The Illicit List: Crime and Craigslist

BY Kristal Hawkinsfrom the Crime Library Craigslist: Dating, Massage, Sex...And Murder When Julissa Brisman announced she was headed to Boston for a few days to see a man she met on Craigslist, her mother, Carmen Guzman, was a little concerned. Brisman assured her mother...

Does the perfect relationship exist?

Is it a question that has already crossed your mind at least once?  Well, what does “perfection” mean to you?  Is it a blur?  Is it a concept or a goal after which you have been running all these years, and that you need to apply to all aspects of your...

Why force an impossible relationship?

Why force anything for that matter?  Most people have been conditioned to believe that their intrinsic value is measured by their ability to create relationships.  What does it infer?  To be deemed successful, all relationships must be maintained, no matter...

Why ask permission to change?

Life is not a long quiet river.  And life does not have to be a hassle either.  It does not have to be this fatalism before which you are totally powerless.  Life invites choices.  And it is up to you to respond to the invitation by continually choosing...

Is grief an infallible means to control and manipulate others?

Have you ever been shocked by the behavior that some folks display during funerals?  All those inconsolable men and women who seem totally unable to handle the passing of a loved one; a loved one they would take for granted and treat with much disrespect when he or she...

Does sex scare the hell out of you?

The decision to have sex with someone else requires one major element.  You must agree to take all your clothes off in front of another person, who himself or herself has to be in line with the exact same agreement.  Then what is left of you is this sense of extreme...

Doesn’t hearing “I love you” sometimes make you want to throw up?

The success of a relationship is measured by two main attributes: love and loyalty.  But how many times have you heard, “I love you!” or “I will always be there for you!” before finding yourself betrayed and humiliated by a partner to whom you had given all your...

Is a genuine friendship between a man and a woman possible?

Do you really believe that men are from Mars and women from Venus?  I do not.  Not all men and not all women behave identically.  This type of categorization is unreasonable and counter-productive, because it creates a scission between the two genders. ...

Are you sure that you are not better off being single?

What value resides in staying in a relationship that is suffocating you?  For what valid reasons would you choose to be involved in a relation that is a total negation of what you are?  Every single time you say “Yes” to your partner when in reality you want to...

Would you rather believe in Mister Right or in Santa Claus?

No one has ever seen the real Santa Claus.  Of course, around Christmas, there are as many Santa Clauses as there are shopping malls in the country.  But they all are copies of the same myth.  Interestingly enough, that sounds very much like Mister Right,...

Is depression a real illness or a moral weakness?

Every time I hear doctors affirm that depression is a brain disease that they can easily treat thanks to loads of anti-depressors, it truly frightens me.  Put yourself in the shoes of an individual who has been feeling down for a while, and who is being told that he or...