To my surprise, she actally went through with it:
I sold my virginity to a stranger
Bristol Evening Post
Saturday , July 17, 2004
They must have made an incongruous trio as they drank together in a wine bar in London's West End - Rosie, a 19-year-old virgin in sloppy student clothes, Jess, here 27-year-old, crop-haired lesbian lover and Tom, the middle-aged businessman keen to pay more than Pound Sterling8,000 to fulfil his lifetime ambition of sleeping with a virgin.
Nonetheless, at the end of the meeting, Tom handed over a banker's draft for Pound Sterling8,400 to Rosie - the amount he had bid for her virginity on the internet - and all three went back to his hotel.
On the fifth floor, they parted ways. Rosie going with Tom to his room and Jess to another.
As the sordid deed was done, Jess lay alone in her room, weeping into her pillow. The following morning, when Rosie was reunited with her girlfriend, she seemed equally distraught. "We just lay together, side by side, on her bed and Jess was sobbing," she admits. "It had been a tiring, emotional experience for both of us."
Four months on, however, and Rosie Reid now claims she has "absolutely no regrets."
In fact, the doctor's daughter doesn't even bother to defend her actions as she sits on the bed in her student digs in Bristol. She is far too pleased with herself to do that.
As far as she's concerned, this unsavoury encounter was a financial transaction, pure and simple. It has, she boasts, made a huge difference to the quality of her life.
Since pocketing the cash, she has been able to give up her "boring" part-time waitressing job. Her annual university fees of Pound Sterling1,125 have been paid, her overdraft has been cleared. She's spent Pound Sterling400 on clothes and still has enough left to see her through the next two years of study.
With rewards like these, she insists, she would, if such a thing were possible, do it all over again.
"It was consensual sex," she says. "To be honest, if anything, I exploited Tom by taking so much of his money. I would probably have done it for Pound Sterling2,000. That's still not bad for a night's work," she says.
In fact, the Bristol University social policy student even seems to think she has learnt lessons from her seedy experience which will stand her in good stead for her proposed career.
"Ultimately, I'd like to be a social worker. But first I'm going to join the police force and work as a liaison officer," she says. "I want to help young people and show them the right way to live their lives."
So on the face of it, no regrets. But scratch the surface and Rosie's situation is deeply worrying. When we met, I found her to be a muddled but strong-willed young woman.
And though she claims to be happy with Jess, one suspects that, after rushing headlong into lesbian relationships at the age of 15, Rosie is deeply confused about her sexuality. She admits that part of her motivation for selling her virginity was a curiosity to experience heterosexual sex.
Rosie's story begins in January this year, once again in her student bedroom, when she was entertaining two fellow students and Jess, who works in a warehouse.
"We were complaining about being broke and wondering what we could flog on eBay that wouldn't cost us anything," says Rosie.
"We started off thinking about selling traffic cones and then it came to me that I could sell my virginity. We had a bit to drink and I ended up posting a notice on the website. It was just a laugh at that stage."
The next day Rosie clicked on the site. "I had several bids, up to Pound Sterling2,000. I could hardly believe it.
"After three days, my message had been e-mailed around the world and become famous.
"EBay said I was bringing them into disrepute and cancelled my post. So Jess and I built a website and carried on the auction.
"In the end, Jess spoke to the two final bidders on the telephone. We picked Tom because he seemed more normal and was keen to use a condom."
And so, in March this year, Rosie and Jess travelled up to London to meet the 44-year-old divorcee who works in telecommunications.
He chose the venue, and the only safety precaution for Rosie (apart from the compulsory use of a condom) was that Jess was nearby at all times.
After the money had exchanged hands, the trio went back to Tom's hotel. Before Rosie went off with Tom, she and Jess had a brief conversation.
"I asked Jess if she minded what I was doing. She said she would support me if I wanted to go through with it," says Rosie.
"He struck me as the sort of guy who was going through a mid-life crisis. He's also just taken up skydiving. He probably was good-looking, once, but now he's got a bit of middle-aged spread. He's divorced with two children."
Three hours later, this oddly matched couple returned to the hotel for sex.
"Luckily he took control and suggested I had a shower and then offered to give me a massage. It helped me get to the stage of being in bed with him, naked."
Rosie then proceeded to have sex with Tom twice.
"The first time I felt really awful, as though I was a piece of meat. It wasn't painful but I felt powerless and overwhelmed" she says. So - remarkably - Rosie insisted that, an hour later, he should try again.
The couple then slept the night in the same bed. In the morning they got up, hugged, shook hands and parted. Tom has not been heard from since.
"I got the impression that Tom was very satisfied with our night together. He had always wanted to sleep with a virgin and the fact that I was so young and a lesbian was a real fetish of his," says Rosie.
She is convinced there will be no long-term fallout from her soulless encounter.
"I'm fine in my head about it. I know how I feel and I think I did the right thing. I don't think it will affect my life or career prospects at all."
"Everyone will have forgotten about it by the time I look for a job as a police officer," she says. One doubts it - particularly as prostitution is not only immoral but illegal.
But then, prostitution is a word that Rosie refuses to use, preferring to think of it as a "business transaction".
She also likes to claim that her parents are indifferent to what happened. Her father Alasdair, 49, an ear, nose and throat specialist, and her mother, Jen, 48, a nurse, who live in London, certainly knew about the auction and did nothing to stop it.
"My parents are pretty cool about it. They were just a bit worried I'd get hurt either emotionally or physically. But they can see I'm fine. They make a joke of it now," she says.
Rosie sent a text message to her father the day before she had sex with Tom. He wrote back: "I admire your courage but deplore your judgement."
And then, astonishingly, he seems to have left her to get on with it.
They may, by Jess's admission, have been hurt by Rosie's actions, but why didn't they do more to stop her degrading herself in this way?
Surely any parent who could possibly afford to would pay any amount of money to stop their child selling their own body?
"They used to give me Pound Sterling200 a month towards my living costs and I had taken out the full Pound Sterling3,000 student loan," explains Rosie.
"But I have to pay Pound Sterling2,100 a year for accommodation and Pound Sterling1,125 a fees.
"I just couldn't make ends meet and I didn't want to blackmail my parents into paying more."
It has been left to Bristol University to perform the parental role and warn Rosie of the foolishness of her actions.
Her tutors there are the only people to come out of this sorry tale with any dignity.
"I was summoned to a meeting with the dean and two tutors," says Rosie. "They said all the usual stuff about it coming back to haunt me in the future and that I was degrading myself.
"I listened to them but it made no difference. I'm sure they've got it wrong.
"By the time I've graduated everyone will have forgotten all about how I afforded it. Including me."
One can only hope, for Rosie's sake, that this is indeed the case. But sadly, one doubts it.
― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 29 July 2004 08:30 (twenty-one years ago)