Mike Alvear's Urge & Merge

I’ll never forget the day my friends told me about craigslist.com. I had something to sell, oh yeah, it was a house, and they told me to slap it up on craigslist. I had no idea what they were talking about. I thought Craig was some doughy dude who lived in my neighborhood and sat out on his porch every morning to smoke cigarettes in dirty boxers. But they swore, they swore to me, that my house would sell in an instant on craigslist.
They lied. My house did not sell on craigslist.com. But still the event serves as a portal of some kind, because with two clicks I’d wandered into the unseemly underside of craigslist.com, and yes, I’m talking about the “casual encounters” section, or, more particular, the women-seeking-men and the men-seeking-men departments.

What do you see on craigslist? There are untold numbers of photos of buttocks offered by people as examples of their best assets, while other people, mostly female, seem to be prioritizing other qualities about themselves, like their affinity for gazing at sunsets and such. I remember perusing at my own peril through the women-seeking-men section, and came across an entry from a lady in her late 40s who was seeking someone with which, among other things, she could hold hands with while walking on the beach. The photograph she supplied was of her own reflection as she snapped one off while looking in the mirror, an excited expression on her face that was evident even through the blare of the flashbulb. She held the camera at shoulder level, to facilitate a better vantage of the whole package.

I would not recommend this as a way to meet men, because if I were a serial killer I would have immediately clicked onto her response with the handle of my sharpened ax.

In fact, if I was a sicko of any kind I would immediately make a comfortable cushy home for myself on craigslist.com. Take the fact that craigslist is recently suspected to have been the medium through which a 26-year-old girl was murdered this April, shot to death by a man who answered her ad for “personal services.” Some say she was a whore, others say she was a masseuse who had put her past behind her. Others say she was an energetic, goofy girl. For those of you who think prostitutes deserve to die like dogs, there is also the case of 24-year-old Katherine Olson, who was a minister’s daughter, and who was shot by a 19-year-old novice serial killer while answering the fake ad he’d placed on craigslist for a babysitter.

Also this April, two Georgia men were arrested for using craigslist.com to prostitute a minor, according to federal authorities. David Nahmias, U.S. Attorney in Atlanta, said of the indictment, “The use of internet Web sites like ‘Craigslist’ to facilitate the sexual exploitation of minors is a growing problem. Fortunately, the efforts of federal and local law enforcement agencies in this case have freed one young woman from the emotional, psychological and physical harm caused by sex trafficking.”

Numerous news reports – including one on CNN last year and one in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution this month – have cited craigslist as a facilitator of child prostitution. The AJC reported that as recently as February, 176 girls were prostituted for sex on the popular Web-based advertising service, according to a study by a child advocacy group. That’s up from 100 girls advertised in November.

Last November, craigslist pledged to better monitor its “erotic services” page, where the hardly veiled prostitution ads appear, but as of today prostitution still thrives on the website. In March a sheriff in Illinois finally sued craigslist for knowingly facilitating prostitution, citing that child-sex traffickers had used it to victimize 12-year-old girls. The case is still pending, as is any effort, it seems to me, on the part of craigslist to protect its patrons.

Regarding the woman in her late 40s seeking companionship. I sincerely doubt she got the responses she was looking for, while at the same time sincerely hoping she did. I hope she’s walking on the beach right now, the sand between her bare toes, her fingers entwined with those of someone who knocked on her door minutes after she posted her listing. I hope it answered all her problems, because when I recall her face I see someone seeking just that — the answer to something — and her excited smile makes me think she thought she found the way to get it. Still, though, I can’t shake the belief that she had all these lovely sites to choose from, but she chose craigslist, and in the end she walked away with nothing but a picture of herself standing in front of a mirror.

This entry was posted Apr. 23rd, 2009 at 8:32 pm. It was tagged craig's list, craigslist, craigslist serial killer, craigslist.com, erotic services page. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.