Sex ads victim of the eletronic age

NEW YORK, Nov. 7 (UPI) -- Readers of New York magazine seeking "Asians Gone Wild," "escorts," "models" or "massages" will soon have to resort to the Internet like everyone else.

The magazine announced the demise of its salacious classified section amid threats of a protest from the National Organization for Women, The New York Post reported Wednesday.

The magazine pulls in about $10,000 a week from the sex ads NOW-NYC said are placed by "the marketing arm of organized-crime world of prostitution and human trafficking," the Post reported.

Magazine spokeswoman Serena Torrey stopped short of saying the ads were being phased out because of NOW's threat to protest outside its downtown offices, but she told the Post the magazine is "prospering" and it "was high time to get out of a business we were never comfortable being in."

New York is the 15th local publication to phase out the ads, most of which were carefully worded -- and coded -- solicitations from prostitutes, the Post said.