Weirdo on Craig's List

This is old, but worth sharing:  My good friend sent me the link to what we have agreed to be one of the strangest "requests" ever posted on craigslist. As an art historian, I am super-double repulsed by this posting. However, I will clarify that I do not study ancient eastern art, like the poster below obviously does-considering his mention of mesopotamia and the Qing dynasty. Nor do I work at a museum and exploit its collections selfishly, to satisfy my own bizarre erotic fantasies. Aside from these things, this posting is just FUCKED UP. I have provided my commentary at the end of the posting. Okay, if you haven't eaten in the past 20 minutes, read the posting from the portland craigslist that I've copied and pasted below: 





Very Complicated Request, Please Kindly Read!!! - m4mw - 35

Reply to: anon-58988662@craigslist.org
Date: 2005-02-08, 8:53PM PST


If you are groggy or stoned please do not read this, I need your complete and sober attention, for my request is uniquely detailed. I am a man, 35, white, black hair with brown eyes. Okay, first what I am looking for is a woman primary, but secondary it could be a woman and her man, but the man will have to remain behind the black curtain and only watch through the cut out eyeholes. The black curtain is inside the apartment that I reside in. This apartment is a fashionable studio in the hot part of town, and all my neighbors are graphic artists. So now please kindly listen to my request: what I require foremost in a woman with bushy eyebrows. And they must be TWO eyebrows, because one eyebrow is an abonination against Gaia. What I want is for the woman to become naked and pose herself before me. I have a carpeted pedestal so her feet will not grow cold. I will present her with a very well preserved Mesopotamian bowl. She will hold it and she must be careful not to drop it as it has to be back at the museum by 8am tomorrow (I am a worker there). Next I will hand her tweezers. Then she will pluck her eyebrows until her forehead is vacant. The eyebrows will drift into the bowl and then I will take the bowl from her and go to my kitchenette. I will then toss a salad into the bowl and mix the eyebrows in it. The woman can decide the dressing, but I have only vinegrette and thousand island. Next I will re-present the bowl to the woman, along with a utensil, and she will then consume the salad while I watch. I may masturbate during this part of the exercise. However, if there is a man behind the black curtain he may not masturbate, and I will know if does because I will hear him. However, he is allowed to fantasize, and then he write an essay on his fantasies before I release him. After the woman is finished with her salad, I will present her with a Qing dynasty teapot box, which she will open and deficate in. She must be careful with the box as well as it is also from the mueseum and it must be returned or there will be trouble. When she is finished she will return it to me, and I then I will bid her good-evening. That is all. Please send a photo, eyebrows only. I WILL NOT respond to any photos that include anything but eyebrows. 

Please, serious inquiries ONLY. THIS IS NOT JOKE. So do not make funny replies to it. I have no patience for impertinence. Good day. 




Commentary: If i happened to groggy or stoned when I began reading this, I would have sobered up completely by line 5. After overcoming the initial shock from reading this, I began to analyze some of the things this guy wanted to do, and some of the comments he made. His first objective is to have a woman's significant other looking through a curtain as the whole act comes together. You hear about that pretty regularly, but I did find it quite strange that he keeps in his apartment a black curtain with 2 peep-holes cut in it. I do not deny that this is weird, but let's move on to things that will make this request seem almost normal. 

The little ritual he wants to perform, plucking not one, but two, eyebrows, now that's fuckin' strange! Only more confusing is his mention of Gaia, who is the personification of Earth that was developed in early greco-Roman culture. Her attributes are the snake and the bull, and she represents prosperity, growth and fertility. We know her now as Mother Earth, in our folklore today. But, Gaia is the primary deity of the neo-pagan Wiccans, as they worship nature first and foremost. I can't think of any significance behind the eyebrows, but the bowl comes from the Fertile Crescent, which again alludes to fertility, as Gaia. Mesopotamia has had a reputation of being one of the most fruitful regions of the world since civilization began there and spread from there. This guy also has a pedistal (carpeted for comfort) which is also indicative of his intent for this act to be ritualistic. I think this dude is a fuckin' lonely wiccan witch, and a bad one at that. If he loves nature so much, he needs to get his ass of the computer. This is the weirdest shit I have ever read, and I am now afraid to handle ancient art, for fear that someone has shit in it. This basically ruined my career, along with my appetite for leafy greens.