Date: December 25, 2011 / Place: Palm Springs, CA / Service: Scruff
I was at the Sunday beer bust at the Barracks when this exchange occurred. I’ve [corrected] a couple typos below, but left other wording and capitalization as-written from both of us.
Him: Want to stop by my place for a good breeding?
Me: No, thanks
(3 hours pass)
Him: How long in town for?
Him: Want your cock sucked off?
Me: Later, maybe
Him: Wow such attitude as if you had so many options out there man
Him: One would think if mr right was [out there] for you you would already have found him
Him: Good luck
Me: Sorry, fuckhead. I'm out somewhere that a BJ isn't what I'm after. Obviously should have blocked you at "breed".
Him: Sad
Him: All those hankies and all the colors in the rainbow how is anyone suppose to guess what you don't get into! Sad soul of Xmas
Him: So I can shit on your face but no bj? Lmao!!!
Me: No, you just can't have/give a blowjob *NOW*. What part of "later, maybe" was so hard for you?
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
Online Ass d’Jour: Get Real
Date: January 14, 2012 / Place: Washington DC / Service: Bear411
Him: might want to upgrade the scooter to a real cycle. the whole image is a little funny when you read your profile and then see you on a scooter. Hardcore profile and then a pussy scooter. lol
Me: How about you be less of an asshole?
Him: I wasn't being an asshole. Your description just doesn't match a scooter. pose with a real cycle and it will boost the cred in your profile description.
Me: If you're judging by what I ride rather than who I am, you're being an asshole. Using the phrase "real cycle" reinforces that.
For purposes of illustration, here is the pic in question; I did upgrade to a larger bike (but still a scooter) last April:
You can read more about my multi-thousands of miles ridden on that scooter in this post. And a long trip to Vancuover. And one to Portland.
My “pussy” scooter has done more than most “real” cycles.
Him: might want to upgrade the scooter to a real cycle. the whole image is a little funny when you read your profile and then see you on a scooter. Hardcore profile and then a pussy scooter. lol
Me: How about you be less of an asshole?
Him: I wasn't being an asshole. Your description just doesn't match a scooter. pose with a real cycle and it will boost the cred in your profile description.
Me: If you're judging by what I ride rather than who I am, you're being an asshole. Using the phrase "real cycle" reinforces that.
For purposes of illustration, here is the pic in question; I did upgrade to a larger bike (but still a scooter) last April:
You can read more about my multi-thousands of miles ridden on that scooter in this post. And a long trip to Vancuover. And one to Portland.
My “pussy” scooter has done more than most “real” cycles.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
(Leather) Vacation in Palm Springs
(This post covers my end-of-2011 vacation in Palm Springs. A tiny bit of the trip report — covering the leather title pieces — is located on my Northwest LeatherSIR 2012 blog.)
For several years now, I have made a point of not being in Seattle for New Year’s Eve. The biggest piece of this is that if I’m in the same city I live in, the holiday doesn’t feel “special” — it’s just another night at the bar, and the bulk of the people around me are the same ones I see every Saturday night. Not that I don’t like being around them, but I’d rather spend the holiday somewhere else.
It isn’t just New Year’s Eve. Holidays = Travel, for me. I haven’t been home for Memorial Day since, um, 1995, either being at International Mr. Leather or an IAGLCWDC hoedown. I’m typically gone for Labor Day, frequently for President’s Day and July 4th, coming up is my 13th trip to DC for Mid-Atlantic Leather on MLK Weekend, Thanksgiving and Christmas are usually at my mother’s house, etc.
So in the past decade, I’ve spent New Year’s Eve in New York, Palm Springs, Portland, and often in Vancouver, BC. Vancouver and Portland are just a few hours away, easy trips, but that’s enough to satisfy my “be somewhere else” urge. This year, it was back to Palm Springs, but double strength: Christmas as well as New Year’s.
If I had to tag a favorite vacation spot, Palm Springs would be it. I’ve been there for New Year’s a couple times, for Wet n’Hot five times, and West Coast Rubber twice. There’s relatively little to do as a tourist, compared to the likes of Los Angeles, Las Vegas, or New York, so it’s okay to just lay around the pool. Even better, of course, with the gay resorts there, it's okay to lay around the pool wearing nothing at all.
For Christmas a few years ago, my mother gave me a week’s time share stay for a present, which I could have anywhere in the world. That’s great in theory — and she’s taken me on trips where we stayed at time share condos in Killarney in Ireland and Rotorua in New Zealand — but if I’m going to go for a week’s vacation by myself, it’s going to be to a good place for being a leatherman. Unfortunately, the time share places often aren’t all that convenient for that. Amsterdam? 15 miles outside the city. Similar for Berlin.
