Craigslist Removes Its Controversial Adult Section

Cyrus writes "The online classified website Craigslist has removed its controversial Adult Services portion of its website. Technology blog TechCrunch was the first to report the section had been blacked out with the word 'Censored.'"

Comments

oh darn

[ravenspear]

now all the prostitutes will post in casual encounters

Re:oh darn

[odies]

And what's wrong with prostitution anyway? In the end all girls cost money, many times much more than if you just get to the point right away. I'm in Thailand currently and it's all very casual - you go to a bar or gogo bar (not clubs), girls come to talk with you and you order them a few drinks and maybe play a round of billiard and just have good time. If you want to, you can take them to the nearest hotel or take them to your hotel with you for a night. Girls don't mind and sometimes they might even end up dating with you (happens easily as western guys are considered a huge score for a girl here).

In the end its nothing else than again some religious or "I define what people should be allowed to do!" persons trying to limit the fun people can have. If the girl herself wants to do it, there's no "victims". Hell, there are girls who love having a lot of sex and it's even better for them because they get paid for what they love. Other people really have to start living their own lives and stop thinking "I don't do this, so no one else can do it either!".

Re:oh darn

[ravenspear]

I agree completely and have nothing against prostitution, it's just that this will clog up the casual encounters section for people that aren't looking to pay money for sex. That's why it made much more sense to have a separate section for it.

Re:oh darn

[Man On Pink Corner]

Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

I have not read any evidence that a majority of prostitutes^Wfast-food workers work because they enjoy being prostitutes^Wfast-food workers. Have you?

Re:oh darn

[Anonymous Coward]

the point was, that people do all kinds of things when they are desperate for money, and they aren't illegal. so why single out prostitution as being somehow worse than the other ones? whether or not they *want* to, they are *willing* to in order to make a lot of money in a very short period of time.

Re:oh darn

[fredmosby]

When people were working in factories under horrible conditions for little pay they didn't solve the problem by making working in factories illegal, the workers unionized and the government passed minimum wage and safety laws. If we banned all the jobs that people only do for money there wouldn't be very many legal jobs.

Re:oh darn

[migla]

You're kind of right. Being able to hire people who need the money to do a shitty job is exploitation. But there's a big difference in being fucked by the exploiter figuratively and literally. Sex is intimate and can screw with you worse than the boredom and aching feet (or whatever) that flipping burgers entails. There are similarites between prostitution and other kinds of "wage slavery", but the two are generally in different leagues of fuckeduppedness.

Re:oh darn

[JWSmythe]

    Have you talked to many escorts to come to this conclusion? It really doesn't sound like it.

    Have you talked to your average worker in a fast food restaurant or big box store? Unless they're just out of high school, they're miserable.

    Stop forcing YOUR morality on others. It's a choice, both by the service provider, and by the customer. One way or another, we're all in the same business. We want something, and we give something for it. So your morality may say that you need to spend money on fancy dinners and expensive trinkets, coming to a climax where a lavish party is thrown because you put a multi-carat diamond on some poor girls finger. It's all down hill from there. Will you cheat on her? Will she divorce you and take half of what you have?

    Prostitution, under it's various names, is far more honest. You negotiate the fee for services rendered, and then you each get what you wanted. Simple. The same concerns apply in the interaction with her, or a girl you met elsewhere. Wear a condom, and keep track of your wallet.

    They made the choice to go into the industry. Their customers made the choice to get services from the industry. It's simple. I've known a few women who work in the industry, and they refuse the option of taking a "normal" job, for a fraction of the pay and losing flexibility with their life. Those of us who work in an office don't get the choice of saying "I have a headache, I don't want to work today", or "I have other things to do, pay me for Saturday night instead." None of them were forced to do it. Very few look back at a "regular" job with any sort of passion for it.

