Forty students register for escort service
Take me to dinner launched last week in place of Oxbridge Escorts and inset: the lure of ‘free money’
Stylish, sophisticated and not a little cringeworthy, the latest incarnation of the notorious ‘Oxbridge Escorts’ website went live last week. Promising to banish the image of geeky online dating services and sordid escort websites, ‘Take Me To Dinner’ will connect cashdeprived students with date-deprived clients, and charge up to £500 for their efforts.
Balliol classicist Nick Dekker first hit the headlines last month when his ‘Oxbridge Escorts’ website offered an elite dating service for people wishing to wine and dine Oxford and Cambridge students and graduates. Yet within hours of being launched, the site was forced to add disclaimers warning that it was not offering a form of legalised prostitution.
The site was then taken down by Dekker after concerns were raised by Balliol about the consequences managing the site would have for his degree. He has now relaunched the service with the help of RockStudent owner Balreick Srai. The new site offers a searchable archive of ‘dates’ which visitors can browse freely, with personalised profiles for each escort. The site has now been expanded to include non- Oxbridge dates as well.
However, clients will still have the option to take out ‘elite membership’ if they want to take an Oxbridge date out to dinner. As of this week, over 100 people had registered on the site, including over 40 from Oxford University, and just 14 from Cambridge. The site charges a ten per cent administration fee for each date arranged. Profiles appear to vary widely, with some taking the site more seriously than others.
One male Oxford student, using the pseudonym ‘Charles Ryder’, said on his profile: “£20 ‘call-out’ rate includes no ‘labour, parts or servicing’; these can be arranged during the date and are likely to be cheaper if you ply me with alcohol or crack.
He told The Oxford Student his reasons for registering with the site were purely financial: “I am currently a finalist in lots of debt and want to study further, so am looking to use the site to earn a bit of cash by selling my body.” However, he admitted that the response so far had no not been overwhelming.
Student Union VP (Women) Bex Wilkinson, who publicly expressed concerns at the safety aspect for women using the original ‘Oxbridge Escorts’ site, told this newspaper she could see little difference with the new version. She said: “It says that it does away with ‘geeky chat rooms’, but I’m not convinced the alternative it provides is any less tragic.
The University echoed her sentiments, with a spokeswoman saying: “The University’s main concern is student welfare and we would urge students not to put themselves in any risky situations.
But she acknowledged there was little the University could do to stop students using the site: “It isn’t breaching University regulations, and as the student running it isn’t using the University computer system that’s OK - though I am sure his tutors will be very keen to ensure that doing this isn’t affecting his academic work.”.
26th May 2005