A match made on Craigslist adult services

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 04:59:00 +0000

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous describes the fellowship as “people who normally would not mix.” That’s a good way of describing James and me. I was 27 years old, a grad student, bored and curious -- just like my ad said. James was in his mid-30s, a little too old and far too normal. He was not the kind of guy who’d approach me in another situation, at least that's what I thought when I saw him. Then again, James and I would never meet in any situation other than this.

I was a Craigslist call girl. James was my first. I had gotten the idea from a friend. “There are ads,” she said, “placed by men, looking for” -- she raised an eyebrow -- “company.”

That night I got online. It was just as she’d described: SWM seeks non pro, GFE, a little fun. FS. DATY. BBBJ. A lady that speaks GREEK, possibly, a road of possibilities, a chance encounter, no strings attached. For 200 roses, 300 reasons, a generous donation, a happy ending. You can start any day that you like.

On the now-shuttered adult services section of Craigslist -- to the left and below where you’d rent an apartment or sell a couch -- you could find ads, written in their own coded language, from men and women and everything in between, all of them after one thing: the simple exchange of money for sex.

The “Hooker Teacher” tells all

Thu, 05 May 2011 01:01:00 +0000

I have two master's degrees, five years' experience in the nonprofit sector and three years' experience teaching -- and I cannot get a job. Why? Just google me. I'm the "Hooker Teacher" -- at least that's what I've come to be called ever since Sept. 27, 2010, when I found myself on the cover of the New York Post.

"Meet Melissa Petro," the story began," the teacher who gives a new twist to sex ed." The piece describes me as a "tattooed former hooker and stripper" who was "shockingly upfront about her past." Indeed, earlier that month, I'd written an Op-Ed on the Huffington Post that criticized the recent censoring of the adult services section of Craigslist and came clean about my own sex-worker past. Because I was arguing that sex workers shouldn't be ashamed to speak for themselves, I signed my name to it. The New York Post wasn't interested in my politics, however; its interest seemed only in cooking up shock that an elementary school teacher would dare admit such a shady history.

Salon.com > Melissa Petro

A match made on Craigslist adult services

The “Hooker Teacher” tells all