JB_Studio38

Not to steer the topic off the subject; but I’m pushing to be attending something next weekend in Florida that’s somewhat similar to the Palm Springs event; except it’s more geared towards the gay rodeo. 2-3 days event. That said, I might be willing to make an appearance considering I’ve not attended 2020 or 2021. It’s generally been a biennial/triennial thing for me. But considering today was a wind chill of 30 and snow started to sprinkle, any place with palm 🌴 and Spring ☀️ sounds nice right about now

Well Saint Louis isn’t “small” though. The City and outer neighborhoods are similar in capacity to Boston, Chicago and even DC. And the traffic is now heading back to pre-pandemic, hectic levels. I’ve seen some small cities lol. I’m talking, the cities where this is just 1 or 2 exits and then the rest is nothing. Places like Amarillo in Texas, St. Augustine in Florida, and Cheyenne in Wyoming are cases of small hit or miss cities. But when you talk about a hub city with a reasonable skyline that’s not performing, something is not right. I personally feel the heavy mask mandates in Saint Louis last year and into this year, is what has greatly affected the scene here. Either people got scared or businesses just weren’t thriving. They were more strict here than Kansas City, but Kansas City and Saint Louis kept going back and forth with it. Meanwhile the rest of Missouri is walking around like nothing happened.

I have to add another city that seems to becoming a least favorite: Saint Louis. Initially it appeared to be a favorable change of market from Kansas City in 2018 all the way thru last year. But lately I’ve noticed not only has inquiries become “stale”, but it seems several providers that were posted have vanished. Wouldn’t surprise me considering the past couple of weeks have been seriously deficient of bookings. And the Gay bar scene here seems to be on life support. Idk what’s going on with the city, but there’s definitely going to have to be some changes going into next year. Will have to look into a new city once again. But that’s the way it seems with cities and why I don’t necessarily have “favorites”. Things could be okay during a particular season, then nothing. Or it may be good for a couple or few years, and then either become overly saturated with providers or overly pricey to live and play in (Denver and Phoenix have been examples). Then you wind up feeling it’s nothing like it used to be.

That’s shocking! However I must say, many places have grown and changed over the last 20 years. Not that I’ve been in the game that long, but I know that things are different in cities now versus 2010. Southern California and L.A. IS however not a stranger to racism.

That’s what the 🐭 wants 😆 that’s also one of the things that bugged me about Orlando. Despite “gay Disney” and various spots for gays, and even a large gay scene: it was just so family and kid oriented. I once had to yell at a group of kids who stormed the hotel elevator. 30 people cannot fit on this thing, step the f**k back! Whenever I tried to date someone there, it was always about them meeting their family and going to theme parks. The gays played “straight” family guys during the day, whores at night. I hated it. It was also a very hard place to meet real people. Everybody was just as fictitious as a Disney script.

Oh yeah, add Orlando right to that list. lol But why do you say dull as dirt? I learned myself, despite being from Florida: that Orlando is not the genuine Florida experience. At least not from a “Kokomo” beach boys perception lol. It presents as very fake, and overly hustle and bustle while still trying to exude a “vacation” destination. On my last visit I met a couple of decent clients, but when I lived there, many of the clients were jerks and regularly not just flaked, but intentionally time waste. I’d also experience weeks of dry spells. I often had to advertise in other smaller towns in Florida (and drive to them) to make ends. I was so glad to be leaving out of there. I even had one trying to sell me this dream of working for one of the resorts, all the while he was just trying to find a way into a relationship with me. I’m like dude, are you going to be my client or my career coach? However, after living in Kansas City, I’ve come to realize there’s always “worse”. Kansas City and many parts of the middle-Midwest: that’s dull as dirt lol. And now it’s Fall, everything just going to be cloudy, brown and cold until April 1st. And these guys are so g’damn judgmental and phony. I’m almost considering moving to (southwest) Florida or Arizona/some desert place out west for the duration of the winter.

Based on when you say “early 2000s”, I bet it’s due to the hookup app-effect that has affected many cities as well as the escort industry.

It doesn’t bother me, provided I don’t get to the door and it’s locked without my knowing. I get annoyed fairly quickly if I arrive, the lobby or elevator is carded, and the client is saying he’s just in underwear in the room. I don’t like looking like I don’t know where to go or belong. I just like to walk straight to the elevators and go up. However, I’ve mentioned before that the number of hotel out calls has been in steady decline. I can’t really recall the last time I visited a client in a hotel. I know I didn’t see any on at least my last 2 tours. For whatever reason, hotel outcalls aren’t happening like they used to. Nowadays it seems everybody wants me to host. I recall a couple hotel outcalls in places like Phoenix and Chicago that have more travel traffic, and that’s possibly where the difference is. Cities like Orlando and Las Vegas have more hotel visitors. However even in Las Vegas, I was seeing more clients at their home than the hotels. But the Midwest it seems not so much the case.

