Posts made by ben351500

@lololulu19 Thanks!

@frostycab Thank you!

Several vids have been uploaded of guys on cam-for-pay sites who are using some sort of estim (?) or vibrating (?) thing up their asses, that have some sort of antenna sticking out. I assume it's so that customers can operate the simulator.

It looks like they have a REALLY good time and I would love to try one of these toys, but I don't know what they are called, so I don't know where to look to get one.

Can anyone offer any info? Have you tried it? What did you think?

An American in Sri Lanka here. I don't speak Sinhala (live in a Tamil-speaking area) but I've heard that the Sinhala slang for this translates into "cutting stone." Any Sinhalese here who can confirm?

@john32123666 Thanks mucho! I've been avoiding downloading these torrents as I had no idea what they were. But it seems there is no reason not to.

Hi everyone. Curious non-techie here. I've been seeing more and more uploads using HVEC. What is HVEC? Is there an advantage to it?

Thanks for any insight!

This seems to be happening in the last 24 hours or so. It's a glitch-thingy (a technical term I'm sure); undoubtedly the staff is aware of the problem and will find a solution. Have both faith and patience.

I think there’s a generational component to this as well. I’m in my 50s and coming out as gay back then seems to have a different meaning than coming out does to the younger generation. Back then, being out publicly, especially during the onslaught of AIDS in the 1980s was a personal, political, and social declaration. With todays’ vastly different attitudes about sexuality (at least in the West) coming out is no longer a declaration of liberation/rebellion against mainstream society. Non-straightness has become part of mainstream society.

Furthermore, the younger generation has very different way of looking at and categorizing sex and sexuality. There have been numerous studies (no, I’m not going to look them up and site them) showing that among teenagers and 20-somethings there is a lot of attitude fluidity and that playing around with someone of the same gender is no big deal. Even “straight” behavior has been undergoing a lot of change, as young straight guys seem to be less and less worried about what is traditionally masculine. True, not all straight guys, young or older, ascribe to these new norms, but acceptance of these new norms is spreading. Seems to me that all this acceptance can only be a good thing.

As far as self-identifying as straight, I’ve heard a lot of different definitions. Some guys who are straight are simply not excited my other men. Some can have sex with other guys, but their romantic attachments are towards women.

Given this situation, it’s no surprise that some straight guys have gay sex for money, and that the reasons cover the whole spectrum described in previous replies, particularly among young men who don't attach much stigma to the idea.

Lastly, I think part of it is an anti-bisexual bias that is common among both straight and gay people. Many see bisexual men (in particular) as either wishy-washy or untrustworthy or both. Somehow it’s cool for a straight guy to fool around with men, but bi-guys are often treated with suspicion. If I were a bi-man in the porn industry, given the high status of a straight-guy-going-gay, I would certainly go for the moolah and status and claim to be straight. Why not? In terms of the actual work involved, it’s all the same; what is different is the perception of the potential viewer/customer.

At any rate, what does it matter how a porn actor chooses to portray himself? Porn isn’t real anyway - it’s pure fantasy. In reality, we know next to nothing about the actors’ lives off the set. And in the real world a person can label themselves - or not - however they choose to, and by whatever definition the choose to apply to themselves. Who are we to tell them what they can or can’t call themselves, especially when we know nothing about them?

OK, this reply went on way longer than intended!

I guess they did it VH1 style because so many people are familiar with the concept and the style.

I downloaded one. Didn't care for it. Sometimes the text was incredibly small, sometimes the background color of the popup box made reading the text difficult, and oft times the text is so damn small you can barely read it (Alas for us with less than perfect eyesight!) and sometimes the popup vanishes so quickly you have to rewind and freeze it, so as to read the thing. Occasionally the info provided was interesting, but most of the time not.

Not a fan, won't download anymore of these popup videos.

Been seeing older stuff re-issued as "pop up." Is it sort of like the old VH1 "Pop Up Video" music video shows? Or is this just a ploy to get us to re-use older videos?

Bong. Can't rolla tight joint to save my life.

I agree with Bearbearbear. The text-only version is the easiest to read, particularly at a glance. The icons created are a lot of fun, but still… As I have said before:

Less is more

That would be better than the ridiculous and offensive caricatures, especially the Asian and Middle Eastern ones.

I agree; let's try to stay away from racial or cultural caricatures.

As a map lover, I would say go for some sort of map, but remember that these icons are going to be small, so the more details you add the more cluttered the icon will be. I would again like to stress the maxim:

Less is more.

There's no need to fancy stuff up when it is neither necessary nor functional.

