On Wed. May 13, Craigslist announced that it will shut down its erotic services section, marking the end of an era. With the negative publicity generated by the Craigslist Killer and a stampede of outraged attorney generals calling for its demise, Craigslist Erotic Services will be no more. This is a requiem. And a plea for a rational discourse about sex work.
I know it seems strange to eulogize what was basically an online red light district, but in my experience there was a brief moment when Craigslist Erotic Services transformed both the meaning and the means of being a sex worker. There one could open a virtual lemonade stand which operated according to self-imposed rules and regulations. Anonymity was almost guaranteed. Craigslist Erotic Services made sex work accessible to people who would never have considered doing it otherwise. I was one of those people.
It was the autumn of 2003. I'd come back to New York after an extended period away with the realization that yet again, I was flat broke. A struggling writer and artist, I'd been earning a living as a licensed massage therapist. I'd used Craigslist once before to find a subletter for my Brooklyn apartment. That had worked out incredibly well, so I decided to advertise my massage business there (in the therapeutic services section). It seemed ideal.
I confess that at that time, I was pretty disappointed with my love life. Like many New York females in their 30s, I still hadn't found Mr. Right. I was becoming increasingly frustrated at his failure to manifest. Love was desired, but seemed elusive. In the meantime, I dated. Oh boy, did I date. I was a professional dater and a longtime veteran of internet dating. I was on JDate when people found it eccentric. And I was having a lot of crappy experiences with men of dubious integrity. It had occurred to me more than once that I might as well be getting paid.
Thrown into this mix of loneliness and financial need was aggravation, aggravation that when I did begin advertising my massage business in the therapeutic services section of Craigslist, all anyone seemed to want was sex. I was indignant. I considered myself a healer. I had gone to massage school. I had studied a variety of healing modalities and been praised by my clients as being extraordinarily gifted. I could cure sciatica and alleviate anxiety. I could soothe PMS and increase cervical mobility. I just wanted a few good regular clients. I had never blended my massage work with anything remotely sexual.
Nor had I ever so much as glanced at the erotic services section of Craigslist. But one day it came to my attention that many "providers" who should have been posting in the erotic services section were posting in the therapeutic section. I wrote to Craig Newmark. He graciously responded. He assured me that Craigslist would be more vigilant in removing misplaced ads. But for some reason, after that, I kept looking at the erotic services section. Something had snapped. I never would have expected it, but reading the ads had begun to turn me on.
I just want to pause here (in part because I can already hear the voices of my detractors and also because I don't want to appear insensitive to any human suffering). I recognize that I'm a privileged, educated woman who could have done many things for a living, but opted to do sex work largely because it was exciting to me. I recognize that there are women who do it reluctantly and out of necessity. I recognize that there are also women who are forced into doing it. I recognize that violence against sex workers and indeed against all women is a real threat and a dark shame. However, this piece is not about that; this is about me.
And what happened to me during the fall of 2003 was that boundaries I had heretofore firmly established and carefully guarded were becoming blurred. The combination of financial need, dissatisfaction with my love life, sexual frustration and some age-old fantasy that was stirred up in me from God-only-knows-where was taking over.
My world was changing.
The first time I had sex with a client it was entirely unpremeditated. A runner training for the New York Marathon, he'd come for what I thought would be a therapeutic massage. I was encouraged when he'd contacted me. I already had a number of regular clients who were distance runners and I found them to be very reliable -- the best of my clients.
He was trim, nice looking, clean-cut, but seemed a little nervous as I led him into my apartment. I tried to crack a couple jokes to set him at ease, then instructed him to disrobe and get onto the massage table -- underneath the towel, face down. The usual massage therapist schpeil. I left the room.
When I returned he was in position, so I began to massage him. I moved the towel out of the way and tucked it in slightly to cover his buttocks. Then I honed in on his legs since, from my experience with runners, legs are usually the trouble spot. His were long, lean, well-muscled.
But instead of relaxing, he continued to seem uncomfortable, squirming a little on the table, shifting his head in the face cradle.
"Do you not like the face cradle?" I asked.
"No, I want you to massage my whole body."
Perhaps I had been spending too much time on his legs. I began to massage his back and then his arms. But when I started to work on his hands, he suddenly grabbed mine and clasped them in his.