    I won't say that there aren't bad elements in the industry, but if you look at how many corporations work you'll see worse behavior. You have overworked, underpaid disgruntled people wondering if they have a job tomorrow. Will I get fired? Will the company be downsizing? Will the company fold? I've seen a lot of good hard working 9 to 5 people suddenly find themselves without an income, because they came into work, just to find that they didn't have a job any more. Maybe you're independently wealthy, and don't have to worry about such things, but for the rest of the world, we have bills to pay.

    Because of people like you, who have forced your morality on others, it's put these working women in danger. Legalization and acceptance of the industry is the only way to remove the bad elements of the industry.

Re:oh darn

[dissy]

But it's without foundation to bring up the "lots of women want to do it" argument. And "want to do it", whatever the tedious capitalist he-may-be-interned-in-a-factory-but-at-least-he's-not-dying-in-the-fields armchair philosophers will tell you, must not be confused with "is desperate for money and willing to do it because there is no viable alternative".

So instead of a situation of a desperate woman being a prostitute to pay the bills, you instead would rather that desperate woman be a prostitute to pay the bills AND be a criminal.
That's rather nice of you :/

Look, we both know the problem is desperation, and that is what needs to be solved.
Clearly neither of us have that solution, nor do the women doing this.

Why make them criminals just because they are already in a fucked up situation?
Because outlawing something does not stop it, especially when you are that desperate already.

If it was simply taxed and regulated like any other legal job, we wouldn't have any of the Other problems we get today with prostitution, and will be making the exact same dent in the desperation problem as now (read None)

Then a lot of those desperate women will not be criminals as well, and might have a better chance of improving their situation without a police record to follow them forever.

Right now it's very hard to help improve any of those peoples lives, as with a criminal record they can't easily do quite a lot of things we take for granted, such as getting a job.

Remove that one little barrier and it becomes that much easier to provide some real help.

Re:oh darn

[Man On Pink Corner]

It'll be interesting to see you justify a single assertion in that post without resorting to religious arguments, or without projecting your own personal moral hangups on the rest of humanity as a whole.

The truth is, prostitution is not a particularly dangerous job when it's kept above-board and regulated by health authorities. This move on Craigslist;s part will instead drive the trade farther underground than it already was.

Re:oh darn

[Anonymous Coward]

How about this simple argument: if person A wants to fuck person B, and person B wants to pay them to do it, who the fuck are you to tell them that they're not allowed to?

Re:oh darn

[snowgirl]

I speak from anecdotal evidence, so I know this does not apply to everyone in the field. There certainly are women who don't really want to do the job, and these people certainly deserve a path out of their professional field, but there are a number of people like that in almost all careers.

You'd be surprised that it doesn't take a big stretch for a woman to get to the 6 figure mark, or at least what would be a 6 figure income if their pay is used as "take home", and we extrapolate what they would be earning if they were paying their proper taxes, etc.

I know one particular former call girl who willingly and knowingly entered into the field of her own free will, and felt more honest about her earnings than when she was working as a computer programmer.

Most people object to prostitution on two grounds: human trafficking, which should be wrong anyways, mistreatment by their pimps, or the dangers presented by clients. Most people who are against prostitution are not against the prostitutes themselves. They see them as "trapped" in a position where they have a high likelihood of harm. Yet, if we legalized it, then human trafficking would still be wrong, mistreatment by their pimps could be handled by police and other governmental authorities, and protection against clients is guaranteed the same way.

In Sweden, prostitution is not illegal, but being a pimp and frequenting a prostitute are illegal. Imagine the wonderful nature of your transaction of: "if you stiff me, I can call the cops, and they'll arrest you, and I walk away." Clients won't screw their prostitutes in this case. The same with pimps. "Go ahead, slap me... I'll call the cops, and they'll haul you away, and I can admit openly that I'm a prostitute, and I won't get taken away."

How about making prostitution a SAFE profession, rather than demanding it be illegal to stop people from doing it? If you're concerned about their health from the sex alone, either physical and/or mental, then when shall we expect an intent to make promiscuity itself illegal?

Re:oh darn

[Dhalka226]

Stop being a "prostitution is no initiation of force therefore it should be legal therefore it is OK" libertard and instead ask "Is it moral in general to pay for prostitutes?"

