Sleeping around Craigslist

Image by Claudette Psico.

I’ve really enjoyed imagining the routines of the Chilean exotic dancer who was just arrested for pole dancing on the subway (thanks, Amy!); unfortunately her playful cultural contribution to the dull commute of strangers was not well received by authorities. But I loved that she was essentially a one-woman flash mob — literally, though she only peeled down to bra and panties, she was lightning-fast with her hit-and-run routines, and refused tips or payment. I’d pay extra for that on MUNI. The other story I thought you might like this weekend is about sex by way of Craigslist, which may never cease to fascinate: There is a terrific, long sunday read to be found at Alternet (via Viviane), a nonfiction article by two women called Sleeping Around Craigslist. It just ran in our local East Bay Express, and details the real-life experiences of two femmes who chronicled 11 months of sexually adventuring through Bay Area Casual Encounters and, “spanned 10 counties and four states and involved roughly 45,000 e-mailed words, 27 phone calls, 36 face-to-face initial dates and 13 actual lovers.” It’s a very entertaining article, snip:

Lily and Anna are not our real names, but then you probably knew that was coming. Virtually everyone on Craigslist lies about something: their name, their age, their weight, their marital status, maybe even their penis or bra size. For the purposes of this story, we have changed everyone’s names to protect their privacy.

The two of us met when Anna answered an ad that Lily’s then-boyfriend, Scott, posted on Craigslist. Lily and Scott were seeking a third partner to join a menage a trois. Before anybody actually met face to face, Lily dumped Scott and canceled the threesome, but she became e-mail pals with her would-have-been sex partner, Anna.

Once we met, we realized we had a lot in common, and began sharing our respective experiences. Our adventures have included the hot, the not-so-hot, and some potential hook-ups that never even got off the ground. There were memorable ones, like Lily’s first date, which ended at 3:30 a.m. at the Power Exchange sex club. Or the ex-con who went down on Anna for an hour straight.

There were forgettable ones too, like the alcoholic art dealer, or the guy who excused himself in the middle of sex to smoke a cigarette. And there have been multiple-partner dates, which involved average-looking East Bay residents who swing, tie up, dominate, submit, and spank.

What kind of sex did we find? Some of the lovemaking was wonderful, a lot of it was initially awkward but got better as time went on, and some of it was downright disastrous. Upending the notion of “Casual Encounters” — as Craigslist dubs its “Just Looking to Get Laid Tonight” category — we both discovered that casual sex is anything but.(…read more.)