Sex worker says Craigslist changes won't stop prostitution
Catherine, a 35-year-old sex worker in San Francisco, is disgusted with U.S. lawmakers for demanding that Craigslist abolish the "erotic services" section.
Craig Newmark, Craigslist founder
She says she knew something was amiss on Monday when she attempted to post an ad, offering a massage with "a happy ending." Catherine, who posts on Craigslist about eight times a month, was prevented from posting and couldn't understand why.
"This is ridiculous," Catherine told CNET News. "It is a sign of an immature society to repress sexuality. You're going to create more violence by doing this. The more you repress or distort sexuality, the more problems you create." She described the move by the state attorneys general as "completely incompetent."
Craig Newmark, the man who founded Craigslist, said less than a month ago that there were no plans to dump the erotic-services category. But on Wednesday, the site announced that the Web classifieds publication will do away with its controversial "erotic services" section and replace it with a new "adult services" section. The biggest difference between them will be that for the first time all text and photos will be manually reviewed before they are posted in adult services.
Catherine, who has lived in the United States for 10 years, spoke with CNET News on the condition that she would remain anonymous. She asked to be identified in the article as "Catherine," after the actress, Catherine Deneuve, who played the role of a young housewife moonlighting as a prostitute in the film "Belle de Jour."
She said she can't believe that anyone would think shutting down Craigslist's erotic-services section will prevent prostitution. She said that people like her will attempt to post ads that will avoid detection by the human screeners. If that fails, she predicts that people will go to sites like Eros.com or elsewhere.
"I spoke with one of my clients," Catherine said. "The man is a bank official and he was devastated when he heard (the Craigslist) news."
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET. 
To argue that if prostitution is not legalized it will drive the problem underground, holds no water. I could say the same for legalizing meth, and cocaine.
What happened to virtuosity like in the days of Socrates? Can we not discern any longer what is good for the human condition?
Peace out...
Did you mean a message with a happy ending or a massage?
Second, I just have to laugh at the bank official who was "devastated" when he heard the news. Either an exaggeration, or he needs to take a deep breath.
I agree with the woman's opinion that repressing sexuality only causes problems, but Craig's list is a service, not a political group. When 80% of the country has never heard of the site, it's not good that they are getting publicity for being a tool for prostitution. And some groups want to hold Craig's list responsible for the actions of its users. If they are taken to court, even if they win, the cost of defending themselves wouldn't be worth standing up for people's right to use their site to break the law.
This isn't an issue of whether prostitution is moral or not. It's an issue of liability.
But I have to disagree about liability. If it was Craig's List that made this decision, then yes. But this was the government forcing them to do this. This is a simple example of a knee-jerk reaction to public opinion and nothing else.
GS
If people were harmed or attacked because they put an ad on the site offering to sell some of their furniture before a move would they ask craigslist to remove the furniture section?
The opinion of the "Sex Worker" is laughable. Listen, I don't allow illegal drugs to be sold from my home (or legal ones for that matter), but I have no illusion that that's going to stop the illegal drug trade! That chick obviously has more air in her head than the tires on a trucker's rig! It's not sexuality she's worried about repressing (sexuality is alive and well in bedrooms across the country); it's her money she doesn't want repressed.
American scientists, specially Thomas G. Travison, Ph.D., of the New England Research Institutes, reveal, in a Massachusetts Male Aging Study dated October 23, 2006 --which has been tracking behavioral and physiological traits for 1,709 men born between 1916 and 1945?that men born more recently had Testosterone levels that were surprisingly low. The 60-year-old in 2003 had about 15 percent less testosterone than the 60-year-old in 1988, according to Thomas G. Travison, Ph.D.
IWhy Would Testosterone Levels in the United States today be Substantially Lower than They Were 15 years Ago?
Relating to the study, Richard Conniff, in his article ?Testosterone under Attack? published in Men?s Health Magazine dated October 13, 2008, concludes that ?We're not likely to have good answers anytime soon. The reproductive problems of human males will remain understudied, says Dr. Michel Harman, M.D., Ph.D., an endocrinologist at the University of Arizona college of medicine and the director of the Kronos Longevity Research Institute, in part because federal research dollars are being diverted to issues like biological warfare and terrorism. "We might just wind up disappearing from the planet quietly?, he says, "because we were too busy fighting wars to figure out that our reproductive systems were going south. So which are you? And what should you do? A good doctor is the place to start, but even doctors have no certain answers, and your government has guaranteed doctors won't get answers for decades to come?.
Make it legal and tax it!
- by Lumiseon May 15, 2009 10:40 AM PDT
- See, this is why I'm hating the USA so much right now. Our stupidass Christian-infested government seems to think that making prostitution illegal is going to help. All making it illegal does is make people do it more dangerously, and increase the amount of rape. I swear, as soon as these stupidass old fogeys die, this country can MAYBE get back on track. And if not, I'm oving to Europe.
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- by Lerianis3 May 16, 2009 12:55 PM PDT
- Hey, that true whether you are talking about heterosexuality, pedosexuality or homosexuality. Making these sexualities illegal, no matter how 'little' of it you make illegal unless you are talking about forcible rape is WRONG and IDIOTIC!
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(22 Comments)We would do better to allow ALL sexualities and butt out of people's choices of sexual partners (even if they are 'young') unless they are forcing those people into sex with threats of force or physical force.
Even for pedosexuals, this is NOT usually the case. Most pedosexuals (coming from my experiences as a child) ASK the child whether they can touch them sexually and get their permission, then the child goes whining to the parents when the person does something they don't like, without EVER EVEN TRYING to tell the person to stop.