Now, it's not like anything like this had never happened to me before, but ordinarily I would have quickly diffused the situation. What made it different this time was that a little jolt of sexual arousal had seized and overwhelmed me. Maybe I had been thinking about it too much, maybe I had actually already unconsciously resolved that I would do it, but the next thing I knew, I was on the table, naked and he was massaging me.
When it was time for him to leave, he asked me how much he owed me. Now it was my turn to feel uncomfortable. I knew that I had given him extra, a lot extra (although we didn't have intercourse) and I wanted extra. But I was too ashamed to ask for it.
"Well, I usually charge $80, but you can tip me whatever you want."
He gave me $160 and at that moment, I realized I had gone down a path I would never be able to retrace. It had been easy, pleasurable even. I would move on from there to greater and greener pastures.
I read the erotic services section almost everyday, until I found an ad I wanted to answer, an ad for an ongoing arrangement. He was offering a very tidy sum: $3000/month for weekly meetings. I figured I had nothing to lose so I answered it, almost expecting to not hear back. When I did, I was floored. We had an email exchange over the course of the next few days. He wrote that although he was for the most part happily married, his relationship lacked "passion" and "eroticism." His writing was thoughtful and sincere. I became even more intrigued.
I sent him a series of incrementally more revealing photos with the head cropped off -- a virtual strip tease. When he asked to see my face, I told him that I'd have to talk to him on the phone first. He called from a real number, his work phone. The conversation reminded me of conversations I'd had during my internet dating days: we talked about ourselves, our hobbies. I told him about some of my art and writing projects.
We agreed that we would meet in public first and if I felt comfortable, I would give him a therapeutic massage. But since, at that time, my neighborhood hadn't been over run with cafés and condos, there really was nowhere to go. Through our communication, I'd grown comfortable enough with him to invite him over.
I fretted all day and changed my outfit several times in anticipation of his arrival. When I opened the door, he had a jacket draped over his arm and bemused expression on his face. He was in his mid-30s, very conservative looking, wearing a pin-striped oxford shirt and tidy, pleated khaki trousers.
At first I couldn't tell if he thought I was more or less beautiful than he'd imagined I'd be. But as we settled in to what would become our customary positions in my living room, I knew from the intensity of his gaze that I had him "hooked."
In a sense, I was "hooked" too. Not by him. He was, although pleasant looking and mild-mannered, a little bit dull. But I loved playing the seductress, I loved feeling him in my power. Exciting him excited me. The fantasy spurred me on.
We talked for a fairly long time and by the time we got down to the nitty gritty, I was very aroused. He gave me a huge orgasm, then a huge wad of bills. When he left, I was incredulous at my good fortune. "This is the best fucking job I ever had," I thought to myself.
Alan came to see me once or twice a week for a couple of months and then without warning stopped calling. I never knew why he'd lost interest, but I found myself a little distressed: not only from the loss of income I'd come to rely on, but also, whether or not I'd admit it to myself, I'd become a little attached. A friend who was a confidante at that time told me, "Dude's a john, not your boyfriend."
After that, I saw a few more men for both erotic massage and GFEs (girlfriend experiences). They were mostly decent chaps, the kind of guys I might have known in real life, the kind of guys I might have gone to college with. Well, actually over scotch and conversation after a "session," I discovered that one of them did go to college with me.
Never once did I feel that I was in physical danger, although I recognized the possibility. The internet afforded me the ability to screen potential clients. For every ad I posted, I usually received a hundred or so responses. I could be very discriminating, so most of the sex was actually quite hot. I treated it as an extension of dating. And actually, most of the men I met on Craiglsist Erotic Services treated me with more decency and consideration than many of the men I had previously been dating.
I didn't hawk my wares on Craigslist Erotic Services for terribly long, less than a year all told. And while I understand that this is not every woman's experience of being a sex worker, for me at that time in my life, it was liberating in certain ways. It made me feel relaxed with my body and allowed me to be experimental with my appetites. It liberated me from a part of myself that always tied or sought to tie sex to a deep emotional connection. It gave me insight into men and male sexuality that I hadn't had before.
But one thing it never gave me was the answer to a few burning questions:
Why can't we as a society have a rational, meaningful discourse about sex work, embracing all its nuances and contradictions?
How can work which never once made me feel exploited, injure and exploit so many other women?
Why does sex work seem to raise so many people's moral hackles, when what they should be angry about are the class distinctions which never once made me feel exploited?
And finally, why do we think that something which has never gone away can be eradicated by legislation or censorship?
