Prostitutes came up with answers to that question many moons ago, and to this day they're still setting a value on fun-time hole rentals -- or "companionship" as some people call it -- and it's a mixed bag of morality and weirdness. Lots of people think of sex workers as victims, but not all of them are. It's just that many people don't know about or don't acknowledge that the escort business is one in which a lot of women and about five guys make a lot of money just by having sex, and they do it because they want to. There are no pimps, no step-dad with wandering hands, no drug-addicted mom who sent them astray. It happens. Some people just think of sex as a commodity and use it as such, no other explanation required.
And while a Spitzer-level escort can pull in thousands of dollars for an hour of herky jerky wiggle and giggle, not everyone is charging the same price. Some are just working on the barter system.
#6. Value Meal
Digital Vision./Digital Vision/Getty ImagesA desperate person in a desperate situation will do a lot of things. It's really only by the thinnest margin that society works at all, but under the right circumstances any of us could go buck wild and kill someone to save ourselves, rob a store to feed our families, or drop everything and flee to escape persecution. But what the Sam Hell makes you want to pork someone for a McChicken?
Of all the shameful things one could trade for sex, McDonald's probably symbolically stands head and shoulders above all else, proud and tall like the despicable, never-hump-to-get-this-stuff thing that it is. It's not that it's somehow worse in practice than sex for an equal amount of money, which I guess is like $6 or so, it's that culturally, and spiritually, McDonald's represents everything you don't want penetrating you. Tell me I'm wrong, penetration enthusiasts. McDonalds is the go-to joke restaurant when you're talking about something cheap or bad for you. Any other would do, but because of its global presence and its place in our understanding of the world at large, McDonald's is the titan of sadness. And that sadness just grows like an illicit boner at the drive-thru when you hear about someone humping for a McDinner.
Donald Jones was the John, or the Ronald or whatever you call him in this case, who was caught by officers after picking up a lady of the evening and going through the drive-thru with her. After buying a meal for his rent-a-friend, he asked how she'd pay him back for it and the whole messy transaction came to a head, as it were. When police confronted the two at a nearby park, the woman was pulling up her pants, so this was a full-on consummation deal. You'd figure McNuggets, in a moment of starvation, might be worth a handy at best, but, oh, no. This was the real deal.
#5. Office Supplies
Paul Tearle/Stockbyte/Getty ImagesMy day job is in an office where I wear a tie and pants that have a crease in them on purpose, and I have a novelty mug on my desk that features a cartoon dog saying "Bitches be crazy," which no one has noticed yet because if and when they do, I will have a meeting with HR about workplace sensitivity. I also have drawers full of office supplies. Do you need a paperclip? I have big ones and small ones and ones that are covered in colorful plastic, and I have literally never used a paperclip in my entire time in that office. Plus I have glue sticks, in case I become 10 years old one day.
Office supplies are abundant and, for the most part, useless to everyone. Despite that, a lawyer in Illinois was brought up on prostitution charges, which include allegations that she had sex for office supplies. If my paper clips are actually worth sex to someone, I am clearly working in the wrong office, and not just because the ladies I work with all look like John Madden at various weights during a bout of a severe stomach flu.
The lawyer, Reema Bajaj, plead guilty in 2012 to prostitution charges and later said she didn't actually accept money for sex, but now she's up on ethics charges because, and you may be surprised to learn this, a lawyer having sex for money is unethical. And, according to the charges brought against her, she put out for $70 worth of DVDs and about $70 worth of office supplies for her law office, which will probably net you a case of printer paper and some decent quality gel pens.
#4. Grades
Stockbyte/Stockbyte/Getty ImagesAt first I wasn't going to include sex for grades in this article because who among us hasn't plooked a professor for a "B" once or twice? But then I thought that was the very reason to include this because, as it turns out, not many of us haven't done such a thing. Humping for higher learning is really, really popular.
A quick Google search finds a law professor in Singapore who got five months in jail for accepting tailored shirts, a snazzy pen, and some humpity jumpity from a student; a business professor in Bahrain who gave a student a zero on her midterms and then arranged a meeting to "improve" her grade, where improve in quotation marks means wiggling on his goody bag; and a high school football coach who managed to get five girls to sleep with him for better marks in whatever football coaches teach. All three were just in the past year or so. thats it
Now, sure, with all the teachers and all the students in the world this is a relatively uncommon practice, but it happens all over the world and has happened for years. Here's an article from 1977 about hair stylists who got passing grades and their licenses in exchange for sex. Did you even know a hair stylist needed a license? What the hell happens if you style hair without a license? The mind boggles.
Point is, a lot of people in a position of authority over students quickly realize they have something students want, and the students have several things they want. And thus, the spirit of barter is born.
