Image:MasterBiggles Here's a thing a lot of people seem to struggle with. It's pretty out there but I think you can handle it. Women are real people. I know, I know. You think we're just going all out for clickbait but it's true and we are all about the hard facts. However with all the 'real women wear/eat/defecate/breathe/have curves rhetoric it's easy to see how confusion can arise. We're putting more and more of our lives online, you probably have your CV up on the web, do your shopping online, make plans for socialising on various sites and you might search for singles online, so the lines between what's real and what's not are blurring. Which makes it unsurprising that the site MyGirlFund has become so popular in which women are paid to act as 'internet girlfriends'. You might as well add another virtual thing to your life.
Business Insider reports: "Over the last six years, MyGirlFund has developed into a unique community with its own norms and economy. While there is a "sex cam" aspect to it, the more interesting phenom here is the platonic relationships that men and women form on the site. Money changes hands on the site for any of a number of reasons, even for something as innocent as a guy helping a woman pay her rent that month."
It's not wildly removed from the Sugar Daddy life or trophy wife idea, men who feel that they'd like something pretty hanging off their arm to set off their professional status and fast car. Because there seems to be rather less...let's call it 'panache' in having a paid online girlfriend to offer company via a screen than in showing up at glitzy restaurant with a pretty young thing to display; we might immediately cast the men in the role so sweet lonely boys being taken advantage of by internet vixens.
I am not going to go into any discussion of parallels between this and sex work, or rather I don't think it is helpful for my subject to study the motivations of the women who earn money from MyGirlFund. Mainly because my concern when it comes to these matters is their safety over anything else. I couldn't even tell you if I have motivations with regard to the shut down of MyGirlFund. It is the participating men and their feelings and regard towards women. We might, as we often do men who employ sex workers, either feel pity or revulsion, possibly both towards them. As if it is our business. It is unfortunate and unflattering but necessary to acknowledge this.
It's not wildly removed from the Sugar Daddy life or trophy wife idea, men who feel that they'd like something pretty hanging off their arm to set off their professional status and fast car. Because there seems to be rather less...let's call it 'panache' in having a paid online girlfriend to offer company via a screen than in showing up at glitzy restaurant with a pretty young thing to display; we might immediately cast the men in the role so sweet lonely boys being taken advantage of by internet vixens.
I am not going to go into any discussion of parallels between this and sex work, or rather I don't think it is helpful for my subject to study the motivations of the women who earn money from MyGirlFund. Mainly because my concern when it comes to these matters is their safety over anything else. I couldn't even tell you if I have motivations with regard to the shut down of MyGirlFund. It is the participating men and their feelings and regard towards women. We might, as we often do men who employ sex workers, either feel pity or revulsion, possibly both towards them. As if it is our business. It is unfortunate and unflattering but necessary to acknowledge this.
| We have to acknowledge it because it is a small but loud part of male culture fed by this attitude that resents women. Resents attractive women for having terms, resents unattractive women for being unattractive. The NUS and leading campaigners for women's summit with ministerial support on tackling lad culture. | The agency of women seems to be very low on the agenda. |
Keynote speaker Laura Bates of The Everyday Sexism Project and National Strategy Ambassador said: "It is absolutely vital to address the problem of lad culture at UK universities head on. Recent events, from the 'Fresher's Violation' club night advertised with a video of a male student saying he would rape a female peer, to university drinking societies going out in casual rape T-shirts and playing 'it's not rape if...' drinking games, to name but a few, make it clear that these are not isolated occurrences but part of a larger culture that risks having a serious negative impact on students' academic experiences."
It seems there is doubt over whether or not it truly matters, or if there would be consequences in any interaction with a women. Because repeatedly the impression is that they aren't truly real. The case with MyGirlFund is that you pick your girlfriend, pay and then they are your girlfriend. There's a whiff of the attitude a child might have when playing with Barbie dolls. In women's magazines the message is 'you should be [insert physical shape and pubic hair style of the month here]'. The agency of women seems to be very low on the agenda.
This is not a question of objectification. I believe that misses the point. Agency is the point. To be denied agency and to deny it is isolating for both parties. Breeding animosity. Writing in her Observer column Eva Wiseman commented that: "To dismantle "lad culture" and minimise the negative effect it has on students, the girls who are shh-ed in class, the links to boys' depression and suicide, the violence, the answer is to build and highlight alternative cultures. To encourage students to drink and kiss in places that don't advertise with posters of tits. Just because the problem is serious doesn't mean the solution must be dry."
It might not promote agency but it seems arguable that MyGirlFund promotes the companionship and affection that comes with a relationship. Is it providing one of the necessary alternative as Wiseman suggests to curb lad culture? It surely is a tool with which to show how women, real women, can be interacted with. Maybe one day we will work out how to interact with lad culture too.
Squeamish Kate
It seems there is doubt over whether or not it truly matters, or if there would be consequences in any interaction with a women. Because repeatedly the impression is that they aren't truly real. The case with MyGirlFund is that you pick your girlfriend, pay and then they are your girlfriend. There's a whiff of the attitude a child might have when playing with Barbie dolls. In women's magazines the message is 'you should be [insert physical shape and pubic hair style of the month here]'. The agency of women seems to be very low on the agenda.
This is not a question of objectification. I believe that misses the point. Agency is the point. To be denied agency and to deny it is isolating for both parties. Breeding animosity. Writing in her Observer column Eva Wiseman commented that: "To dismantle "lad culture" and minimise the negative effect it has on students, the girls who are shh-ed in class, the links to boys' depression and suicide, the violence, the answer is to build and highlight alternative cultures. To encourage students to drink and kiss in places that don't advertise with posters of tits. Just because the problem is serious doesn't mean the solution must be dry."
It might not promote agency but it seems arguable that MyGirlFund promotes the companionship and affection that comes with a relationship. Is it providing one of the necessary alternative as Wiseman suggests to curb lad culture? It surely is a tool with which to show how women, real women, can be interacted with. Maybe one day we will work out how to interact with lad culture too.
Squeamish Kate
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