Gee, I wonder if you've made up your mind in advance at all? "Stop being a retard who disagrees with me and instead ask a question that I will only allow you to conclude the same as I do without being insulted!" Hey, thanks! If you think that position is wrong, then the onus is on you to explain why.

If your hypothesis that most women are only prostitutes because they are desperate for money and there is no viable alternative is correct, then all you have done is criminalize what even you describe as their only choice to make money. At best, in your world, you stop them from doing the only thing they can do to survive. At worst they do it anyway and are criminals in addition to paupers, with all of the stigma and danger associated with any criminal activity. At least if it were legalized, there could be some protections in place both for the prostitutes and for the Johns. When "hope you don't get beaten and robbed" or "hope your pimp is a nice guy" are your only protections, there's something wrong.

So, the six-figure-a-year celebrity hookers probably want to do it and they're making money hand-over-fist, so I don't see an argument to prevent it from that extreme. The opposite extreme (buying into your argument) is that the women don't really want to do it but have no other choice to survive, making legalizing it a slightly better alternative to a terrible situation that actually has very little to do with prostitution and more to do with hopeless economic conditions. Somewhere in the middle are women who aren't sexual millionaires but either want to do it, don't care either way or don't particularly want to do it and don't need to but consider it easier or faster money than the available alternatives. I'm seeing an entire spectrum where not a single data point would lead me to the conclusion that prostitution should be illegal.

In fact, the only reason I can think of is the one supposed by your question: Imposing my set of morality on other people. My answer to your question about whether or not it is moral to pay for sex is "why the hell should I care?" If it doesn't involve me I don't find it to be any more my business than whether or not your wife or girlfriend (or boyfriend) is kinky in the sack. If it does, then I can exercise my own morality to my own actions and relations -- exactly as it should be. I wouldn't date a hooker, whether it was legal or not. I don't respect the behavior. It doesn't mean I need it to be criminal to prove my moral superiority.

Now, legalizing prostitution isn't simple; it's something that would need to be done carefully to achieve any of the potential benefits and avoid a clusterfuck of potential problems. Very probably other laws would need to be created or changed. But all in all, if "I don't approve of what you're doing with your body" is the best I can come up with to stop you... fuck me. No pun intended.

Re:oh darn

[FuckingNickName]

Have you talked to many escorts to come to this conclusion? It really doesn't sound like it.

The "escorts" you're probably thinking of are not representative of the global prostitution industry. I know this is /. and an awful lot of lonely men have paid $200+ for an escort and assume that "talking to an escort" (who you are paying to say what you want to hear) is somehow singular for "data", but it isn't.

Stop forcing YOUR morality on others.

Knee-jerk. Arguing that funding the prostitution industry may be immoral is not forcing anything.

It's a choice, both by the service provider, and by the customer.

All work is free choice to the extent that you also have the options to lie down on the streets and starve or jump off a cliff and die more quickly.

So your morality may say that you need to spend money on fancy dinners and expensive trinkets, coming to a climax where a lavish party is thrown because you put a multi-carat diamond on some poor girls finger. It's all down hill from there. Will you cheat on her? Will she divorce you and take half of what you have?

You are bitter and angry, and it's showing. Not that your bitterness and anger detract from the worth of your argument, but you're not presenting a decent argument anyway. Healthy human relationships are continually symbiotic, not about paying to seduce a woman and then crying because she doesn't give you what you want.

Because of people like you, who have forced your morality on others, it's put these working women in danger. Legalization and acceptance of the industry is the only way to remove the bad elements of the industry.

You're about the 5th poster to assume that I was arguing for the banning of prostitution, even though I started the argument by acknowledging that there are good arguments for legalisation and making clear that "moral" is not the same as "legal".

Prostitution should be legal and well regulated. "Acceptance" is another matter. For example, let's say you're in an evil socialist European state and there's a job opening for a prostitute - should you lose unemployment benefits if you don't take the position? Geeks are so accepting of the scientific method except when it comes to studying humans themselves - in this particular case, no psychologist will argue that the effect of fucking 50 strangers a day is generally as benign as serving 50 burgers a day. But are you arguing that, and what is your extraordinary evidence?

Re:oh darn

[PietjeJantje]

It is an urban legend that these women have no other options than prostitution. At most locations, this is false, they have. The other options don't pay as well though. These girls prefer relatively well-paid prostitution over working 10 hour shifts at a factory or selling food stuff on markets. If there are no other options, all the ugly girls and lowly educated men would die of starvation. Yes they are exploited, but how did they get there? All the high-profile stories about human trafficking and prostitution slavery, in the end it's only a small minority.

Re:oh darn

[kestasjk]

• It's not always women
• You're being morally presumptuous, basically saying you want to decide whether they should work as prostitutes based on whether you think it's wrong

I'm not commenting on whether I think it's right (I'd sure never consider it a career option), but I don't think it's right to decide for other people.

Re:oh darn

[xtracto]

There's one reason why some people call prostitution the oldest profession...

I think the main reason why prostitutes exist is because there is demand for it. And I believe there will always be.

The fact that in today's society it is "morally incorrect" to sell sexual services is just a temporary (in the hundreds of years span) thing.

But even if government would be able to ban all prostitution the only thing that would happen is that the service would become more expensive, and the people who provide the service would have less rights.

However, if prostitution was completely legal, open and accepted then it will only be a matter of calling a private number and safely providing/consuming those service at home.

The fact that some people choose to be prostitutes is because it gives them a certain amount of income for another certain amount of work. Sure, those same persons may be able to change their jobs but that would mean doing more work for less payment.

BTW, I remembered an interview a guy in Mexico made to 2 "male prostitutes" (Gigolos) from Mexico City. The two guys were professionals, one of them was a doctor. When asked why did they decide to prostitute they answered that it was because they earned a high salary doing this job whereas doing their day job was not profitable enough *for their lifestyle*

 

Re:oh darn

[Kilrah_il]

I don't know about you, but many times that I have sex with a "normal woman" I become somewhat poorer (although usually not 200$). I do admit that the one getting richer is the restaurant/bar and not the woman, so who is the victim here?

P.S. In a magazine in my country they once did a comparison of the price of getting laid between a hooker, one-night stand, steady girlfriend and wife. As you can guess, the hooker and the one-night stand were the cheapest.

Re:oh darn

[jewishbaconzombies]

There's plenty of other sites. Backpage.com is just one of many that comes to mind. Is Facebook is another.

Re:oh darn

[jez9999]

Here in Italy, an extremely high percentage of prostitutes are essentially Russian women who are slaves to crime organizations.

And that's just Berlusconi's women!

Re:oh darn

[FuckingNickName]

but many times that I have sex with a "normal woman" I become somewhat poorer (although usually not 200$)

Every time I've had sex, it's been a progression of a friendship into a kissy relationship into a fully sexual relationship. I've never targeted anyone - certainly not by buying anything. I've never counted up how much I've spent in some way benefitting that person up to the point I first had sex with them. I've not considered having sex a goal, or the end of anything. It just happens. It's nice but it's not essential.

It's weird to see so many people here talk of sex as the result of an investment. Perhaps well regulated prostitutes would be the moral option for them if it were established that the prostitutes were physically and mentally healthy and had full freedom of choice. Or perhaps they need a fuck buddy. Or friends who will take a tenner and give you a BJ. I'm not sure.

Re:oh darn

[JohnFluxx]

Why doesn't anyone just say "I don't care about the welfare of the fast food work as long as I get my food"?

I don't see why you keep singling out prostitution when your arguments apply to most jobs.

Re:oh darn

[FuckingNickName]

Oh, that's definitely a shitty thing to do too. A symbiotic partnership, simple fuck buddy arrangement or even mutually honest one night stand seem far healthier.

