Gia is an escort. She dates, hooks up with and sleeps with men for money. She is 28 years old, lives in Tacoma and makes upwards of $5000 a week. She has held regular jobs in the past, but now chooses her line of work for the money and flexibility. She says she loves her job and doesn't plan to quit anytime soon.

Gia uses backpage.com, a popular online classifieds site, to advertise her services. Advertising on Backpage helps Gia meet new clients and arrange meeting areas. It also allows Gia and her clients to operate upon terms that they agreed upon before they meet. For escorts like Gia -adults who choose the illegal path of prostitution as a means of income - classified websites like backpage.com can be crucial for success.

"Backpage is a big majority of my business right now," Gia says. 

But Gia has a problem. Adult-oriented classifieds such as those posted on backpage.com are in danger of becoming extinct. Many state governments and women's rights groups argue that Backpage and other sites do little to impede human trafficking and stop prostitution, and they profit heavily in the process. In the Wall Street Journal, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal called Adult Service sections "little more than online brothels, enabling human trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and children." Backpage is engaged in various lawsuits, including one that involves a former underage prostitute who is suing the site, alleging a pimp used the website to advertise her for sex.

Gia acknowledges what she does for money is illegal but says she has no intention of changing her lifestyle. She says Backpage not only helps her find her clients, but allows her to discriminate which clients to see before meeting in person, which helps her stay safe.

"If Backpage were to shut down I would probably have to start walking the streets," Gia says. "And I don't want to do that." 

The decision

Gia worked most of her life in a nine-to-five job. For a long time, she owned a house. Although mortgage and bills were always a struggle, she made it happen.

Then, a couple of years ago, Gia developed a drug habit. Gia says she was deeply depressed and turned to heavy drug use as a means of escape. She quickly lost her job, her four-bedroom house and most of her possessions. 

Staying at a friend's house with little more than a suitcase full of clothes, Gia discovered the financial potential of working as an escort. Gia's friend, an escort herself, brought in large sums of cash for what Gia considered to be little work.  It was her friend who helped "turn her out," the terminology Gia uses when talking about her transformation into an escort.

For Gia, the transformation process was easy.

"I was really broke, really desperate. And I was always a slut," she says, laughing. "I was always a slut and I was just like, ‘Why not make them pay for it?'"

In this day and age, that meant Gia started off by posting ads for her services on craigslist.org, under the Adult Services section of the website.

By early 2010, the Adult Services section of Craigslist was a huge money maker. Charging a $10 fee for the first post, and a $5 fee for each subsequent post, Craigslist was expected to take in approximately 30 percent of their $122 million projected year-end revenue in adult ads alone. But with revenue came conflict. For years, Craigslist battled accusations from individuals, law enforcement and government officials that the Adult Services section harbored prostitution, turned a blind eye to human trafficking and could even facilitate crime. Although Craigslist was protected from any legal liability through the Communications Decency Act, the site drew criticism for what its users posted. In 2010, Craigslist made a move to evaluate each post before it was allowed online.

But this did little to calm the outcry. In August, 17 state attorneys general (Washington's did not participate) banded together to request the immediate closure of the Adult Services section. The attorneys general asserted prostitution and child trafficking were rampant on the site. In September, Craigslist finally bowed to the pressure and removed the Adult Services section from the website.

When the link was shut down, Gia was posting on both Backpage and Craigslist. She says Craigslist was more expensive - Backpage charges a flat fee of only $3 an ad - and much harder to deal with.

"Craigslist was always kind of a pain in the ass anyway. You had to go through a whole bunch to get your ads posted," she says. 

The clients

Gia describes a majority of her clients she meets through Backpage as middle-aged, Caucasian males who make good money. Gia says a lot of her clients are married men not satisfied with their sex life, sometimes having unique sexual desires they are not comfortable approaching with their spouse. She says these men believe that by seeking out an escort for sex, they are eliminating an emotional connection and can maintain a relationship with their wife.

"Instead of building a relationship with another woman and possibly destroying their marriage, they just go seek out a professional," Gia explains. "That way, they don't have those excess feelings afterward."

Gia says she does have a set of regular clients, but most of her clients are new each visit. According to Gia, new girls on Backpage have the easiest time finding clients because, "everyone wants to try out the new girl."  It then becomes a challenge for Gia to keep her posts fresh, helping her bring in clientele. She routinely posts a couple of times each day, constantly uploading new photos and changing the language in her ads.

 "You gotta keep it new. If the clients see the same old ad they're not going to click on it, they're going to click on something new," she says.