Hmm, I’ve actually never worked in NYC…for the reason you stated. It just hasn’t yet compelled me yet to want to make the visit. However, NYC is more of an epicenter for hiring than LA is. It’s hub as an international and especially European gateway and diversity, along with tons of single, densely metropolitan and wealthy gives it an opportune edge that LA doesn’t quite have. Also, LA is geared towards a “type” (think Andrew Christian models), whereas New York has a wider view of tastes.

All in agreement here. Though, in the last few months I’ve not been shopping for a “Mr. Prince” because I’ve grown weary of all the frogs 🐸 and drama 🎭 I have kinda stepped away from boyfriend searching and focused more on just having FWB, but everytime I meet these guys THEY want to initiate trying to date and be with me, and then get disappointed about my chosen line. And I keep telling them the same thing that, if we’re just casually hooking up, I don’t see any need to volunteer what I do to them. It’s like, do they volunteer when and who they are dating and hooking up with before me or (very often) while getting to know me? Fuck no. So why the fuck should I volunteer my personal business if they aren’t being 100% transparent either? (Not swearing at you, but to those guys) And the other thing: let’s talk about the guys out here in “open” relationships who don’t always reveal their status either upfront. Even if they conveniently place it in their profile, it’s not always noticeable or it may be omitted all together. I went in on 1 guy earlier today who was trying to date me: how dare he call me out for not being “honest” about my profession, when my client specifically pointed out that of the guys at the party was his “new boyfriend”. And he conveniently didn’t tell me that upfront. I told him, don’t hold me to standards you aren’t even practicing your damn self. And that he’s no better than a sex worker himself, sucking my dick moments after seeing me the 2nd time at a party. Just like another guy last year who HIT ME UP, contacted ME on Grindr, and we proceeded to have mind blowing sex twice and spend the night together. But then, afterwards he started acting evasive. Keeping in contact, but not really available to meet again. I found out from my ex, that HIS ex is in a relationship with the guy. Then I see on Instagram the 2 are together. At no point was it ever mentioned. I’m so over it though. I rather be out here doing videos and modeling than to contend with this shit. There’s not even minimum wage payment being given for working with these guys out here.

Update: I recently revealed to another person yesterday about being a provider. I even sugar coated it to that I do “massages”. It did not go well. We’re still “good”, but idk how good. He was quite upset that I didn’t mention it sooner, but…we met on Grindr and he was gonna come over at 1 am. We only met a couple of times, and he flaked the 3rd time…then ended up in the hospital for a week. So, the opportunity to tell him simply did not present itself in an opportune fashion. But I’m starting to resolve like I may just remove myself from the whole dating/Grindr/hookup scene all together. It doesn’t seem like there’s anything much to gain to try and be a provider and mingle in the dating scene. All it’s been is just 1 disappointment after the next. Meanwhile it’s not doing anything to elevate or bring opportunity to what I’m doing. It’s just pointless. Majority of these guys anyway are in open relationships, or steady looking for the next best thing. Especially in the Midwest, there’s not enough opportunity and support for the biz to begin with. You see escorts in Denver, Kansas City, Nashville and Saint Louis, but in the Gay circles and groups.. it’s very DL and closed in. The “go go boys” and drag queens are about the only open display of “sex workers” you see in the Midwest, otherwise there’s not much acceptance from the average run of the mill gay dude. They say they’re okay with it, but they want to be okay with it on their terms: told right away, shared right away, etc. And with online, it’s hard to really be discreet much any more. Even I don’t tell them, they’re going to find a way to find out anyway. So yeah, I’m going to keep the guys around that I do have…but I’m out of the dating scene. Until I leave the biz, but I’m not rushing…I’m just going to focus on next leveling and elevating myself within the industry. Building expectation on dating right now is just a waste of time.

Exactly. And that's what I explained to this guy. Just like he has to go to work, so do I. He claims to have seen me online "available" while we were having lunch, possibly on a4a or another site. Seemed like he went snooping around and came across. That's why I can agree with @Storm4U to just lay it out early. But I did tell someone couple months ago and he cancelled me out for it. I told a friend yesterday, all these guys on scruff and grindr are prostitutes technically. They're all on there very often meeting and hooking up after barely knowing the person. Often meeting multiple guys in a day or week. If anything more so than a sex worker because I may see less guys than they do. Hell, this guy initiated hooking up with me at a party and sucked me off in his friend's bedroom. That's what gets me about gay dudes. They're so fucking judgmental and critical, yet they're doing the same shit in their personal life. Soon as you add money to it, they want to get all up the ass about what's right and wrong.

