By: Jackson Newtyl

Brandon Wade, the brainchild behind the dating site, Seekingarrangement.com, recently came out with another dating service called, Whatsyourprice.com, and it’s become virtually indistinguishable from prostitution. Worst than Craigslist’s penchant for attracting unsavory and licentious customers, Whatsyourprice.com has gone a step further for dating sites by being quite candor about its objective: a hook-up service.

The site distinguishes its members into two categories, the “attractive” and the “generous”. It’s quite obvious from the titles they assign to members that the “attractive” are those who put up a picture and wait for some pathetically sedentary and sad “generous” member to scroll by their picture, like it, and bid to take them out on a date. Now, while the site and its administrator’s claim that they’re merely providing a service to link people up for a first date and not sex, it’s easy to see how many members could and probably will abuse such a site. It’s like claiming an escort service is just providing company for those in need of a guy or gal on their arm and good conversation without the added incentive of sexual healing at the end of the night. But Brandon Wade seems to believe that absolutely nothing dubious can happen on his site and claims to be the “Adam Smith of online dating,” while also stating that the site is built on the principle of a free market. Now the free market applies to dating? Wade effectively implies that women and men are nothing more than dollar signs, and that the exploitation of their loneliness and need for affection is necessary in a free-market society. That’s a bit cynical, but just check out the site and you’ll see it’s pretty much accurate.

Let’s examine how Whatsyourprice.com operates. As stated, you have your “attractive” and “generous” members, then you have a scrolling service where desperate people bid for a date, and then the site gives advice on how to go about the first date. First it states that you should never send money through Western Union and that if anyone asks you to, then you should report them immediately. Furthermore, the site goes on to state that you should conduct the business of going on a date like you would a commonplace business negotiation. “Pay 50% of the date at the start of the date and 50% at the end,” Whatsyourprice.com advises. Really gets the juices flowing, doesn’t it?

The mystery and fun of dating, making mistakes in who you date, finally finding the right person and growing old together has already been killed by this generation of online dating. Those commercials for Match.com state that 1 in 5 relationships start online, though I have a really hard time believing that. But it’s true, the internet’s become the new tool for trolling the dating world. It’s sad, disgusting, and just a horrible comment on how degenerative our society has become. But now, Whatsyourprice.com? It’s in the title of the site; people are selling themselves without any scruples. And to Brandon Wade and the sites administrators who claim that Whatsyourprice.com is not intended for those just wanting to get a little on the side, I have one thing to say, “Wouldn’t it make sense, on a site that promotes the free market in dating, that in order for those “attractive” members to get more money they’d offer up sexual services?” Capitalism 101 makes that conclusion. It’s certainly an interesting turn in online dating, but I’m betting it won’t take long before we hear some horribly tragic story about some guy getting ripped off for thousands and commits suicide all because of Whatsyourprice.com. Cynical, yeah. But, I’m just mirroring the site.