Prostitutes use Web as new `street corner'

Dressed in a revealing halter-top, the 28-year-old woman sits in handcuffs on
a motel-room bed in Des Plaines. Nearby, undercover police officers examine her
modern-day tool of the trade: an Apple iBook.

“Show us your Web site,” demands Cmdr. Matt Hicks. “We know you are on
there.”

Such encounters underscore the new public face of an old profession. Instead
of flashing their skin on a street corner, women can work from a motel, armed
with a cellphone and a laptop computer.

Traditionally, prostitutes who billed themselves as escorts advertised in
alternative weeklies, entertainment-oriented magazines and other publications.
Now a simple Web site can be launched for less than the price of a print ad,
authorities say.

“The Internet is the street corner of the 21st Century,” said Sgt. Gary
Darrow, head of special investigations for the Schaumburg Police Department.
“It's easy, it's anonymous and it's free.”

As a result, police throughout the suburbs say the Web is fueling a
prostitution business that is both difficult to detect and hard to enforce.
Prostitutes can easily be found online in cities such as Naperville, North
Chicago, Joliet, Evanston, Schaumburg and South Holland.

Across the country, police are focusing on the Internet. In Pennsylvania, 12
women were recently charged with prostitution after an investigation into
advertisements they posted online. Similar stings have been conducted in San
Francisco, Baltimore, Oklahoma City and elsewhere.

Robyn Few, founder of the San Francisco-based Sex Workers Outreach Project,
said suburban prostitution rings are run in ways similar to any small
independent business.

“The Internet gave women and men a tool to become their own boss,” she
said. “I look at prostitutes as entrepreneurs. People go into business for
themselves.”

Many prostitutes tour the country, staying in a motel in or near a city for
one to two weeks at a time, Few said. Others work out of their homes or for
regional sex services that use computers to advertise, land clients and make
appointments.

Chicago Tribune