Phaedrus

Yeah. This. If I was interested in online services, paying for it would be an issue. I know cryptocurrencies exist, but I'm not entirely convinced by them either. Thanks for that - I wasn't aware of it. Although that does mean the provider has to be able to take credit card payments, which isn't always the case.

But hasn't sex work *always* been like this, to some extent? And it's not just sex work. How many wannabe social influencers are there these days?

Coming a bit late to this, but there's three major issues for me. The first is the volatility of the currency. IMO it's still too high for BTC to be really useful. It's very hard to set meaningful rates in BTC right now. Using BTC to transfer a fixed amount of some other currency is... viable, provided you can agree the amount to transfer and then get it done quickly (before anything changes too much). The second issue is wallets - AFAIK there's no recovery mechanisms, and you MUST remember your password. Lose that, and you've lost your wallet and everything in it. The third is the fact that BTC exchanges get shut down sometimes. That may be because LE do it, or for other reasons (e.g. Mt Gox). If your exchange goes down then again, you've probably lost everything in it.

It will depend on several things, including how the current easing of restrictions goes and whether or not we start to get an increase in cases again... and whether or not that's enough for the government to walk back the opening of things. I'm sure the spas will also be watching each other and once one or two open the others may feel obliged to follow suit. And finally, just because the spas themselves re-open, that doesn't mean all the MAs will be back. They also have to make their own decisions, which will be based on their own personal circumstances.

Sorry to hear that happened to you, Tara. FWIW I think you probably did the right thing; despite the fact that he has absolutely no right to a refund, having him smash your place up would have cost you a lot more, probably... and that's not to mention the trauma of having it happen. And if he'd turned on you personally it would have been even worse. But yeah... block, blacklist, spread the word to other providers if you can, and if there's any justice no provider will ever see this asshole again.

Not really what floats my boat either. I'm pretty sure I'd end up spending more time regretting what might have been than enjoying what was available, so... I'm staying away from the online stuff.

Well, those with partners will probably be maintaining their regular grooming habits. For the rest of us... yeah, when this is over we'll all be heading to Canadian Tire for some heavy-duty scrub-removal equipment.

I get where you're coming from, but... they may not have a lot of choice. If you had a choice between seeing clients or ending up homeless because you couldn't pay the rent, what would you do? I think that most folks who are able to stop seeing clients or move to online services only have done so, but not everyone is it a situation where that's a viable option.

Go for it, if you're into that sort of thing! I don't think it'll help prevent covid-19 transmission much, though...

Actually, thinking a bit more about this... my problem with 'hobbyist' is that I think it trivializes the people we meet, and that's not a good thing. They're people, not just something you collect.

If you're going to be in close proximity to someone for any length of time, covid-19 seems to be infectious enough that it's going to be transmitted if someone has it. And with that being the case, your only realistic options are business as usual or complete abstention (or online services only). I think wearing a mask or not kissing is a complete waste of time in the context of this industry.

I'm not fond of hobbyist. Client is a good general purpose word for a person purchasing a service, which is what we're doing.

You mean, paying in advance? Or putting down a deposit? The short answer is no, there isn't any protection. And there are scams around this. But reputable providers do also do it, especially with new clients or people who have jerked them around in the past - they also have to defend themselves against scammers and no-shows. The only advice I can give you is - do your research and check out the history and reputation of the person you're thinking about seeing. If she has a well-established presence and reviews/recommendations, then you're probably OK. If she has no history at all... well, your call. And if anything feels wrong, move along.

Can I leave my house?

I have a couple of issues with this. I'm not sure that making an URL mandatory is great. Not everyone has their own website, and for those who don't... why must they then pay for ads on LL, etc? Or would you be OK with a link to an ad on another board, or another advertising service that isn't associated with you guys? That satisfies the requirement above, but I suspect it's probably not what you're trying to achieve. And in any case... the idea that an ad has to link to another ad seems kinda contradictory; an ad should be self-contained :) Why is a phone number required? This will probably be a deal-breaker for quite a few independent providers who prefer initial contact and screening to be done by email, and don't hand out their number to anyone until they have a confirmed appointment. You've broken their screening model with this requirement, and that will probably just drive them away. That's... OK, but I'm not sure that it's great to insist that ads for online services *must* be there. Many providers usually/always post in just one forum, and people who know where they're based will look for them there. I see no particular reason to effectively ban them from advertising in their usual spot (which is what this does), especially given how tough things are for them right now. Could you allow both?

There was someone on Twitter a while back who retired and then posted lengthy replies to some of the reviews she'd had on... TER, I think it was. They were *very* funny, because she obviously remembered some of the encounters that guys had written about and what had gone down...

Also: https://twitter.com/HipsterDreamGrl/status/1243602033858371584 Can't vouch for its accuracy, but sounds promising.

Yes... could have been a lot more interesting if we hadn't resurrected Lyla when C36 came in! Still, I wonder if anyone in the government checked out cerb.ca to see if they could use it as a redirect to their main website or something. I'd have loved to be a fly on the wall when that happened...

...and I predict it'll be getting a lot of attention. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-income-supports-covid19-1.5509247 I'm just wondering what's going to happen when a lot of people start visiting http://www.cerb.ca. Could be... interesting.

Why did you create a new one? You also have https://twitter.com/LylaForums. Might be an idea to delete whichever account you don't need, unless you want to keep one as a backup in case of Twitter arbitrarily banning you - they're not all that SW-friendly at times.

Very wise. A lot of people are going to get very short of cash in the near future, and vacation credits won't put food on the table and keep a roof over your head. And a lot of travel companies are likely to bite the dust if they don't get government bailouts (and some will anyway), so there's no guarantee that the credit would ever be honoured.

I'm just glad I got away (and home again) this winter before everything went to shit. Pure dumb luck, but I'm grateful for it.

Adam Smith's Invisible Hand will continue to guide the market, as always. And if you don't like the results, there's always Adam Smith's Invisible Hand-job.

There's no contradiction here. Covid-19 mortality rate is around 2%, from what we've seen so far. The population of the US is currently 327m people. A little elementary calculation gives us an expected total of 6.5m deaths in the US alone, if everyone gets exposed eventually. That's millions of deaths, as the health specialist said. And 98% of people will recover, as the news told you. And I'm not going to get into the incredibly stupid conspiracy theories that people are throwing around. That's a complete waste of time. Except for the one about drinking bleach being a cure for Covid-19... I'm all for conspiracy theorists drinking bleach. We could use a little more chlorine in the gene pool.

No... but this is why I take my vacations in the winter :)