news story / By Ryan Burns

Prostitution.com

The world’s oldest profession embraces its newest technology

(Dec. 18, 2008)  When Eureka police arrested two prostitutes earlier this month, it didn’t require much undercover work. “We just called the cell phone number, set up a meeting location and showed up,” Lt. Murl Harpham recalled, adding that the EPD has done this before. “We have a conversation [with the prostitutes] about what they’re gonna do. It has to be a sex act, and there has to be furtherance, which basically means they show up. And at that point it satisfies [the criteria for] a crime.”

And where do they get prostitutes’ cell numbers?

GALLERY >

“Craigslist,” Harpham said.

Even if you’ve never browsed the ads in the “erotic services” section of Craigslist.org, you can probably guess what’s being sold there. “I’m here to please you,” reads one. “I will fulfill all your passionate fantasies while providing the ultimate satisfaction!!” That particular ad was posted by a woman calling herself Honey who suggests, “Be Sure To Ask About My 2girl Special With Caramel.” (Is that the other woman or a tasty topping?)

Most people who visit the free classifieds site use it to job hunt, find roommates or sell stuff like concert tickets, pickup trucks and yard work. But in recent years it has become the forum of choice for lonely Web-surfers looking to hook up. (And I don’t mean dating, though that happens through Craigslist, too.) Sex is for sale on one of the Net’s most popular sites. And while it’s not especially surprising that ladies of the night would trade cold street corners and Daisy Dukes for cell phones and the World Wide Web, it is rather remarkable to find their services offered so openly in the same venue used to hawk outboard motors, baby strollers and livestock.

A wave of public indignation has prompted Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster to take action. According to a message posted on the site, the erotic services section itself was created to placate users who were upset at finding ads for sensual massage, adult web cams, nude housecleaning and the like mixed into the regular personals and services categories. But confining the ads to their own section hasn’t stopped the complaints, nor have Buckmaster’s protestations that the incidence of crime on Craigslist is actually exceedingly low and that newspapers, alternative weeklies and the yellow pages have featured escort and sensual massage ads for decades.

Like those other mediums, Craigslist has fine print banning ads for illegal activities. Plus, the site allows its users to flag inappropriate ads and requires phone numbers for ads placed under erotic services. But enforcement has proved difficult. Sensual massages are not illegal, per se, nor are sleazy soft-core photos, double-D breasts or, to quote one ad, “baby blue eyes that scream I wanna grind!!!” Last month Buckmaster announced “sweeping new measures” to combat illicit activities. In a first for nonprofit Craigslist, they’ve begun charging a small fee for erotic service ads and requiring credit card authorization. (The revenues are then donated to charity.) The move was part of an agreement between Buckmaster and attorneys general in 42 states. In a joint statement, Buckmaster said, “We are unequivocally committed to stamping out misuse of the site.”

Craigslist bloggers didn’t much care for the new measures, saying they infringe on their privacy and calling for a boycott of the site. Erotic service providers, meanwhile, have figured out ways to bypass the new hurdles with software trickery. In the days following the EPD bust, Humboldt County’s branch of Craigslist had more than 100 listings under erotic services, though most seem to be generated by just a handful of women. (And not all, ahem, comers are welcome — a woman dubbed Cheyenne, for example, responds only to “clean white gentlemen.”)

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