Tonight:
5°c
What are you doing this weekend? I'm thinking of going down Elysium to see if I can get a shag. I might be seven months pregnant but I don't think it'll matter: footballers will do it with anyone. My maternity pay could do with a top-up. Think how much I could get. “Pregnant hack” is more of a page-turner than “underwear model”, that clichéd old punchline for which we already know the plot.
As eight of the world's top models flaunt their naked fork prong forms on the cover of Love magazine, at least Vanessa Perroncel is an antidote to the idea that you have to be thin and gorgeous to make money out of your body. Nope: all you have to do is offer it up to the most famous man you can muster, and Max Clifford will do the rest.
Powerful men have always been surrounded by groupies. But where Anita Pallenberg was lucky to bag a backing vocal on a Stones track, your modern-day groupies — euphemistically called Wags — can expect to launch a whole career. At best, she'll get pregnant (generous, life-long child maintenance is such a help with the bills) or even married (the golden prize): at worst, she'll either have her silence bought or her story brokered to the highest bidder. It's a win-win situation. What have you got to lose except your reputation? And with such huge financial incentives, who cares about morals? Society doesn't, or it wouldn't reward the immoral so highly. Unless we ban the papers, the television and the internet, this is the lesson we are teaching our children.
It is fashionable among the middle classes to scoff at women who make money lying on their backs but which has better prospects: bedding a footballer, or three years' studying Classics at university? Today's graduates are jobless and thousands of pounds in debt. Today's groupies are paid handsomely by the tabloids for their sexploits, then for afters they get to pick and choose between a string of lucrative appearances on reality TV shows. This year's Celebrity Big Brother was won by a man who is famous solely for having sex with Jordan: the runner-up was another Jordan ex. Winner Alex Reid was allegedly paid £100,000 to sit on a sofa for three weeks: nice work if you can get it these days. And I doubt that Katiya Ivanova is regretting her tryst with Ronnie Wood: she kissed, she told, she got paid. Handsomely.
With such golden incentives surrounding one's ability to bed a rich or famous person, is it any wonder women are queuing up for hostess jobs in nightclubs? Maybe, in a thriving economy, we would have more reason to castigate those who make money from their bodies but there's not much joy in occupying the moral high ground if you can't afford the cab home. This is presumably how hordes of young women see it, and you can hardly blame them. If a so-called educated woman can't get a decent job, what hope is there for one with fewer prospects? She looks in the mirror. Her youth shimmers before her. The papers claim Vanessa Perroncel is being paid £250,000 to tell the world about apparently sleeping with five Chelsea players. Which looks like the smarter investment: a university degree or a new pair of breasts?
Mum's the word. Er, what word?
Oh no. “Baby brain” — aka being pregnant and forgetting your own name — has been rubbished by scientists. Perhaps their findings would be more convincing if they hadn't conducted their study on a group of women aged 20-24. Why not a group of Mensa members? Or the winners of the National Phone Directory Memorising Championships? Even heavily pregnant with sextuplets, I imagine the average 20-year-old would have excellent recall: it's Britain's swelling ranks of older mothers who are more likely to be affected by baby brain. Whether this is the result of being pregnant, early Alzheimer's or general frontal lobe decay, we'll never know. Let me get back to you when I've remembered where my computer is.
Blondes and their bad hair days
The doctor behind those claims that blondes display a more “warlike” streak has disassociated himself from the story. Every blonde I've ever known has been “warlike”: but not because, as was suggested, she is used to getting her own way on account of her hair colour. Rather, that the dedication required to maintain said hair colour involves Boudicca-like levels of combat. Have you ever been to one of London's top salons? There is only one reason for the blonde's warlike nature: the hours she has spent in the hairdresser. Being blonde is a hard-won battle. Better, presumably, to be bolshie than brunette.
* Sometimes I wonder whether there is a neon sign hanging over my front door saying “LARD ARSE”. The volume of takeaway menus flooding through the letterbox has got so high that Camden council will have to send me a new recycling bin just for their disposal. It's as though every two-bit restaurant in London has realised people aren't eating out as much, so why not tempt them with a badly shot photograph of a congealing chicken balti in a spicey (sic) sauce? Leave me alone.
Reader views (4)
Get any work you can, as long as it`s HONEST and EARNED money, tax payed, therefore not scrounging OFF the taxpayer.
If you act, dress and behave like a hooker at least admit that`s what you are!
See BBC3`s latest offering "Mums (that purport to be) "sexier" than their Daughters" to see where it`s really all gone wrong for today`s feminised society.
The sooner we clean that particular dumpster out, the better!
Makes you proud to be a license fee payer.
- Darius, London, 08/02/2010 10:55
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I find LC's viewpoint despicable. Though the effects of recession persist,they are not reasons to encourage girls into prostitution. This kind of reckless attitude only leads to the degradation of society,infidelity & other social ills. How is having such a short term focus a smarter investment?Is “cash for sex” going to generate the long term growth that is needed to reverse the effects of the worst financial crisis?Is it going to create jobs for the masses,increase domestic productivity & encourage foreign investment?
As a woman why are you not encouraging girls to respect themselves.Is a woman's value to society now strictly measured in monetary terms? So women gained equality & then go back to lying on their backs?True as you say society doesn't care about morals but that is only because members of society like yourself show no regard for it.With her readership volume,she is in a position of power & should use it to encourage people to do the right thing.
As you women are so ready to disrespect yourselves & hurt each other by sleeping with unavailable men,when did men become the enemy?How can you demand respect when you don't respect yourself.Clearly the modern woman is her own worst enemy & advice like hers only helps to create more psychologically damaged fashionistas.
In dire situations,one should use their mind,intellect & sheer hard work to generate a sustainable long term solution not lying back & thinking of cash
- Romelow, London, 08/02/2010 09:27
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Agree with Disappointed. I think this was quite a poor article. She doesn't come out and actually state the questionable moral values society seems to have these days are wrong, just hints whilst seeming to also want to almost suggest it's not that bad a thing. Very mixed up article.
I thought Disappointed also quoted a line I would have. Maybe these middle classes just want their daughters to aspire to succeeding using their minds and education which is surely the right way to bring up a child. As for the prospects, again a mixed message there, obviously the degree has better long term prospects. The job market will recover; no-one will be interested in a girl who's bedded a footballer in a year's time when some other girls have come along doing the same thing.
This is a waste of an article which could have made a point in an intelligent manner and sent a good message to young girls. Instead, the writer wasted the opportunity by trying and failing to be clever.
- Joseph, Chiswick, London, 05/02/2010 10:45
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"It is fashionable among the middle classes to scoff at women who make money lying on their backs but which has better prospects: bedding a footballer, or three years' studying Classics at university?"
Really? I don't know any middle-class women scoffing at women like these.
And women may well make a quick buck out of sleeping with powerful/rich men, but the price of getting this money is too high. And youth and beauty don't last forever. I can see that you are putting forward a question here about moral values, but the way that you are reporting this story actually prolongs the very aspirations that you seem to disapprove of. Why not take a stance and say that these values are messed up?
- Disappointed, Warwickshire, UK, 04/02/2010 22:27
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