Once in a while, one of our treasured sex culture icons looks at a situation, sizes it up — and delivers a piece of writing that knocks it out of the park. That’s exactly what Susie Bright just did with her new blog post, Susie’s Post-Mortem on Craig’s List Sex Ads. Here’s a snip — but you gotta read the whole thing, even if you’re “in tech” or “in media” or “in whatever”:
(…) Craig’s List has removed its Adult Services section from their bulletin board, under pressure from a McCarthyist collection of “non-profits” (cough cough) and ambitious law enforcement magistrates.
I think their decision was a tactical retreat— with the swipe of a claw. I have no professional interest or investment in CL, nor am I privy to their private discussions. But I have a sense of “deju vu” from previous witchhunts, and a clear memory of CL’s origins.
In one keystroke, CL removed themselves as the “Target du Jour” of the Professional Right, the Prig Patrol. In doing so, CL relieves themselves of the Mother of All Nuisance Suits, and simultaneously delivers a big “Fuck You” to their persecutors, a band of opportunists who truly have no motive other than extortion and ego. CL wants to get out of the script; they are no longer willing to play “Whore of Babylon” to the Kaped Krusaders.
A casual observer may wonder, “Isn’t CraigsList worried about women and children ensnared in a web of crime and violence? Don’t they care? Aren’t the Trafficking-Fighters just decent people trying to save the vulnerable and innocent?”
Uh, no.
CL was founded by progressive, feminist, “Isn’t-the-Internet-wonderful” Left Coast-type of idealists. Craig Newmark wrote me once, long ago, that when he heard me give my lecture on “The Sexual State of the Union,” as a student at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, he whisperd to himself, “I have GOT to move out to San Francisco.”
(…) You won’t find the anti-Porn, anti-Traffiking Activists in the domestic abuse shelter, the rape crisis hotline, the emergency room, the orphanage, the refugee camps. Heavens, no. They have no interest or knowledge of what goes on in the trenches. They are actively fighting sex workers all over the world who have articulated their needs and rights. They are FRAUDS. (…read more, susiebright.blogs.com)
Previous posts on this topic:
* Craigslist Lettered by US Officials Over Adult Services – Sweden has a Lesson
* Craigslist: opinions are like assholes; everybody’s got one
* new menu, same dishes: the new language of Craigslist’s Erotic Services
* today’s big news: Craigslist ‘erotic services’ compromise, changes ahead
Image by Richard Kadrey.
I’m sorry to say that I have limited familiarity with Craigslist and everythign it offers. My knowledge of it was that it was a site full of scams and fake ads, so please forgive my ignorance. But wasn’t this adult section taken down almost as a direct result of that case involving a sexual assault? http://snipurl.com/16myy2
oh. thank you Violet.
i feel very sorry for Americans. sex work needs to be legalized.
and Susie Bright’s article is wonderful.
on the off : kijiji used to run personal, free “love & sex” ads like CL in Germany.
yes, lots of hookers and fakes migrated to the private ad section because as professionals they would have had to pay.
and then ebay took over – and no more free “love & sex” ads.
duh.
btw luuve your blog ;-)
cheerio
I am copying here what I wrote in response on Susie’s site. I hope that’s okay because I really appreciated your noting this discussion.
“Susie,
Always one of my heros. I would like to add to the perspectives on this. I am the on the board of Directors of MISSSEY, one of the very few agencies in the US working directly with Commercially Sexually Exploited Minors as well as on their behalf, I came there after being a child welfare worker working with the same population. I cannot tell you how sad it made it us when CL pulled.
It is true that minors were advertised on the site but you are write, hardly CL’s fault. We knew but ironically it helped us find, lost, kidnapped and exploited minors.
It was stunning that the tone of many reports seem to imply that if CL pulled child exploitation would be dealt a mighty blow…really? seriously?!!
More over CL was in fact working hard behind the scenes to help us reach those very children through CL, it also offered a way to start to get information out to the client population so that there could be distinctions between an adult worker which yea! as far as I am concerned and an exploited child – the differences and facts that should bear on their (the sex work client’s) decision making process.
And now that opportunity is gone and gone to the winds with it is what was an exciting and hopeful moment for us who do work in the trenches.
I also think the distinction is vital. As an adult that supports and agrees with adult providers value and place in society, I am aware that without this distinction, our work is muddied also. We are not trying to save the world from sex! We are trying to say and need to make distinctions in order to be supported that sex is for adults and sex work is an adult profession but then so is brain surgery so not a shocking position really but one that makes a line that I would hope enlists the adult sex worker community on behalf of children being exploited. It is simply a modern example of the horror of child labor a hundred years ago. Of course this exploitation feels a hundred times more horrifying if that is possible.
Legalized adult sex workers would go a long way toward further highlighting the criminal element that uses and exploits children. Further, that legalization would make the exploitation of the children a less cost effective choice for a pimp, because cold as that is…it is what is driving it…money honey…so when it is no longer a cost effective choice, children become that much safer.
Thanks Suzie for your voice and work,
AJ, President of the Board of Directors of MISSSEY”
I want to thank You also, Violet, for all your work. Freedom to enjoy sex as adults without repression is another blow in, my opinion, to the industry of exploitation, which I distinguish from the adult profession of being a provider.
The people fighting Craigslist’s erotic section…what did they hope to accomplish with this? Have they ever even been on a Craigslist page? Everyone knows that if pickings on the erotic section are a bit slim (or over spammed) you then proceed to the Casual Encounters or Therapeutic Services sections. Are they going to suggest banning those next? Where will it end?
I can almost deal with actions or ideas I strongly disagree with, IF they’re well thought out and reasoned. But this? This is just… dumb! Moronic! The height of idiocy! It’s like if I got YouPorn shut down, and started trumpeting how I ended pornography on the internet, or talked about how I stopped the spread of Islam by burning a Koran (doesn’t work; I tried it with a Book of Mormon once.)
I’ve said it before, a guy can find escort services through Casual Encounters. Similarly, a lady can get help with rent money be providing company through Casual Encounters.
The only way for them to completely “get rid of the problem” is to cease all personal advertising.
It’s shameful . . . I couldn’t be more ashamed of my country right now.