when blogging goes wrong?

under the guise of a social "experiment," blogger jason fortuny (rf jason) posted a fake ad on seattle craigslist posing as a 27 year old, straight woman. the somewhat lengthy ad stated s/he was looking for "a white or latin only, str8 brutal dom muscular male 30-35 yo who is arrogant, self-centered, nasty, egotistic, sadistic who likes 2 give intense pain and discipline and wants pleasured who is d/d free, safe and sane." the ad also featured a picture of a woman bent over at the waist, spreading her buttcheeks with both hands.

after posting the ad, fortuny then posted each and every reply the posting received, including names, phone numbers, email addresses and pictures. the original posting and list of replies can be viewed here.

i don't know what i think about jason fortuny's (rf jason) craigslist experiment. notably, its overexposure (which, admittedly, i'm contributing to) has already made it old meme, but i'm still interested in fortuny's experiment for a couple of reasons.

the experiment was to work at least partly on a salacious or scandalous register, but i find the s&m dynamics and most of the replies pretty unremarkable. they include the cliched pictures of both limp and erect dicks and promises of complete domination. blah blah blah. pretty predictable.

but as with many postings the original ad included a racial preference, which only surprises me within the context of the "experiment." so what was it about blackness and asianness that this fake sub didn't want or couldn't handle? wouldn't an open racial preference only add to the experiment? why is it then that these particular racialized masculinities could not be accommodated? particularly if we view these masculinities in the context of their historical constructios: black masculinity seen as hypermasculine and asian masculinity seen as effeminate or hypomasculine.

in more general terms i'm interested in the inevitable legal ramifications of this experiment (legal actions have been threatened by at least one of the repliers and the owner of craigslist has been contacted) - in terms of copyright, use of image, likeness and personal information, and more specifically, the re/circulation of that information. of course the internet is predicated on a model of re/circulation, particularly in the blogosphere, but could this moment be one where blogging has gone wrong?

i have to say i'm not interested in feeling sorry for the poor suckers who replied to this posting, particularly since many of those responses have been about the threat the leaking of this information will do to the stability of vanilla, heteronormative (presumably monogamous) relationships. since queerness is always hypervisible, i feel little sympathy.

but overall, what will this experiment do to issues around "responsible" blogging or ethical use on the internet?