Phaedrus

Oh, dear. Do we have to talk about Ann Coulter? I really think the best thing to do would be to ignore her. She exists on the oxygen of publicity and attention... depriving her of those things is probably the nastiest thing anyone can do to her. OOI, is she publicizing a new book at the moment? By amazing coincidence, she often seems to be when she says something that receives widespread attention.

An excellent question, Sophia. Unfortunately, I think it's also one that's --really-- hard to answer. I don't think there's an easy formula where you can start from a base and then add a dollar value for each of the various services the SP provides. Maybe you could work that way, but even if you do, not every client will want everything offered. And then there's the intangible things, like looks and personality; these are worth something, but... how much, exactly? There's also the SP's desires to consider. Does she want to do many appointments, or few? Long ones, or shorter? Does she love doing greek, or would she rather make it the exception rather than the rule even if it's officially on the menu? The pricing structure she adopts will influence these things.

Tea :) Milk or dark chocolate?

The fee advertized by MPs is the door fee; that goes to the establishment and it pays for the cost of running the place, plus some profit for the owner. The expectation is that you'll then pay the MA for her services; the total will probably be comparable to what you'd pay an indy in total (which explains the seemingly large difference in rates). As for what to give the MA... most of them have their own rates, and may have several depending on the degree of nudity and what else goes on (e.g. some charge a bit extra for bodyslides, with others it's just part of the service). The only real way to know is to ask. And don't be afraid to turn up with some extra $$$ in your wallet, just in case... don't worry, if you visit a reputable establishment nobody's going to run off with it, even when you're naked and...er.. distracted :) As for --what-- services are offered... well, getting FS at a MP... We all know it happens, but as Fortunateone said, it seems... risky, and unusual, with a new client.

I like Meg for many reasons... #1 at the moment is that she's just damn sexy!

CERB, like other boards, runs the way it runs. Different people want different things from their boards; they have different priorities, and different ideas of what should and shouldn't be allowed. As others have said, if you want to read or write negative reviews then there are places you can go and do that. Feel free to do so. As for limiting the usefulness of the board for the guys... in the short term, perhaps. But please pay attention to this: It's true. And my take on this is that in the long run, it's worth keeping the ladies around, as I learn far more from their participation here than I could possibly learn from the occasional (or even frequent) bad review. I've learned what they like, and dislike; I've learned what matters to them and what doesn't; I've learned what to do - or not - to make an encounter a success and a fun time for all concerned. Reading the ladies' posts gives me an insight into their character that you just don't get from even the best review/reco, and this is also immensely useful to me as it gives me an idea of who I'm likely to get on with and who I perhaps... won't. I don't claim to know everything yet... but I'm working on it :) YMMV, of course. It's a good idea in principle; the problem with it is that Mod is permanently snowed under with things to do, and this would be a significant addition to that workload, so it's highly unlikely, alas. Nice, but impossible. You add one thing, you lose others. You add negative reviews, you lose the SPs. That's just the way life is!

What on earth makes you think Twitter was ever intended to be useful? :) Sometimes people get nekkid on Twitter... :) Definitely against FB's Ts&Cs, though, so it won't happen there.

I like Cato 'cos he's an awesome person to hang out with!

Welcome to the board, valth! Hope you enjoy yourself... Quite a bit of etiquette... but it's amazing how much of it does come down to common sense and courtesy! If you haven't already, I'd suggest heading over to the "New to This" forum and reading some of the threads there, especially the sticky ones. There's lots of good advice on things to do (or not, as the case may be). How brave do you feel? My feeling would be to go with a well-recommended lady for the first time or two, at least until you get a feel for things... but don't let me discourage you if you're lusting after someone else! A lack of recos doesn't necessarily mean someone's no good. If you're thinking of going out on a limb, DO check out CK's diary and make sure you're not looking at a known scammer. No. I'm sure most ladies get clients who are new to the game on a reasonably frequent basis. Just tell her you're new to it all, and I'm sure she'll understand...

Twitter's lists are useful for this sort of thing. You just put all the dancers you follow in a list, and then you see only the tweets from them when you look at the list. This is generally a useful tactic for prioritizing tweets from real people, as opposed to news sites and other firehose-like feeds. Possibly. IMO the big issue with FB is their policies with regard to anything that could be labelled as adult content, which might well include strippers. Twitter has proven itself pretty relaxed on this, and generally (but not always) takes a stand against attempts at censorship. FB strikes me as being far more restrictive. But I could be wrong...

This is horribly short-sighted, IMO. I'm sure people do it, but I think it's just... wrong. Firstly: there's a good chance it may be horribly counter-productive. As has been noted already, people will, rightly or wrongly, infer things from a lack of recos. And so by withholding a reco from someone you like, far from ensuring she'll be available when you want her, you may be sowing the seeds that will force her out of the business entirely! Really, if you want to see her again, your first priority should be to ensure that she stays in the business rather than just giving it up as a bad job. Secondly: I'm highly skeptical of the idea of a SP being booked solid for months. That just doesn't happen, because we guys don't seem to book that far in advance. I don't think I've ever had any trouble arranging a meeting even a couple of days in advance; the only issues I've ever had with availability have been for last-minute appointments ("Are you free in half an hour?" "No, sorry." "OK, some other time, then..."). If she's worth it to you, you'll get your ass in gear and organize a meeting whenever convenient for as long as you want. If you can't do that, you clearly don't care that much. Finally: if you've benefitted from recos written here by other people, is there not at least a small moral obligation to give something back to the community? I know we can't force you, or even know if you haven't, but still... if everyone withheld recos for fear of their favorite SPs being booked solid, there simply wouldn't be any recos at all, and we'd all be much poorer for it.

Maybe, maybe not. Maintaining a twitter account needn't take that much time out of your day, or even week. It's a bit like having a CERB account... to a large extent, it is what you make of it. Yes, you need followers. But if you aren't there, you won't get any :) And the best way to get followers is to get in there, follow other people, and be interesting and make yourself worth following. As a wise man once said... if you build it, they will come. Yes, Twitter is inherently public (you can lock down your account, but that only locks out everyone except those you allow access to... and are you going to tell your wife/gf she can't follow you? :) ). The solution, as you said, is to have a separate accounts. You can follow me at @__Phaedrus__ if you want, but I have an entirely separate account for my real-life self, and - obviously - I'm not telling you what that is. Well, it's another advertizing venue. Sure, you may hit a lot of the same eyeballs... but if you hit new ones too, it may be worthwhile, no? Sure, many of them may be of no practical use, but if your twitter feed gets you a few extra dances a month...? Obviously it's for everyone to draw the cost/benefit line where they choose to, and as with any other means of advertizing it's tricky to measure its effectiveness, but that doesn't automatically make it useless. The other thing to say about twitter is: irrespective of its advertizing potential, it's fun. There are a few CERB ladies who are on there... frequently... and even when they're not posting about availability, their twitter presence is a continuous marketing presence in the same sort of way that contributing to CERB is. Sorry, but you're just wrong about this. Updating your twitter feed on your smartphone takes about 30s. Less, if you can type fast. Sure, a dancer can't update her twitter feed while she's onstage or actually giving someone a lapdance, but apart from that... why not? Twitter is much better than websites for up-to-the-minute information about availability and things like that, because it's so easy to update.

Well, shit. Are there any doing both?

Yep. Things like this are better off in the "scams and warnings" section. CK's blog is an essential resource. And this particular offender is, it seems, well-known.

On the plus side, that means they can't see me clearly either... :)

I'm torn between yellow, pink and black. And now for something completely different...

A late lunch. And beer to go with it.

Rebecca Black - Friday. It really is an abomination.