You can find her advertised on craigslist.org, the same Internet clearinghouse that offers second-hand wheelbarrows and tennis racquets.

But there's enough sex traffic on the popular site that Lexi, who hails from Denver, uses it to troll for Triangle customers. By 2 p.m. last Monday, craigslist featured 144 ads for erotic services in the Triangle -- more than the total listings for apartments.

Once a hush-hush trade, prostitution thrives openly on sites like craigslist, buoyed by the flood of online information about how to buy sex cheaply -- and avoid getting caught.

Economists and sociologists say the Internet provides the information and anonymity to hire prostitutes in secret, fueling the illegal sex business.

"I'm booking appointments for the next few weeks while I'm in the area," writes Lexi in an e-mail message to The News & Observer. "I am a [game-for anything] provider, natural blonde. ... Yes, It really is me in the pics."

The ads grow like cyberweeds despite craigslist's efforts to police them. And it's not just craigslist.

In Raleigh and around the country, it is just as easy for men to swap detailed information about the best street corners for picking up streetwalkers -- their names, their prices and reviews of their performance on a scale of 1 to 10.

A typical posting on usasexguide.info, written in January by a "john" in Raleigh named Robert1744:

"Picked up Debbie at the usual spot on Seawell. ... "

Internet patrols

The traffic has grown so much that police in Raleigh and nationwide have added the Internet to their patrols.

Last year, police in New York snared eight women after they advertised sex services on craigslist. Some of them had come from as far as California to hunt new customers.

In Raleigh, police spokesman Jim Sughrue would not discuss the department's tactics except to say that the Internet gets watched. He could not recall any arrests.

For the most part, police Capt. Thomas Earnhardt said, the men searching for information refer to streets rather than specific houses, and the Raleigh streets mentioned online -- Bragg, for example -- are already notorious for prostitutes.

"They should always be looking over their shoulder," Earnhardt said.

Meanwhile, the online traffic builds.

In a single day in late February, craigslist featured 207 erotic service ads for the Triangle -- not counting the personals where people seek casual sex partners.

At the same time, tips for finding prostitutes in Raleigh and Durham topped 2,500 on usasexguide.info, a nationwide forum with more than 160,000 members.

Residents in Southeast Raleigh have battled prostitution for decades. Last year, police responded to 103 calls for solicitation, nearly all of them on Southeast Raleigh corners.

But now information on prostitutes can easily spread globally. A traveling businessman from Arizona can track down obscure corners without having to ask dangerous questions or circle unfamiliar blocks.

"I only wish she was living in my home state of AZ as I would see her weekly!" raved a man on usasexguide.info, who uses the name ChicaLuv.

Privacy trumps stigma

Chat rooms and craigslist ads offer invisibility both to prostitutes and their clients, said Lena Edlund, economics professor at Columbia University who has studied the sex trade.

With craigslist, they can swap information privately.

"The supply side here is constrained by stigma," Edlund said. "Stigma is a constraint only borne if you are identified as a prostitute."

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