When your friends can be replaced by a dog, that doesn’t say much of how good a friend they were to you.

The fact that the Lemmmy/PieFed community (not sure what the collective term is) is still small is OK, since you have to start somewhere; it’s a catch-22, if there isn’t a community, they won’t come, and hence you don’t build a community. So starting something local so when they come looking they will have somewhere to post their interests is a start.

I hadn’t really used Reddit much until fairly recently if anything other than checking some art subreddits or find some answers. I didn’t even know there were porn on there, shows how little I explored it. There’s a bunch of terminology that is just expected users know without any sort of glossary. One of those was R4R, which I had to Google.

I like the idea behind a community (I assume that is what c/ stands for) which is focused on connecting people in specific local areas, be it to organise D&D tournaments, chess matches or as is my interest, photo meetups, exercise, cycling walking groups.

But the same applies to dating. I didn’t know those existed on Reddit either until recently, as Reddit seems ill-suited for it. But let’s say a singles event around a pub meetup, movie meetup, exercise meetup or whatever.

From looking superficially, it seems the R4R<Location> subreddits have become for hookups, which is ok if separated from the other things.

So for instance if I was to start a community for say a local calisthenics community for Sydney where I’m from, what might you call it? Is there a code word like R4R<location> that people could search for, or are there no conventions yet?

Also reminds me of the whole extreme misogynistic Incel movement that’s come out of the gamer community, detached from the real world and actual women, epitomised by people like Andrew Tate who obsess bad analogies to a 1990s sci-fi to make them sound smart.

A very bleak view, but I can see how that might be right, given what is happening in the US, seemingly spurned on by Silicon Valley social media techies pushing for some sort of neo-Nazi utopia, not always out of ideology, but pure commercial greed, because feeding conflict and controversy is good for the engagement, just as TV trashy “reality TV” shows have skewed heavily towards scripted bitchy clashes on dating, cooking, renovation and everything else which they could easily control, but purposefully select candidates to create clashes, and choose a villain who will only be presented in a bad light because some people love having someone to hate.

That always happens when things scale up, be it Facebook or Twitter. It starts out small and niche with a few geeky people who know and care about the tech, but when it becomes more popular, you get a much broader audience with broader opinions, and the anonymity provided by the service brings the assholes and bullies out, and when truly popular, even those just interested in being seen and promoting whatever they’re selling.

I’m in Australia where it is legal and regulated. Each state has slightly different laws, but generally I understand they are about the same. I haven’t studied the law around it, but things like pimping is illegal because it is exploitative, as is anything that resembles sex trafficking. Brothels are much safer than the streets and have to be registered with stringent health checks. They are not allowed to directly sell sex services, rather the sex workers work out of them and the brothel charges room rent, which amount to 50% of the fee. The girls are in charge of what happens in the room, which by law includes a health checks. There are also massage parlours and spas, which provide erotic massage with a happy ending. I occasionally attend a nearby spa place which is really nice, you have the traditional one by one introduction to the girls, then the manager comes over to ask who you are interested in, you pay them, and the girl comes over when ready and takes you downstairs to the private spa rooms. Besides the spa, there is a massage table for the happy ending if you choose. They can offer “extras” which you pay them directly for, it never involves the house. There are also escorts, the same as anywhere in the world, they come to you, good for the travelling businessman in a hotel.