Original post date: 12/15/2014
So I re-read all of my posts from last year. Huh.
Oh hey, fuckin’ EVERYBODY: I was clearly in the middle of a complete mental breakdown, and also, how did I not get murdered. Were you all just waiting for it? Because I should have been murdered. Seriously. Like how was I not. And nobody even tried to stop me.
That’s a lie. I’m lying.
Truthfully, several people tried to reel in the Erin-is-losing-her-shit situation, but I’m kind of an asshole when it comes to doing what I want to do so…there was no reeling me back in.
I was in a bad place last year. Depressed. Unemployed. Broke. Desperate. Sad. So naturally I was like, I don’t feel bad enough about myself yet, lemme just search for a homicidal rapist on Craigslist and then write about it and let people judge me. Omg so fun. Then I went ahead and sent the same set of eight nude photos to at least 40 unknown email addresses in hopes of, I don’t know, finding a creepy old guy to pay my bills and buy me things? Or a creepy young guy, didn’t matter—money is money, especially when you’re naked. Specifically when you’re naked.
But really the only explanation I can come up with is this: I was in the middle of a seven month-long psychotic episode during which I exploited myself and my body as some kind of whatever the fuck. I mean, Craigslist?…Really? There is literally a Lifetime Original movie called “The Craigslist Killer” and hey, guess what: IT’S BASED ON THINGS THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED. I mean, kind of. It is Lifetime, so the killer probably has cancer or something. I wouldn’t know. I never saw it. However, the people-got-murdered part is true.
So, on that note: there is one more Craigslist story that I need to tell…err–finish. A lot of you will remember the beginning of this story, but I never finished it and I’m sure the reason for that will be obvious in just a moment.
The time has come to share the rest.
I first mentioned SugDad™ in this post from August, 2013. Later, I posted on the Erin Who? Facebook page about my plans to get on a flight to LA—paid for by SugDad™.
And then afterward I didn’t know how to explain.
I went to LA and stayed for 32 hours. I’d arrived with $10 and left with $760, which was 50% of the “donations” I had collected from the nine men I had sex with in those 32 hours, at two separate upscale hotels in downtown LA. I had room service. I had weed. I had liquor and snacks and free movies. I also reeked of latex even after three showers. I was convinced the smell would never go away and I would have to wear it like a sign around my neck that said, “At least I was a safe 32-hour prostitute.”
SugDad™ was the facilitator (see also: pimp) and his assistant, Not Really Named Megan™, was the…I don’t even know…like the head ho in charge. She was the one who delivered condoms to my room. She was the one who texted me when a “client” was on his way up. So like…operations manager?
I am not proud of my decisions; I had to get past a lot of shame and pretty much general disappointment in myself for crossing that line. I never had, even in all the hours (and hours and hours) I spent simulating sex on webcams, it was never physical; it wasn’t real, therefore I was NOT a prostitute.
It’s a scary thing, desperation. And then desperation alongside psychosis (see also: psychotic episode, see also: a mental state often described as involving a “loss of contact with reality”) results in insanity and irrational choices. Plain and simple.
A few months back, the man I called SugDad™ crossed my mind. I knew a simple Google search would return any new, glamorous, Hollywood-y things he was up to, so I went ahead and typed his name into the search bar. Note: if you haven’t read the post from last year, it’s important to know that SugDad™ was a high roller in LA. Friend to the stars. Pics to prove it (you’ll see below).
I searched his name – Cameron Ford – and this is what I found:
More:
Federal investigators find accused sex trafficker’s journal titled ‘Denial of a Pimp’: court records
Prosecutors say glamorous image was front for sex trafficker
Infamous Russian hooker from LA busted in OKC (pimp Taquarius Ford)
And there are more. Google it.
FBI. Vanity Fair. Vocativ. And a handful of other publications.
That’s the man who paid for my flight to LA. I knew him as Cam Ford. I knew her as Megan, but I also knew her real name was Konia. I was picked up by these people from LAX. I was whored out (as a consenting adult) by these people. And now he is locked up for human trafficking and rape among other things.
He never tried to lure me with promises of a future in Hollywood, and if he had, I’d have said no anyway. I probably wouldn’t have even gone because that’s way more sketchy. Or fuck, maybe I would have. All I know is: that could have been me. It wasn’t, but there were victims. I wasn’t one of them. I was lucky. I was so, so lucky.
As I said, I stayed for 32 hours and by the end of it, I just had to get out. I thought I could be that person and I couldn’t. It was rock bottom and I really had no one to blame but myself. From being unemployed to being broke to being desperate to being sad…I was the one who had approved all of these things. And I just had to get the fuck out.
Plus I’d started my period and I was like 100% fuck no bye.
I’m going to be completely honest: I left a piece of myself in LA. I crossed a deeply personal boundary and broke a promise I made to myself a long time ago. I can’t get that piece back. I will never forget the nauseating smell of latex all over my body. Or how I felt worthless even though there was more than a grand sitting on the coffee table. I will never forget about the guy who’d come from the gym without showering. Or the one who smoked crack in the hotel room. Or the one who barely spoke English and had the smallest penis I’ve ever seen and shoved his tongue in my mouth without saying hello.
That’s what happened in LA. That’s why I stopped the Craigslist Experiment. That’s why I wasn’t ready to write about it until now.
E