But Palm Springs? The condos are a quarter mile from the downtown shopping core, and of course a 2.5 hour trip with airfare in the $300 range makes it way easier than Europe or Australia would. And while Seattle would be in the low 40s around New Year’s, Palm Springs would be in the low 70s. Yum. So taking a week’s vacation at the end of the year sounded like a great idea.
With Christmas and New Year’s on Sundays this year, I decided to lengthen the stay a bit and include the weekends. Of course, the time share stay being only for a week, I added two nights at the start and one at the end at Chaps Inn, the leather-themed gay resort. I also invited my buddy Cliff along. He’s my ex, but we get along great as travel buddies. (And frankly, there’s no one better to have along to ensure that there are a good number of hot guys coming to visit. Cliff can talk just about anyone out of their pants and into the sling!)
Chaps Inn is located just off north Indian Canyon, a block or two from Camp Palm Springs. It’s a small resort with about 10 rooms. Each room has sling hooks in the ceiling and they will rent you a sling and chains. Our room also had tie-down points and chain in one of the doorways. Outside, they have a decent sized pool and a jacuzzi, plus an outdoor sling and cross. (Unfortunately at this time of year, those don’t get much use. Due to the proximity of Mt. San Jacinto, the sun went away by about 3:30, so it got too cold to play outside by the time you were ready to.) Chaps Inn also features some nearly pornographic cacti among the landscaping.
The owners, Stuart and Ian, are great, friendly guys. This was about the 5th or 6th time I’ve stayed there over the years. It isn’t posh (but “posh” doesn’t interest me much), but the beds are comfortable and the setup is very nice, just the way I like it. Very recommended.
Spending Christmas on vacation was new for me. Spending it butt naked around the pool in warm weather, and then hitting the Barracks Beer Bust later in the day, that was great. (The line I used in my Facebook status: “That's the downside of spending Christmas at a clothing-optional resort: no packages to unwrap!”
The time share condo was at the Palm Springs Tennis Club, at the end of Baristo Road within walking distance of downtown and the Arenas Road gay district. The Tennis Club is right up against the mountain — like 10 feet outside the window — which was a very different sort of view. The room itself was a suite, so we could again deal with what meals we wanted to eat in (especially breakfasts), with plenty of room for the sling and other entertaining. Neither of us play tennis, and we didn’t spend any time around their pool, but Stuart let us come back to Chaps Inn a couple days to hang out there.
Knowing that Cliff and I would want a sling available beyond the days we were at Chaps Inn, bringing a portable along seemed to be in order. And while I have one, I’ve been borrowing one or two frames from friends for the play parties I host, so I figured it was time to get a new sling frame to supplement what I’ve got.
Given the cost to ship the frame and airline baggage costs, I had it shipped directly to Chaps Inn, so that I would only have a baggage cost coming back. I arranged the delivery with Stuart ahead of time, although I didn’t tell him how big of a box to expect. He pretty much knew what it was when it arrived.
My first sling was purchased in 2001 from JIMsupport.com (which is now owned by SIlver & Black Distributing, Inc.). They are highly recommended, of course, but wanting branch out and sample what else was out there, I ordered the new one from Ft. Troff. In addition to just the frame, the Ft. Troff sling frames (note: naughty pics at that link) have leveling feet on the base (although I’ve never needed such before), tie-down points at the corners (so you can use it for more than just hanging a sling), and they are the new taller design, adding a few extra inches (ahem). Oh, and they come in blue, black, or fist-friendly red (that’s the one I got).
Ft. Troff is also selling a number of add-ons for the slings: fish-eye mirrors, supply stands, camera holders, bars to attach toys to for solo sling play, and so on. Frankly, this is a great idea, enhancing the ways to set up your play space with stuff that all works together. I didn’t order any of that this time — and of course, brought my own sling and chains.
(By the way, Ft. Troff does an excellent job of turning around orders, and following up afterward to ensure that the order arrived satisfactorily. I recommend them several notches above many other leather/gear shops on the net.)
On Christmas Eve afternoon when we got there, we went to local leather store Gear for some shopping. (And Cliff shopped the staff as well.) I bought a pair of red and black suspenders and got a look at the sling mirror (note: again with the naughty pics), since they had one on display. I was able to get a better feel for it than I could from the Ft. Troff pics. The mirror is a slightly convex mirror (about 16 inches across) with a ball-joint pivot, so that the bottom can get a wide-angle view in the sling, but it can also be adjusted so that the top can make use of it as well. The frame attachment slides on when assembling the frame, and it can be used with slings other than the Ft. Troff models.
On Monday, I tried to do some due diligence and price similar mirrors at Lowe’s, Home Depot, and AutoZone, but no one had anything close to the size. So I ended up going back to Gear and buying the floor model. Made a great addition to my self-Christmas present, and I was even able to pack it into my suitcase coming home (I had expected to have to ship it)!
While I said earlier that there’s not a lot to do in Palm Springs, that’s not quite true. If you want to be touristy, you can take the tram to the top of the mountain, you can go to Joshua Tree National Park, you can hike the canyons, you can do museums, there’s the Palm Springs Follies show, and of course lots of shopping. I’ve usually been to Palm Springs in July or August, with daytime temps above 100 degrees, so the outdoor stuff hasn’t had a lot of attraction, as you can imagine. (And I’ve usually gone for events, which often preclude much sight seeing — you nap during the day and play hard until the wee hours.)
(“Wee hours”. Heh. I’ve been to Wet n’Hot five times.)
We went shopping at the Cabazon and Desert Hills outlet malls at Morongo the day after Christmas. I bought a pair of jeans and four deep-dish mini pie plates (which should be great for the likes of chicken pot pie; two for me, two for my mother), and looked at tennis shoes at several places but found nothing that appealed to me. Of course, 90% of such malls are clothing stores which hold no interest for me. When at such places, I sometimes wonder if I’m missing out on some great pleasure in life by not being a straight woman or a fashion-interested gay man. For me, it ultimately comes down to two things: I already have plenty of clothes (so why look to buy something I don’t really need), and I put little value in expensive clothes (are those $200 shirts 4 times as good as the $50 ones, 10 times as good as a $20 one?). Which isn’t to say I disdain luxury and pleasure, but I seem to enjoy them a lot more when they are occasional rather than regular.
We tried one day to go take the aerial tram up the mountain. We really did. But after driving and parking and walking to the tram station, it was a 2.5 hour wait for the tram (and then the sun would be going down). We hadn’t brought anything to read and there was no cell signal up there (they should have free WiFi in the terminal!), so we drove back to town rather than hang around doing literally nothing. Sigh. We sort of intended to buy tickets online, but you have to do it more than a day in advance, and we never got around to setting a new goal date. (Oh well, not like I’ll never be back!)
We also didn’t get to Joshua Tree. Oh well.
Thursday night, they shut down a few blocks of Palm Canyon Drive for a street fair. We walked the fair, and I bought a hummingbird photo print for my grandmother. We also met up with Frank and Jeaux, who are from Seattle but have a condo in Palm Springs. We invited them to hike one of the canyons on Friday with us, a recommendation from one of my co-workers. We were before the season when the creeks run — there’s a seasonal waterfall in one of the canyons — but the weather would sure be right for it. Big rock boulders, palm trees in the oasis, a good hit of pot, and blow jobs back along one of the paths a mile or so out. Yeah, I’d hike that again.
One guy I know in Palm Springs is Bear Films star Cameron Stuart, whom I met there the previous summer. He invited me and Cliff to the play party he was hosting on New Year’s Eve. I had to twist Cliff’s arm a bit — he originally planned to go to the play party at Helios — but I knew he’d have a great time.
The party was in a three-car garage space, broken up with hung tarps and some plywood walls. I think there were five slings, plus a covered mattress and a fuck bench, plus maybe some other equipment. It was a good layout of the space, and Stuart and a play buddy of his had made sure to invite a number of fisters to ensure that there would be a good set of guys there beyond those mostly interested in just fuck-n-suck. Among other people I knew there were Bill, who I had played with the night before, and John, a buddy from San Francisco whom I have played with a could times before.
Definitely a good time. We and a couple other guys shut the place down a while after 1:00 am.
In addition to the play itself, I always like to get a look at how other guys lay things out for their parties — where the snacks and drinks are, where the lube and supplies are, the make-up of the attendees, the layout of play spaces. That stuff always helps inform and enhance my own parties.
After a play session on Wednesday, my PA piercing got too heavily abused — bruised on the inside — so on Friday, I went to Palm Springs Piercing Company (who did my lorum piercing a few years ago) and had the PA taken out. It was almost getting too painful to walk. Of course, that meant that the piercing proceeded to shrink as it healed, so when I got home, I had to go back to my old 4 gauge curved barbell, and worked myself back up to the 2 gauge over the next week, just in time to head to Mid-Atlantic Leather.
While I was at PS Piercing, I also had them upgauge the 12 gauge nipple bars to 10 gauge rings. I had one nipple pierced with a ring at MAL 2000, but it never healed well (got regular small reinfections) and I took it out a couple years later — I primarily blame the temptation of the ring as a pull toy during the healing process. In mid-2010, I got them both done with bars and they have behaved themselves vastly better and I was comfortable getting rings in now.
Cliff and I went dancing at DiGS on Christmas Eve, and I did again on Tuesday. (Tue/Sat are the CW dance nights there.) We ran into Jake, who had moved down from Seattle a few months ago.
Other names to drop in addition to those mentioned above: hunky Matthew from Gear, the guys from Off Ramp Leathers (who had just moved to Palm Springs from San Francisco, opening the store on the day we left, so we dropped in), Jim T. (who used to be in the San Francisco Saddletramps with me), and assorted guys at the Barracks and Chaps Inn whose names elude me now.
Homo for the Holidays
For several years now, I have made a point of not being in Seattle for New Year’s Eve. The biggest piece of this is that if I’m in the same city I live in, the holiday doesn’t feel “special” — it’s just another night at the bar, and the bulk of the people around me are the same ones I see every Saturday night. Not that I don’t like being around them, but I’d rather spend the holiday somewhere else.
It isn’t just New Year’s Eve. Holidays = Travel, for me. I haven’t been home for Memorial Day since, um, 1995, either being at International Mr. Leather or an IAGLCWDC hoedown. I’m typically gone for Labor Day, frequently for President’s Day and July 4th, coming up is my 13th trip to DC for Mid-Atlantic Leather on MLK Weekend, Thanksgiving and Christmas are usually at my mother’s house, etc.
So in the past decade, I’ve spent New Year’s Eve in New York, Palm Springs, Portland, and often in Vancouver, BC. Vancouver and Portland are just a few hours away, easy trips, but that’s enough to satisfy my “be somewhere else” urge. This year, it was back to Palm Springs, but double strength: Christmas as well as New Year’s.
If I had to tag a favorite vacation spot, Palm Springs would be it. I’ve been there for New Year’s a couple times, for Wet n’Hot five times, and West Coast Rubber twice. There’s relatively little to do as a tourist, compared to the likes of Los Angeles, Las Vegas, or New York, so it’s okay to just lay around the pool. Even better, of course, with the gay resorts there, it's okay to lay around the pool wearing nothing at all.
For Christmas a few years ago, my mother gave me a week’s time share stay for a present, which I could have anywhere in the world. That’s great in theory — and she’s taken me on trips where we stayed at time share condos in Killarney in Ireland and Rotorua in New Zealand — but if I’m going to go for a week’s vacation by myself, it’s going to be to a good place for being a leatherman. Unfortunately, the time share places often aren’t all that convenient for that. Amsterdam? 15 miles outside the city. Similar for Berlin.
But Palm Springs? The condos are a quarter mile from the downtown shopping core, and of course a 2.5 hour trip with airfare in the $300 range makes it way easier than Europe or Australia would. And while Seattle would be in the low 40s around New Year’s, Palm Springs would be in the low 70s. Yum. So taking a week’s vacation at the end of the year sounded like a great idea.
With Christmas and New Year’s on Sundays this year, I decided to lengthen the stay a bit and include the weekends. Of course, the time share stay being only for a week, I added two nights at the start and one at the end at Chaps Inn, the leather-themed gay resort. I also invited my buddy Cliff along. He’s my ex, but we get along great as travel buddies. (And frankly, there’s no one better to have along to ensure that there are a good number of hot guys coming to visit. Cliff can talk just about anyone out of their pants and into the sling!)
The Inns and Outs
Chaps Inn is located just off north Indian Canyon, a block or two from Camp Palm Springs. It’s a small resort with about 10 rooms. Each room has sling hooks in the ceiling and they will rent you a sling and chains. Our room also had tie-down points and chain in one of the doorways. Outside, they have a decent sized pool and a jacuzzi, plus an outdoor sling and cross. (Unfortunately at this time of year, those don’t get much use. Due to the proximity of Mt. San Jacinto, the sun went away by about 3:30, so it got too cold to play outside by the time you were ready to.) Chaps Inn also features some nearly pornographic cacti among the landscaping.
The owners, Stuart and Ian, are great, friendly guys. This was about the 5th or 6th time I’ve stayed there over the years. It isn’t posh (but “posh” doesn’t interest me much), but the beds are comfortable and the setup is very nice, just the way I like it. Very recommended.
Spending Christmas on vacation was new for me. Spending it butt naked around the pool in warm weather, and then hitting the Barracks Beer Bust later in the day, that was great. (The line I used in my Facebook status: “That's the downside of spending Christmas at a clothing-optional resort: no packages to unwrap!”
The time share condo was at the Palm Springs Tennis Club, at the end of Baristo Road within walking distance of downtown and the Arenas Road gay district. The Tennis Club is right up against the mountain — like 10 feet outside the window — which was a very different sort of view. The room itself was a suite, so we could again deal with what meals we wanted to eat in (especially breakfasts), with plenty of room for the sling and other entertaining. Neither of us play tennis, and we didn’t spend any time around their pool, but Stuart let us come back to Chaps Inn a couple days to hang out there.
These are a Few of My Favorite Slings
Knowing that Cliff and I would want a sling available beyond the days we were at Chaps Inn, bringing a portable along seemed to be in order. And while I have one, I’ve been borrowing one or two frames from friends for the play parties I host, so I figured it was time to get a new sling frame to supplement what I’ve got.
Given the cost to ship the frame and airline baggage costs, I had it shipped directly to Chaps Inn, so that I would only have a baggage cost coming back. I arranged the delivery with Stuart ahead of time, although I didn’t tell him how big of a box to expect. He pretty much knew what it was when it arrived.
My first sling was purchased in 2001 from JIMsupport.com (which is now owned by SIlver & Black Distributing, Inc.). They are highly recommended, of course, but wanting branch out and sample what else was out there, I ordered the new one from Ft. Troff. In addition to just the frame, the Ft. Troff sling frames (note: naughty pics at that link) have leveling feet on the base (although I’ve never needed such before), tie-down points at the corners (so you can use it for more than just hanging a sling), and they are the new taller design, adding a few extra inches (ahem). Oh, and they come in blue, black, or fist-friendly red (that’s the one I got).
Ft. Troff is also selling a number of add-ons for the slings: fish-eye mirrors, supply stands, camera holders, bars to attach toys to for solo sling play, and so on. Frankly, this is a great idea, enhancing the ways to set up your play space with stuff that all works together. I didn’t order any of that this time — and of course, brought my own sling and chains.
(By the way, Ft. Troff does an excellent job of turning around orders, and following up afterward to ensure that the order arrived satisfactorily. I recommend them several notches above many other leather/gear shops on the net.)
On Christmas Eve afternoon when we got there, we went to local leather store Gear for some shopping. (And Cliff shopped the staff as well.) I bought a pair of red and black suspenders and got a look at the sling mirror (note: again with the naughty pics), since they had one on display. I was able to get a better feel for it than I could from the Ft. Troff pics. The mirror is a slightly convex mirror (about 16 inches across) with a ball-joint pivot, so that the bottom can get a wide-angle view in the sling, but it can also be adjusted so that the top can make use of it as well. The frame attachment slides on when assembling the frame, and it can be used with slings other than the Ft. Troff models.
On Monday, I tried to do some due diligence and price similar mirrors at Lowe’s, Home Depot, and AutoZone, but no one had anything close to the size. So I ended up going back to Gear and buying the floor model. Made a great addition to my self-Christmas present, and I was even able to pack it into my suitcase coming home (I had expected to have to ship it)!
Take a Hike, Ike
While I said earlier that there’s not a lot to do in Palm Springs, that’s not quite true. If you want to be touristy, you can take the tram to the top of the mountain, you can go to Joshua Tree National Park, you can hike the canyons, you can do museums, there’s the Palm Springs Follies show, and of course lots of shopping. I’ve usually been to Palm Springs in July or August, with daytime temps above 100 degrees, so the outdoor stuff hasn’t had a lot of attraction, as you can imagine. (And I’ve usually gone for events, which often preclude much sight seeing — you nap during the day and play hard until the wee hours.)
(“Wee hours”. Heh. I’ve been to Wet n’Hot five times.)
We went shopping at the Cabazon and Desert Hills outlet malls at Morongo the day after Christmas. I bought a pair of jeans and four deep-dish mini pie plates (which should be great for the likes of chicken pot pie; two for me, two for my mother), and looked at tennis shoes at several places but found nothing that appealed to me. Of course, 90% of such malls are clothing stores which hold no interest for me. When at such places, I sometimes wonder if I’m missing out on some great pleasure in life by not being a straight woman or a fashion-interested gay man. For me, it ultimately comes down to two things: I already have plenty of clothes (so why look to buy something I don’t really need), and I put little value in expensive clothes (are those $200 shirts 4 times as good as the $50 ones, 10 times as good as a $20 one?). Which isn’t to say I disdain luxury and pleasure, but I seem to enjoy them a lot more when they are occasional rather than regular.
We tried one day to go take the aerial tram up the mountain. We really did. But after driving and parking and walking to the tram station, it was a 2.5 hour wait for the tram (and then the sun would be going down). We hadn’t brought anything to read and there was no cell signal up there (they should have free WiFi in the terminal!), so we drove back to town rather than hang around doing literally nothing. Sigh. We sort of intended to buy tickets online, but you have to do it more than a day in advance, and we never got around to setting a new goal date. (Oh well, not like I’ll never be back!)
We also didn’t get to Joshua Tree. Oh well.