But enjoying physically and psychologically harmful working conditions day after day and believing (correctly or otherwise) that there's no way out is likely more harmful than hearing one lie about how pretty your eyes are. And johns ought to ask whether it's okay to pay to support that environment rather than playing the pseudo-libertarian "no physical force => legal => moral" card.

Re:oh darn

[mwvdlee]

We could also ask porn sites to move to the .xxx TLD, ask spammers to mark their mails with "[SPAM]" and ask black hat hackers to set an evil bit in all their packets.
The prostitutes will post where their posts will be read the most.

Re:oh darn

[AmiMoJo]

You can't equate prostitution with serving fast food. The former carries all sorts of risks, even when it's a licensed and regulated brothel. You think every customer is going to have a HIV and STD test first? Condoms are 100% effective? Sleeping with some disgusting old lard-arse who could never get a real date because you need the money has no psychological ramifications?

Sure, there are high class places where conditions are better, but unless the girl happens to be pretty good looking and lucky enough to land that kind of job they are not going to deal with all that stuff. It is far far different to working in MacDonalds.

Re:oh darn

[hairyfeet]

Actually I've known hookers and burger flippers (having actually lived in an apt building everyone called a "house of ill repute" due to the amount of hookers in it) and I'd have to say I felt MUCH sorrier for the burger flippers. The hookers had a nice place to work with good security, could refuse any patron that didn't want, and at the end of the week had plenty of money in their pockets after paying the bills.

Contrast this with the burger flippers who were always in pain from the constant overwork, stank horribly (because you really can't get that stench out of your skin even after multiple baths), usually had burns from grease pops and looked awful from all the oil buildup, and most needed state assistance because of the incredibly shitty pay.

So if you want the most abusive job, excluding pimps which are a product of prohibition, I'm gonna have to go with burger flipper. At least the hooker gets paid well for their job, whereas the burger flipper is lucky to be able to keep a roof over their head for MUCH longer hours and more hard physical labor.

Re:oh darn

[Jawnn]

By your logic, lots of dangerous occupations should be made illegal because they are dangerous or psychologically stressful. Of course, this is complete rubbish and we're left again with nothing but the puritanical notion that sex is "dirty" and that sex for money is especially dirty, which also, of course, is complete rubbish.

Re:oh darn

[HungryHobo]

It's a dirty job.
So?
There are people in this world who as part of their jobs have to spend all day surounded by human faeces working sewer maintainance with all the dangers of infections that entails.
There are people who work jobs where they can lose a limb to a saw blade.
Or be crushed in an industrial accident.
I know a girl who had a job where one of her duties was to put down the animals at a lab which used animal testing, think that has no psychological ramifications?
My father at one point worked in a slaughterhouse cleaning the grizzle, blood and brains off the walls and equipment. any psychological ramifications there?

There are high class office jobs where conditions are better, but unless the person happens to be skilled and lucky enough to land that kind of job they're not going to get those.

But sure, if sex is in any way involved then its special and it can't be considered in a reasonable adult manner.

Re:oh darn

[DerekLyons]

Have you talked to many escorts to come to this conclusion? It really doesn't sound like it.

Talking to escorts about the world of prostitution is like talking to McDonalds CEO about the world of fast food workers. Try talking to the girls down on the low track instead.
 

They made the choice to go into the industry.

Yeah, the same way someone who can't find a job making a living wage and with a future 'chooses' to go to work with McDonalds or Best Buy.
 
You, and many others answering here, have a seriously rosy view of the world.

Re:oh darn

[wmac]

You mean all prostitutes are prostitutes because they are poor?

Don't you remember the girl which messed up the governors life? She became a prostitute in order to become rich very fast. I personally knew a prostitute which owned and rented several apartments.

Some women try to find a rich man just because they want to become rich ASAP. What is the difference with a prostitute then? (except that some of them agree to be exclusive by signing a marriage contract).

Re:oh darn

[Hatta]

Those girls are poor this is how they live. They don't love sex anymore than you love working.

