erotic services

I received this e-mail today from Gene who is a realtor if you couldn’t tell by the title…

In my opinion, anything free will inevitably be misused as in the case of underage prostitution, scams and all that I read about here.

I therefore question a few less headline evoking issues. Why has it been that “for profit” enterprises selling various goods and services, including those of an erotic nature, are allowed to post for free
on CL (even the illegal ones) yet realtors must pay to post a rental listing? Are we considered as being vendors of our services in the procurement of leases for the owners we represent? Surely, all the vendors who advertise for free on CL are representing their services (including erotic and illegal) or products made by themselves or another manufacturer are doing this for profit. Why are realtors services for representing their product discriminated against by having to pay a fee per posting.

Is there some “weak link” in the real estate business on CL that needed to be strengthened to prevent some illegal activity ?

I have asked the management of CL this question and have never gotten an answer of any kind.

Thanks

I’m not surprised you haven’t got an answer from craigslist Gene. They’re not very forthcoming.

Unfortunately Gene I do not have an answer for you. I can’t even begin to fathom the thought processes at craigslist.

Also from what I understand you’re better off not posting on craigslist since the odds are pretty good your ad could be hijacked by a scammer.

Anyway I’ll open it up to the readers. Do you have an answer for Gene?

Craigslist to charge for erotic services ads:

Yesterday I did an interview with Matthew B. Stannard of the San Francisco Chronicle about craigslist’s new security measures. Let’s get my media self-back patting out of the way first.

On the other end of the criticism spectrum was Trench Reynolds, a pseudonymous crime blogger who tracks Craigslist-linked crime at craigscrimelist.org.

“I still say the best way to crack down on that is to do away with the erotic services section altogether,” he said. “I think (the deal) will cut down on a lot of the erotic services ads, but I don’t think it will cut down enough to put me out of business.”

And I still stand by what I said.

Now let’s move on to a quote by craigslist’s CEO himself Jim Buckmaster…

“It raises the accountability for people posting to the category,” said Craigslist Chief Executive Officer Jim Buckmaster. “Our well-intentioned users don’t want to see illegal activity on the site, either.”

Buckmaster said the company is trying to strike a balance, keeping the erotic services section - in part to keep such ads from appearing elsewhere on Craigslist - but trying to do so responsibly, protecting free speech and preventing exploitation. Hopefully, he said, Craigslist can be a pioneer in this kind of cooperation as it has been on the Internet.

“In our humble opinion this is the way to go, and we would invite other online services to follow suit,” he said. “We all would be better off if we all voluntarily do what is necessary to curtail illegal activity on the Internet.”

I keep hearing this theory that if craigslist did away with erotic services that the ads would appear in other parts of the site. Well, if erotic services ads appear in other parts of the site won’t the users then be able to flag them? I mean that’s what Mr. Buckmaster was touting prior to the new measures. Has Mr. Buckmaster lost faith in his user base that he has so highly touted in the past? Or did he never have it to begin with and just wants the traffic that the erotic services section provides?

No sooner did I post my previous post about crauigslist big announcement did I see this post by Jim Buckmaster on craigslist’s official blog.

craigslist is taking huge steps to eliminating crime on its sites.

First off craigslist is suing 14 companies whose service and software are geared towards circumventing craigslist’s existing security measures such as needing a working phone number to place an erotic services ad.

Speaking of erotic services, those ads will now require not only credit card verification but also a small fee with 100% of that money donated to charity.

They have also entered into a new partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to help put a stop to the exploitation of children.

You can read the entire press release at the link I posted above.

Is this the end of crime on craigslist? Is this the end of craigscrimelist? Um…no.

While I applaud the efforts that craigslist is going to they still refuse to eliminate the erotic services section altogether.

While the measures they are putting in place are admirable but still can be circumvented. How many of the new ads will be placed with stolen credit cards?

This is a huge step to eliminating crime on craigslist but unfortunately it is still not enough.

Deputies arrest woman for prostitution:

31-year-old Leticia Marie Cadena was arrested in Fayetteville, NC for being a traveling craigslit hooker. Same old story there but here’s proof that everyone on the erotic services section knows what’s really going on.

