“Upscale executive seeks beautiful female 18-24 to live in his luxury condo in Coral Gables for $1/month in exchange for some light duties. Help take care of dog, cook occasionally. Sex 2x/week. Serious inquires only. Please email a picture for consideration. The Coral Gables man who offered that startling pitch in a recent posting on the popular website Craigslist.com is among a growing pool of men who routinely seek sexual favors in the room-for-rent section of Internet ads. Such postings — a type of bartering of homes for sex — are not only worrisome because they target young women who may be desperate for affordable housing in South Florida’s harsh real estate climate. They may also be illegal. ‘They would be of concern to us,’ said Sgt. Kelly Sullivan with the Miami-Dade Police Department’s organized crime unit. ‘It is a form of prostitution because they are enticing young girls who may be strapped for cash.’ Trading a room for sex over the Internet is relatively fresh terrain for law enforcement — so much so, that Sullivan admitted he wasn’t aware this was happening.” — Miami Herald (US)

Just because men post ads offering to swap real estate for sex doesn’t necessarily mean that anyone is responding to the ads. The man offering the Coral Gables apartment refused to be interviewed, and the newspaper didn’t find (or didn’t look for?) any women who’d actually accepted such an arrangement. This may well be a tempest in a teapot.

Here in New York, for example, the real estate market must be as vicious as any in the world. Just to give you some idea what it’s like, a mediocre studio apartment in Manhattan probably averages about $1000 per month — a little less if you’re lucky, a little more if you want a doorman, a view, or a good neighborhood. If that’s the standard, then, would you be willing to clean up after a person, walk his dog, and fuck him twice a week for a mere grand a month? That’s not much money. Hookers make more money than that on eight encounters a month. Why should you settle for less — and to live with a guy who’s probably a creep, since he’s scouring the internet for an indentured sex servant?

What’s more, at least hookers get to walk away from their johns when their hour is up. In this case you’d actually be living with your john — meaning you’d have little sense of privacy, autonomy, self-control. Who would give that up for a paltry thousand dollars? Unless the guy was George Clooney hot, or unless you were perverse enough to want to indenture yourself to some creep, the end just doesn’t seem worth the means.

Which is why this is probably all just a tempest in a teapot.

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