Paid Ho Justifies Career with Laboutins

“From the outside, a mutually beneficial, or sugar daddy, relationship seems immoral. Maybe even the distant cousin of—dare I say it?—prostitution,” writes the vacuous, vain, and pseudonymous Melissa Beech in a recent contribution to the Daily Beast.

I don’t pass moral judgment on prostitutes, but when one betrays a pitiful lack of self-awareness while trying feebly to justify her career choice by presenting evidence of expensive shoes and clothes, I feel no choice but to ridicule her.  Dear “Melissa”, dare I say your situation is no distant cousin of prostitution?

The young Philly college student claims “truth be told, women have used their wiles and charms to get ahead for years,” as if that somehow put her in league with women throughout history. It makes me wonder where her education has failed.

Yes, of course, women have used wiles and charm to get ahead–when they had to in order to advance within a patriarchal construct. Head-strong, intelligent women tend to make gonads shrivel, which can be a hindrance to professional ambitions if men are running the show.

Melissa, the whole point of the women’s movement was to actively combat that unfortunate historical reality of our culture. Your piece deserves prime placement on the shelves of Throwbacks-R-Us, where the corsets are tight and the successful dames are loose.

But what really chaps my lazy ass is that Melissa admittedly compromises herself, her morals, her self-proclaimed “classy” upbringing in exchange for luxury shoes and clothes.

Dear girl, please work to fill your mind, not your closet.  Your self-worth should be defined by so much more than the expensive Christian Laboutins on your feet, which, by the way, will likely leave your feet prematurely bunioned. Oh drat the price of beauty!

Overpowering my anger and frustration at this young woman’s skewed perspective on what is truly important in life, is a profound pity and sorrow that an older man has ably convinced her that the wisest use of her intellect, beauty, and talents lies in pleasing his sexual and social needs.

Melissa first met her now-sugar daddy when he interviewed her for a job.

During my job hunt, I met a potential employer. He was in his early 30s, single, and successful. He didn’t hire me, but he did suggest a position that seemed perfectly suited to my attributes and skills: He proposed that he become my benefactor.

In other words, he told her he’d found a better-qualified candidate for the advertised position, but he could imagine her in a position underneath his sweaty and grunting frame so would she be interested? And she actually sells herself so short that she characterizes this as “perfectly suited” to her “attributes and skills.”

Let me take a break from castigation for a brief personal anecdote.  The very first job interview I ever went on–which perhaps has contributed more than I realize to my current perspective–gave me the worst introduction possible to the world of working with men.

I’d answered a kind of cattle-call ad for a sales job. When the interviewer came in to survey the waiting room of applicants, he announced that since his office was kind of small, he would be bringing us in two groups. Then one-by-one he picked everyone in the room–except me.

I sat in that waiting room biting my lip, convincing myself he’d seen immediately I was too young, too inexperienced. Or maybe I’d worn the wrong thing, or had a booger on my forehead, maybe right below the big scarlet letter “L” I was suddenly sure he’d sagely recognized.  I only had a few minutes of tortured self-doubt before I saw all those other people filing out of his office.

When he called me back I saw the room was indeed quite small, which made it somewhat uncomfortable when he tried to perch on the edge of his desk directly in front of the chair he’d offered to me.

Positioning one of his spread legs on each side of my primly crossed ones, he discussed my job opportunities with his bulging crotch exactly eye-level.

He said he thought I’d be overqualified for the advertised sales position (at 19, with one year of college and no work experience under my belt), but he’d like to offer me a job in management. He explained, of course, that might mean long hours working closely with him, playfully nudging my legs with one of his knees.

Welcome to the job market, young lady, take a seat and I’ll degrade you in just a moment.

In retrospect, I should have taken his job offer, then sued the motherfucker the first time he tried to make a move, but I did not yet posses the confidence and wisdom that came with another decade+ of experience.

I don’t know if Melissa’s sugar daddy broke any laws by turning a professional interview into an invitation to prostitution, but business ethics clearly don’t rank high on his radar.

It’s just my hope that Melissa will one day recognize that she is worth so much more than the $5000 a month her sugar daddy spends on her upkeep, and instead seek out a “mutually beneficial arrangement” that nourishes her soul and expands her mind.  Beauty fades and expensive clothes go out of fashion, but an enriched mind will never suffer poverty.