OldestProfession2.0: A new generation of local "providers" and "hobbyists" create a virtual red-light district

From the sex worker's-rights perspective, Swimme has no qualms about the commodification that is taking place. She suggests that the practice of posting reviews adds legitimacy to an otherwise illicit transaction. "I think that having reviews in the sex industry to some degree makes a lot of sense," she says. "It brings it into a realm that says: This is a commercial exchange, a profession, a service."

Elms goes as far as to compare the john-escort dynamic to the purchase of expensive electronics: "It's like a consumer-reports magazine that has buyer reviews of car-stereo performance."

The quest for rave reviews and the booming business that comes with them can be hyper-competitive. One of the oldest and most popular review Web sites, bigdoggie.net, issues a twice-daily top-100 ranking of escorts from across the nation based on ratings tallied from user reviews.

The practice does have its critics. Amanda Brooks, author of The Internet Escort's Handbook, a three-part series first published in 2006 that professes to "address every question that a woman could ask before she becomes a sex worker who advertises through the Internet," points out that women can be pressured into doing things they otherwise wouldn't do, for fear of the online backlash.

"It has turned into, 'This girl is totally great, she's going to do this and this and this,'" says Brooks, who also contributes to Bound, Not Gagged, a sex workers'-rights blog. "That's a big problem, because girls will do sex activities that push boundaries, but they do them because they could get a good review and make money."

At STLASP, Mac says when she first got into the business, the creator of one review site pressured her to have sex with him in exchange for positive reviews. "He said he could make me or break me because his site was national and if I was smart I would come visit him and have an appointment with him for free," she recalls. "I told him no way."

Despite that experience, Mac remains a strong advocate of posting the critiques "for the sake of quality control." She admits, however, to having to frequently mediate disputes about authenticity and accuracy. Several times women have been caught creating fake profiles in order to post positive evaluations of themselves. Once, Mac says, a man posted a negative review that an escort later claimed was completely off base.

"I told her that she could write a rebuttal to the review and she chose not to," Mac notes.

Elms says he has confronted similar issues. "I look at the history of reviewer," he says. "If, consistently, this reviewer's history shows he's been accurate, no one has ever contested anything and he has long-term membership, then I know that this is probably pretty solid."

Then again, Elms adds, reviews are rarely two thumbs down. "When you tell a story to a couple of friends, obviously you're going to put yourself in a good light," he notes. "When you tell a story here, you're telling it to 100,000 of your closest friends. You still have the male ego to deal with."

When Mac debuted STLASP a year ago, she promoted it with a mere two posts on Craigslist. Since then an average of 50 new people per day have registered for user names. A counter at the bottom of the site's main page tallies the current membership at nearly 2,500; altogether they account for more than 19,000 posts.

Registration is free, and all that is required to access the forums is an e-mail address, a user name and a password. Fearing the site has began to attract too much attention, Mac recently posted a message saying she is considering a moratorium on new memberships.

For a site that specializes in sex, STLASP's appearance is remarkably sterile: blue text on a plain gray-and-white background. The site is divided into several sections, each of which contains its own message boards. "Administration" features a glossary of "hobby"-related abbreviations. In "Providers" users can see which women are "Available Today" and browse the personal Web pages of two dozen escorts. Most of the posts are found in the "Hobbyists" section, which features the "Discussion" board, where the men and women tell jokes, swap stories and ask each other questions about nearly everything under the sun.

Unlike other sites of its kind, STLASP is devoid of advertisements. Mac says she has invested several hundred dollars in software, server space and the domain name. She estimates that she generally spends multiple hours each week dealing with programming glitches, creating new features and moderating disputes between users. Having had no prior Web-design experience, she concedes she may have gotten in over her head with her not-for-profit endeavor.

"This does not define who I am as a person," Mac says. "It's a very small aspect of my life. The more I invest time into it, the more it becomes a bigger part of my life. And since I've been spending like five hours a night on this Web site, I'm like, 'Oh my God, it's taking over now.'"

Swimme is impressed that the mind behind STLASP is a woman's.