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Phaedrus

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Everything posted by Phaedrus

  1. Thanks for that! It may or may not mean much - it could mean completely new people in charge, or it could mean they moved it from one holding company to another :) I find the comment about establishing a community board interesting. The old owners have one right here...
  2. Ads in here often get moved or deleted. Kelowna, Lethbridge and Banff all have sections... I know none of them are quite right but you might be best posting there.
  3. As I'm sure many people are aware, the folks who own and run LL also own and run this board... so hopefully they'll see this and comment officially. Paypal has never been friendly to sex-workers; if you're using it to accpet payment for bookings you always run the risk that they may discover what the money's for and simply shut your account down without notice. Good luck retrieving your money if that happens! That doesn't make it entirely useless, of course, but it's risky and leaving money in your Paypal account for any length of time is probably not a great idea. The financial side of advertising has always been a weak link it the chain. It's how they shut down advertising on Craigslist back in the day - the US government didn't go after CL itself... they just threatened to prosecute Visa and Mastercard for I-can't-remember-what. Those companies told CL that they'd withdraw their services and Craig Newmark, who was staring the destruction of his business in the face, backed down and stopped advertising for sex workers anywhere in the world. I think he kept the money for the ads that had already been paid for and never ran, though.
  4. You can look at the recommendations here. You can head over to Twitter and find the MAs' accounts there, which can be a great way to get a feel for what they're like. But to be honest, you'll probably have a good time no matter who you see. I've only ever had one experience there that wasn't great, and that was with someone who's no longer there so it won't be an issue for you.
  5. That's the same logic which causes people to believe that watching porn makes you a rapist. The science, on the other hand, shows clearly that watching porn makes people *less* likely to commit rapes or sexual assaults. And how well has that worked for any other sexual urges of which the moral guardians of the day disapproved? The problem with this debate is that it's all about the revulsion people feel when discussing it, which means that any useful evidence about what may lessen the harm caused to society tends to get discarded. And so it continues, and nothing ever changes.
  6. OK, I'm coming rather late to this thread (but Katie, looks like your bump worked :) ). I believe automated tools to detect duplicate accounts exist, but they also seem possible to work around, as other folks have said. Bear in mind that the mods really don't have time to read everything on the board, and they rely a lot on the community to help out by reporting stuff that needs attention - it's why every post has that "Report post" link at the top. Feel free to use it! On the topic of shilling... yes it happens, either with providers and 'managers' creating fake accounts or genuine clients writing glowing reviews in return for kickbacks. Some of this is unavoidable. But if people think that a recommendation isn't legit for some reason... reporting it is the right thing to do. Just remember to say *why* you think it's not a legitimate review, and bear in mind that we all started out as newbies at some point so the fact that someone doesn't have a lot of posts is not - on its own - proof of anything much. I've asked Cerbmod about this in the past. We lost it when the board cut over to the new software last year. Bear in mind that the folks running things around here have a lot on their plates... but they do respond to what we have to say, and if a few people PM Cerbmod and ask for this it'll probably move up the list.
  7. That seems like a serious lowballing of the risk to me. I'd be interested to know where you got that information. The CDC calls it at somewhat more than an order of magnitude higher - see https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/risk/estimates/riskbehaviors.html Yes, that's something I forgot to mention yesterday... HIV is a very fragile thing and it dies rapidly if it gets too hot or cold, or dries out, or the pH of its environment isn't right. This isn't like the common cold virus, which can last for days on a doorknob. To address something directly relevant to this thread, the CDC page above rates the risk of HIV transmission through sharing sex toys (which is what we're talking about here) as 'negligible'. Wrong. Direct contact between bodily fluids is required for the virus to be transferred; direct access to the bloodstream is not.
  8. Take care, Luxe! We'll miss you... but good luck with whatever you're moving on to!
  9. Posting just to annoy everyone else who thought they were getting the last word :) Yeah, what they said. I wouldn't worry about this, provided the condom didn't break. One would hope that toys would be thoroughly cleaned in between clients, too.
  10. Who have you been in touch with? The cerbmod and Mod_Cat accounts are probably the right ones, these days... Mod is the old mod's account and I don't think he's involved on a day-to-day basis any more.
  11. I'm pretty sure nobody's doing this by hand. The mods have a million and one better things to do. There are a few things that are done by hand (e.g. 'Verified Independent' for providers) but the 'new/general/senior/elite/whatever member' isn't one of them. I suspect what's going on is that there used to be an automated process for this, and it has stopped working for some reason and now everyone's stuck where they were when it stopped. Maybe the mods will fix it, maybe they won't... but please bear in mind that it's purely cosmetic and only ever reflected how long you'd been on the board and your post count. I don't think anyone's making any judgements about people based on it.
  12. There's no wave of change here. This board has always been a positive environment, there have always been other boards where you can trash providers if you like, and people have always complained about not being able to do it here. Of course, if you're looking at negative reviews, you'll need to figure out the difference between the ones where someone genuinely had a bad experience through no fault of his own, and the ones where someone had a bad experience because he deserved to (e.g. by pushing a provider's boundaries), and the ones where someone's pissed off because he wanted services that the provider doesn't provide/didn't get a discount, and the ones where someone else in the business is trying to destroy a rival's business. Exactly how to tell the difference between all of those is left as an exercise for the reader.
  13. I can't see that it would do any harm, provided it doesn't make you complacent. An additional layer of defenses against this stuff sounds like a good thing to me.
  14. No... Lyla was sold last year and is now run by the folks behind LeoList and VIPFavors.
  15. Brass Club or CMJ's downtown location are both close enough to walk (although perhaps not the most pleasant walk at this time of year). I think there may be one or two indies in the Market itself, but I'm not sure who, unfortunately.
  16. Sorry to hear about your Mom, RG. Hope she has a peaceful and dignified exit...
  17. I don't know of anyone who's very close. But if you jump on a bus to downtown then it shouldn't take you too long to get to Brass and CMJ.
  18. Two friends who are paid companions, I take it? As a minimum, you'd have to pay them both for their time for the week, as well as taking care of all expenses (including travel). I'd suggest that you also have conversations about what the expectations would be while you're away - would you want both of them to be with you at all times? Or just some of the time? Would they have their own rooms, or would you expect them to share yours? And what sort of activities do you plan during the week? Some people may be fine with a week lounging by the pool, but others would get bored...
  19. So... someone tried to do perform a sex act on you that you didn't want. You told them to stop. They carried on trying anyway. That's pretty much a textbook description of a sexual assault, isn't it? The fact that you don't feel too bad about it and it didn't have too much effect on you is a good thing, but it doesn't change what it is.
  20. The question is not whether it's acceptable. The question is what to do about it. But if you don't wish to discuss it, that's fine too.
  21. I'm not really sure what to think about this. My initial reaction was probably the same as everyone else's where paedophilia is concerned, but... given that some people are just wired that way, are we not better off with them getting their rocks off using a doll rather than a real kid (or porn that was made with real kids)? Revolting though it may be, these things might actually have some use in harm-reduction. Reading the article really reminded me of the "people who watch porn become rapists" moral panic which we still get, but which has been long since debunked by the evidence...
  22. Thanks, Cato! Same to you, and everyone else here!
  23. I'm inclined to agree. One thing that has come out of this thread is that for a provider to give an 'exact' age (by which I mean a number, not her real age) opens up the possibility of people noting when she updates it, or noting that she doesn't... none of which is good. But something like "late 20s" is plenty good enough for most potential clients to make a yes/no decision if the age is important to them, gives a bit more wiggle-room and plausible deniability if it's not quite accurate, and doesn't have to be updated every year. There do seem to be quite a few providers around who take this approach.
  24. If you're going to report fake pics, please also provide the original source for proof :) Who's the very reputable SP based in Alberta?
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