Why We Need More Sketchy 'Dating' Sites Like Miss Travel It turns out that ‘The Million Dollar Man’ Ted DiBiase was right: Everybody’s got a price. “Dating” websites that pair up attractive young females with well-off, lonely males is nothing new. We ran a fascinating interview with WhatsYourPrice.com founder Brandon Wade in April 2011, for example. The newness factor comes in the niche — this site making the rounds called MissTravel.com bills itself as “the only online dating website for travelers, and more specifically, we match Generous travelers who hate to travel alone with Attractive travelers who would love the opportunity to travel the world for free.” Here’s the promotional video setting the Internets on fire: </noscript> As long as there are men with money, women with looks, bottles of Viagra and the eroticism of boning on a scenic beach in Phuket or an open shower on the Mediterranean, there will be sex deals. As long as there are broke college girls and struggling young professionals, as long as there are Forever Alones with big cash hordes, as long as there are places to go in the world, there will be sex deals. Why are people so surprised these sex deals are coming online? Why are people shocked by this development? So what: The oldest profession in the world is legitimizing, as it should. If you read one take on this, make it Jezebel’s Lindy West’s post, which makes some fantastic points bathed entirely in rational thought. But I do want to piggyback on her conclusion: So what’s the problem? I mean, none, in theory. I have no problem with sex work (and that’s what this is, no matter what they say), lonely people deserve to be able to buy company, and women deserve the right to make their own (possibly bad) choices. Let them have each other and be happy. Fine. But there’s just such a giant window for dishonesty and coercion here. You’re not just on a date with this person—this rich, powerful stranger—you’re on a boat, you’re in a hotel room, you’re in fucking Thailand or some shit. And you can say that the women are using/objectifying the men just as much as the men are using/objectifying the women—technically that’s absolutely true, it’s almost a win-win—but tell that to the girl who winds up 5,000 miles away from home with ExecutiveDong4U and realizes she doesn’t want to put out. No disagreement there. But one thing to consider about “dishonesty and coercion.” By creating websites like these, by bringing these deals from Craigslist and BackPage to legit endeavors, the probability for dishonesty and coercion (and for future real-life Hostel sequels) decreases. Unless these men provided MissTravel.com with fake credit card info and identification (entirely possible), chances are these men will treat their attractive females better knowing they can be tracked down easily. There is nothing revolutionary about this — it’s simply a new-ish medium. And the more sites like this pop up, the more legitimate the entire enterprise gets; and the more legitimate this whole thing gets, the better the odds are of an above-board deal in which nobody gets hurt (physically, at least). In a way, if you care about respecting women, you should be rooting for more MissTravel.coms. What do you think? Would love to hear from you on this subject in the comments… UPDATE: Miss Travel hit us up on Twitter: “though we only agree with parts of your article, we do like many of your defense points. There will always be people who use tools like this for nefarious purposes, and we do our best to prevent that. We want people to travel and fall in love.” Go on, go ’head and click and Follow Us for more updates straight to your news & nonsense feeds. THE BEST STUFF OF THE DAY: • Obama & Jimmy Fallon Slow-Jam the News • This Is One of the Most Unbelievable Basketball Shots You’ll Ever See • Badass Newborn Baby Flips Off Her Dad Like She Don’t Even Care • Pizza Hut Middle East Puts Mini-Cheeseburgers In Crust, Throws Down Caloric Gauntlet Slade Sohmer Slade Sohmer is editor-in-chief of HyperVocal and co-host of SiriusXM's daily "Politics Powered By Twitter" program. Tweet him at @SladeHV.
Bobby1080 25.04.12 @ 5:58 pm I don’t have a problem with this site at all. If you have been on dating sites–and I have been–universally you will read “loves to travel! I have been all around the world and would still love to see….” Also, of course plenty of the men are expecting something in return, but there are still some men who really just want to have someone to be with. It also cuts both ways. Many times people get together and neither person looks like the pics they posted, so the man may end up with a woman he doesn’t find attractive several thousand miles away from home wondering when this trip is going to end.
Bianca 08.09.12 @ 4:25 pm I think this is a good idea. I personally would like more of such websites for niche traveling. Are these guys the owners of http://www.cleverdate.com as well? Looks similar.
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