After Craigslist, Seeking Arrangements?
posted by Frank Pasquale
Attorney generals have been pressuring Craigslist to eliminate “ads that are poorly disguised come-ons for illegal prostitution.” One key question about the campaign: is the prostitution or the “poor disguising” of it the target? The free pass given to Seeking Arrangements suggests the latter–and how difficult it is to limit commodification nowadays.
According to Ruth Padawer’s excellent profile of Seeking Arrangements, the deals brokered by “sugar daddies” and “sugar babies” on the site are complicated:
[S]ince the 1970s, courts have ruled that as long as the woman is paid for some service besides sex — housecleaning, companionship — the arrangement is not the equivalent of prostitution. “When these sugar-daddy relationships go the way I think they should go, the lines are pretty blurry between that and a typical boyfriend-girlfriend relationship,” [one woman on the site] said. “And when they go the way I don’t think they should go, the lines are blurry between that and sex work.”
One image on the site features a dazed, graying man doted on by two barely clad attendants . . . . But this marketing spin doesn’t capture the nuances of the relationships that often develop between the “daddies” and the “babies” who meet on the site — relationships that can turn out to be more complicated than even the members themselves expect.
Padawer notes that “these men — especially those shopping for women half their age — are digging deep into their pockets to pay for an illusion: that . .. they’re still enchanting enough to charm pretty young women.” It’s a description/judgment that might well undercut the appeal of such sites if it becomes prevalent enough (though the decadent spirit has always preferred simulation over the real thing).
The law appears to have chosen to fight only the straight-up trade of sex for money. The battle against sites like Seeking Arrangements will probably have to be a cultural one.
May 15, 2009 at 7:05 am
Posted in: Economic Analysis of Law, Family Law, Feminism and Gender
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Responses (3)
Gloria - July 14, 2011 at 9:23 pm
I was Rapped
by the Craigslist Personal Ads
Is there anyone who is willing to take this serious? How many women and lives have been violated by the personal ads on Craigslist? How many lives destroyed? This is an addition. It takes over and controls whom you are. No one or nothing else matters. Your self indulges has become your life. It’s also like a disease that eats at you. You lash out to hurt the ones you love because of the guilt. You push them away. You find fault in them to justify your own behavior. Why does this continue to happen? They exploit facebook and other social networking. Drawling no attention to the real killer. Craigslist is for buying and selling. How did it become a wife swapper, share my man and I need some tonight site? You have to join the dating sites like Match.com and use a credit card. This must stop a lot of seekers because it leaves a paper trail. Why is it when we feel a void in life we turn to the Internet? What happened to the family conversation around the dinner table? What has happened to the true meaning of life and relationships? Are we living without trust and devotion?
I have for one decided to take my life back. Secrets and the thrill of you getting away with it have sickened me. I live in the real world, not cyberspace. This is my story.
I am an older, attractive, in good shape woman who loves life. I love the connection of friends and family that I have on my Facebook account. I love chatting with and seeing my grandchildren on Skype. I smile when I receive a text picture of them on my cell phone. I am a hard working bill paying woman living in the times of new technology.
Eight years ago I met a wonderful man. I had been burned in the past so I was so cautious. He treated me like the Princess I am. I couldn’t help but love him and adore him. We made a life together. We had our ups and downs. I believe you have to talk things out and not let them escalate. He’s not much of a talker, more of a thinker. I am very open, very expressive. I love to give hugs and kisses as much as I like to receive them. The affection wore down after several years as in any relationship. I always took the initiative. When he was mad at me he liked to view the women nudies on
Ebay. Guess it made he feels like a man in control. I would go to work, he would throw in a porn. When things were good, this was almost non-existed. I expressed how I felt about this. I expressed to him in emails please don’t disrespect me, degrade me in this way. It is painful and I deserve better. I am a classy lady. Got no response. It was his “secret”.
We bought a place together in the country two years ago when he retired. There was much that needed to be done and we were on a mission. Not long after we started this new life together he had left on his history Craigslist romance personals. I clicked it open. There it was, all the seeking and pictures. Nude pictures. I was shocked! The personals? Really? Seeking?? At dinner I asked him why was he on personals ads and why was he seeking. He has a beautiful woman right here in front of him who adores him. He denied it, eye to eye. I got up and said I’ll show you. As he followed me down the hall he was shouting, don’t you turn on that computer. When I did turn it on he picked up something and hit the monitoring screen. Broke it. Said now there is no computer. Obviously, that is a touchy subject. I let it go and life went on. Over these past few years he has developed some health issues. Choosing not to seek professional help, we have dealt with these issues as a team. I try to understand what he is going through and seek to find ways for his life to be easier. I go to work ten hours a day and he does things around the house. Dishes laundry and cooking on the days I work. Brings me coffee after dinner. Little things go a long way in a relationship. The past few months I notice this start to change. I could tell he had not done anything the entire day or he was just getting started. His behavior toward me started to change. Distant. Not being able to look at me. Not asking if I wanted coffee. Not fixing dinner until much later knowing I had had a long day. No affection. I asked why he was being so insensitive. Said he wasn’t aware that he had been. OK, maybe a health problem I’m thinking. He has always focused on his health issues and his age to the extreme. At least I bring these problems to his attention. I told him he doesn’t apply himself at all. I take care of all of the responsibilities of phone calls, bill paying, groceries, errands and any kind of excitement we do together. A few weeks ago he initiates a fight. He is so mad accusing me of doing something intentional that I had not done. Then he started saying hurtful things so I left for a few hours rather than allow this to continue. I am not one to say something out of anger. This was extreme for him to get this angry over something so minor. What had caused this anger this meanness?
