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Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

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Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#81

Post by jfager »

zavulon wrote: post #76
jfager wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't extrapolate from the experience of high-end strippers in places like NYC, Vegas, or Miami. That's like hanging out in major league stadiums and concluding that pro baseball players must love their millions, ignoring that the majority are stuck down in the farm system barely making a living wage.

That's a pretty ridiculous analogy. Strippers don't have to toil in a minor league strip club in Idaho for five years before finally "making it" to NYC. All it takes is a bus ticket and a lot of balls (figuratively)

It's not ridiculous at all. You really think there's not a hierarchy of strip clubs, that the top clubs don't compete for the best strippers, and that every girl who wanted could just buy a bus ticket and end up making six figures stripping in NYC?

The simple point is that the vast majority of strippers don't and can't work in the top clubs in NY, Vegas, and Miami, and don't make anything like the kind of money that's made in those places.

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#82

Post by trustfundbaby »

korch wrote: post #80
trustfundbaby wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

excellent ... now if only we could go get everyone who posted listings to sign off on allowing us access their data we could build an API in no time.

If Craigslist actually stood by their community-centric, "everybody share" principles, rather than wear a fake mask of anti-corporatism over their money-grubbing true face, then Craigslist themselves would put a single checkbox on every Craigslist post form letting the user make that choice. And the default state of that checkbox would be "yes." Then CL could just offer a bare-bones, REST, read-only firehose API to a…

Oh you know know for sure that every user would want their data broadcast to 3rd party developers to do what they please with ... the way Facebook has done ... and oh by the way, how is that going for them?

Look, Craigslist doesn't want an api.

Its their software and its that simple

People need to get over it or ... you know ... go build their own classifieds listing service or something.

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#83

Post by jawngee »

jfager wrote: post #81
zavulon wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty ridiculous analogy. Strippers don't have to toil in a minor league strip club in Idaho for five years before finally "making it" to NYC. All it takes is a bus ticket and a lot of balls (figuratively)

It's not ridiculous at all. You really think there's not a hierarchy of strip clubs, that the top clubs don't compete for the best strippers, and that every girl who wanted could just buy a bus ticket and end up making six figures stripping in NYC? The simple point is that the vast majority of strippers don't and can't work in the top clubs in NY, Vegas, and Miami, and don't make anything like the kind of money that'…

The strip clubs don't compete, not here in NYC. You have to audition. They pick you.

The business behind it is actually kind of interesting. The girl will audition, they get accepted and then they pay a house fee (usually around $100) to work there. Sundays are typically house fee free. Everything else is based on tips and the girls have to tip everyone: bouncers, house moms, makeup (if they don't do their own).

And it's really a scaling issue. I'm guessing (and I'm just guessing) that the median income for a stripper in a particular area is directly related to the median income for that area.

Also, a lot of girls travel to work, between NYC, Vegas and Los Angeles. Also, Miami is pretty big.

You don't need to be a super model to work at the "top flight" clubs in NYC either. I have photographic evidence of that. You do need to have some hustle to make a lot of money though, and a casual disdain for men doesn't hurt either.

I would most certainly NOT recommend it as a career for people. I think it has the capability of ruining healthy sexual attitudes in people. It certainly made my relationship much harder.

That being said, a lot of these girls have very few options that provide the sort of income and lifestyle flexibility that stripping offers. My ex-wife supported her entire family with it. Could she have done something else? Maybe, but she didn't finish high school and her family required her support. What career can someone in her situation take on that offers 90K+ for 4 days work without a high school diploma?

It's really interesting too because the entire perception of stripping is so culturally rooted. Where she is from (Japan) it's no big deal. It's another job, like being a hostess girl. Not something you wear on your sleeve, but not something you necessarily are ashamed of. Of course, being American, nobody in my family knows or knew - that would have been a disaster.

