S is for... Sex for Scholarship.


JESUS CHRIST! Have you guys seen the Independent investigation into the website trading university scholarships for sex?

When I was first told about this website (SponsorAScholar.co.uk) - where students are being offered up to £15,000 a year to cover their tuition fees in exchange for sex with a stranger - I was firstly like "Jeez, if a girl wants to sleep with a man for money, just let her already!! It's her choice.", and secondly I was like "Why wasn't this an available option when I was at uni?!". I'M JOKING.


In any case, after I saw the video and read about it, I realised that this is actually pretty messed up. If you haven't, watch their undercover video here. Now.

It's literally incredible. My favourite part is the use of educational language; "scholars", "assessments" etc. Lolz! If you can't watch it, here's some transcript - my interpretations in red:

Reporter: I just want to sort of check, I want to be clear about what I’m doing … meeting a complete stranger I just, you know, want to be clear about what I’m doing.

Assessor: For the first meeting we take the money off the sponsor to make sure they’ve got the money then when we’ve heard back from both of you that it’s gone fine we basically release that and that’s kind of your first payment for your first term... Then the payments generally happen around the start of term. [It would be WAY easier for me if you could just pretend this is about your education and just go with it]

R: Do you write down like the type of things I’d be expected to do?

A: We’ve got a questionnaire we’ll go through… that forms your profile… [it covers] the sort of things that you’re comfortable doing so there’s no awkwardness about ‘Well I thought you did this and you don’t do that,’ so that’s all kind of up-front. And then as long as you’re happy to go through with those things that you said you would do then that’s fine. [Don't freak out and change your mind about what you're prepared to do, because you'll piss me off. No one likes and angry pimp]

R: What sort of things [would I] have to do?

A: What you’re trying to do is attract a certain level of sponsorship, you don’t want to go up there saying you know you’re not even going to hold hands type of thing, ‘cause you’re not going to attract any interest at all so you’ve got to kind of... The more you’re prepared to do the more interest you’re going to get, obviously the more sponsorship amount you’re going to get for that, so you obviously don’t want to commit with more than you’re happy to do ‘cause then you’ll be anxious about it and the rest of it, but you don’t want to go back and say ‘I’ll wait and see about certain things’ ‘cause you might not get the opportunity to have those introductory meetings. [You have to do everything or there's no point and you'll look like a frigid bitch]

R: How many other girls are already doing it?

A: I think you’ve got about 400 [women] actively… searchable on site ready to go into… These guys are businessmen… they get a tax break for offering sponsorship to students but obviously they’re having a bit of fun you know in the bargain… genuinely nice guys, I’ve got some sort of sample profiles I’ve printed out. [I'm obviously lying. Genuinely nice guys don't buy vulnerable girls. But, is it working...?]

R: Can I see them?

A: Yeah, I mean I’ve left them back at the [flat] but I can show them to you when you get up there. [You can see, but really I just got some images of business men from Google and I'm going to pretend it's them]

R: What do we have to do in the interview?

A: We’ll go through the, err, questionnaire… and then we’ll go through whatever you put down as what you want to do ... we go through in the practical assessment together to make sure that you’re comfortable to do that, to ... get an idea of what your first meeting with the sponsor will be. We have to ... make sure when we put you in front of your sponsor you’re confident in doing the things you said you would do. [I'm freaking out about answering this and hoping your going to buy my justification and think it's legit. Really I'm just about to massively exploit you]

R: So the guys, do they have health checks or anything?

A: We do invite them to do that, not all of them choose to do that but you can choose to have protection or not have protection on that basis. [I don't give a shit about your sexual health]

R: I’ve never done anything like it and it just feels like a big step.

A: I mean that’s kind of… you don’t need to… we’re not attracting people who are used to this kind of lifestyle… that’s kind of what we’re into really… [We want you to be shy and vulnerable so the pervs can fully feel like they're taking advantage of you]

R: Is it totally confidential?

A: Yes… [In the photos] we can obscure your face, we can cut from down here [mimes cutting off body] whenever you decide to leave us everything is securely erased, wiped, there is no record. Any sponsors that you take out an agreement with, they’ll only know you by your nickname on the site ... so once you’ve signed out [of] the site your nickname is gone, there’s no way for them to contact you. [Another excellent benefit of this is that the police can't easily trace you for questioning]

“Practical assessment” to prove “the level of intimacy”? Are you kidding me?

But apparently, SponsorAScholar.co.uk has arranged for 1,400 women aged between 17 and 24 to be funded through their studies by wealthy businessmen seeking “discreet adventures”; although this could not be verified. The reporter asked for evidence that scholarships had been awarded and was told that she would have to come back to the flat with the man.... Of course she would have to go back to the flat of broken futures.

Basically, girls are offered “up to 100% of your Tuition Fees” in return for two-hour sessions with men in hotel rooms or private flats up to four times per term. The site charges “sponsors” a £100 fee and to take three per cent commission from the final “scholarship” total.

The way they sell it is that they are operating in the grey area in Britain’s sex laws which allow escort agencies to function legitimately by offering introductions between clients and sex workers. Which is essentially true. It's not exactly illegal.

But they've been using a company and VAT number that belongs to Match.com. Who said: “The website is not affiliated with Match.com in any way and we are in the process of contacting them to legally require that all references to Match.com are removed immediately.”

Genuinely, I think that if a woman wants to have sex for money, then that's her perogative. Obviously, I've covered my opinions on prostitution in my previous Legalising Prostitution post; so I won't go into all that now. What has actually really pissed me off about this site is how stupid they think the girls are. They're exploiting the fact that these girls are facing financial strain by throwing around the promise of financial aid.

Not only that, but using phrases such as "practical assessment", as well as statements such as, “Because of the considerable sums of money our sponsors are offering in scholarship, they tell us that they have expectations of a high level of sexual intimacy with their chosen student,” on their website is just incredible! They're trying to put an educational spin on prostitution and insulting the intelligence of the entire female student population whilst they're at it. Haha! For real?

It's obviously unclear how successful this scheme has been for any "scholars", but my gut feeling is that a lot of them probably don't make it past the "practical assessment"....

L.