It stopped me in my tracks. When I came home about twelve hours later of just driving he had moved to the building out back. Has all furnishings and he does spend a lot of time down there working on things. Had taken food and just made himself at home. Now I have a higher electric bill and have to work harder to take care of things. So, I’m wondering, what is really going on? Always pointing the finger at me to take the focus off of your self? What do you really do while I working? I leave at 430 am and return around 330 pm. I do have a nice 27” monitoring screen for my PC. I am very computer literate. You can delete all the history you want but it does not remove it from your hard drive. I did some research. I taught myself how to view and open where you have been with dates and times. I can see all sites and all pictures. All emails accounts. I can save these sites, copy to a disk and print. You cannot hide from me.
You are awake, run to the house and sitting at my desk at 730 am logged on to the Craigslist Personals. You visit Seattle, Thailand, Oklahoma, along with many others but your favorite is Tampa. It has exculated to two three times a day. When I left to take the dog to the vet you wasted no time. I was only gone forty minutes. It’s no longer about looking nude women. You prefer the M4M, MM4M. This is why you can’t look at me. This is why you where becoming so distant. You were becoming an addict. An addiction to the Craigslist Personal Ads.
Now let me tell you what this has done to me. It blew me away. Devastation!!! Sickened, humiliated, degraded, embarrassed, hurt, and anger. I feel so betrayed. I stay on track and record all of it every day despite the lack of sleep and lose of appetite and the thought that the man I love and have a life with is addicted to such filth. When I confront this I have to have proof. In spite of it I never missed one minute of work and have kept everything going. This has taken my love, my future, my trust, my home and the things that I love. I have been raped by the Craigslist Personal Ads. I am a victim. I want it gone. I want the dirtiness of it out of my life. You can take everything from me but you cannot have my dignity, my faith, my strength and my will to take charge of my life.
So this is what I have done. I sat with him in the building and asked if he was staying down there indefinitely and how did he really feel about me. I got a shrug and told how I want a relationship that is a fantasy where I get to be a princess and live in a castle. Fantasy? I said no you live in a fantasy world let me show you. I pulled out the folder of 8×10 pictures of the men and women and groups of people he had been viewing along with pictures of what sites mostly M4M. Also included the pictures where the deleting of history was running across the screen. Need I say more? Of course he threw them on the floor and said how dare you spy on me? And wondered how I had done this. Now that is my little secret. Told him not to bother crashing my computer. The disks have been sent in the mail. I almost believe he went pale. Proceeded to say he would remain in the building. Damn right. I am done with this mess and I am done with you. He has unhooked my phone and Internet service like I don’t know about Air Wi-Fi. I will survive this because that’s what I do best but how many won’t? I want to know how to exploit it for what it is. My home was something I had always longed for. To be in country and live in peace. To finish out my days here and leave my grandchildren a piece of it. Now it’s gone. I can’t even have my grandchildren come to visit. I can’t risk that he would be nasty to them. I want answers. I want to be heard. I want to be a voice for all of those wondering out there why their lives are being ripped apart. I want answers from Craigslist. I want someone to answer why I was rapped by the personals on the Craigslist site. I have been violated. I am a victim. Please let me be heard. I have a feeling this is just getting started. He does his usual chores. Not speaking to me. Still denying it to his self. Still addicted. I can’t let it go. It has cost me too much. Is there anyone willing to question what is really going on with the Craigslist. They had to shut down their exotic page because of prostitution. At least those post where being upfront. Nothing hidden. These ads are nothing but filth and the pictures are nothing but trash. Would you want your family to view them? This site has cost me my life. I am angry. I want it gone.
Wow - July 16, 2011 at 2:26 am
Wow, Gloria. I don’t even know where to begin, but all I can say is that you are focusing your anger on the symptom, not the problem.
I assure you, if there was no craigslist, there would be something else that you would be angry at, because the behavior is the result of the prooblem, not the other way around.
You’ve got to stop blaming things for the failure of your relationship, you only have yourself and your husband to blame for it. Not craigslist, or personals, or anything else. Things would not be good if there was no craigslist, it would just be something else.
gloria - July 27, 2011 at 5:19 pm
You are so right. Thank you. I am moving on in a healthier direction
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