My life as a "Craigslist hooker" ended when I fell in love, which was what I really wanted. Now Craigslist Erotic Services is gone. The providers and clients will undoubtedly move on. Perhaps into the therapeutic services section to irritate other earnest therapeutic massage practitioners like my one-time self. Perhaps the less fortunate will move onto the street where they will face even more grave danger.
Follow Ester Amy Fischer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/esteramyfischer
Elicia Berger: Equal Opportunity Dating
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/opinion/09herbert.html?_r=1
You are telling me the girls in Nevada have it worse than these guys?
Here is a question for the women reading this article. Don't answer me, just yourselves, so you can answer honestly.
There is an old joke...
A (frugal) guy is sitting in a bar when a hookers walks up to him and says, "I'll do ANYTHING you want for $200."
He replies, "paint my house."
The reality is some (many, most?) women would much rather have sex with a guy for an hour than spend two days painting the interior and exterior of a house for $200.
Which job would you take?
How is an adult who, by their own free will, decides to sell the bodies being exploited?
How was Ester Amy Fischer exploited?
Please explain.
Legalization sounds great, but it doesn't work, in principle or in reality. Places where prostitution is legalized have higher rates of human trafficking - possibly because no one is policing a field that's now legal.
I'm so tired of hearing the happy hooker stories - it's such a wonderful and empowering life that everyone leaves it if they can...
You say the AVERAGE age the girls become prostitutes is 13. The woman in this article, for example, was in her 30's, so that would mean that there is a 2 year old girl out there just starting her streetwalking career to make that kind of math work. That's so obviously not correct.
So now, I question where you get your figures... your numbers on the rates of human trafficking etc. I answered another post below regarding this assertion.
Basically, if it's true that trafficking goes up in one of the very few places that has legalized prostitution, it's because the illegality of the activity every where else causes the legal spot, Vegas or Amsterdam for example, to act as a magnet. Also, the fact that the police may be lax in enforcing laws in those places (if that is true) does not mean that they cannot enforce them.
How many legal hookers hate their jobs? How many coal miners hate theirs?
The exploitation of legal hookers is not that different than the exploitation of any or all low education, high pay jobs in this country.
99% of the exploitation you point out is the result of the black market.
You say something very curious, though..."Legalization...doesn't work, in principle or in reality."
What do you mean by "principle"? If it worked in "reality" but not in "principle" would it be ok or not ok to legalize it?
Coal miners? Most coal miners don't want out. Better conditions and better pay yes. Out? No.
Prostitutes want out. It's a hideous, dangerous, degrading and violent job. Drug addition runs rampant in the industry for a reason. There's no comparing it to coal mining or other menial, hazardous labor. Although I know the sex industry lobby keeps trying. . .
But--I don't think that legalization will remove the issues that people have with sex work. And in my experience, just about as many men as women have a problem with prostitutes. For every woman who sees a woman who sells sex as a threat to her, um, feminine power, there is a man who resents prostitutes for their willingness to cash in on her sexual power over men. So I would not call out feminists, or women for that matter, as being the problem here.
We appear to agree on one issue though: GO PENS!!!!!!!!! :-)
"Try taking the power that a woman has over a man, and allowing him to completely nullify it with a 100 dollar bill".
I don't agree with that. Men and women seduce each other every day. It's an art. When you legalize, decriminalize, de-taboo all sex-for-money, why on earth would that suddenly make the non-paid kind so different?!
You sound to me like a person who views sex with a fabulous woman as something that if you can't get it, you pay for it?
In other words, the non-paid kind is not so different at all.
In a word: Republicans.
Try taking the power that a woman has over a man, and allowing him to completely nullify it with a 100 dollar bill, and see how many women jump up and scream a solid, violent, "NO!"
There is an old saying, "Something that good should be a little hard to get."
I am completely for legalization of prostitution, for no other reason than safety, and harm reduction. That said, there is no way that most women will allow that type of power shift, no way. Of course that's just an opinion.
So you are saying it almost like the way Comcast cable wanted to keep the NFL Network on a special sports tier with a package of many other sports channels that NO ONE cares about.
Comcast knew they if people could just get the NFL Network, they don't really care about those other channels, they would never sell them. You have to sell it as part of package deal.
So women are against, not the selling of sex, but the "unbundled" selling of a la carte sex....
Why sell the milk when you can make them buy the whole cow.
