A few years ago, I attended a graduation ceremony in which the award for academic achievement in every department in the faculty of science was awarded to a woman. At the time, I wondered: if the roles were reversed, would we not be wondering why one group was so over-represented at the top of the class?
Month: January 2013
A few weeks ago, when we were talking about educated lap dancers, I wondered if any of my students were paying their way through school working in the sex trades. At the time I had in mind lap dancers, sex workers, escorts, et cetera. I never imagined that there were students paying their way through school, not by selling their own bodies (that part was easy to imagine), but by selling the bodies of others. Yesterday in my sex and love class we had a guest speaker (via video) who had done just that; he paid for a commerce degree at a Canadian university working as a pimp.
I spoke with Stepahanie Domet this week about the increase in Sugar Baby supply coming from College students. I am not sure how long this link will stay live, but you can find that interview here at CBC Radio’s Mainstreet.
Media stories on the sugar daddy / sugar baby phenomena are quick to assume that there’s an economic story behind the rise in this type of arrangement, and in that they are right. The question is; are they telling the right economic story? Are these types of relationships on the rise simply because of poor macroeconomic conditions or is there another story that explains the increase in supply of willing participants?
This week’s Pew Center report finding that the rate of interracial marriage in the US continues to rise garnered very little attention presumably because we are all familiar with this trend. I thought, however, it was worth mentioning some points within that report that we should be talking about.
Here we are again at that time of the year when we are encouraged to replace our eggnog with diet shakes and to join some weight loss program or another. One (somewhat annoying) commercial this year features a boney actress swinging her hips erratically while proclaiming, “This program saved my marriage!” Repeated viewing of this ad has led my kids to ask, what kind of man would leave his wife just because she gained a few extra pounds?
