by Sophie
Sometimes when I am unable to sleep and the traffic is nonexistent, I go for drives. Not for hours and hours, but long enough to make a loop around the city and listen to music and think. On one of these late night sessions I realized that I was driving past the neighborhood of a disappointing Craigslist hookup from many years ago, the guy who tried to caress the top of my mouth with a rough, clumsy index finger. Not far down the road was the memory of the guy I met, again on Craigslist, with whom I slept on and off again for several months back in 2014, then again for a stint after he broke up with a girl in 2016, then again one more time before he moved to L.A. last year. He was a really nice guy.
The southern part of the city brought back memories of the last guy who broke my heart, who, incidentally, also was a Craigslist meetup. Of course at some point I was close to Jamie’s neighborhood, and I squirmed in my seat a little, happily and viscerally reminded of yet another successful casual encounter that became a bit more than I had bargained for.
That rooftop? That’s the top of a garage that I and a dude from trusty Craigslist went to fuck furtively in a car and where we were caught by a rent-a-cop. That was our hilariously embarrassing final encounter. That park? Memorable bench blowjob followed by a make-out session that ultimately went nowhere, all courtesy of the internet. This city is a map of my sexual past with landmarks all over its surface. I grew into myself here and I have enjoyed myself — and others — in every corner of it. Craigslist, in many ways, was the compass that pointed me in the right directions.
I obviously have a type – easily met via online personals and willing to think outside the box, so to speak. Not that I haven’t had success meeting people in real life — that definitely happens — but when the mood strikes, Craigslist is always a reliable source of entertainment, whether a lady gets laid or not, and with such a resource at your fingertips, why bother with anything else? And the stories! I am sure I will get around to some of them — I have some fantastic stories. (And some cringe inducing ones.)
Jamie and I have had several conversations about Craigslist and a few, fewer, about politics. We are sympatico politically so talking about those sorts of things would just turn into a circular echo chamber. But Craigslist — ah, such a rich vein of inspiration for all sorts of endeavors. Satire, experimentation, frustration, gratification. Jamie likes to call it a “cesspool,” and for the most part I am inclined to agree. In this, it is very similar to a political system. But it’s also a necessary release valve for the shadier side of the internet — free, easily accessible, reliable. Craigslist never judges you, it just enables you, whether you know what to do with that freedom or not. And sure, as a woman it’s an endless string of penis pictures and one sentence replies — most often in the form of a question asking if one is real or not. And for guys, it’s a flood of semi-realistic bots wanting one to sign up for porn sites. Something about the promise of Craigslist vs. the reality of Craigslist is very human.
There are some diamonds in the rough that is Craigslist. One of the most important relationships of my entire life began via the Craigslist casual encounters section. I am currently experiencing yet another one, and all I did was post asking for someone to take me for a drink before fucking me. Jamie can read between the lines.
Oh, yes, politics. I got distracted. Yesterday, which was March 22 at the time of this writing, SESTA (https://gizmodo.com/senate-passes-sesta-controversial-anti-sex-trafficking-1823916411) made its way through Congress and Craigslist shut down their personal ads in response. Reddit shut down some subreddits, mostly ones that deal with selling and buying of slightly questionable goods or services. I found out about the events this morning while drinking coffee and waking up, and I was horrified. I felt like I had just heard about a fatal car wreck at an intersection through which I had driven just moments ago. I immediately texted the link and information to Jamie and awaited his response. Then it hit me. What all of this means in the immediate.
This means that Jamie and I could potentially be the last lovers to meet on Craigslist. The “is” has become “was.”
“Holy fuck,” Jamie writes back to me after a time. I know exactly how he is feeling. I hadn’t been planning on using or perusing Craigslist; after meeting Jamie, I figured, well, that’s that. I hadn’t even looked at the casual encounters in the six months that had passed since we began sleeping with one another. His next text messages blinked across my phone screen, confirming exactly what I was thinking. “I suppose it’s possible at some future point I might have wanted to go back on there. That has not occurred to me in months. But at the same time, I feel like somebody died. I feel attacked.”
I would have laughed at this if I hadn’t felt the same way. How dare someone take away the playground I have outgrown? And what implications does this have for all manner of other services and sites? What about Tinder? Or Backpage? FetLife? SeekingArrangement? Any site or service where sex is sold or traded is now in danger of being labeled as “facilitating” sex trafficking. Including — probably especially — escort services.
The city isn’t just a map of my internet-driven sexual adventures, it’s also a reminder of another life I lived, over a decade ago, one in which sex was (only slightly) more of a product than a pleasure for me. Hotels and bars — some of which now completely different hotels and bars than I remember — mark places where I met men and kept them company for an evening or sometimes into the next day before heading off to another place, another man. Those memories are more frayed and worn but are still vibrant and rich and recognizable. Are those experiences now gone completely, these new laws scaring everyone so underground as to not be found? Surely “sugaring” websites will be affected. Will there be anywhere for sex workers — or just curious college students with bills to pay — to advertise their services on the internet anymore?
Perhaps most importantly, what does this mean for internet censorship? More specifically, what does it mean for sites like this one? One of the central themes that Jamie and I tend to gravitate toward is one of community — I hope, and I know he does, that one day our writing will reach an audience of like-minded individuals, an audience that might want to discuss and debate and reach out to one another, even if just in a virtual space. I want my experiences and thoughts to bring people together. But can a comments section on a blog about sex now be seen as “assisting” something as vile as sex trafficking just because the blog is about sex and is publicly available? Am I comfortable shying away from something that I believe in just because it could potentially be used as a tool for harm?
I know the answer is “no.” I am almost certain Jamie’s answer is also “no.” But no amount of bravery or principled behavior is going to bring back what has already been lost. Craigslist’s personal ads were a source of entertainment, sure. They were also a sexual theme park – one that could have used a lot of cleaning, and maybe some updating, but a place where real relationships began in the casual encounters section. It took a lot of work to separate the good from the bad — and being a slut can be quite a bit of work, when you get right down to it — but in the end, the magnificent affair in which Jamie and I find ourselves entangled wouldn’t have been possible without Craigslist. I suspect we are not the only people who have found importance in the links of the CL personal ads. “I feel like somebody died,” Jamie said, and I agree, but it could be potentially worse than that. Where will the lovers who were meant to meet on Craigslist encounter one another? Are the sluts and freaks of Craigslist an endangered species, quickly on its way to extinct? Where can we go now without worrying about our communities being shut down? Will these measures actually do anything to address the issue of sex trafficking?
I really don’t have a lot of answers, at least not at this moment. I feel like I am in mourning for a freedom that simply doesn’t exist anymore; the minute the Craigslist personal ads came down was the minute that we free-spirited sexual explorers are left looking to membership sites to find new partners and experiences. Gone is the ease of use, the lack of fees, the brutal honest snapshot of human nature on display for everyone to see.
I look at Jamie and feel grateful that we met when we did, that we were a part of that moment in time when people like us could connect the way we did. I feel like we are lucky. If we are the last lovers to meet on Craigslist, at least we are doing our best to live up to the title.
amaranthine border 