getting breaks and who isn't. Is there a premium paid by uglier/older/less attractive clients? That tends to break the trust that's necessary. Also it's different when an escort decides to give a specific client a discount or other break than when an escort accepts a low-ball offer in order to pay the rent. The latter looks more like hustling than escorting.

But it's much harder to associate with trafficking. The feds tried that with Rentboy and couldn't make it stick.

When business being slow is all one ever starts discussions about, it's not unreasonable for commenters to wonder why and think OP doesn't have a grasp on the business and is in the wrong line of work or is a complainer generally who can't roll with the punches or both. Admitting that you vary rates based on monetary need suggests you are in this for survival rather than as a career, and it shows in your posts. All of that means your posting here to vent tends to hurt rather than help your marketing, but if you want to use the forum to vent rather than advance your business, so be it. I admire your honesty and courage in continuing to post despite negative feedback, but I'm also of the opinion that you're in the wrong line of work.

Thanks for that clarification, because I, for one, got the impression you were arguing the lack of necessity for labels.

No one. I just have a bug up my ass about manipulation and like to question things. (Remember this all started with my question of why pursue a straight guy.) It's possible to be coercive by working to change a "no" to a "yes." Let's turn things around. How is this different from a woman hitting on a gay man persistently?

This is the part most people don't understand: that genetic change is a feedback loop. It's not unidirectional. I didn't know it until reading Cordelia Fine's takedown of evolutionary psychology research, Delusions of Gender. A genetic difference between gay and straight men (or, as in her book, boys and girls) can be a response to environmental factors, not an inherent characteristic. Evolutionary psychology is deeply flawed, and the proof is this: there is no way to determine that any trait is inherent and not the result of social conditioning, which research demonstrates is particularly powerful, if the subjects of the research are socially conditioned. Since we all are subject to social conditioning, evolutionary psychology should therefore encourage the eradication of labels and differences and an attempt to treat everyone the same in the name of improving the rigor of research conclusions, but it doesn't. It would rather assume an unsupported conclusion, suggesting that what's really going on isn't scientific but political.

But even if this is universally true (a dubious assumption), these are not inborn attitudes but conditioned ones. Or at the very least it's impossible to determine which came first, the orientation or the way it's expressed. Consider the likelihood that sashaying evolved as a way to identify other gay men and it evolved as sashaying to differentiate itself from normative heterosexual behavior, which itself evolved to fit socially constructed ideals. Belief in orientation and its use as an identity is relatively recent anyway. Before that sexual behavior was viewed as just that, not some expression of immutable identity.

Let me in! (Video of black and white cat bouncing up and down outside a glass back or porch door) https://mobile.twitter.com/EmrgencyKittens/status/983777948229603330/video/1

Ha, I consciously avoid fiber and have Imodium available or use it beforehand because I am too regular due to a physiological/medical condition. Different people have different needs and experiences.

If people want specific experiences, they have to use descriptive terms to find the people who can provide them. I don't understand what's controversial about that. I don't like labeling other people because that stereotypes them, but people asserting an identity or providing information inevitably invites the use of labels as a shortcut. Otherwise we'd have to resort to narrating our most recent experiences. As long as people don't get too hung up on the self-labels, it's all good.

Like diabetes, for example.

It may also be physiological. I never douche either and don't relate to the anxiety about it.

You operate in a more freeform, improvisational universe than others. I see this as a pretty hard-baked personality attribute that people don't have control over.

Because it matters to getting the experience people want. I suspect chemistry in the moment has something to do with some of these supposedly deceptive "changes of mind." It seems to me that it would only improve things to expand the definition of true top to anyone who loves topping and is good at it. That won't erase personal preferences for the straight-seeming macho type, but it might lead to less stereotyping and a future where preferences would be more varied.

Kink.com had that too. Speaking of which, does anyone know what's going on with them now that they've moved out of the Armory? (I forget if they sold it or not.) Are they filming elsewhere or are they out of the video business altogether going forward?

+1. If I had that clapping gif on my tablet, I'd use it.

Seduction of a str8 man works great as a BDSM scene because there's a negotiation ahead of time and a safeword. That's a viable alternative with anyone, including men who identify as str8. I'm only suggesting willingness, guys. Money complicates that but doesn't make it impossible.