Students are turning to sex work for extra money | Hacker News Reader

Students are turning to sex work for extra money

independent.co.uk

43 pointstechnobabble25 comments

This has been going on for a while. At the dorm I lived at in Austin back in 2015 for a 1 year masters (more like a co-op for older students), every woman there was on the website Seeking Arrangement (https://seeking.com). This emerged after someone, more of a joke at first, took a poll on this at a house meeting (weekly governance thing).

It’s enormously tempting. Every freshman girl knows at UT that if she wants, there is a guy waiting to give her between $1,500 - $3,000 a month.

It’s spread into high schools now, usually either because teachers are found to be on the app or a rumor spreads through the school about a girl being on there.

It made The Daily Texan, the student newspaper of UT, a few months ago: http://dailytexanonline.com/2018/09/11/college-sugar-babies-...

> It’s spread into high schools now

There were major media stories about it in high schools...in the (early, IIRC) 00s. It's not somewhere it's spread since 2015.

I’m in a devils advocate kinda mood, so hopefully people here can take a spirited prod:

So where does equality fit into this? I don’t think this phenomena is so rampant that double digit percentages of women are doing this (though I have no idea), so this whole thing probably isn’t that big of a deal. But honestly, if this entitles women to an easy and maybe even comfortable way of making big dollars in their youth/lack of talent, what will we do to enable young men to also pay for school/living/etc in their youth? I mean if I could send some self destructing photos to older women in college with no social/professional ramifications and make 1-3k a month, I would never have worked the shitty part time jobs I did. Doesn’t really seem like an egalitarian idea for half of the population to be able to take the easy path while the other toils away.

I'm surprised at the comments missing this, but it's not younger generation paying these prostitutes.

It's older generation who sold them lies and stole their future.

Another raindrop in the ocean of reasons, the youth are turning populist.

Lol, so someone's 'learning difficulties' prevent her from getting and holding onto a simplistic part-time work, 'forcing' her to do prostitution, but does not prevent doing full time education? Something is wrong there.

Obvious interpretation: her learning difficulties required her to spend all her waking time studying just to pass, and the part-time work made that impossible.

Not unusual - the part-time market in student towns is obviously swamped with students, so employers can easily refuse anyone even slightly impaired.

Universities are somewhat better than shit job employers at complying with Equality Act 2010 duties to make reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities.

Unpopular opinion incoming:

I’ve known girls who have done sex work. Mostly smaller things like selling used clothes, or pretending to be into a guy for gifts, but a few who straight up were prostitutes. They always had a story of “having no other choice”. The reality every time (again, from those I knew. Not trying to generalize and claim I know them all) was that they weren’t “forced” into it at all. They just preferred that work because they made way more money than what they’d do working and it was easier. But they didn’t like the fact that sex work would negatively impact their future (jobs, relationships, etc), so they came up with victimhood stories to justify it. No idea if that’s what’s happening here, but if I had to wager money I’d wager it’s along those lines based on my experiences.

I see a few others in here mentioning that universities handle learning disabilities. I think if you’re so mentally disabled that you can’t hold a part time job, it’s probably not a great idea to invest 100k into a college education. I don’t know many jobs that require a college degree that are easier to succeed in than working for a min wage job at 10-20 hours a week. So sure, the universities are more accommodating. That’s because they want that 100k pot on your head. If the reality is you can’t hold down part time work for mental disability, I think we need to have yet another discussion on where the ethical line is for universities endenturing students futures for their short term financial gains.

I know a lot of women who done sex work and no i can't say this is anyhow negatively reflected on them long term. It must be Eastern European culture where it's almost OK. But pretending you've been 'forced' to do it is stupid and that can actually reflect negatively, for being obvious bullshit.

And yes, you are absolutely right here. Being 'inclusive' for a university is a joke: like, you help these people spend the money they don't have, knowing they'll get nothing in return. Now that's the moral problem, not sex work!

There is normal in Japan/Korea/China hell even India in Mumbai where people are more outgoing.

Also, how much money do you need for education in uk these days?

People look at risk vs reward.

Sex is no longer a tabbo and arguably it's the easiest and most natural work.

Incels will be infuriated at this.

Very soon we'll see news that top 1% sleep with 90% students.

They blame this on higher student expenses yet clearly only women are able to get money from sex so how are the men able to survive? Why not just be honest? Women are selling their bodies not because they need to but because they want to.

> clearly only women are able to get money from sex

While the opportunities are greater for women, men also get paid for sex (predominantly, though not exclusively, by other men.)

I've known male sex workers who exclusively service women. Their clientele were predominantly older, wealthy women. Turns out that powerful women are just as lonely as powerful men... and that they similarly enjoy the freedom of a financial arrangement over an romantic entanglement.

The solution to this apparent inequality is... hire/promote more women into executive roles.

>so how are the men able to survive?

Maybe they(equivalently poor men) are not and therefore choose not to study?

Men do study at a lower rate after all

Bullshit. It's not even remotely true that you have to be wealthy to study in the UK. I received absolutely no financial support beyond the standard student loan and managed to save money. If I decided to sell my body online it would have been for extra cash, not because I needed to.

I also supported myself through the loans and working part time (in a supermarket from 16 - 21), but I don't think your comment is really fair. Bear in mind:

a) Prices for accomodation have gone up a lot in the last few years. At my university in the south west, rental prices for off-campus accomodation have roughly doubled since I was studying a decade ago (and at the time they were one of the most expensive in the UK). Even with the maximum maintenance loan it would only just cover the cost of accomodation (assuming you only need to pay for term time).

2) The means-tested grants and loans expect higher earning parents to support their children at university, but a lot don't. I believe in this case your parents can make a written declaration that they won't support you, which allows you to get the full loan and grant, but this option isn't made clear.

3) A lot of people are just bad at managing finances, and spend money on things they don't really need. Schools really need some sort of financial education, but I guess it's too profitable to bankers for people to be educated on how to be sensible with their finances.

OK, so how are the men supporting themselves? It's certainly not through prostitution.

zero hours contracts and gig economy shit jobs.

Got any evidence for that?

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwor...

> 18.7% of people on “zero-hours contracts” are in full-time education, compared with 2.3% of other people in employment