Meet Joanna Whiteley, an attractive 36-year old interior designer who hires male escorts to accompany her to social events -- and doesn't care who knows it. Or at least we hope, since there's a big article about her in the UK's Daily Mail.
Within minutes of Steve arriving for their date, she found him to be charming, articulate and handsome. But then he should be, given that Joanna was paying £350 for his company.
[...]
"One of my friends had read something about high-flying women hiring male escorts to chaperone them to parties and business events. We were all giggling about the idea of paying a beautiful man to grace your arm, but quietly I started to think it actually wasn't a bad idea."
Will it totally date us to say "You go, girl!" Oh, also: £350! That's like 15 grand in USD, right? Cripes. From the article, it doesn't seem like the guy even has to put out, so, you know: "You go, guy!"
Of course, this only reminds us of the wisdom of bon vivant and philosopher-john Charles "Charlie" Sheen, who (supposedly, since we can't find the reference) once said of prostitutes: "You don't pay for the sex; you pay for them to leave." True enough, Charles; your all-encompassing wisdom clearly extends to sex-free British escorts as well. Just the sort of piercing insight that we've come to expect from 40% of Two and a Half Men.
UPDATE: Reader D. opines that Jack Nicholson is actually the genius responsible for the "pay for them to leave" quote, which we'd totally buy. In fact, in our wildest dreams, both he and Mr. Sheen would have stumbled across the same nugget of wisdom in some fabulous, full-on bacchanalian moment of clarity shared only by world-class lotharios. (OK, in our wildest dreams, we'd have experienced the same moment of clarity ourselves. Moving on.) But unfortunately, the only legit reference we can find for Nicholson is the Guardian, which uses it so anecdotally that we're not sure it really counts. So, anyone interested in a little crowdsourcing experiment out there? Hit us with a verifiable reference for the quote in the comments here and we'll send you something to stick in your happyholes or a t-shirt or something.