I can see that being a good decision. But the hard part is: many of my meets including this last one didn't start as dating. It started with a mutual attraction at a party (mainly from him), and then us finding time to hangout. All I wanted was to just connect and hangout (sex or no sex) on a non relationship basis initially. Some guys will push "opening up" to them, but it's not about being closed off, more about keeping my personal and biz "mode" separate. Also, part of the reasoning for not telling this person was due to fact I met him thru a client who attended a party and invited me. The client has a partner. Part of the rule between me and the client was that I wasn't going to mention anything about the profession. I could have mentioned it to the other guy on our 1 on 1 meet, but I had already had something fall thru earlier that day, and wasn't in the mind frame to bring it up.

Yeah I’ll add San Diego to that as well. It is very flakey there, and I get a vibe of intolerance and snobbery. Reminds me of Tampa in Florida and San Antonio in Texas. Also would be on a list of least favorites.

Recently had a falling out with someone "new" over the fact that he felt I should have told him sooner that I'm a professional. However, he kept saying that he doesn't have a problem with it. But then he would steady compare me being a professional to be akin to cheating. The understanding I was trying to convey: we only met on 3 occasions: 2 of those were in social functions and only 1 was 1 on 1. Personally, I do not like to reveal what I do to guys before I get to really know them. But in certain situations, people inadvertently find out, as it was in this case. Part of that reason is because, I experience guys being inconsiderate and disrespectful and using my position as a sex worker to justify that. Just because it involves sex with others does not mean it's okay to be dismissive, not view seriously, or be trifling when it comes down to core sex boundaries. That being said: it's been rough lately in the "dating" world. I say that in quote because it's not really dating, but more of just meeting guys once or twice and then having it turn into a waste of time. I almost feel like I have to choose between quitting being a provider or giving up interactions with gay dudes outside of Rentmen, in order to find a happy medium.

Top 3, Top 5, Top 10? I'll start with 3 and a brief reason: Least favorite: Kansas City (and Kansas/Missouri as a whole. Some potential but majority of inquiries contact sporadically and on short notice.) Los Angeles (overly saturated, disproportionate low amount of inquires for the size of market.) Florida (lots of potential, but fails to sustain consistently. Also overly saturated in the big cities). Most favorite: Believe it or not, I don't have a favorite. As in: I don't favor one market or city over another. What makes a place favorite, is going there, and then not having to keep going back over and over and wearing it out. I like to go to cities, and then not go there again for a few months. Sometimes I don't want to see the same climate or trees over and over. I may do Michigan and then Phoenix. Switch it back up, go to Texas before Florida and after that DC and back to Denver right before Seattle. Finish it up with a run to San Francisco 😄 Granted: it's not as easy as it sounds. Also I don't do much air travel so, some of these extended trips can carry on for a month or two.

I can reckon that. But at the same time I know there's the "occasional" and "uber discreet" client that browses RentMen as well. It's a thin line trying to get those types to participate in things like memberships and even deposits. That's why I believe it'll be good to come up with a way to get payment, whether monetary or not, per our private gallery unlocks. Like, turn it into a strip club: you want a "private", there's an extra charge for that. Fortunently RentMen has responded, and it looks fairly optimistic that the site is getting ready to have an overhaul. I'm excited, but long as it's not "too" different to where the whole platform and layout strays too far from what it is. I think so far the platform is great, perhaps they do need to fix the way the photos appear when searching thru cities (like the pics where you just see the top of someone's head or half of the penis because it's cropped to fit within the rectangle). I just advocate that we can be earning even when we aren't actively seeing clients. And non of that "flirt for free" or "webcam" stuff. I ain't got time for that either lol. I know RentMen and Men4rent used to have those functions, but my desire is to be able to spend LESS time on the site...that way when I'm traveling long distances or taking a break at home, I don't have to always feel pressured to correspond or meet a client right away. Each time my private gallery is unlocked, I want to be earning something. Even if it's $5 to $10 per view. I do like the auto reply feature on RentMen messenger. I just leave it up 24/7. I don't have to sit and be going back and forth with people. I send my info and my number, and it's up to them to text me to move to the next level. If they don't, then they are either just playing or not seeking a visit that day, therefore I don't need to expend time conversing with them that day.