Since her release, Cadena made a posting on Craigslist to warn others in her trade to avoid coming to Fayetteville, McCastle said.

But I’m sure everything else in there is legal.

I got the following e-mail from a legitimate massage therapist. You know the ones. The ones with licenses that don’t give happy endings that usually work in an actual spa and not just some place that calls itself a spa when it’s in a rundown hole in the wall in the seedy part of town. Anyway this massage therapist has a beef with craigslist…

What bugs me about all the articles about craigslist is that they don’t encourage the public to flag illegal ads! As a massage therapist, hookers on craigslist give my profession a bad name. Please start encouraging people to flag these illegal ads, if we all work together we can reduce these ads! Hell, at least it’s better than doing nothing!

Oh believe me MT, I do recommend that. However for every action there’s an equal an opposite reaction. If anyone ever comes out and publicly claims they flag ads the hookers and whoremongers start a harassment campaign.

But as long as everyone stays quiet about it I think we could theoretically get something accomplished.

If everyone reading this went to their local craigslist and started flagging just a few illegal ads in the erotic servuces section maybe we could actually get craigslist’s attention on this.

I received the following comment from someone calling themself Kali on my post about the Erotic Services Backlash…

To the vigilante posse who have taken it upon themselves to dictate how others should live their lives, I wish many curses to rain down upon your home and your loved ones. May you reap the karma that you are sowing a thousand times over, may you get into freak accidents and may you get attacked by swarms of bees, bitten by bown recluses and black widow spiders and may large trees fall up\on you crushing you to death and dismemberment

You deserve everything that the counter posse is doing to you ( glad to hear that they are fucking up Jon’ world, yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay) and much, much more..

so mote it b e, it is done.

Kali

In case you don’t remember Jon had his family threatened and his personal info posted online.

What’s a matter Kali, was it cutting in to your meth money?

Personally I don’t see it as a matter of morality. What you’re doing is illegal and people like Jon are doing exactly what craigslist suggests people do and flag the ads for obvious illegal activity. Criminals should never talking about reaping what you sow especially those in the sex trade. You’re just inviting a nasty STD on you if you don’t have one already.

I got some interesting e-mails and comments over the weekend about my stance that craigslist should eliminate it’s erotic services section. Let’s start with the long boring one from a male craigslist ‘escort’ that not only came in as an e-mail but he’s been posting his ‘challenge’ in the message board as well.

Since your blog makes it perfectly clear you can do a better job of discerning what are “legal” or “illegal” services offered in the erotic services section of craigslist, I challenge you to the following test: I will provide you with the legal statue of the state in which I work, the content of my ad, and a synopsis of what is discussed with a client before
services are delivered. Your task will be post that same information & then an explanation of how it qualifies under the state statute as illegal activity WITHOUT relying on conjecture and presumptions. Are you up to the challenge? We’ll see….

1. STATE LAW: Prostitution is performing for hire, or offering or agreeing to perform for hire where there is an exchange of value, any of the following acts: Sexual intercourse; sodomy; or manual or other bodily contact stimulation of the genitals of any person with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desires of the offender or another.

2. CRAIGSLIST AD: Interactive, Sensual, Satisfying, Massage PLUS - m4m Much-deserved, much-needed, and completely satisfying sensual massage. Former USArmy - 5′8″ husky & masculine — tattooed/hairy arms & legs — Just a real guy for your very real pleasure. Interaction Welcome.
Special Attention given to Mature Men, but all ages (18+) welcome. Older? - Fully Appreciated & Respected Bearish, Hairy or Chubby? - All body types accepted Straight/Curious? - Your Limits Completely Respected Married? - DDF, Safe, Clean & Absolutely Discreet
###-###-#### - EMAIL, TXTMSG or CALL for APPT
Available MOST WEEKDAYS after 5PM….or ANYTIME Saturdays & Sundays
INCALL: $60.00/hr; Home or Hotel Outcall: $80.00