Sounds like a job. What's wrong with that? We allow people to do all sorts of awful, dangerous things for money, why not sex? Poor working conditions are a case for increased regulation, not prohibition.

There is *no* reason for prostitution to be illegal except for a perverse notion of sexual morality associated with religion. None.

Re:oh darn

[TooMuchToDo]

After working in the adult entertainment industry on the tech side, let me tell you that you're half-correct. Some girls do it because they're desperate. The other side of it (that you get wrong) is that there are girls who enjoy making $150K+/yr from sex. Hence, the need for a regulated sex industry (see: Amsterdam).

Re:WTF man

[ravenspear]

You could post in M4M, you'll get plenty of offers.

Idiots

[BlueCoder]

Some politician says ban this section and it will all go away...

Now the personals section is going to get even more polluted.

Casual Encounters will become the new adult section but it will spill over into the normal sections. Strictly platonic will probably become the "normal" area. If this is the intelligence of state attorney generals then we must have a lot of innocent people in jail.

Re:Idiots

[snowgirl]

There is a lot of belief in politics that if we make something illegal, people will stop doing it.

This idea is retarded, and recognizably inconsistent with reality.

:rolleyes:

[KingAlanI]

Prostitution control is about as effective as drug control and gun control.

Re:Consenting Adults

[aztracker1]

In the end, yes... not always that one, first date... but continuing to date someone, in the hopes of marriage and commitment, sex is a large part of that... so technically, even in the purest sense, dating is about sex...

Re:Consenting Adults

[RsG]

However, if prostitution were legal...

Legal and regulated. The illegality of prostitution is only part of the problem with the current state of affairs.

Prostitution carries with it some serious societal issues. Coercion from pimps, poverty, VD, and back-alley abortions have been associated with prostitution for thousands of years. None of these will go away if the laws against soliciting are lifted.

Illegality adds another problem; it forces the business under the rug, leaving hookers essentially without legal recourse - they can be robbed, raped, killed, or otherwise harmed because the perp knows the victim won't go to the cops, or won't be missed.

Legalizing prostitution without regulating it will solve the last problem, but not the rest. Keeping it illegal only removes the problems from public view, and makes the situation worse for those involved. You need to legalize it, while imposing health and safety regulations.

Re:Consenting Adults

[cappp]

I'm not sure you're right there, at least in part. Prostitution is legal and regulated in a fair number of countries - Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Germany, The Netherlands, Canada for instance - and treated in a somewhat more complicated manner in many more - most of the rest of Europe, India, a smattering of Central American states, and so on. The sheer scale of the sexual industry in countries that have legal protections in place - which have reduced financial incentives for what would otherwise be illicit trades - suggests that a decent number of men and woman deliberately choose prostitution as a rational employment route. Superfreakenomics has an interesting chapter online which covers the basic topic.

That of course leaves the question of trafficking which is the usual problem raised i.e. does the prostitution industry provide a prime motivation for human trafficing. However there seems to be a significant lack of data supporting this. The Guardian ran an interesting piece covering this topic. I'm going to quote just the opening paragraph but its well worth a read if you find yourself with a free 10 minutes.

There is something familiar about the tide of misinformation which has swept through the subject of sex trafficking in the UK: it flows through exactly the same channels as the now notorious torrent about Saddam Hussein's weapons. In the story of UK sex trafficking, the conclusions of academics who study the sex trade have been subjected to the same treatment as the restrained reports of intelligence analysts who studied Iraqi weapons – stripped of caution, stretched to their most alarming possible meaning and tossed into the public domain. There, they have been picked up by the media who have stretched them even further in stories which have then been treated as reliable sources by politicians, who in turn provided quotes for more misleading stories.

Yes, that doesn't prove that sex workers necessarily enjoy their work. It doesn't prove that other forms of coercion don't exist.But it does frame the issue somewhat differently.

Re:Consenting Adults

[cappp]

Yup, and frankly I imagine using sex slaves is far more work than it's worth when you're in a country where it's fine to just slap a job ad in the local paper.