Craigslist “Casual Encounters” Ads in the Republican and Democratic National Convention Cities

First: a quick lesson. For those of you not familiar with Craigslist, it’s a classified ads site created by San Francisco-based programmer Craig Newmark, and it’s a thorn in the side of newspapers, whose classified ads revenues are shrinking because in many cases, Craigslist gives you more bang for the buck (for my own examples, see When Craigslist Beat the Toronto Star Classifieds and A Craigslist Wedding). It doesn’t cost any money to read Craigslist; in fact, in most cases, it doens’t cost money to post an ad on it, either. Its sole source of income is paid job ads in selected U.S. cities and paid apartment broker ads in New York. Despite this seemingly small revenue stream, they are believed to have made over $100 million last year (it’s hard to tell because they don’t release financial info).

Inspired by a post on Twitter by Jordan running, I decided to take a peek at the “Casual Encounters” section of Craigslist in both Minneapolis and Denver, where the Republican and Democratic National Conventions are taking place. Convention-goers are big on kink, and that seems to be doubly so for political convention-goers, who spent high school and university leading lives of repressed student council wonkery, which often turns into wacky overcompensation later.

Results for Craigslist Minneapolis

In the Craigslist for the city where the Republican National Convention is taking place, I entered some search terms and these are the number of classified ads that turned up:

• RNC: 15
• Republican: 12
• GOP (short for “Grand Old Party”, a nickname for the Republicans): 3
• convention: 13

My favourite:

“Looking to set up jerk-off party at GOP Convention – m4mm” (Posted July 15th)

Its early but looking for jerk off convention for GOP convention, Minneapolis. I can host; you can host. Older and chubs preferred.

Wait a minute — isn’t the Republican party already a jerk-off party?

Results for Craigslist Denver

Farther south and west in Denver, where the Democratic National Convention is happening. I entered some search terms and got these numbers:

• DNC: 125
• Democrat: 7
• Democratic: 5
• convention: 68

My favourite:

Sleeping With the Enemy – RightWingNut Seeks FlamingLiberalWoman – m4w (Posted August 25th)

Sleeping With the Enemy – Denver Native RightWingNut Seeks FlamingLiberalWoman for NSA “interracial encounter” …

The DNC is in town, and walking around downtown tonight, the Liberal Women were all damn good looking… they were HOT… (are liberal woman “better” looking?)

I propose a NSA meeting of the minds, um, I mean bodies…. Do conservatives and liberals “do it” different? Do we have different sexual priorities and skill sets? Consider it a “diversity” learning experience.

We would meet for a drink, have fun slamming the other side (in a good way…) and then go back to your hotel room or my house and screw our brains out. This would be as exciting as doing someone from another race, or from a foreign country that speaks a different a language.

I think this is one of the best ideas I’ve had in ages, do you agree?

I happen to be way more conservative than McCain, 45 and good looking and disease free, single and very “oral”…. All races and ages welcome (and exciting), conservatives and liberals are almost different races, but we’re all Americans, right?

Do me…. I can be available for a day or evening encounter… it would be a great DNC memory…. Help me bridge the gap between differing political views…. The Liberals and Conservatives must find common ground… (in the bedroom).

This could be a great memory for each of us… email me back… NOW… times a wastin…

I have to hand it to this guy — he’s a uniter, not a divider!

The Final Score

So in the end, the Democrats win this particular kink contest, having more Craigslist “Casual Encounters” ads than the Republicans by an order of magnitude. Perhaps this is a good thing; the “Hillary Harridans”/PUMAs/Clintards could stand to unwind a little.

This of course is not indicative of how much sex is actually going on: you have to keep in mind that the Republicans have been trying to keep their sexual proclivities on the down-low given the number of gay sex scandals that have been attributed to them. Let’s not forget that Minneapolis is also home of the Larry Craig bathroom sex scandal, so they’re probably being quite careful to put their best foot forward, least their image become the new gay stereotype: