Phaedrus

Awesome! Thanks for doing this!

Another thing: most reputable escorts won't return calls or texts that came in any significant time ago, because of discretion; they have no idea if the person who called/texted is still in a situation where they can talk, or whether it might result in disaster. So they'll play it safe. If you have no such issues and someone can call/text you anytime, then say so in your message.

I don't think avoiding DATY makes a lot of sense. If you're that worried about Covid, then spending a significant length of time in close proximity to someone outside your own household is probably a bad thing to be doing in the first place, unless everyone wears professional-grade PPE at all times.

One thing to mention is that the Canadian boards all seem to be somewhat regional. This one has generally had most activity from folks in Ottawa and the Maritimes. I think CAF used to be the most active board for the prairies, but I have no idea if it even still exists...

I'll miss him like hell. He was a great guy. And for those of you who don't know what you missed... his advice, delivered in his own inimitable style, lives on.

I've just realized I've never posted on this thread. I thought I had, but maybe that was a previous one. Anyways, I'm at https://twitter.com/__Phaedrus__

My first thought was: you're lucky she didn't call that four or five songs. A lot of them do :) It adds up just as quickly even with touching. I haven't gone to SCs much since I discovered that MAs and escorts give you so much better value for money... and you know what it's going to cost before you start.

Something like this, all notifications should probably be off by default, which might be tricky because that's probably not the default build of the software running the site. And new notifications that get added should be off by default too. @lydiahardwood could you get someone to look at this, please?

Pretty obvious scam, by the sound of it. My bet would be that it takes you to a website where you enter some personal information, and the "give us lots of money or we tell your wife and your boss and everyone else" mail will arrive about five minutes afterwards.

With a lot of these providers, there's no point. They (or the people running the show) are watching the boards and anywhere else these things are discussed. As soon as anyone flags one of their ads as being a scam it gets pulled and replaced with another; new pics, new number, same scam.

I may be wrong, but I think that at some point there was a major board software update and all the albums that existed at that time became 'converted albums'. The others are stuff that has been created since. But there's a good chance I'm talking crap, so take that with an appropriate dose of skepticism...

Although it's probably not great to do that immediately after you walk in the door :) As a wise man once said, the biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

I get where you're coming from, but to some extent this is inevitable. People just don't read stuff or spend the time to figure things out, especially when they need to get their rocks off Right Now.

You really need to get suggestions from other providers on this - preferably ones who are local to wherever you are. My gut feeling is.. probably all wrong, because I have no clue what it's like to be a provider, or a woman, or BIPOC.

Thanks for kicking off the thread, Notch! I think the big problem with this is that a lot of providers will simply not be prepared to outsource their screening to a board. If someone comes along saying, "Hey, I'm verified by Lyla!", then the reply is likely to be... not to their liking, because they'll still have to provide deposits/references/whatever else. And everyone's going to be unhappy about this as a result; the client will be unhappy because their prized 'verification' is effectively worthless, and the provider will be unhappy because they've had yet another entitled person who thinks the rules about screening don't apply to them because they're special.

And from what I've seen on Twitter: I think Body Basics and Paradise/Angels are opening on Friday too. Brass is back on Monday, Too lazy to look up the posts, sorry :)

Did she have a name? And how long ago was she active?

The problem with Twitter is that nobody really knows what the rules are, or how they're enforced, if at all. Twitter claims that shadowbanning isn't a real thing and they never do it; I've never encountered anyone who believes that. I have a horrible feeling that a lot of this is driven by reports and handled by algorithms; that means that if a bunch of people report your posts, you'll be downlisted in things like search results and suggestions; and if more people report your stuff, you'll get shut down. What you're posting seems to be somewhat irrelevant as there doesn't seem to be a lot of human involvement on Twitter's end. The entire system seems to be vulnerable to a good old-fashioned dogpile, or just one person with a grudge and control of a few bot accounts.

I think what he was trying to say was that there's nothing enshrined in law. But if so, it was rather unfortunately phrased...

I guess to some extent this depends on what you're looking for :) In the context of this forum, what I'd want is a stable, simple and completely anonymous way to transfer money - and that makes volatility a Bad Thing. Having to do everything in a rush diminishes the ease of use. You can get a lot more cash in a virtual wallet than a real one :) But yes, it's entirely possible that things have moved on a bit since I last looked at this - it's been a while. You can limit your exposure, for sure. But right now the whole scene is new enough that nobody has all that much of a reputation. IIRC MtGox was what a lot of people used for precisely these reasons... until it died. I see no reason why history can't repeat itself. True. It's no more illegitimate than cash. Not sure if I'm on board with that last comment, though... legitimate exchanges may well have no clue who's using their services, or why - and it's not clear to me how they'd find out, given that anonymity is one of the reasons for using cryptocurrencies. But I guess this is more of an issue for people who want to keep cryptocurrencies long term or use them as an investment, rather than just as a way to move cash around.

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.