Well in a case like this, I would generally just include it in a “near travel” and don’t include any dates. I was actually recently in that area myself. Usually what I’ll do when I’m on tour: just move the whole ad and your home location, to that particular city. I don’t even bother advertising in my “home base city” when I’m traveling because you get the ones who are like, “are you still here right now???” This way you just list your “main” location (say you’re visiting Milwaukee but want to include Chicago at a nearby city, just keep your ad in Milwaukee and use Chicago as a “nearby travel city”). Sometimes it helps to include a note like, “open to visit XYZ but I’ll be based in ABC” One thing I can give credit to RentMen: they are a lot more considerate than how Rentboy was. And like you say, RentMen initially gave out a lot of free advertising time especially in their entry to the game in 2009 (back then it was a quirky site that seemed to emulate Rentboy, but I still seen their potential, and here we are…they are #1). What made Rentboy inconvenient was that they actually charged to have a travel ad in a different city. Sometimes I’d pay $20 to run a 5 day “gold ad” in a city. Considering I’d sometimes go to multiple cities in a week, that was just pocket draining. I can say RentMen has proven to be a more functional site for the future (and their freeze function is very innovative, I currently have it frozen now because I needed to take a few days off from the biz after going from a shitty week of back to back flakes before getting a couple of decent clients finally). Also RentMen’s decision to rename escorts “pornstars” was brillant! It saved the site and protected our business after SESTA/FOSTA. I am grateful for them. However…..where they fell short is, where is the MONEY we are SUPPOSED to be making as pornstars??? Now that the game has been renamed, now they have to go to the next step to start letting our ads make money even if we are not actively taking a client. I shouldn’t have to shuffle thru tons of bullshit “so and so viewed my private pictures”, and then still not have made a dime by the end of the week because I hadn’t met anyone in person 🙎🏽‍♂️

Your assessment is true, but the actual word would be ignorant and hypocritical. People in America Play like they are prudish and puritanical, but then are out here fucking other guy’s partners, Pnp, hooking up with married men/women, etc. that’s not to dismiss anyone who does, but they have the nerve to turn their nose up at someone who does sex work, but don’t think twice about putting a stranger’s dick or ass in their mouth who they just met off an app a few minutes ago. Last time I checked, that’s prostitution. Bitch 😆 (not referring to you, but to the American gay community in general)

I get what you're saying from a customer service point of view. But even though the stuff I mentioned discussed clients, this is not about y'all. This is not simply about customer service or clients. This is strictly about advertising providers and how I feel the site needs to open the door to make the site more profitable and less work. Yes, I understand clients want to see nudes and don't want to walk into something blindly. Nothing wrong with that. But like i said, even if it's not monetary directly from the client, the features they have should still work for us. At this point, we don't have rates allowed to be listed. Which is not as big of a deal as I feared awhile ago...because it does eliminate the rat race of trying to be cheaper or more expensive than everyone else. Another thing that can be done: have clients pay a monthly membership like they already do, but let that money "revolve" like a credit card to pay for our ads each time our private pics are unlocked. The membership can be like a "slot machine" where say, $50 can unlock 10 galleries for a set period of time at $5 each. Each view can take off of our monthly membership. Even that's not the ideal plan, that's just an example of how it can be better. It can be even better then that though. Let those private gallery views go to our account and let us cash out. I know clients don't like the idea of "paying to look at private pics", but that's just 1 part of it. But in the meantime: I'm going to continue to not unlock my private pics unless the person has booked with a deposit. Been doing that for going on a month now and it's made no difference. I'm tired of having my time and effort wasted by idiots who have no consideration or respect. You get to a point where you're sick and tired, of being sick and tired lol. At-least now, I feel better knowing that when they do waste my time, At-least they didn't get a free look at my XXX pics. Any XXX pics I do post are at my discretion.

Right on...what would be some of your complaint? By the way: I emailed Rentmen a link to this post, not to be a dick lol...but to give them opportunity to see multiple viewpoints on this subject. And to be transparent. I appreciate them having the platform and being more innovative than many escort sites have over the years, but the problem is: the innovation leans more towards clients getting free content before seeing us. I'm seeing it first hand: guys who frequent scruff and grindr who have client profiles and knowing good and well they have no intent to pay.

+1 @Tygerscent And to add to that last sentence: one of the grating things I have mentioned on the site is the way travel cities update: often at 5 or 6 pm the day PRIOR to what I have set. Which means if I'm in Chicago from 11/12-11/17...but also in Boston 11/17-11/20, the ad will automatically move my ad and cancel out all nearby cities at 5 p.m. on 11/16 due to the way the time zone difference between the US and Amsterdam. So, I have to often set my travel dates longer than what's expected so I don't miss out on biz in my current area.