I agree. It's a big problem. I would add that it's a problem generally, not just regarding fan sites. I can only think of three imperfect solutions, none of which actually solve the problem.

1. Leave a comment politely pointing out the problems and asking the uploader to fix them. Nine times out of ten the uploader won't respond in any way, but it flags the problem for other potential downloaders to see.

2. Report the torrent to staff. Not sure what they can do (they're all-volunteer, and way overworked).

3. Don't download the torrent. I think that the main reason lazy uploaders continue their bad habits is because they are rewarded whether they do a good job or not; people still download those torrents regardless and the uploaders  get the seed points. So in a way. the fault largely lies with all the people who reward the bad behavior by uploading such torrents. If no one downloaded a lazy torrent, then perhaps the uploader would be motivated to do a proper job.

Non of these are particularly satifying, but relly, what else can we do?

Welcome to the site. Your issues are really common ones for all new members. In the Forum, go to the Guide section (you'll have to scroll down past the foreign language sections). In the Guide you will see all sorts of answers to your questions. It's worth exploring and learning before you make any mistakes.

I like the three new toggles on the right side of the Search page that allows some customization of the Search view. A definite step in the right direction!

@Joker:

@ben351500:

1. On the search page the “number of files” is not grammatically correct when there is only one file. It reads: “1 Files.” Should be, of course, “1 File.” This has no effect on functionality, but I thought I’d mention. It.

i can not find it.. you talk about search or the (pic)browser?

Never mind about this. I just looked it up on the new version, and there doesn't seem to be a problem. I guess I was thinking about the old layout. Just to be clear though, I was referring to Search.

It seems that the majority of people don't like the thumbnails. While I personally like the feature, it's not vitally important to me, and getting rid of them would help solve the the problem of how few entries are visible on the screen at one time. I like the idea of having an option of which type of view we can have.

Are you currently in Brazil? If so please be very careful and stay safe.

Oops - sorry. One more quick comment.

Would it be possible to create a South Asian category? The term encompasses folks from the subcontinent - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives as well as self-identified overseas (ie: Desi) community members. I bring this up because in terms of looks, body types, etc. South Asians are distinct from those further east and I think (perhaps incorrectly) when most people think of Asia they first think about China, Japan, etc.

Yes, yes, the subcontinent is part of Asia. But i would point out that so too is the much of Middle East, and we have a separate category for that.

Thanks.

Keeping in mind that these icons will be small, the “less is more” trope is even more important. I really liked the “Bareback” icon you designed; it’s simple, to the point, and easy to see at a glance. Different colors ought to be used for each, but there’s no need to link any color with a specific category. I mean, I get maybe using black for BDSM (or maybe Fetish) but what is the color of Themed Movies or Oral Sex?

I do think some of the more vague and/or severely underused categories should be merged eventually. Some of the examples already given (grey/older and mature, Homemade and Amateur, etc) are spot-on. Towards this I really like the new Fansite category - because most of those sites are pay sites, the performers are earning money, and many of them are already professionals in the wider porn industry.

I’ve always had a little difficulty with the “Anal” category. I assume most people to understand that Anal refers to fucking and does NOT include fingering, rimming, or fisting as the main event. Given that we have a Bareback category, I would like to suggest changing Anal to something along the lines of “Condoms” or “Safe Sex,” which is how I already think about the Anal designation. Let’s face it; all bareback sex IS anal sex but if we’re going to distinguish it from non-bareback fucking, what are we left with? Safe sex/fucking using condoms.

The discussion around using “White” and/or “Caucasian” is interesting given what’s going on right now, and also very delicate and tricky. Be very careful that this thread doesn’t blow up. It taps into the definitions of race and culture. To give a personal example: my mom was Mexican American but I look very WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant - it’s a term often used in the US) and culturally I grew up in mainstream American culture. I have cousins who look as “white” as me (also some who are a lot darker), but grew up/live in Mexico and are CULTURALLY Latino. But I have never thought of any of them - light or dark - as a different race from myself. For me, the difference has always been cultural. To further the example, most Argentinians look European, because the indigenous people were basically wiped out and there was little to no mixing with the remnants (as opposed to, say, Mexico or Bolivia). Are the Argentinians “white” or Latino? And Brazil - Brazilians are very different from the rest of Latin America, and many consider themselves separate. Are they Latinos?

My comments above are only my own experience. I’m not claiming to be right, or an authority, or that other people’s perspectives’ aren’t valid.

I bring this up only to remind everyone that such classifications are difficult to make in the real world and here we are trying to come up with a system that works for porn.

