What price companionship?

Answer this question in no more than three seconds before reading the rest of this post: Would you or would you not accept a platonic – ie no sex involved – proposition from a total stranger to accompany him/her for a stipulated period of time for a stipulated sum of money?

Now consider this: what if you were approached by the said stranger – a foreigner – in a restaurant and were offered a sum of S$5,000 for your company over the next two weekend?

Does the above scenario make a material difference to your response?

This was a real life proposition offered to a white collar working girl over a lunch/dinner appointment with her fellow colleague.

The same scenario was repeated for the purpose of soliciting responses from a few other Singaporean women in their late twenties and early 30s. Needless to say, responses to such a proposition which tested the ‘conservative limits’ of a developed Asian society are more often than not attached with moralistic values and judgements.

A – a scholar and corporate high-flier – is quick to say no and to equate this with the treatment of social escorts. So disregarding the promise of a ‘no sex involved’ transaction, for A, it is moralistically wrong for any woman to accept such a proposition.

But why so? B asked. When sex is not part of the deal and when companionship is also part of service offered by other widely accepted professions such as tour guides?

Well, as C would argue, there’s always a nudging question when such a large sum of money is offered by a total stranger and foreigner to an Asian woman that sex – though not stipulated as part of the package – will be ultimately included in the deal. And who’s going to vouch for the credibility and reliability of a stranger and guarantee the safety of the woman providing the service?

But if there are clear conditions laid out in the first place, B counter argues, that will not compromise the (sexual) integrity of the woman, what’s stopping her from accepting the proposition? Afterall S$5,000 is good money, and for a woman to reject such a proposition, she’s probably not in need of money?

The proposition may have been offered to a Singaporean lady in her early 30s but the entire situation is not exactly gender specific. I have also come across cases where young men in their early twenties were offered money in exchange for their companionship.

For those who are still curious of the outcome, the lady in question has in fact accepted the proposition from an Italian stranger.

Personally I would not accept such a proposition from the opposite gender although I would hesitate to label anyone who does so as a social escort or to write off the transaction as amoral. Likewise, B’s arguments are fairly grounded on the basis of a capitalistic society.

So why would I say no? Well again, the idealist in me refuses to buy in to the myth that money can buy you anything in this world. I believe by consenting to participate in the trading of one’s companionship for money is arguably endorsing the statement that ‘life’s intangible richness and fragility’ can be ‘made invisible by the abstract calculations of cost-benefit analyses’ (quote from Bakan’s The Corporation p. 65).

And to the stranger who has approached me with such a proposition, my response will be ‘ No, I will not take up your offer. But yes, I will be happy to show you around the city if I find you a pleasant enough companion and interesting enough acquaintance’.