I’ve discussed this before, but I think it can be rehearsed once again…simply because I haven’t seen any changes being made since. This is once again, as it applies to Private pictures. Tonight, I browsed my “email notifications”. Now, back in the days of Men4Rentnow, an email was often a good sign of an interested client: you’d get it directly to your email and it would often include the client’s name, and I think age and City. Usually always a message attached if the person was serious. Bringing it back to RentMen: all the “email notifications” I received over the past week have all been user profiles (many blank with no pic or info of the person) requesting private pics. Not even asking me personally, but just a random “this user has requested to see your private pics”. Guess how many times I’ve unlocked my private pics in the past month? 0. Non. And it’s even more obvious because I’m not displaying XXX pics publicly right now. What incentive do I have to unlock my pics for these people? I’ve already had several clients meet me without me unlocking my pics. What’s the reward that I get for unlocking my pics for someone 500 miles away, with no pic, who hasn’t even bothered to acknowledge or utter an existence of interest? It makes no sense. Quite frankly it’s maddening and I have lost motivation or desire to use the platform for communication. I don’t communicate hardly with anyone on RentMen. I simply have an auto reply on the messenger app, and the ones who text can arrange a visit. I’ve suggested before: what would REALLY make RentMen (and RentMasseur) better sites would be for them to allow us to earn some kind of credits, whether it’s monetary or in the form of “credits earned” towards our monthly ad fees. Even if clients are paying for the premium membership, if a provider (like me) makes his private pics “fully private”, they aren’t going to be able to access that anyway. Just like we pay for our ads each month, I think it would be great if clients can pay us for viewing our private pics, similar to the fan’s sites that payout to us after a minimum amount is met. Even if it’s $2-5 per private gallery viewing: considering I have DOZENS of private photo requests, that could easily amount to an extra $100-$500 a month earning. Right now, there’s no earning potential for opening private pics or even our video clips, on RentMen. And doing so with the “speculation” that the person will actually become an in person client is fantasy at best, hours of wasted time and free content delivery at worst. I’ve already experimented with asking for donations to view my private gallery, but because RentMen doesn’t normalize and feature it across the site, people often don’t respond or fail to do so. So I just stopped bothering to read or respond to private gallery requests. Here’s the thing: I’m not trying to be “working” profiles round the clock. I’m busy. I travel, I am with clients, trying to have my hands on multiple things at once. If I stopped and entertained every client who asked me for private pics, that’s minutes turned to hours of trying to squeeze money out of a turnip. Who has time for that? A paid provider site should not function like Grindr. Those ads should be working FOR us. It’s not. I’m working for the ads, and doing far too much of it. At $80-$100 a month, I shouldn’t have to deal with flakes and BSers who look at my private pics and I get paid nothing. I should be earning every step of the way: when they ask for private gallery: $10. Want to message me on instant messenger? Free once you contribute to unlock the pics. So RentMen: HELP US OUT. You’ve done great, but we need you to do MORE. Change! Step the game up. Y’all are #1 in the league already right now. There’s no reason we can’t get more from the site. Drop the premium client memberships, make them buy credits that can directly transfer to us. Otherwise, I’m just going to either keep all my XXX pics private, or I’m not going to even bother with using the private gallery.

Well, I can +1 that. I mean there was a period of slow during the initial stage of lockdown, but I was posting last year that there were still more bookings than usual because people had unemployment, time off, etc. However, I feel we're in this weird space...and I was telling a client yesterday: there's a ton of requests for bookings, but the quality and turnover is the issue. That's exactly why I moved to taking my nude pics to private.

I honestly don't feel it has anything to do with it, tbh. Gay men are going to be gay men. You'll always have the bullshit mother fuckers, and then you have the serious. I don't even feel the pandemic is necessarily any major timeline in this biz. Having been around since 2008, There's actually other cosmic factors that have attributed to things being slower and noncommittal including: Hookup apps Rates not being displayed on Rentmen Surge in housing/rent in many cities Fewer escort websites Political issues City differences More providers These alone have affected the biz even before the pandemic. I remember places like Salt Lake City and Phoenix used to be quite fun and reliable. But now, they're just unreliable wastelands. However, there's also other cities, like small state capitol college towns that used to be very quiet...and now they are booming. Last week in a city I was visiting, I had a client or 2 every day from Monday thru Thursday. I came back to Saint Louis, only had 1 client and whole bunch of flakes, Monday thru Thursday. Goes to show, results can vary in as little as 300-500 miles away.