I'm for legalizing it (BTW, I'm a woman) because it's not going to go away, and in the meantime, these men (mainly married) are bringing home diseases to their wives. The sex workers (unlike the writer of this article) largely would NOT rather be doing it, but have to to get drug money, and are also getting ill, abused or, at the very least, extremely depressed. The johns walk away relatively free, if they don't catch anything, but it contributes to the lack of respect they apparently have for women in the first place. (For !@#$'s sake, if you want to try something new, ask your wife/girlfriend/significant other!)
What blows me away, is that Craig's list cooperated with police completely in this homicide, and the perpetrator was quickly found and arrested. If she had been plying her trade on the streets, he may have never been located and continued to ply his trade.
I hate the idea of legislating morality, but in this case even those that wish to control society's seamier side lost out. Common sense was usurped.
NOTHING has changed. Other than a name...goes to the Adult Services section and tell how it is in any way shape or from different than the old Erotic Services section.
This was another of those PR moves that does nothing but somehow placates everyone. And yes, that too is moronic.
Having read all the pro-prostitution comments below.
Human trafficking is most prevalent in cities and provinces when prostitution is legal. This is one reason why liberal San Fransisco came out against legalization. The authorities knew it would turn their city into a haven for slave traffickers.
I suggest some readers below look up the book "Not for Sale" or research some of the coalitions against human trafficking to find out just how exploitive and truly horrifying this industry is. Legalization is not a solution. It only makes the problem far, far worse.
Currently, even very average looking women can charge very high prices for sex, because the illegality keeps the supply below the demand. Legalization on a broad scale will bring down prices considerably.
Under such a scenario, why would a guy go to the black market?
He wouldn't, and thus unless there is some counterintuative paradox going on here....I don't see how you can make the claim you do?
Trafficking goes up where prostitution is legal because demand surges where prostitution is legal and safe (for men). Women are trafficked into these areas to meet the demand.
See most women don't want to be prostitutes. Would you?
Did human trafficking rise in Amsterdam? Or are these statistics being distorted by the flesh markets of Thailand and other such places.
According to the rules of supply and demand, the ONLY way that human trafficking for the purposes of prostitution would INCREASE in an area where much of the existing demand is now (after assuming the legalization) serviced by legal options....would be a HUGE spike in demand for prostitution in that area.
Now, that is very possible, as places known for it, Amsterdam or Nevada for example, can act as magnets, concentrating the supply is one area.
However, that is still a by-product of prostitution being illegal in 90% of the world.
Take it from a johns perspective. If you had the option of legal, STD tested prostitutes who you know were not going to just rob you, why would you go to an illegal prostitute?
The only reasons would be if you are a pedophile or if the brothels prices are too high and a pimp can sell a sex slave cheaper than a brothel can sell their workers.
Pedophiles will obviously always be a problem and need to be rooted out....right now, the black market is a crowded place for our police to sift through, when the legit girls are working legally...it leaves only the sex slaves and underages on the black market and our police can find the guilty much more readily.
The age of the average girl entering prostitution is 14, and decreasing.
Fourteen year olds don't choose this, it's chosen for them by pimps and johns. The only solution that's been proven to reduce trafficking and exploitation is the law adopted in Sweden. Decriminalize the children and women and offer them services to get out while at the same time criminalizing the Johns and Pimps who brutally exploit women and girls.
The Swedish solution works.
However, people are going to sell and buy whether it's legal or not... and all these probs will still exist annyway... So, Why not just legalize it?
The majority of the problems specific to prostitution are -directly- related to it's black market status.
As to adultery, if he is going to cheat, he is going to cheat. Prostitution or no.
Then no.
Your point about exploitation is well taken but the solution you offer is debatable. Get off your high horse, though, no one I've seen here is a PRO-exploitation.
We see a different solution, that's all.
Women now control a majority of jobs in this country. BUT where is the equality?
There are plenty of men who would like the opportunity to sell you their bodies...
Why are you denying people opportunities based on their gender? ;)
Step up to the plate, ladies.
The dynamics are completely different between a man buying sex and a woman doing so. A long time ago a guy told me that men have better imaginations and suspensions of disbelief than women do. I find reasons to believe that everyday. LOL
It SHOULD go without saying that sex isn't wrong or dirty, and although it can be private, that doesn't make it synonymous with hidden. There's no shame in selling sex and offering your body, if you do so of your own free will and for your primary benefit.
I just want people to have choices and be free. Selling sex doesn't mean that you aren't free and you aren't choosing it.