A few days back, we reported on an academic study of Craigslist that concluded Craigslist promotes prostitution. (Amazing!) Frankly, we were more than a little snarky about it. We based our coverage on a report in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which quoted Dr. Alexis Kennedy of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas as saying Craigslist is “this whole world of online brothels … . It’s scary because we think of Craigslist as being so innocuous, but it’s really the tip of the iceberg.”

Now we’ve had a chance to review the full report, and found that there is some value in it for people who are interested in the serious aspects of Craigslist as a home for prostitution advertising. But we’re still amazed that it took eight researchers and a review of more than 12,000 ads to prove the thesis that there’s “a profuse level of graphic information and blatantly illegal advertisements for protection on the seemingly benign Craigslist Web site.”

Hey! “Seemingly benign”? That’s our first and most fundamental disagreement with the study.

The research project, which so far isn’t available online, found nearly 2,000 ads were posted each day in the prostitution section of Craigslist in Las Vegas during late 2007, and “over 90 percent … were advertising the sexual services of what appeared to be either an escort or escort agency.” While Las Vegas is a very atypical city in the United States (or anywhere) when it comes to prostitution, the sheer volume of postings and the brazenness of the hookers is remarkable.

From the report: “Examples of typical statements made by providers in this section include ‘G.F.E. (girlfriend experience), domination, roleplay, light S&M, water sports’ or ‘I see 10+ a day … guys only get one chance to get right with me if they don’t it’s on to the next trick.”

 Craig Newmark, Craigslist’s founder, has said that personals account for about one-third of the site’s traffic. Those include the prostitute ads (“adult services;” previously “erotic services”); “casual encounters,” which are also frequently hooker ads; missed connections, and the more standard “men seeking women / women seeking men” /etc.

The study was written by M. Alexis Kennedy, an assistant professor in the department of criminal justice at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who has been an attorney and has a Ph.D. in forensic psychology, and Melanie Taylor, a Ph.D. candidate in criminology at Arizona State University. It’s been submitted for publication in the Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture.

Even though the research is largely in the “that’s news?” category (at least to us, and to anyone else who’s been paying attention), we found some worthwhile nuggets:

— Most photos of women seemed to be taken by someone else, which “implies that multiple individuals were involved in the solicitations of women (e.g. a pimp or trafficker). …” (We don’t necessarily agree with this conclusion, but it’s probably to be expected from a researcher who focuses on the prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse, prostitution, sexual assault and child abuse.) By contrast, the study says, most men-seeking-men ads incorporate photos taken by the men themselves.

— Most advertisers (83.1 percent) post their phone numbers, while others include an e-mail address or link to a personal Web site.

— Almost all posters “appeared to be discreet with their advertisements in terms of describing sexual acts, often preferring to state that services provided were massages or some other euphemism … such as ‘full body treatment,’ ‘girl friend experience,” or simply “$100 for 45 minutes.” About 7 percent of the ads described specific services like fetishes, domination, foot play (and others we wouldn’t want to mention here).

— “The language in advertisements was coded for sexually related words and 6.8 percent of the advertisements used explicit language.”

— More than one-third of the advertisers included a “disclaimer” that they were merely advertising legal acts between consenting adults, rather than soliciting for prostitution. “Despite this, 80 percent of those who provided a disclaimer also provided a cost.”

The research covered more than 12,000 ads posted during October and November 2007, when Craigslist still offered free ads for prostitutes. Although “erotic services” became “adult services” in late 2008 so Craigslist could sidestep an agreement it signed with state attorneys general, and pocket the $5 to $10 fee it charges for each ad, the study notes that “the adult sections in Las Vegas and other cities continue to receive hundreds of explicit postings daily.”

To its credit, the study mentions one other site (LVFever.com) that it says “openly advertises information on prostituted women.” But it ignores many others, including Backpage.com, owned by the “alternative” (but really mainstream) media company Village Voice Media, which is far more blatant and far more racy than Craigslist when it comes to ads from prostitutes. We’ve never understood why so many law enforcement officers chase hookers through Craigslist but completely ignore Backpage.

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And here’s a tidbit from a different academic study, which we came across through a reference in the Kennedy report: Two researchers found that advertising by “professional escorts who advertise on local prostitution solicitation Web sites” increased by 35 percent to 195 percent during the 2008 Democratic and Republican national conventions, in Denver and Minneapolis respectively. The study by Scott Cunningham of Baylor University and Todd D. Kendall of Compass Lexecon focused on Craigslist and Eros.com