Re: pictures

Perhaps the provider(s) in question that you've been checking out have actual real-life lives outside of here and cannot risk being recognized by someone they know from the "outside".  

Also in some cases, they'll unlock those pictures if she determines that she's seen you a couple of times and is comfortable allowing you to access the photos.

I don't think it is a blocking problem.  More likely they exceeded the photo size limit, it will not upload the photo on the ad.  Hence the X, reading the fine print warnings when you post your ad can avoid the X's with no photo's.

A provider should invest in software that can re size their photo's to avoid this problem.

If you're getting the red "x", it usually means the url to the picture is incorrect. If you're trying to look from work, your place of employment may be doing web filtering, and has the site that the picture is located on blocked.