My Little Friend

I made this little friend online. Little, being all 19 year old. Yes, that's "little" to me because I am almost, note almost, double his age. I like chatting with this boy for two reasons. First, I am working swing shift from 12 noon to 9PM right now and hubby works morning shift, 6:30AM to 3PM. I don't get home till 9:30 PM and hubby must be in bed no later than 10. Needless to say, we hardly get to see each other during the weekday. The little boy and I don't have a lot in common per se, but since he works from my 9PM to my 12AM, it was nice to have company until I leave work and right before I turn in.

Second, boy is the FIRST male that I've chatted with online that had never took the conversation down the sexual path. Mostly because he thinks that thinking about a 34-year-old woman having sex is, well, gross. Because I am old enough to be his mother, he says. Regardless of the reason, I am just glad I don't have to listen to, "so, hehe (beavis and butthead style), what are you wearing."

Third, (I guess there are three reasons why I like chatting with him after all :) he's a practical kid. I like chatting with practical, realistic, and rational individuals. You see, there are always someone who'd say, "I'll NEVER trade sex for money." Well, honey, you hadn't needed it bad enough.

And I quote this little story from my Economics textbook written by Colander (anal as I am, I am not referencing it in MLA formating or whatever the other one is called...):

There are many stories about Nancy Astor, the first owman elected to Britain's Parliament. A vivacious, fearless American woman, she married into the ENglish aristocracy and, during the 1930s and 1940s, became a bright light on the English social and political scenes, which were already quite bright.

One story told about Lady Astor is that she and Winston Churchill, the unorthodox genius who had a long and sitinguished political career and who was Britain's prime minister during World War II, were sitting in a pub having a theoretical discussion about morality. Churchill suggested that as a though expierment Lady Astor ponder the following question: If a man were to promise her a huge amount of money -- say a million pounds -- for the privilege, would she sleep with him? Lady Astor did ponder the question for a while and finally answered, yes, she would, if the money were guaranteed. Churchill then asked her if she would sleep with him for five pounds. Her response was sharp: "Of course not. What do you think I am -- a prostitute?" This time CHruchill won the battle of wits by answering, "We have already established that face, we are now simply negotiating about price."

One moral that economists might draw from this story is that economic incentives, if high enough, can have a powerful influence on behavior. An equally imporatnt moral of the story is that noneconomic incentives can also be very strong. Why do most people feel it's wrong to sell sex for money, even if they would be willing to do so if the price were high enough?

So you see, people's behavior can be altered if we are talking about high dollar amount. To be all fair, Colander did also mention that money wasn't the only force at work here. There's also cultural and social forces.

Being someone who grown up in the more conservative Chinese culture from Hong Kong, I can certainly see that some women will not trade sex for money even if it means they'd starve to death. You see, I do believe in some good in the human nature. But what if it's not their own lives that are at stakes here? What if we are talking about their mother's life? Their husbands? Children? Can they really sit around and watch them die while the women (or men, I suppose) in question insist on their moral believe? And there's conflicting moral believes too. What would the society say if they, indeed, let their love ones die without willing to sacrafice themselves?

So you can now see why I said anyone who'd say "I'll never trade sex for money" was only because they were never in the position that they needed the money badly enough.

Back to my little 19-year-old boy after all the digression. Knowing how men are generally homophobic, I've raised the price from the beginning, "Would you trade sex with another man for $1 million."

His answer? Heck yes, probably even less.

And we have established that his bottomline was $100,000. Of course, this is all hypothetical. Given that he is not in dire need of money (everybody can use an extra million or two at any given time, but most of us, fortunately, don't NEED them for food on table tonight), the final prices, should it come to that, would probably be closer to half a million or higher. But my point wasn't how much it'd take him to perform such an act, but the fact that at his young age, he already realized that, ultimately, everybody has a price.