SEATTLE

THE MORAL of the story is this: Beware of what you post on the Internet. It could come back to bite you.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

Our tale begins with a posting a week ago on Craigslist, the Internet ads site. A woman was seeking a discreet hook-up involving rough sex.

"I am 27 sexy str8 woman, 5 ft 7 in, 145 pounds," the ad said. "I am looking 4 a white or Latin only, str8 brutal dom muscular male who is arrogant, self-centered, nasty, egotistic, sadistic. Send ur stats and a face pic and I'll return mine to you."

More than 170 men apparently responded. Many replied with photos that included body shots, and their full names and phone numbers. Some mentioned having a wife.

"I'm not a Harley man, but I'm so not a yuppie, either," said one posting. "I was a logger, but now I'm in finance. I'm 35 years old, 6'2", muscular, strong, pushy, and don't have time to [expletive] around."

"Former professional football player," declares another writer, claiming to bench-press 410 pounds. "Can dish out and handle pain. Bring it on."

The woman who wrote the ad, it now turns out, is a man -- or says he is, if you believe his blog and MySpace page identifying him as Jason Fortuny, of Kirkland, Wash.

He says the fake ad was "an experiment," to see how many responses he could get in 24 hours posing as a submissive woman.

Dumb? Yes.

I can see someone doing this if they're, like, 13.

What Fortuny allegedly did with the responses is something many are rightfully calling unforgivable, the product of a sick mind. He publicly posted the replies from unwitting people, in effect "outing" them.

People are calling for his head, which is understandable but not advisable, unless folks want to see the real tough love that occurs behind bars.

Some folks pray he gets hauled into court for having violated privacy rights.

I'm not sure how much privacy people can reasonably expect when they voluntarily dump their personal business on the Web while pursuing a legal activity.

It would be interesting to see how such questions arising from Fortuny's ignoble pursuit would play out before judge and jury.

Kurt Opsahl, a staff lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that Craigslist would be protected under federal law exempting a service provider from liability for what its users do. Fortuny's liability under Washington state law rests on whether the disclosures are of legitimate concern to the public, Opsahl tells the Associated Press.

Craigslist executives say the ad in question was pulled many times, only to be re-posted. They say the ad violates their posting policies.

One thing seems clear: This stunt crosses the line of moral decency.

As far as I can tell, the point of the prank is to laugh at people being publicly humiliated over doings they would rather keep private. Put another way, to Fortuny "the victims are 'perverts' who aren't smart enough to know how to use the Internet anonymously," as bloggers from Wired point out.

The tale has a hall-of-mirrors quality. It has sparked a wildfire of commentary on the Internet, even though little is known about the source -- someone who duped people into believing he was a she.

What other fictions might Fortuny be up to?

He's pretty much keeping mum. A phone number listed under "Jason Fortuny" was not in service.

Database records show a 30-year-old computer-network manager by that name with addresses in Kirkland and Gig Harbor, Wash. Queries have gone unanswered to his MySpace page, on which he mentions a pleasure in "pushing people's buttons" and getting "away with everything I do." The guy pats himself on the back for being some kind of evil genius who pulled off a warped Web version of the TV show Cheaters.

Last week I spoke on the phone with a man who said that his name, phone, and e-mail had been posted without his knowledge. The man said that he had never replied to the Craigslist sex ad, suggesting that someone else -- a stranger? Fortuny? -- had gotten hold of his personal information and used it against him. This certainly wouldn't be an Internet first.

"I'm not very happy," said the man.

You have to wonder why, if what Fortuny did is such a crack-up, so few are laughing.

Robert L. Jamieson Jr. is a columnist for The Seattle Post-Intelligencer.