Thursday night, they shut down a few blocks of Palm Canyon Drive for a street fair. We walked the fair, and I bought a hummingbird photo print for my grandmother. We also met up with Frank and Jeaux, who are from Seattle but have a condo in Palm Springs. We invited them to hike one of the canyons on Friday with us, a recommendation from one of my co-workers. We were before the season when the creeks run — there’s a seasonal waterfall in one of the canyons — but the weather would sure be right for it. Big rock boulders, palm trees in the oasis, a good hit of pot, and blow jobs back along one of the paths a mile or so out. Yeah, I’d hike that again.
Fisting the Night Away
One guy I know in Palm Springs is Bear Films star Cameron Stuart, whom I met there the previous summer. He invited me and Cliff to the play party he was hosting on New Year’s Eve. I had to twist Cliff’s arm a bit — he originally planned to go to the play party at Helios — but I knew he’d have a great time.
The party was in a three-car garage space, broken up with hung tarps and some plywood walls. I think there were five slings, plus a covered mattress and a fuck bench, plus maybe some other equipment. It was a good layout of the space, and Stuart and a play buddy of his had made sure to invite a number of fisters to ensure that there would be a good set of guys there beyond those mostly interested in just fuck-n-suck. Among other people I knew there were Bill, who I had played with the night before, and John, a buddy from San Francisco whom I have played with a could times before.
Definitely a good time. We and a couple other guys shut the place down a while after 1:00 am.
In addition to the play itself, I always like to get a look at how other guys lay things out for their parties — where the snacks and drinks are, where the lube and supplies are, the make-up of the attendees, the layout of play spaces. That stuff always helps inform and enhance my own parties.
All the Other Kids with Their Pumped Up Dicks
After a play session on Wednesday, my PA piercing got too heavily abused — bruised on the inside — so on Friday, I went to Palm Springs Piercing Company (who did my lorum piercing a few years ago) and had the PA taken out. It was almost getting too painful to walk. Of course, that meant that the piercing proceeded to shrink as it healed, so when I got home, I had to go back to my old 4 gauge curved barbell, and worked myself back up to the 2 gauge over the next week, just in time to head to Mid-Atlantic Leather.
While I was at PS Piercing, I also had them upgauge the 12 gauge nipple bars to 10 gauge rings. I had one nipple pierced with a ring at MAL 2000, but it never healed well (got regular small reinfections) and I took it out a couple years later — I primarily blame the temptation of the ring as a pull toy during the healing process. In mid-2010, I got them both done with bars and they have behaved themselves vastly better and I was comfortable getting rings in now.
Cliff and I went dancing at DiGS on Christmas Eve, and I did again on Tuesday. (Tue/Sat are the CW dance nights there.) We ran into Jake, who had moved down from Seattle a few months ago.
Other names to drop in addition to those mentioned above: hunky Matthew from Gear, the guys from Off Ramp Leathers (who had just moved to Palm Springs from San Francisco, opening the store on the day we left, so we dropped in), Jim T. (who used to be in the San Francisco Saddletramps with me), and assorted guys at the Barracks and Chaps Inn whose names elude me now.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Typo of the Day
This profile showed up near me on Scruff recently:
“stalky” — Best. Typo. Ever. (Technically a malapropism; he presumably meant “stocky”.)
If you’re looking for guys to stalk you, online cruise sites would be the place.
“stalky” — Best. Typo. Ever. (Technically a malapropism; he presumably meant “stocky”.)
If you’re looking for guys to stalk you, online cruise sites would be the place.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Online Ass d'Jour: Why Thank You
As a follow-up to my recent item on unsolicited photo spamming on cruise sites, this LOLCat pic showed up this week. Sums things up pretty well, I’d say:
Thursday, September 15, 2011
What is up with misspelled words? TrouBBle, SSkin, ParTy, FFun,…?
If you hit gay cruise sites enough, you will end up tripping over seemingly misspelled words a lot. And not just simple typos, nor the shorthand txtspeak/lolspeak terms which infect so much online communication these days (U, ur, lol, ROTFL, etc.), but stuff unique to the gay cruise world, stuff with extra letters and internal capitals “errors” which show up often enough that there must be meaning behind them.
Indeed there is: like with so much else in the gay world, these are code words, spellings intended to alert those in the know to the proclivities and preferences of the person they are reading about, without them having to come out ans say it. Sometimes, as with hanky codes, this is to advertise for sex; sometimes, as with the term “420” referring to marijuana, it advertises drug use or other illegal activities; and sometimes it serves to hide controversial philosophies or political leanings.
You’ll also see references to “handball”, but that isn’t a sports alternative to tennis. “Handball” is a euphemism for fisting — “hand in a ball”, get it? (And in case you didn’t know, “watersports” doesn’t usually involve an Olympic-sized swimming pool.)