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#84

Post by pjscott »

derefr wrote: post #64
TGJ wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The country defends the right to speech, whether you are hateful with it or not is your choice. The country defends the right of guns to remind the government that the population is armed and willing to stand up to oppressive regimes. Proliferation of sex outside of the family unit, destroys the family unit. Seems straight forward to me.

Why does the government care about defending "the family unit?" That's not its job.

Part of the US government's stated purpose is to "promote the general welfare" of its people. The real questions are these:

1. What social effects does the proliferation of extramarital sex have? (I don't buy the flat assertion that it "destroys the family unit" -- and I know some polyamorists who would be downright incensed by that claim -- but it's got to have some effects. Let's see what they are.)

2. Are those social effects good, bad, or some mixture? To what extent, and for whom?

3. If there turn out to be bad effects, are they sufficiently bad that some form of government intervention would be worthwhile? If so, what's the least heavy-handed way to intervene that stands a good chance of working?

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#85

Post by pbhjpbhj »

derefr wrote: post #63
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's a workaround for a permissions issue, basically, and has no ethical justification. I think you mean no ethical justification that you agree with. For example, take as an axiom "sex should only be allowed between partners in long term monandrous relationships" and it follows logically from there. This is an ethical justification. You just apparently disagree with the premise. Most theistic ethical systems have s…

If you're starting with complex axioms like > "sex should only be allowed between partners in long term monandrous relationships" then what you've got is a moral justification, not an ethical one.

I've only dabbled in moral philosophy (the study of ethics!) but my understanding is that the more common use amongst professional philosophers is that ethics relates to a system established usually by a particular group, like a legal code or religious doctrine whilst morals concern an individuals actions. Morality then is considered to concern a naturally occurring right whilst ethics concerns a constructed set of rules (often based on or intended to enforce particular morals).

The terms in common parlance are used interchangeably and unfortunately even those (possibly novices) working in the art use the terms in a contrary way - http://www.philosophyblog.com.au/ethics-vs-morality-the-dist... highlights the mess very well.

Perhaps you could enlarge on your objection, is it merely semantic or does it have a substantial element too?

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#86

Post by jfager »

jawngee wrote: post #83
jfager wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not ridiculous at all. You really think there's not a hierarchy of strip clubs, that the top clubs don't compete for the best strippers, and that every girl who wanted could just buy a bus ticket and end up making six figures stripping in NYC? The simple point is that the vast majority of strippers don't and can't work in the top clubs in NY, Vegas, and Miami, and don't make anything like the kind of money that'…

The strip clubs don't compete, not here in NYC. You have to audition. They pick you. The business behind it is actually kind of interesting. The girl will audition, they get accepted and then they pay a house fee (usually around $100) to work there. Sundays are typically house fee free. Everything else is based on tips and the girls have to tip everyone: bouncers, house moms, makeup (if they don't do their own). And…

The strip clubs don't compete, not here in NYC.

Of course they do. A given girl can only be at one club at any given time - how does she pick which one she's going to be at? She takes into consideration how much money she can make, how well the club treats her, what kind of crowd the club draws, whatever. If you're a club owner, you want the best girls to want to be at your club, and not at the club down the street. That's competition.

You have to audition. They pick you.

The flip side being that some girls won't get picked, and will have to move on until they find a club that will take them.

I'm not criticizing strippers or trying to imply that there's something shameful in stripping. I'm simply pointing out that not all strippers make 6 figures in top-tier clubs in major cities, and that you can't assume that the experiences of the ones who do are the same as those of the vast majority who don't.

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#87

Post by prodigal_erik »

TGJ wrote: post #43
raganwald wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am struggling with the notion of a country that will defend to the death the rights of its citizens to purchase guns and use hateful speech, but simultaneously attack sex with such fundamentalist zeal. I'm experiencing cognitive dissonance.

The country defends the right to speech, whether you are hateful with it or not is your choice. The country defends the right of guns to remind the government that the population is armed and willing to stand up to oppressive regimes. Proliferation of sex outside of the family unit, destroys the family unit. Seems straight forward to me.