3. UPON CLIENT ARRIVAL: There is never any discussion of sex or sexual acts of any kind for payment.

Client is asked whether he agrees to the “Terms of Service” presented in large-type which read, “This is not an offer of prostitution and no fees will ever be solicited or accepted for illegal activity. I AGREE that money exchanged in legal adult recreational services if only for time,
companionship, and general/non-therapeutic massage. I AGREE that anything else that may or may not happen is a matter of personal choice and personal preference between two or more consenting adults of legal age and is not expected or included in the services provided for fee. I AGREE that the services provided for fee do not in any way include or relate to performing for hire, or offering or agreesing to perform for hire where there is an exchange of value, any of the following acts: sexual intercourse; sodomy; or manual or other bodily contact stimulation of the genitals of any person with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desires of that person or
another.”

4. SERVICES DELIVERED: As stated in the ad….massage.

5. SESSION ENDED: Clients pays (and hopefully tips).

FROM THE ABOVE INFORMATION ONLY can you explain how anything illegal has been offered or has taken place?? If you can’t, I bet you won’t have the guts to post it on your blog. Have fun!

You’re right. I can’t say with 100% certainty whether or not your services are illegal or not without actually using your services, which I wouldn’t but that’s just my personal preference.

However if I were law enforcement in your community your ad would definitely draw my attention.

Buzzwords like Massage PLUS are a tip off. The fact that you posted the typical escort ‘this is not prostitution..blah blah blah, would lead me to believe that’s exactly what it is.Not to mention when you posted I AGREE that anything else that may or may not happen is a matter of personal choice and personal preference between two or more consenting adults of legal age and is not expected or included in the services provided for fee also leads me to believe you’re offering an illegal service. You know that argument never holds up in court right?

If your massages are so legitimate then why are they posted in the erotic services section? Do you have a professional massage license in your state? Have you ever been arrested for your ‘massages’?

The next I received as a comment on my post about Jon who was harrassed by the ‘hobbyists’ of the erotic services section for flagging ads…

So you’ve got nothing better to do than this, huh? I have no problem with you having your own religious morals. Just don’t try and force them down my throat!

If you go back and read that post you’ll notice that religion is never mentioned anywhere. It’s got nothing to do with religious morals but everything to do with prostitution being illegal. I’ll stop when one of two things happens, when prostitution is made legal in the other 49 states, or when craigslist eliminates the erotic services section.

This next one is from a repeat customer who I’ve ignored up until now. I figured since I was addressing hobbyists and escorts I might as well address a comment from the cult of craig. I received it as a comment on my post about the journalist who took out craigslist escorts on actual dates.

So you are a judge and jury and human expert?

What is the objective of this website?

You need to provide a page telling your tale,
or you ware just a whiney person, who looks
a the world and complians,,,but has NO SOLUTION,,,

what is your purpaose?

First I’d recommend that you switch to the Firefox browser. It comes with a spell checker. Secondly I thought the objective of this site was pretty obvious. It says so in the tagline, “The craigslist crime blotter“. Do you know what a crime blotter is? A lot of local newspapers in the US have a section that’s called the police blotter which mentions calls that the police have had. That’s sort of what I do except all the crimes here deal with craigslist or other classified sites. And I have three basic solutions that I’ve mentioned repeatedly that would go a long way to reducing crime on craigslist. 1. Make users have a public profile on craigslist. 2. Eliminate the erotic services section. 3. Don’t do business on craigslist.

Hell, craigslist should be paying me a consulting fee.

Sex ads on Denver Craigslist spike with Democrats’ arrival:

I got an e-mail over the weekend from a professional escort who we’ll call Mary. She pointed me in the direction of archive.org and their Wayback Machine. Now I was familiar with the Wayback Machine but I never thought to run craigslist through it until now.

Mary says that craigslist has been building their fame off the backs of hookers since almost the beginning but they don’t dare tell the public how long they’ve been doing it.

Thanks to Mary’s tip I went through the Wayback Machine and the earliest I found that craigslist had the erotic services section listed on the front page was October 29, 2002. So for most of craigslist’s life they’ve been using prostitution to attract users. If anything craigslist should give the prostitutes a cut. Also we now have a date to ‘celebrate’ the day that craigslist started dallying in child prostitution and human trafficking.