Hiding things behind euphemisms can backfire, though. Several years ago, our local leather club reserved a church-owned camp location for a weekend event, and we listed “handball” as one of the activities that would be available in the playspace (aka “dungeon”, but we didn’t use that word). One of the directors of the camp read our website and said “We don’t have a handball court, I wonder what they mean?”, so he looked it up online. We quickly had our contract cancelled. But karma comes around: they went into bankruptcy and had to sell the camp within the next year. Don’t fuck with leathermen, because we use our fists!
By the mid-90s, “BB” had come to mean “Body Builder”, back when “working out” wasn’t the primary hobby of every non-bear gay man in the world, when having a six-pack was rare — as opposed to today when it is almost required if you go out thump-thump dancing and dare to remove your shirt.
For the last decade, though, “BB” has meant “Bare Back”, as in fucking without a condom, usually including cumming inside the guy. See also seeding, breeding, and bug chasing.
Confusion over the term was the focus of a subplot in Queer As Folk, too, although that was very odd since the characters assumed it meant “butch bottom” (they went to a “BB” party, guess what the activity was), but I hadn’t seen it in use that way for maybe 15 years before that episode aired. (And then just this morning I saw it used in the abbreviation guide in an issue of Bound & Gagged from 2003.)
(I’m not trying to be judgmental here. There are skins who aren’t neo-Nazis and there are skins who are not white supremacist or “white power”. I only know enough that when I tripped across such an “SS”-filled profile, I just turned around, didn’t ask any questions.)
Just for completeness, if these profiles reference “88”, that doesn’t mean they play the piano. “H” is the 8th letter of the alphabet, so 88 = HH = Heil Hitler.
A common nickname for meth is “Tina”. Abbreviated to “T”, the letter gets inserted in the middle of any number of words, but especially in the word “parTy” to qualify the intent.
People have ample opportunity to craft, review, and edit their text. While many men do write poorly and typos do creep in — and many write quickly and never review what they wrote or correct errors — these codeword typos are common enough that they can be identified easily and most don’t fall into common causes of typos. Incorrect capitalization will usually only occur at the start of the word — “COmpany” is a common one for me, caps on the letter after the initial one as well — but not in the middle of the word. And while an occasional accidental doubled letter can creep in, consistently doing it with the same letters throughout an ad or profile transcends accident and becomes intent.
Which then leads to the other rule of thumb: “If you suspect there is an extra layer of meaning, trust your instincts.” That doesn’t have to mean “run like hell” (although I’ve done that); like any coded communication, these things are both an invitation to conversation and are prone to misinterpretation, so if you are curious, ask. And then read between the lines of their response: fisters and slaves will likely be very upfront with you, but druggies probably won’t.
Updated on September 19
Indeed there is: like with so much else in the gay world, these are code words, spellings intended to alert those in the know to the proclivities and preferences of the person they are reading about, without them having to come out ans say it. Sometimes, as with hanky codes, this is to advertise for sex; sometimes, as with the term “420” referring to marijuana, it advertises drug use or other illegal activities; and sometimes it serves to hide controversial philosophies or political leanings.
Didn’t you learn to capitalize the pronoun “I” in school?
This one is a common affectation for men who are playing the “slave” (extreme submissive) role in a relationship (or who want to). To express subservience or to take away the importance of the self from the slave, the slave becomes “i” or “this one”, always lowercase (even at the start of a sentence). This mirrors the capitalization of “He” when referring to God, and since the master in the relationship is sometimes deemed to take the role of a “god”, he may become “He” or “Sir” or whatever.Girls just wanna have fun, why do guys want FFun?
“FF” is shorthand for Fist Fucking, usually referred to just as fisting these days. Any time you see the double-F capitalized, either by itself or embedded in another word — unless you are reading about Marvel Comics — that is what is being referred to. (Exception: if the entire word is in caps — “RUFF & TUFF”, for example — it probably isn’t about fisting, even when the word is misspelled like this.)You’ll also see references to “handball”, but that isn’t a sports alternative to tennis. “Handball” is a euphemism for fisting — “hand in a ball”, get it? (And in case you didn’t know, “watersports” doesn’t usually involve an Olympic-sized swimming pool.)
Hiding things behind euphemisms can backfire, though. Several years ago, our local leather club reserved a church-owned camp location for a weekend event, and we listed “handball” as one of the activities that would be available in the playspace (aka “dungeon”, but we didn’t use that word). One of the directors of the camp read our website and said “We don’t have a handball court, I wonder what they mean?”, so he looked it up online. We quickly had our contract cancelled. But karma comes around: they went into bankruptcy and had to sell the camp within the next year. Don’t fuck with leathermen, because we use our fists!
