Interesting article I just read on AOL...I guess this has been going on for centuries...Trading sex for gas cards? Wow... Now that is something I never heard of before...I guess you gotta do what you gotta do...These days people just live for the moment...

~Lisa

Trading sex for adventure, tickets and housework
Josh Smith
Aug 27th 2008 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Sex Sells, College, Extracurriculars

I'm not exactly sure about the definition of a moral compass but I was surprised to read a a college woman trading 2 weeks of sex for a guided jungle tour down in Brazil. It's an adventure she has no qualms about since in her mind all of the involved parties benefited. In trading her feminine charms for a service she wasn't alone, a recent survey of students at the University of Michigan found that 27% of men and 14% of women had offered services or items in exchange for sex.

While I found these numbers to be high I wondered where the line was drawn. When you are in college and not in a committed relationship, aren't 75% of your actions revolving around sex? Does it count if you help that cute coed with her psychology homework or treat her to a Dave Matthews Band concert and get lucky later that night? I thought most people considered that a successful date rather than a transaction of goods for "goodies"!
Interestingly enough these students didn't blame the decision on lack of funds but rather a realization of the value of sex. I guess it shouldn't be that surprising since more and more people have been trading sex for money out of necessity, just recently a woman in Kentucky was caught performing sexual favors for gas cards. And it wasn't much earlier that our own Bruce Watson investigated whether women were accepting more dinner dates under dubious pretenses to ride out the suffering economy.

While society as a whole may find this reprehensible, I think at the very least it shows that our college students are paying attention in class. After all, aren't they simply realizing the effects of supply and demand as well as what scarcity do to a market? Sure a student job is a better way to earn enough money to get by in college and it doesn't involve a walk of shame in the morning but then you'd have to stick to a schedule and be under control of "the man". That said, I don't think we're destined to eschew paper money for a more universal currency anytime in the near future.