The Big Ripoff

[Sweet Emily J 172062]

The Big Ripoff: TER, The Texas Murder Aquittal, and the Myth of the Vulnerable Client

 

By Charlotte Shane

 

http://titsandsass.com/the-big-ripoff-ter-the-texas-murder-aquittal-and-the-myth-of-the-vulnerable-client/

 

Very interesting article brought to my attention by another SP.

 

Hobbyists, please share your thoughts. :)

[cinelli 22184]

Ladies have taken my money and ran, two or three times, over the years.

I was really annoyed...but to kill someone over a hundred and fifty dollars is pathetic.

And of course we only get the murderer's side of the story. Maybe he was totally obnoxious or abusive, with disgusting hygiene, in other words, a typical Texan.

It seems the default response to any injustice or offence by someone in America is to kill them. Or in the latest mass shooting in California, killing random people walking down the street. America, an entire nation of extremely angry people looking to take that anger out on someone the first chance they get.

 

TER is a total BS site.

[roamingguy 300292]

The horrible part the murder of a woman. And over money. Even if you believe that the ladies were "ripping off" these "men" (using the word very loosely here) a human life is priceless and irreplaceable. Money can be replaced, a life can't. But what is worse, in the case of Ezekiel Gilbert, a jury of twelve "decent" people felt murder was ok, and David Elms, the district attorney declined to charge. Isn't the DA supposed to speak for the victims. Does make you wonder about the make-up of American, well Texas society as a whole. And Gilbert and Elms aren't the victims, just violent criminals

Knowing there are sites out there like TER (and some others) make me appreciate this board even more. And this story also highlights something else, why companions need to verify/screen potential clients before a date. The only ones fearing verification/screening are those men who would not be good clients. That's just my opinion

A rambling

RG

[piano8950 32577]

I think it speaks to the content that's allowed in other boards. Unlike cerb, they are review boards instead of recommendation boards. When I first started out, I never clearly understood why it was set up that way. Clearly letting a client share an honest review of a bad experience would be okay, right?

 

But since moving to Toronto and seeing the board that's popular here, I miss Cerb a lot. I wish more Toronto women posted here, because it is so incredibly hostile there, that women barely say anything. No threats of bad reviews, no silly 1 to 10 ratings, no culture of explicit acts that seem to make a lot of women uncomfortable there (of many I feel are an exaggeration of the OPs' sexual abilities), and a prevalence of respect even though things can get a bit heated from time to time.

 

I've seen Cerb be insulted a lot on other boards, for it's "pussy" stance. But if Cerb can get to the level of popularity TER achieved in US, I think it would result in a much different industry.

 

Going back to the article, I do wish that the American escorts band together and make their own board, somewhat like the real estate industry did to create MLS. I know it would be a monumental effort, but a site created by women for women reduces the chance of exploitation by some pervert with no regard for basic decency.

[Phaedrus 209521]

I hate to say it, but this really feels to me like someone who's got an axe to grind with TER using Lenora Frago's murder as a stick to beat them with.

 

Okay, so maybe the guy who set up TER is a class A-1 asshole. But the idea of a site where people can give feedback on services provided is not inherently evil; things like Consumer Reports exist, and if I want to hire a local lawyer or gardener or accountant or builder I can do my research and find out who's good and who to avoid. It's not clear to me why anyone wishing to visit a SP shouldn't go about it in a similar manner. After all, that's why many of us guys got to this site in the first place, even if we may now come for different reasons. And I think this is more important in the US, for both providers and clients, since both have to be so careful about making sure the other isn't a cop - which is something we Canadians thankfully don't have to worry about, in general.

 

Now, to be sure, there are good and bad ways of supplying this feedback: it can be done through sites like CERB, where we keep things as friendly as possible, or it can be done through things like CK's diary, which limits itself to scammers and doesn't get into the more subjective things. And it can also be done through the various other boards which take a more "anything goes" approach and thus generate a more hostile environment. Different people will also consider different things to be important; some just want to put a tick next to as many abbreviations as possible in half an hour, and others will be looking for an entirely different experience that's far more about interaction with the whole person they're with, rather than just particular portions of their anatomy. There isn't much we can do about this; it's just the way the world is. And these different types of consumer will naturally tend to gravitate to one another and seek the opinions of other consumers who consider the same things to be important. Of course, providers can, if they wish, see who turns up where and screen appropriately depending on what sort of clients they wish to see...

 

As far as Lenora Frago's murder is concerned, we'll never know the truth. Only two people know what really happened; one is dead, and the other has just stood trial for her murder and is therefore highly unlikely to ever give an objective account. The two big issues that contributed to her murder going unpunished are the Texas law that considers trivial quantities of property to be of more value than a life, and the criminalization of sex work that means sex workers can't advertize and work openly; it's not clear to me that TER is responsible for either of those things, regardless of the sins of either its founder or its denizens.