There is a new trend in China regarding relationships. Young people, especially women, pay for a virtual romance, with messages and others. Some young and educated men make some extra money as virtual lovers. Is is weird? No, such an old and sophisticated culture, like the Chinese one, can produce genial business. This is an example of a genial business and cultural product.
It is nothing weird about this business. In fact it is as sincere as possible. Men are paid in patriarchy. the institution of dawry, maybe a cultural relique of the matrilineal societies, is a proof. Men are paid in order to behave otherwise than violent toward women. It is like a protection tax. Women pay protextion taxes all the time. If men simply buy women, like in some hard patriarchal societis (e.g Muslim), women have no right, no power, no pretentions. But if women pay, men can reward them someway, by not insulting, exploiting, beating them as hard as they can. Women in prostitution, poor, vulnerable, racialised women, who are not protected by money or other men’s power, can tell how men really are and what they really want to do to women.
I think, women should know that. If they want a good behaviour from men, they should pay. There is the hypothetical chance of love, but this is so rare, its possibility is negligible. But only money and some social support (for women) can make patriarchal men treat women like human beings. This is not a guarantee, because women can be cheated, they have no justice for themselves, but…without it… And if a woman wants a romantic hehaviour, definitly she must pay for it. This is what women want, but not what men want. They want slaves, sex slaves, they want to humiliate women, to feel great, powerful when humiliate them. This is what any woman in prostitution tells us.
In patriarchy, men are paid anyway. They are the aristocracy with natural, inborn privileges. They are paid for their penises and their violent potential. Paternity, the right of a sperm donor to mark his children with his name and rank, is a kind of a penis tax. He is paid for making sex, for procreating. In fact he is paid for his potential violence, which is the essence of patriarchy, build around the violence threat. A woman, most of the time, is forced to trade her freedom, mental autonomy, sexual pleasure for a virtual safety. She is forced to choose to be raped, beaten, exploited by only one man instead of many of them. This is the patriarchal happiness. How can a woman dream of romance in this situation? By having enough money to buy it. Or hire it. Chinese women are just realists.