Unlucky Diamond?

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In Oak Harbor, a community of 22,000 in Washington state's San Juan Island, police in October and December conducted their first-ever sting via Craigslist, says Det. Mike Bailey, answering ads, and setting up dates at a local motel and at a car parked in a grocery-store lot that led to the arrest of five women in the first prostitution-related sweep in Island County's history. One of the women showed up armed with a butterfly knife, and told police she intended to rob the client.

During the course of the investigation, Bailey learned some interesting things about how pimps and prostitutes are staying ahead of the competition. They'll flag other providers' ads as inappropriate, he says, post negative reviews of their "work" or come right out and claim that a particular prostitute has a sexually transmitted disease. "There were some offering military discounts," Bailey says, which is why the cops partnered with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, using a sailor to pose as a john.

All current erotic-services ads on Craigslist will expire by May 19, and nude or graphic photos will be banned in the new section. "Of course, the states will continue to watch pretty carefully," McKenna says.

No matter what steps are taken, most law-enforcement officials agree that it would be impossible to end the sale of sex at Craigslist or any other site. That suits Diamond just fine, who said she's only had one off-kilter experience with a customer met through Craigslist so far. He tried to pay with a check.

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Posted By: Dolmance @ 05/17/2009 4:33:41 PM

Well, of course we all know prostitution didn't exist before Craigslist, so I have every expectation that it will magically disappear now that they're not going to run those ads anymore.

Fact is, if it wasn't for Craigslist, they'd never have caught that miscreant freak just starting out on his career of being a serial killer. And stopping the erotic services ads will simply drive the sex workers even more underground, and increase their susceptibility to vicious predators.
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Posted By: very old man 0838 @ 05/16/2009 10:58:35 AM

Everybody pay for sex. The cost of bringing another human being to our world is so great if God did not create climax with sex, nobody with the right mind will ever do it.
Less than 1% of us ever get paid to have sex. 99% of us pay through our teeth for the rest of our life just to enjoy a few seconds of the greatest pleasure God ever granted us. Can we blame those who are jealous of the prostitutes and the johns?
We are so unwilling to confront the true criminals, the pimps, the mentally ill murderers/abusers we will rather assert our value on ordinary people who are doing a natural thing in a way we disagree with.
Getting paid for sex is a risky business and requires extraordinary will power to execute it successfully. This is extreme high wire walking. We are so jealous of those who practice it we will use those who tried and died to disallow anybody from doing it so nobody will say we are not able to participate in that game.
That???s human nature.
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Posted By: pandahays @ 05/15/2009 10:23:37 AM

Now I'm a fairly conservative gal. I believe in monogamous sex within a married relationship, but even I find it a little confusing that so many things are legal, that the government talks endlessly about rights (including right to do with your body what you please i.e. abortion), yet they outlaw paying for a sexual act?

I would never condone prostitution because I find it morally reprehensible, and I think its a dangerous game. However, I do wonder if legalizing it and putting restrictions on it (regular STD testing, some kind of taxing, registering prostitutes) would make it safer and keep the underage girls at bay. I don't know, just a thought. I guess we could say the same thing about marijuana, but maybe I'm a hypocrit in that way. I just don't think the government has the right to tell us how to behave morally, unless we are forcing someone else to suffer from that immorality.