Won’t you get in trouBBle for spelling it that way?
When I first came out, “BB” would show up in newspaper personal ads meaning “Butch Bottom”, more or less what we now call “leatherboy”.By the mid-90s, “BB” had come to mean “Body Builder”, back when “working out” wasn’t the primary hobby of every non-bear gay man in the world, when having a six-pack was rare — as opposed to today when it is almost required if you go out thump-thump dancing and dare to remove your shirt.
For the last decade, though, “BB” has meant “Bare Back”, as in fucking without a condom, usually including cumming inside the guy. See also seeding, breeding, and bug chasing.
Confusion over the term was the focus of a subplot in Queer As Folk, too, although that was very odd since the characters assumed it meant “butch bottom” (they went to a “BB” party, guess what the activity was), but I hadn’t seen it in use that way for maybe 15 years before that episode aired. (And then just this morning I saw it used in the abbreviation guide in an issue of Bound & Gagged from 2003.)
Do you hiSS much when you SSpeak?
Every now and then, you’ll hit a profile where every “s” is capitalized and doubled into “SS”. Completely orthogonal to “FF” = fisting, “SS” references skinheads with white power/white supremacy/neo-Nazi leanings. (Or SSometimeSS juSSt guySS into Nazi uniform play, I gueSS. Not going there, thankSS.)(I’m not trying to be judgmental here. There are skins who aren’t neo-Nazis and there are skins who are not white supremacist or “white power”. I only know enough that when I tripped across such an “SS”-filled profile, I just turned around, didn’t ask any questions.)
Just for completeness, if these profiles reference “88”, that doesn’t mean they play the piano. “H” is the 8th letter of the alphabet, so 88 = HH = Heil Hitler.
It’s my parTy, I’ll do drugs if I want to!
And finally we come to drug use. The standard euphemism for drug use during sex is “partying” or “party and play”. So when asked if you want to “party”, or when someone says they are looking to or for a “party”, they don’t want streamers and noisemakers. A number of different drugs can be involved in this, typically meth (methamphetamine, crystal), but also cocaine, MDMA, and GHB. In particular, though, while alcohol and pot and poppers are technically drugs which can be played with in connection with sex, few if any people ever mean them when referring to “partying”; those drugs are too “soft” for the intent.A common nickname for meth is “Tina”. Abbreviated to “T”, the letter gets inserted in the middle of any number of words, but especially in the word “parTy” to qualify the intent.
How do I tell codewords from typos?
While I usually recommend “Assume ignorance before malice” when evaluating things when someone does a stupid or offensive action, the reverse is my recommendation when it comes to cruise site profile text and ads: “Assume what they wrote is intentional.”People have ample opportunity to craft, review, and edit their text. While many men do write poorly and typos do creep in — and many write quickly and never review what they wrote or correct errors — these codeword typos are common enough that they can be identified easily and most don’t fall into common causes of typos. Incorrect capitalization will usually only occur at the start of the word — “COmpany” is a common one for me, caps on the letter after the initial one as well — but not in the middle of the word. And while an occasional accidental doubled letter can creep in, consistently doing it with the same letters throughout an ad or profile transcends accident and becomes intent.
Which then leads to the other rule of thumb: “If you suspect there is an extra layer of meaning, trust your instincts.” That doesn’t have to mean “run like hell” (although I’ve done that); like any coded communication, these things are both an invitation to conversation and are prone to misinterpretation, so if you are curious, ask. And then read between the lines of their response: fisters and slaves will likely be very upfront with you, but druggies probably won’t.
Updated on September 19
Naturally, as soon as I posted this, a new example cropped up. I got hit up by a guy looking for “pig pplay”. I asked and he promptly confirmed it the double-p a reference to ”party”.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Online Ass d'Jour: 5000 Words and Counting
Date: August 14, 2011 / Place: Las Vegas / Service: Grindr
I noticed that there was a message badge on the pic of a guy I had not been conversing with yet.. So I tapped the pic to view the message.
Him: (sends picture)
Him: (sends picture)
Him: (sends picture)
Me: (start to look at the first one)
Him: (sends another picture)
(Jesus Christ, at least say “Hello” first. Or maybe “Hello, want to see naughty pics of me?” And wait for me to say yes.)
Him: (sends another picture)
Me: (block)
I noticed that there was a message badge on the pic of a guy I had not been conversing with yet.. So I tapped the pic to view the message.
Him: (sends picture)
Him: (sends picture)
Him: (sends picture)
Me: (start to look at the first one)
Him: (sends another picture)
(Jesus Christ, at least say “Hello” first. Or maybe “Hello, want to see naughty pics of me?” And wait for me to say yes.)
Him: (sends another picture)
Me: (block)
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