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| Caveat Emptor. |
Louis Shalako
Here are ten Craiglist
horror stories, compiled by Crime
Library and posted on Daily Dot.
***
***
Recklessly
Seeking Sex on Craiglist. Two self-conscious people with low
self-esteem have a long talk. (NYT.)
***
Sleeping
Around Craigslist. “Dangerously low self-esteem,” issues
of sexual abandonment.
“Years before embarking on Craigslist, both of us
had experienced sexual abandonment. We were both hungry for intimacy and
physical touch after years of wandering in the desert. Our lives were on
similar trajectories.”
“Lily Penza, 46, had been overweight since her teens
and suffered from dangerously low self-esteem. At age 28, she moved in with the
first man who looked her way. It was a virtually sexless union for 10 years
before a therapist helped her come to her senses and move on. Lily never
married and spent most of her life caring for an ill parent who died recently.
So she lost 40 pounds and decided she would make up for lost time.”
(Names have all been changed in original article.)
***
My
Craigslist Casual Encounter.
“A year ago, I'd never heard of normal women
trolling Craigslist looking for no-strings sex. But recently, I became one of
them.”
“It had been two years since I'd last had sex (I
know, I know). I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands. My
friend and I laughed about finding an easy way for me to get laid, bandying
about out many ‘40 Year Old Virgin’-esque pickup bar strategies. Then, she
laughed and said that I should ‘just put an ad on Craigslist, like everybody
else.’"
***
Beginner’s
Guide to Anonymous Craigslist Sex.
“The reason so many str8 men indulge their
bi-curiosity (which you will come to learn and learn well throughout this
piece) on Craigslist is that they simply get fed up looking for women only to
get scammed over and over again. Most posts by men under M4W go ignored or are
only answered by the previously mentioned hookers and webcam girls, and
sometimes the occasional horribly unfortunate-looking real woman looking for a
casual good time. It's like seeing a unicorn, only if unicorns looked a little
more like this little guy.” (Ranker.)
***
“People
should be Careful Putting Personal Ads on Craigslist.”
“You would think people would be a little more
cautious when it comes to answering personal ads on Craigslist, but,
apparently, such is not the case with Rep. Christopher Lee — the married New
York congressman who abruptly resigned last Wednesday after a shirtless picture
of him and allegations of an online affair surfaced on the gossip website
Gawker.”
“According to Gawker, last month Lee reportedly
responded to an ad placed by a then unidentified woman in the “Women Seeking
Men” section of Craigslist.com.”
“The woman — 34-year-old Yesha Callahan — a single
mother and University of Maryland employee — sought a ‘financially [and]
emotionally secure’ man who could prove that not ‘all [Craigslist men looked]
like toads.’”
“Unfortunately for her, the handsome congressman,
although not toad-like in appearance, undeniably shared a few of the less
attractive qualities of toads, sliminess being one of them.”
This writer is unacquainted with the individuals in
the above piece, personal remarks are merely reported, and not endorsed,
neither are they disputed.
***
Why
Craigslist is a bad spot to catch predators.
“Venson Villapando had, in the words of his
psychologist, a “normal” heterosexual interest in ‘adolescent and adult
females.’ In 2009, he logged into Craigslist’s 'casual encounters' section and responded to an ad with the headline ‘looking to get by in
hard time-w4m (hb),’ where w4m stood for 'woman for manl and 'hb' stood for 'Huntington Beach, California.' The ad was posted by Detective Alan
Caouette of the Huntington Beach Police Department, who pretended to be a
13 year old girl, Jessie Browne, offering to have sex for $100.
After many, many electronic conversations over more than 5 months,
Villapando eventually showed up at a Carl’s Jr. parking lot in Huntington Beach
apparently thinking he would meet Jessie for prostitution. Instead, he
was arrested. A jury subsequently convicted him of attempting to have sex
with an underage girl.”
***
Bay
Area Cops Use Craiglist to make 57 sexual-offence arrests. (Gawker.)
***
Well. If that doesn’t put you off the Craigslist
personal ads, I don’t know what will.
Personal advice: Bring your own condom, let someone
know where you are going. If your instincts tell you something is fishy, get
out or don’t go in the first place.
It’s a mad, mad world out there.
While everyone needs love, and in the opinion of
this writer, adults need sex regularly, the fact is that sometimes it just
ain’t worth it.
I won’t comment on law enforcement in my own home
town. But when I see ads, for example, ww4m, (two women looking for one man,)
or ’18 and looking for older man,’ that just seems a little too good to be
true, doesn’t it?
***
My own singles ads might go something like this: Man
with no prospects looking for Woman with No Prior History.
Personal note: A date with somebody nice would be
one thing. The prospect of intimacy, possibly leading to a real relationship,
one that two busy and independent people might enjoy, (rather than just
tolerate) would be nice. Sex isn’t necessarily a good thing on a first date.
Other than that, I’m not looking for trouble—and
there’s plenty of that out there if you’re not careful.
There comes a time when you take your chances and
take your lumps, quite frankly.
Or you can walk away and just keep walking.
Nothing is worse than death, dismemberment,
disappearance—or being labeled a sex criminal and doing hard time for a crime
you never intended to commit; framed up by an intolerant local police
department staffed by Tea Party types and their abusive little hangers-on.
Quite
frankly, I think I would be better off alone, and that’s especially true
after seeing some of the blue-haired old biddies on Zoosk.
To be fair to Zoosk, they do ask your birth-date and you can filter the results.
Oddly enough, I am no longer a member--so you can forget about looking for me there.
END