Getting back to Mary she says that craigslist has basically used the women to build their site and now they act like they have no clue of what’s going on. Mary also says that she has been harassed and stalked by craigslist users in the past and that craigslist does nothing to protect its users. She says she has posted warnings about stalkers and lost clients because of it so basically like I’ve been saying it’s the inmates who are running the asylum at craigslist. Mary finds it ironic that the stalkers get the last say since craigslist was built on the backs of hookers.

Do I think that Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster are pimps? Not in the least. Pimps at least pay their girls.

I got an e-mail yesterday from a reader by the name of Jon. He had developed a website that basically was the craigslist vigilante posse I’ve been wanting to organize. It’s goal was to flag the obvious illegal ads in the erotic services section of craigslist.

According to Jon the site was making good progress in at least one major city that has a problem with craigslist prostitution. A large number of ads for illegal services had been removed. This is exactly the kind of thing that Jim Buckmaster himself is supposedly happening on craigslist to curb illegal activity. What he doesn’t tell you is that flagging ads just leads to more criminal activity.

Somehow the denizens of the erotic services section were able to obtain Jon’s personal information and were able to use it into harassing Jon to take down his site.

Basically, they were calling and saying I needed to mind my own business and implied that things were just getting started. They also posted a bunch of CL ads with my phone number for free stuff at my house and used my email to sign me up for adult services online. I wasn’t too worried until they started calling my wife and using expletives and breathing heavy. I sent a complaint to CL, have not heard back from them. All the calls came in blocked, so I have no phone numbers or email for these people either. I’m sure CL could find out who posted the bogus ads, but I am not going to hold my breath that they will want to help me.

Of course not. That would cut into their revenue stream. craigslist says it makes no money off of it’s erotic services section but that’s just not true. The erotic services section brings in cubic assloads of traffic to the site and some of them are employers who use the site to post job ads which is where craigslist makes their money.

So I know that some craigslist employees read this site. How about helping Jon out with these creeps. If you contact me I’ll be more than happy to put you in touch with him and I’ll keep it confidential.

Like Jon, I’m not holding my breath either that they’ll get back to me.

Woman Targeted By Fake Craigslist Ad Offering Sex:
A woman by the name of Rochelle from Mill Creek, Washington had an ad placed on craigslist with her picture and cell phone number advertising “erotic services”. The thing is Rochelle did not place the ad and is not a prostitute.

Whoever posted the ad used an image of Rochelle from her MySpace.com page alongside an image of an anonymous nude woman.

Rochelle’s MySpace page is set to private so she suspects whoever did this had access to her page and cell phone number and has access to someone she knows.

And yes, this is against the law…

In 2006 Congress passed a federal cyber-stalking law, and in 2004 the Washington State Legislature passed a similar state law after a Seattle woman was stalked online by an ex-boyfriend.

Again craigslist’s anonymity practices lead to criminal practices.

As hookers move from streets to Net, cops follow:
For those of you who think that prostitutes are safer on craigslist than they are on the streets I present you this quote…

Some prostitutes believe they’re safer advertising on Web sites, but they’re not, said Julie, a former prostitute who asked that her last name not be used. When Julie began using the Internet for prostitution about two years ago, she tried to screen her customers, but responding to one led to her being raped and robbed, she said.

“People can tell you anything on the Internet and they do,” said Julie, who is 23 and became a prostitute at 17. “What better place to get a woman if you want to do something to her? I would meet these guys and no one else would see them. At least if I was on the street, other people would be around and see me get into a car or something.”

Not that craigslist cares. I think their mouthpiece has a macro button that just spits out the following…

“Craigslist is a user-moderated site, and our users flag off ads that they feel are inappropriate for the craigslist community,” Susan MacTavish Best said in a statement. “Users are really speedy about flagging off problematic ads, and we’ve found that to be the most efficient and fastest way to get such ads off the site.”

And again I say that your normal craigslist users who use it as a city wide garage sale aren’t going into the erotic services section. And the people that are sure as hell aren’t going to flag any ads.