If freshness, attitude and desirable pictures are what potential clients look for in Backpage ads, Tacoma's escorts have these characteristics in spades. When searching Backpage for female escorts in the Tacoma area, as many as 50 choices pop up for each day. The titles of the classifieds range from the veiled (I'm the Best Kept Secret) to the not-so-veiled (Sh0rt &ThiCK_ BeND Me OveR!). Once clicked on, the advertisements feature pictures, usually of the women posing in scandalous outfits and compromising positions, sometimes in the nude. Most advertisements have a short description of the escort's age, weight and body type, as well as their hourly rates. From there, it's up to the escort how to personalize their classified in an attempt to draw more clients. Some ads are fairly innocent (Body, Brains, and Sweet Personality!), some are playful (Come Over & Try This Georgia Peach) and some are humorous (So EASY a caveman could do me!).

Gia's own postings tend to focus on her professional attitude (always on time!), and a promise that the alluring pictures of her posted on the right-hand side of the page are indeed real.    

Escorts are just one of eight subsections under the Adult category of Backpage. Male escorts, transsexuals, body rubs and dom & fetish all have their own separate categories. Upon choosing a sub-section, a would-be client has to read the terms of agreement and agree to a disclaimer before they can continue on to the selected category. The disclaimer requires that all users report any illegal services offered, and encourages users to immediately report suspected exploitation of minors and/or human trafficking to authorities.   

The profiteers

Village Voice Media, the owner of Backpage, has surely benefited from the closure of Craigslist's Adult Services section. Compete.com reported Backpage saw a 7 percent increase in reach within the month following Craigslist's Adult Services closure. In the same month, Craigslist saw a decrease of 3.8 percent. According to the AIM Group, a consulting service for classified advertising, research shows that Backpage will generate an estimated $17.5 million in 2010 through possible prostitution ads.

Like Craigslist, controversy followed money. In September, about a month after the state attorneys general called for the closing of Craigslist's Adult Services section, 21 attorneys general (again, Washington's did not participate) sent a letter to Backpage's lawyers, requesting the closure of its Adult section. In the letter, the attorneys general also asked Backpage to provide closer oversight of the personals section, since escort ads had begun to migrate there.

Gia says it's no secret why backpage.com is next on the attorney's hit-list, even though there are a myriad of other sites devoted to advertising escorts.

"Nobody really knows about the other sites unless they're deep into the hobby. Craigslist and Backpage are sites that have everything on them, not just escorts," Gia says. "The more people that know about the site, the more attention it's going to get from people who disagree."

Gia says it's Backpage's popularity that allows her to operate. Since beginning to post online over a year ago, she has seen a steady stream of clientele, making her $3,000-$5,000 a week. Unlike some male escorts interviewed, Gia says her business is largely dependent on online sites, not just client-to-client referrals. If Backpage were to close the Adult section, or bar Gia from posting, her income would dry up. If this happened, Gia says she would be forced to walk the streets, a scary possibility: "On the streets, the likelihood of me getting robbed goes up. The likelihood of me getting arrested goes up. And there's always someone out there trying to pimp on somebody, so there's that, too."

Village Voice Media has resisted the call to shut down Backpage's Adult section. A press release issued immediately after the letter from the attorneys general  stated that, "Backpage is a legal business, and operates its website in accordance with all applicable laws." On Oct. 19, a follow-up release was issued, alerting of the suspension of certain areas of Backpage's personals and Adult sections, in order for Backpage to, "develop technologies, features and programs specifically tailored to prevent the misuse of the site." According to the release, a task force would be created to help stop users from posting online illegally. The ads are to be reviewed by Backpage before posting and weeded through for any suspicious content - something Gia doesn't want to see happen. The release also stated that Backpage would continue its dialogue with the attorneys general.

Though Backpage has recently increased oversight, Gia and other escorts are still allowed to post. As this issue of the Weekly Volcano goes to press, there is still a section labeled Escort underneath the Adult category. But with a review process in effect, who knows how long this will last.

Some even argue that it's not in the best interests of law enforcement to shut Backpage down. As reported by clickz.com, Pete Zolleman, the head of the classified advertising consultancy firm AIM, said the prostitution and trafficking present on Backpage were despicable. But, Zolleman goes on to say, since law enforcement uses Backpage as a tool to catch prostitutes and their clients, the site can also be used to eliminate illegal activities. On Nov. 8, the Seattle Times reported that 23 teens had been rescued in the Puget Sound Region during a national operation to recover juvenile prostitutes. The article said law enforcement officials used a combination of the Internet and more traditional methods to find the underage girls working as prostitutes.

While online sites like Backpage may be used to help catch illegal activities, the argument arises that though law enforcement officials use the Internet to help eliminate such activities, it is sites like Backpage that help foster these illegal practices in the first place.   

Illegal or not, Gia says she has no plans to stop doing what she does. And although Gia says she is completely comfortable with how she makes her money, she realizes other people aren't. Gia says she has done a lot of growing up in the past year, and feels like she is a more stable, wiser person because of the things she has experienced.

"People should know that I've had more safe sex now as an escort than I ever did as a slut," Gia says. "People should know (escorts) are in this for the money. And that we do have feelings."  

"How can I go from this income to a 40-hour-a-week job for a third of the money?"