I personally feel that we don’t have to have a category for “white/Caucasian” and this is why: It IS TRUE, as a previous commentator pointed out, that white is the default in porn, to which I might add that this is unfortunately true outside porn as well. Generally speaking, this is a bad thing, and we should all try to examine our own outlook on such things. But the point of these icons is to help users make quick decisions about what they want to see. Good or bad (personally I think bad, but that’s only my feeling) we all know that the majority of any particular movies we download are going to feature white guys as part of the cast. And a huge chunk of movies with white cast members are going to be all white. Therefore if you want to watch two white guys fuck, it’s already very easy to find; just hit the Search button. For this same reason I would say it would be pointless to have a “Gay” category; the vast, vast majority of films on this site feature all-gay action, and for those of us who like the idea of straight guys doing gay stuff, or a little female in the mix, we can easily look that category up.

Again, let me emphasize that in my belief, “white/Caucasian” as the default image of porn we envision is not a good thing. But I also want to point out that the icons are not meant to convey anything other than a quick-and-dirty, if imperfect, way to help downloaders zero in on what they want to see at that moment.

I do agree with updating some of the terms, changing She-Male to Trans, for example.

Just my thoughts on that topic.

Thanks, all, for wading through my ramblings. I’m looking forward to more ideas.

I’ve read this entire thread so far, so I hope to avoid any unnecessary repetition.  It seems that Joker is doing this work almost completely by himself. I can’t imagine the amount of work he’s put in so far, so I want to say to Joker:

Joker - thank you for all the great work.

I use a laptop for the site, and I always go to Search, so I can’t comment on Browse.

First, I appreciate the larger font size and color used for the upload names; my eyesight isn’t what it used to be.

I personally like having more of thumbnails to see, and in fact have looked at/downloaded some torrents that I might not have noticed before because the some of the extra thumbnails caught my eye.

Yes, it does seem redundant that you can see the thumbnails and also hoover over the title and see the same pics pop up, but what I’ve found is that while glancing down the list, a thumbnail will catch my eye, and I’ll say to myself “Hmmm… that could be interesting, but I can’t really tell.” Then I will hoover over the title to see the picture pop-up (which is usually a bit bigger) and then decide if I want to open the torrent page. Perhaps the way to get rid of this redundancy is to drop the “picture pop-up when hoovering” function, and make it so that if we hoover over a thumbnail it will pop-up individually? I hope I explained that clearly. Not sure if it’s feasible with your software, but it’s an idea.

One person made a comment that having the thumbnails displayed as they are make it easier and more obvious when you have a lazy uploader who posts no pics, or one pic that has nothing to do with the torrent. This is one of my pet peeves. I see this new “obviousness” as an indirect way to shame such uploaders, and pressure them into following the upload rules and doing a better job.

I have to second what some previous commentators have said about descriptions and the mini-scroll bar. Accidentally scrolling those, instead of the page as a whole, seems to be happening a lot, and is frustrating. I would suggest getting rid of those mini-scroll bars and if a description is longer than the space allocated on the page, well, then cut it there; someone who is interested in the torrent can open that page and read the full description. The idea of the Search page is to offer a teaser, so that the viewer will become interested and open the torrent page. Joker, you have mentioned a toggle to make the view extended or not; this would also be a good solution.

I also find the search page bulky because I can’t see many entries in one glance. But on the other hand, I do like some of the changes that make each entry clearer and more readable. I’m not sure how to reconcile these two opposite things.

Two very minor things, and I only bring them up because I’m an editor by profession:

1. On the search page the “number of files” is not grammatically correct when there is only one file. It reads: “1 Files.” Should be, of course, “1 File.” This has no effect on functionality, but I thought I’d mention. It.

2. When finishing a report on a duplicate torrent, the last line says something along the lines of “If this is true, you will get 50 seed bonus points.” Using the word “true” implies that it’s opposite is “a lie” and that if the report is not the truth, it is a lie which then makes the reporter a liar. Might I suggest using the word “accurate” instead? There is no judgement if something is inaccurate, but there is if it is a lie. Small thing, I know, and completely unimportant, but like I said, I’m an editor…

Lastly, Joker, I want to say that I don’t hold much truck with folks who complain about how great the suffering it is to have to make one more click and angrily threaten to revert to the old layout or stop using the site entirely. A learning curve can be a little frustrating at first, especially in software (Microsoft anyone?), but it is exactly that: A LEARNING CURVE. Once people get used to it, they won’t even think about the changes anymore. So keep on making the changes that you feel will help modernize the site and make it a better place. Ignore the bitchy comments, consider all the good feedback, and carry on. You won’t be able to please everybody all the time. You’re doing great.