Daily Buzz: Her virginity is for sale, but at what price?

ESCORT AGENCY OFFERS TEEN’S VIRGINITY

A Sydney agency is offering to sell a Chinese-born,  Melbourne high school student’s virginity to a client, for the right price. So what’s the going rate for what the agency calls a ‘rare opportunity’? $12,000. The move has been resoundingly criticised with many saying the offer is cashing in on a young girl’s vulnerability and money problems. As Fairfax reported:

“She is a virgin, you can tell,” a spokeswoman told The Sun-Herald.

“She goes to your place or hotel and you can spend two days together. She does not have a boyfriend and she wants to do it for the money,” she said.

Feminist Eva Cox said of the matter:

“Something is wrong in society to encourage this sort of behaviour but this prurient interest about a financial transaction is also a worry.

“I think sex work itself is a perfectly legitimate occupation but I just don’t think this is a good way to start one’s sex life,” she said.

1. The new JK Rowling is here. And she’s 20. That’s what the informed word is out of England as Oxford University student Samantha Shannon landed a multimillion Pound, three-book deal for her debut novel The Bone Season. Like Rowling, she’s also mapped out the narrative for seven books. Wow.

2. The Welsh tourists who stole a penguin from the Gold Coast’s Sea World theme park said it ‘ruined’ their dream Aussie lifestyle after the massive media storm that followed. They were fined $1000 and moved out west to escape the spotlight.

3. Gillard has announced 1.2 million low-income families will gain access to payments for each child they have in school. Families will get $410 for each primary school aged child and $820 for each child in high school. It replaces the education tax rebate, which required families to provide receipts.

4. This powerful Canadian ad for the Paralympics is a beauty … and it was filmed entirely in one take!

5. The ex-husband of Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart has told of their messy divorce and visiting his children (John and Bianca) on a rug in the garage of Rinehart’s multi-million dollar home. He also revealed how she tried to give the kids a strong work ethic by paying them $6 an hour to weed and how she once told John when he was broke at uni to look for tomato sauce in the cupboard and make soup.

– Check the Gina Rinehart cheat sheet.

6. You might remember the Lara Bingle nude photo ‘scandal’ from last week. Last night on Channel 10, lo and behold, was an advertisement for her new reality show Being Lara Bingle which used the photo saga as a plot point. Hmmm.