Being sex-starved is a lousy reason for starting or staying in a family.

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#88

Post by Mz »

raganwald wrote: post #18
derefr wrote: post #7

In case you're wondering: this only affects Craigslist users in the U.S. It's fine here in Canada, for example.

I am struggling with the notion of a country that will defend to the death the rights of its citizens to purchase guns and use hateful speech, but simultaneously attack sex with such fundamentalist zeal. I'm experiencing cognitive dissonance.

I live here (born and raised) and have trouble with such aspects of it. Best answer I can suggest off the cuff is culturally inherited "Puritan guilt". The folks who founded this country were the societal rejects of Europe and had to survive a lot in the process of coming here. I think that still impacts the culture.

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#89

Post by anigbrowl »

patio11 wrote: post #55
weeksie wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't paint every country with the same brush. In Australia it's legal and regulated. Sure, there are dodgy brothels (usually the asian ones) but the normal ones are mostly college girls who are earning a bunch of extra cash.

Sure, there are dodgy brothels There are "dodgy" brothels like the American South had "dodgy" cotton plantations in the 19th century. the normal ones are mostly college girls who are earning a bunch of extra cash This is a myth which society uses to let it sleep at night about them. (The same myth is widely held about strippers in the United States, and is equally false there.) Prostitution, nice clean business, step…

This is a myth which society uses to let it sleep at night about them.

Perhaps, though one might say that about a lot of things. On the other hand, places with strictly enforced prohibition still manage to have sordid redlight districts, no matter how aggressively they criminalize women who ply this trade.

I'm not convinced you can coerce people into being good, especially in a trade that caters to such fundamental biological drives. The strictest places I can think of as far as personal morals are concerned are countries like Saudi Arabia, whose 'solution' to the exploitation of women is apparently to drape them with black fabric and severely restrict their autonomy...and which still has a significant human trafficking problem.

Re: Craigslist Censored: Adult Section Comes Down

#90

Post by electromagnetic »

vaksel wrote: post #25
patio11 wrote: post #21

I hear quite often that prostitution would be a wonderfully pleasant industry if it were only legal, which does not square with the experiences of countries where it is legal or tolerated. You pretty much have to be running schoolgirls out of homeroom to get the Nagoya police to so much as glance in your direction, but Japanese prostitution is a very, very ugly place to be, and much of it is based on trafficking. I l…

Why do you lump prostitution with sex trafficking? Why do we have to make both legal? Just make sex with two consenting adults legal...and use all those cops who are stuck busting hookers...investigating complaints about sex traffickers.

Prostitution ranges essentially from crack addict street walkers up to 'chat' call girls who are frequently educated enough to maintain conversation with wealthy businessmen.

It's exceptionally naive to think the Russian mob is going to start trafficking in university graduate hookers.

What needs to be done is establish an agency to govern and regulate the sex trades, including the money handling. You want to be a prostitute? Sure, but you'll need to sign a waiver allowing us to monitor where your money is going; 'oh you're spending it on groceries, rent and something at bestbuy' vs 'oh you're spending it on groceries, rent and oh look you just transferred $2,000 to an offshore bank account'.

You want to be a customer? Sure, pay the agency a certified check, by credit/debit card (something with a paper trail) taxes are immediately taken off and the money is transferred in whole (less taxes) to the worker.

There's reason to legalize prostitution without even getting onto the matter of the ethics of allowing a woman to have sex for money. Namely that legalization of prostitution is expected to lower the rape rate significantly (IIRC by ~25% in the US), would help decrease the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and most of all, would help prevent the murders and serial killings of women.

Criminalization allows for corruption. Why does organized crime still manage to rear its ugly head in government? Well, perhaps because criminal gangs are orchestrating prostitution through pimping rings and only have to get one picture of an official with a hooker to ruin a man's career when 1/2 their voters are puritanical, evangelical morons.

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