Just as myriad swingers sites allow soccer moms to commit adultery and married men to cheat with impunity, a new British website is helping people to become part-time prostitutes.
Across Britain and Ireland plenty of people are willing to pay for sex -- and plenty more are willing to provide it, but until now it has largely been the domain of professional sex workers.
Britain's AdultWork website is plugging into the growing niche industry of sex-work dilettantes, people who spend a few hours a week in front of a camera, or in bed with a client, to augment their income -- or maybe even just because they like it.
Sex and the internet have a long history. Besides pornography, there are plenty of sites where sex-starved people can hook up. AdultFriendFinder is the world's most popular "no-strings" sex site, with almost 17 million users. Others like Swingers Europe, Naughtynightlife.com and Swinger Zone are far from unpopular.
And there are plenty of specialist sites too: Gaydar and Gay.com for gay hookups, URNotAlone for transsexuals and Alt for bondage and sadomasochism enthusiasts.
But while these sites are just dating forums, AdultWork is an online clearinghouse for sex work.
At present it has almost 3,000 members offering services, and several times that number buying or browsing. In addition to sex, the services on offer include webcam peep shows, homemade movies, phone sex and sex by cell-phone SMS. The site launched in late 2003 but had little immediate impact. It's taken just under two years to rise to prominence.
Users must create a free account to browse the services offered. Users can rate the services they've tried, or even offer their own services. Like eBay, AdultWork takes a cut of all transactions, which are processed through the web bank Nochex.
Indeed, with its ratings honor system, AdultWork is something like an eBay for sex. And sex isn't the only service available through the site. All the secondary occupations supporting it are also listed -- bodyguards, cleaners, receptionists, even web designers.
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One of AdultWork's part-time escorts is Melissa from Belfast. Melissa is an attractive, intelligent and well-read 20-year-old. A full-time student of communications, she is internet- and media-savvy -- a far cry from the clichéd call girl.
"I think what I do is very different to prostitution, well in my head, anyway," she said. "I guess it depends how you codify things -- everyone is a prostitute at some level. We're all willing to whore some aspect of our body or soul for financial or material gains."
For Melissa, escorting is part-time work that provides good money. She insists it's not sordid.
"Prostitution suggests standing on a street corner to feed a drug habit," she said. "I think of myself as a Holly Golightly, Breakfast at Tiffany's kind of call girl.... It's been a bit of a fantasy for me to have this secret life that only I know about."
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The owners of AdultWork, AW Systems, remain a mystery. Despite being aimed at a British and Irish audience, the site is hosted from the Netherlands. Holland's liberal laws allow sex for money to be openly promoted. Ironically, a similar site for the Dutch is a non-starter: Prostitution has already been normalized.
A British Home Office spokeswoman said prostitution is not illegal in the United Kingdom, but solicitation and pimping are -- and that AdultWork is pimping.
"Action would be a matter for the police," she said. "But if such a site was indeed U.K.-based, it could be shut down."
"Anything that gives women more power over their work would help," she said. "Stigmatizing sex, preventing women from being able to work together and so on, those things just make them more vulnerable.... Taking your clothes off doesn't necessarily make something a bad job."
UPDATE: “Melissa” Exposed And while we’re on the subject of ripoffs today: A story on a UK escort site that appeared on Wired News yesterday includes several quotes by “Melissa”, described as “an attractive, intelligent and well-read 20-year-old” from Belfast who’s a “internet- and media-savvy”, a “full-time student of communications, and “a far cry from the clichéd call girl”. But before you get out your credit card and start booking a flight to Northern Ireland, consider the fact that Melissa seems to have “borrowed” the pictures she uses in her profiles on several websites: specifically, and coincidentally, she’s passing off photos of Neon at Burning Angel (whose photo Wired used yesterday to illustrate the article, though it’s since been removed) and Mary and other models from Suicide Girls as her own—and whose different looks she explains with a simple “I’m now longer a brunette…I’ve returned to dazzling blonde!”. “Internet savvy” indeed. (Maybe she was just doing research for a book contract or something?) Caveat emptor, folks!
Not long ago, London resident Christine Tomas received a text message through her cell phone from a stranger who shared her belief that George W. Bush is an alien.
That unlikely moment presaged more texting, about movies, and eventually led to Tomas finding a long-term salsa dancing partner.
Tomas is a heavy user of Playtxt -- a cell-phone service that connects people nearby who have stated similar preferences.
Across the pond, in New York, Diane McGunigle used another service, dodgeball.com, as the lubricant to introduce herself to someone she saw on the subway but had been too bashful to talk to.
"I checked in to dodgeball," she said, and "I got an alert that 'so-and-so has a crush on you, and he is at X bar, go and say hi.'" she said.
So McGunigle went to the bar, and by coincidence, it was the same guy she'd just seen on the subway. Like her, he'd been too shy to make an approach, but not to send a text message.
"I now had a valid and less-frightening excuse to meet him," McGunigle said.
Dodgeball and England's Playtxt are two examples of mobile social-software services, otherwise known by the catchy acronym, MoSoSos.
MoSoSos are the mobile equivalents of online social networks like Friendster and LinkedIn. They help users find old friends, or potential new ones, on the go.
Typically, users set up a profile listing interests, hobbies and romantic availability. They also state what kind of people they'd like to meet. Because the service is tied to a mobile device, it knows when people with similar interests are near each other.
Not surprisingly, MoSoSos are ideal for hooking up young, active professionals tied to their mobile phones or laptops, and they're starting to take off.
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Jambo Networks: Launched at last month's Demo conference, Jambo utilizes Wi-Fi hotspots to connect its members, who join through their university, workplace or affinity group like an alumni association. The service determines if anyone logged onto a hot spot with a Wi-Fi-enabled laptop, PDA or smartphone is a member of the same group. If there's more than one, each person sees the other's profile, which, among other things, highlights similar interests.
Following the MoSoSo model, Jambo facilitates pseudonymous messaging between the two users, who then decide if they want to introduce themselves.
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Plazes: Based in Germany, Plazes revolves around the idea that anyone with a Wi-Fi-enabled laptop can define a "plaze." A plaze is usually a Wi-Fi hot spot. It tells where the user is located and looks for other members nearby.
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"Geographically, mobile messaging is maturing and finding new groups of users beyond the initial curious," said Judith Meskill, a social-networking expert. "People are now beginning to get how amazingly valuable this is to their lives in motion."
But Meskill thinks MoSoSos are a natural fit for universities or groups like the American Cancer Society.
"Passive social-networking services that merely aggregate our friends, and their friends, ad infinitum, eventually lose their luster," said Meskill. "Geographically mobile solutions that help us connect with our affinity groups or friends are infinitely more sticky."
GuessWhatiHeard.com encourages members to “dish” on their ex-friends, flames, business partners and classmates — earning itself the title of “juiciest site to hit the web in years” from “industry experts” (which industry? which experts?). Site founder Kelly Felix says he created the site in response to reviews of Friendster et al as “boring.” Apparently, the proper antidote to boring is gossip!
